updated TV console

One of my first posts on this blog was a dresser I refinished and turned into a TV console. You can see that post here. This is what it looked like when I was finished:

More recently I showed this wall with the shelf added above the TV:

The handles I used had kind of a bronze look that you could see up close:

But as you can see in the pictures above, they just looked black from a distance. I had been thinking for awhile about painting them and finally went for it a few weeks ago.

   

Now they are Krylon Caramel Latte:

It's kind of a metallic beige and I love it!

 

It took about an hour to take the handles off, spray paint them, and put them back on. I already had the paint, so it was a quick, free project and I absolutely love the result!

It's always amazing what a little bit of paint can do! 

It's a small change that makes a big difference in the room. When I'm sitting on the couch watching TV (like Jimmy Fallon here :) ), I sometimes get a little bit distracted by how much I love this dresser. I still can't believe I only paid $20 for it!

This isn't the first time you've seen Krylon Caramel Latte on this blog, and I'm sure it won't be the last. I used it on the handles of my free desk too! 

I haven't been able to jump on the return-of-brass bandwagon, and this is the perfect color for me. It's slightly gold, but not at all brassy. If you're like me and feel like you just finished getting rid of all the brass in your life just in time for it to come back, give this color a try!

bathroom rehab ~ last update for awhile

This will be the last bathroom post for the foreseeable future. There are still things I would like to do in both bathrooms, but they're as done as they're going to get for awhile. 

When I started this bathroom rehab project, my master bathroom looked like this.

Not much going on, and those shower doors were hiding a lot of secrets.

The last time I showed it to you, it looked like this

The red towels and rug had always been there, but when I took out the shower doors and added the shower curtain it was just a lot of red. I knew some of it needed to go. 

First I bought some grey towels and a grey rug, but when I got them home I didn't like how the color looked in the bathroom. So they went back and I bought these brown ones. I like the color much better.

Especially how they look below the painted silk picture I got in China a couple of years ago.

I thought for awhile about using the brown towels but keeping the red rug, but in the end I think I like it better with the brown rug. It makes everything more neutral with the shower curtain being the main feature of the bathroom. In such a tiny space I think it needs to be mostly neutral.

I forgot to take a before picture of the vanity, but you can see part of it here (and it looked exactly like the guest bathroom vanity before it got painted)

Now it looks like this

I was originally planning to paint it bright white like the other one, but when I went to paint it I was out of white paint. So I ended up using the same off-white color I used on my kitchen cabinets and TV console. It's just white with a little bit of the wall color from the living room and kitchen mixed in. The wall color in my master bedroom and bathroom is also a mixture of that same wall color and white, it just has more of the brown mixed in so it's obviously beige while the cabinet color is a subtle off-white. Because it's all just different shades of the same color, I knew it would work and I love it. I love how it brightens up this tiny bathroom.

I've kind of struggled with the colors in this bathroom because I have felt for a long time like I needed to add more grey to my house. For a long time every house you saw on every blog was grey, and part of me felt like I needed to follow along. If you look at my home tour though, you won't see a speck of grey anywhere. As much as I like the color (especially clothes, I have lots of grey clothes) it's just not the color that speaks to me when it comes to decorating my house. Then everyone started painting their walls white. For me, I need color on the walls. I think it's important to recognize your own style and the colors that make your house feel like home, even if no one else is using them. I still love beige, so I'm still going to use it. 

I would still love to replace the floor, counter/sink, and light fixture, but for now this bathroom is done.

And here's one little update in the guest bathroom

My mom gave me this shelf that she wasn't using anymore and I painted it and hung it in my bathroom

It's a light aqua color that goes perfectly with the shower curtain and towels, and I sprayed the metal part with my favorite Krylon Caramel Latte.

I haven't gotten it completely decorated yet, but for now it's holding my little thrifty find jar filled with Q-tips.

It might be hard to tell with the horrible lighting in my house, but the colors go really well together. The whole bathroom is light and bright, but calming at the same time.

So that's it for bathroom updates for awhile. It has been a lot of work to get these bathrooms looking the way they do, so even though they aren't completely where I would like them to be yet, I'm happy with the progress I've made.

floor lamp makeover

Before I start this post, I have to apologize for the picture quality you're about to see. Between the lack of natural light in my condo and trying to take pictures of a light with my simple camera and limited photography skills, it's not great. I know, and I'm sorry...

My bedroom has no ceiling light and one of the outlets in the room is supposed to work with the light switch, but none of them do. So I have to switch lamps on by hand at night, and most of the time I end up using other nearby lights because it's just easier. Not ideal, but I've never bothered to have an electrician figure out which outlet should be connected to the light switch and fix it. Maybe one of these days...

Anyway, I've had this floor lamp in my bedroom for years. When I bought it I thought I was going to use a lot of this brushed silver look, but at some point I changed my mind and I have nothing else like it anywhere in my house. The color and style of the lamp really stuck out in my bedroom and I knew I needed to change it.

Here it is outside before I started the makeover.

 I took off the plastic shade and taped off all the electrical stuff, then I spray painted it with oil rubbed bronze. 

Changing the silver made a big difference, and I also wanted to do something with the shade since the old one didn't go with the style of my room. I bought this drum shade with the intention of covering it with fabric, but once I got started on that I wasn't loving it and I actually really like the color and texture of the original shade, so I decided to just leave it as is.

The best and easiest part of this makeover was "installing" the new shade. I literally just plopped in down right over the top of the old one.

Here it is back in my bedroom. I know it's hard to see, but hopefully you can get an idea of how much better it goes with the rest of the room.

Here it is in better light

I would still love to add something to bulk up that long pole, but for a quick and inexpensive makeover I think it's good for now.

This is another one of those things that I lived with for years even though I didn't love it (like the knife block I painted last week), and now that I spent 5 minutes fixing it up a little bit I wonder why I didn't do it earlier. It isn't perfect, but it's so much better than it was before!

painted knife block

Last week I showed you this desk that I found on the side of the road and refinished.

I am so in love with that paint color (Sherwin Williams Grays Harbor) and have been thinking about other places to use it in my house. I want to paint everything with it. No paintable surface is safe.

My first victim was the knife block in my kitchen that you can see next to the fridge in this picture.

The same honey color as every knife block in every kitchen.

And here it is painted! 

It was bugging me that you can still see the original wood color in the knife slots, but once the knives are in there you can't even tell (missing a few that are in the dishwasher).

It looks brighter in this picture than it really is, but I love that I'm adding a little bit more blue to my kitchen. I bought that bowl on the right side of this picture a few years ago in Italy, and until now it has been the only blue thing in my kitchen.

It's funny how you live with something you don't like even though changing it is so simple. I never liked the color of the knife block but didn't think to paint it until recently, and once I decided what color to use it only took a few minutes to transform it. I don't know how much you can love a knife block, but I do love the added color in my kitchen!

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kitchen update

Some things have changed recently in my kitchen, so I thought I would do an update and show you the progress over the last 6 years that I have lived in my condo. 

When I bought it 6 years ago the kitchen looked like this

Before I moved in, I made the first set of changes and this is how it looked for about 4 years.

New paint color, darker cabinets, and tile on the floor

Then about 2 years ago I needed a change and did this

Painting the cabinets and adding handles made such a big difference! My kitchen feels so much brighter now, and 2 years later I still love it.

But...the lighter cabinets made these awful appliances look even worse.

The off-white color on the cabinets made them stand out and I was reminded every day that they were 20 years old and so ugly.

Only 3 of the burners on the stove worked, and I can't tell you how much I hate coil burners. Cleaning under them was one of my least favorite chores.

This microwave was a beast. For how huge the whole unit was, the inside was barely big enough to fit a dinner plate and it didn't have a turn table. It was so heavy that it took 2 people to carry it outside when I finally replaced it.

This year I used my tax refund to pay for a trip to Costa Rica and still had enough left over to buy new appliances. Definitely my favorite tax refund yet. It has been a few months since the kitchen looked like this, and looking at these older pictures I can say with total confidence that I do not miss those appliances one bit.

So much better!

I love my glass top stove and do not miss the coil burners one bit

And this microwave is such a huge improvement, both in looks and function. I love it!

(that's me in my shirt from Dublin)

Now for the keeping it real portion of this post ~ that 2 inch strip below the microwave was there for about 3 months. The old microwave used to cover it, and since I got the new one I had been meaning to paint it but just hadn't gotten around to it. Taking these pictures was just the motivation I needed though, because after I took them I finally got the paint out and just did it! No new picture, but it's finally done. And it took a whole 5 minutes :) 

One last before and after, because they're fun :)

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