Ultra Pure White

The theme of my weekend was PAINTING, and specifically, painting things Ultra Pure White. My four biggest projects were taking down the weird shelf trim in the TV room, drawing a rough plan for our front and backyard landscaping, painting the window in the laundry room, and painting the dresser in the office. Although I ran lots of errands, went to the gym a few times, cooked scrumptious food, gardened, and cleaned, a majority of time was spent on these four projects.

Project 1 - TV room trim

One of the many strange features of our house is the "trim" in the TV room

It serves absolutely no purpose and is beyond ugly, therefor it must come down. So I got out the drill, screwdriver and pry bar and went to town. It actually ended up being much more difficult than I anticipated. About every 15" there was a bracket with a screw (sometimes two) holding it to the wall that had been painted over MANY times. I patiently worked (and by patient I mean there was much cussing involved, SERENITY NOW) and FINALLY got all the trim down

Project 2 - Landscaping Plan

Our front and backyards aren't ANYTHING to brag about. The one thing going for us is a lemon tree (Meyer lemons, WONDERFUL) and our vegetable garden. Other than that, please look away. I've been slowly getting into gardening and have taken up the task of making a rough plan of how our front and backyards should be laid out. A neighbor across the street is a landscaper, so I was going to run my ideas by him and talk about plants, etc. but I wanted to get a general idea down of where pavers will be, where plants will be, where grass will be, etc. (minimal grass please).

So I got my colored pencils out and colored away on my line drawings of the yards I had made a week or two ago. TOTAL rough ideas, but I'm generally pleased

Backyard

I particularly enjoy the big yellow and orange gobs that represent the lemon tree and birds of paradise already planted. That little twirly-do with "flowers" and "plants" (red and green circles) just past the grass took me AN HOUR to figure out. I kept on drawing and drawing different shapes and I was NEVER satisfied. This looks good enough to me.

Front yard

The green blips of grass look like sand traps on a golf course , hehehe.

Project 3 - Laundry window

This was a MUCH longer task than I anticipated. Remember this maroon window?

Well, painting all that trim was a bitch and a half. I had to paint three coats and each coat took a LONG time, and our neighbor's dog Ringo wouldn't stop barking at me, so it made the job twice as fun

When I was done painting I got the razor out and scraped away all the paint I had gotten on the glass. Taping it all of would have taken a LONG time and probably wouldn't have given the greatest results. But, you can paint and make sure you get it everywhere it needs to go and scrape the paint off later with a razor. It's easier, but still a tedious process

2 hours of scraping and I was done, voila!

Project 4 - Refinishing the dresser

Remember this dresser?

Well now it looks like THIS!

It took a LONG time to get there though. After I got all the stuff out of the drawers I had to maneuver it outside

It was a little tough, especially by myself, but eventually I got it down to the grass, sanded it, cleaned it up, and started painting

Tebow even came to help

But he got tired pretty quickly and had to call it a day

It took 4 COATS! And painting the dresser frame four times and each of the ten shelves four times took a LONG time.

Because we got the dresser for free (we found it on the side of the road with a sign that said "free"), I thought I could invest a bit in some knobs. So, for the small four drawers on top I thought I'd get some that were a little exciting. I went to Anthropologie (GREAT home decor stuff) and got some knobs. They're a little pricey, so I got the cheapest ones at $6, they were SUPER cute though

I went to Home Depot to get the rest for the remaining six drawers. I really wanted glass knobs, but the cheapest ones were $4. Each of the six drawers needs two knobs...so that wound up to $48! No thanks. So I got oil rubbed bronze ones instead, a much more manageable $18.

Installing the knobs was not without its hiccups because of course the hardware they give you isn't long enough to go through the wood and screw into the knob, so I had to figure out how much longer of a screw I needed and go BACK to Home Depot and buy new screws (less than $2 for 12, phew!).

Getting the dresser BACK into the house was much more challenging than getting it out

I had to do a dead lift from the dirt to the deck landing which wasn't very pleasant, but going up the stairs wasn't an option because there wouldn't be enough room to turn it around. But, alas, I got it in the office, and now as I'm blogging I can't stop looking at it, pretty snazzy

And, one last exciting piece of news, our first bell pepper!