Work with what you GOT-Painted Kitchen Floors

FLOOR UPDATE:  (4/15/2015)
I know you have all asked for update pictures and I have FINALLY gotten around to snapping some iPhone pictures to share.  The floors are now 3 years old and while they are dirty in these pictures (sorry), they are still holding up really really well.  I am very pleased with their duration of numerous gatherings and 3 toddlers constantly running, playing and dragging toys along them all day long.  I would still recommend this method and am pleased with them each time I look down.  

We have an update in the ever evolving kitchen.  I recently painted the linoleum kitchen floors (another Pinterest inspiration) with regular old house paint.  It was a fun process and not one that I was sure was going to "stick" but it did and I am so happy.  Before I go into detail about the "how to" here are some kitchen evolution shots...

Picture 1:  How the kitchen looked when we moved in

 Picture 2:  How the kitchen looked after we painted the kitchen cabinets white and installed new Ikea counter tops, added a white subway tile backsplash, and painted the walls.

  Picture 3:  How it looks now, after the painted floor project

I am so in love it with it.

So now for the HOW TO...

Let me start with saying that painting linoleum is not for all linoleum.  Peel and stick or slick linoleum will not work for this process.  We had old, worn linoleum that was installed in one big sheet.  My sister-in-law tried to paint her peel and stick bathroom linoleum and the paint is just peeling right off.

Here is the process:
Step 1:  clean floors really well and let them completely dry (I used a degreaser and mopped the floors)

Step 2:  Paint the floors with the Base/Bottom color.  I used Behr Paint and Primer In One-FLAT.  Here is a picture of the paint cans. 

 

Step 3:  Stencil the design.  I bought a Martha Stewart stencil from Michaels and used the same Behr paint in a different color. I used a small foam roller to keep the paint even, make sure you don't load the roller with too much paint or it will bleed under the stencil and make a mess.  As far as the placement goes, the old linoleum had squares in it so I just used them as a guide and did every other square.

Step 4:  Let paint dry and then apply poly urethane.  I used a water based poly and followed the instructions on application.  I applied 4 coats of poly just to be safe.

Let dry for 2 days to be absolutely sure its cured and DONE!!!  We have had these floors painted for about 2 months and they still look absolutely gorgeous.  

In case you are wondering about paint colors, the colors are:

Base:  Glidden GLN40-Wood Smoke, I had it color matched so that I could use the Behr prime/paint

Stencil:  GLC13-Crisp Linen White, also color matched to Behr Prime/Paint 

Color Codes:

Here are a couple more shots of the floor taken just this morning.

Please email me or leave a comment if you have any questions about technique or process.  And leave a link if you did this yourself, I would love to see others work.

:)

Kitchen Floor sneak peak

This is what I have been up to for the last 3 days...more details to follow soon.

There was time for BASEBOARDS!

My lovely sister-in-law got the itch to finish our baseboards last week and so in one day we popped out the final pieces that made the entire house feel "finished".

Some "BEFORE's"

And some "AFTER's"

I love how finished the rooms look now.  Before it was a mess with the dark stain on the walls from when we were staining the floors and it drove me crazy but I could never get it together and finish that last little detail.  Thanks Jessica for finally making it happen :).

Tools used:
Table saw
Baseboards from Home Depot
White finishing nails
Countersink for the nails
High gloss white paint

A ceiling RE-Vamp

Back in the summer of 2010 my wonderful sister and I were hanging out at my house because she had a pinched nerve in her back and couldn't go to work.  She was lounging at my house watching movies and taking it easy when she looked up at my ceiling (see picture below) and said..."lets take those tiles down".

"Okay" I thought and I started pulling them down...one by one they came down and I was so excited to finally be getting rid of the hospital/office looking ceiling tiles.  Only after they were all down we were left with this. 

...and it was much worse.  After the big reveal, she said..."man that's gonna be hard to fix!...thanks sister, you were not so "wonderful" at that point :).

Those dots you see are actually some kind of black glue from who knows what led infested year, and they are rock solid.  The only way they were coming down was with a high power sander that I feared would spray lead dust everywhere.  Well, we lived with those dots for a good year while I looked and looked for a solution to the dot dilemma.  I just didn't know how we were going to get rid of them;  I thought about painting them but decided you would still be able to see the outline of them and that would just be tacky.  Finally I found these styrofoam ceiling tiles online and knew they were the answer.  Especially since they were only about $3.50 per tile as opposed to $15+ for metal ones.  A click of a button and 5 days later they were on my doorstep.

Now came problem #2, getting them up.  It wasn't that hard but it was labor intensive since our hands were up over our heads and we had a little over 100 to install, oh and by this time I was in my late 2nd/early 3rd trimester of pregnancy so I wasn't much help.  Luckily my wonderful husband plus brother-in-law and sister-in-law came to the rescue and put them up.  We applied them with a thin coat of tile mortar and the result is this...

 

It looks so so much more better than those horrible hospital grade tiles and so so so much better than those black tar dots.

Here is a side by side before/after view...

2 years later...Dressers

I am NO where near finished with our bedroom. it always seems to get pushed back on the "home to-do" list.  Pretty much all that has been done is that we have painted the walls, hung some drapes and put down about 1/3 of the baseboards.  Now that the nursery is done and most of the house is pretty much done (a few details here and there need to be tended to) I hope to really concentrate more on our bedroom.

To start, I was really getting tired of the plastic dressers that we were using in the closets.  I haven't had a dresser since probably 2007 and I thought I didn't need one for so long.  The big plastic dresser worked just fine for a while but with the need to fill some space in our room and the frustration of not enough storage space in the closet, it was time for some dressers.  Of course I didnt want to buy something new or to matchy matchy so I hit up craigslist.  I found the dresser on the Left (Jeremiahs side) for $45 and when I went to pick it up the guy selling it had the one on the Right (my side) for $65.  I told him I would give him $100 for both and the deal was made.

I am still debating between keeping them the original color/finish or painting them.  If I did paint them I was thinking either off-white or maybe something a little more bold.  I was originally going to keep the room very calm and clean with all whites and light blues but now I am leaning towards a more eclectic and mis-matchy theme; something a little more Anthropologie-esque.  Here are some pictures of the new additions.

They are already proving to be worth the $100 in space and organization alone.  Plus I didnt realize how empty the room looked without them next to the bed, they do a perfect job at filling in the space.  I would share before photos but I still need to organize them from the recovery process I had done when I lost (well accidentally deleted) all my photos.

I have found some inspiration photos on Pinterest so with these new dressers being the base of my eclectic room, what would I need to acheive these looks and feels?

Source: refinery29.com via Sally on Pinterest

Source: room-galleries.myhomeideas.com via Sally on Pinterest

Source: housetohome.co.uk via Sally on Pinterest

Source: bhg.com via Sally on Pinterest

I am thinking I need some colorful pillows, a throw at the end of the bed, a bold rug and some cool art work with a touch of subtle pink. 

As usual, lots to do and even more to dream about.

Well we got one done...

My wonderful sister came over this past weekend to help me spray paint my furniture.  I decided against priming so we ended up using 3 times the amount of spray paint for one little piece of furniture and therefore I didn't get to paint anything else.  However, I love the way this piece turned out...

In case you don't feel like scrolling down, here is a before picture...

And maybe one more after...

Stay with brown or paint white?

I keep going back and forth with this one, should I paint all my wood furniture white, including my wall shelves or keep them brown?

here is what everything looks like now...

But I am really wanting to paint the shelves and all the picture frames a really creamy white/ivory...kind of like this but more realistic :)...obviously!

Something similar to this...

(thank you Young House Love for the pic)

Plus, I am really wanting to put my headboard bench out on the front porch and replace it with an entry table or an antique desk.  But then would I paint the desk the same creamy white or leave it in its original state?

I am thinking I want this look instead of the bench...

(thank you again Young House Love for the pic)

Basically I want more surface space to decorate large items on, my wall shelves are limited height wise.  Plus this is a good representation on the collage frames being all white instead of brown.

I am really feeling claustophobic in the living room lately, I can't tell if it is just a re-decorating itch or if the brown is to dark with the dark wood floors. 

Will anyone help?  Please please leave a comment this time and tell me what you think I should do.

:)

Next Project...bedroom

I know that I said I was going to move on to the outdoors but I really need to get our bedroom finished, well actually I need to start it, so that we can have a calm and comfy room when we are tired from working outside. I bought this headboard on Target.com yesterday and it will be the 1st piece to start this room transformation.

These are some inspiration photos that are helping me design the bedroom of my dreams :).

This one (above) is from Young House Love and we already have the shelves next to our bed so all I need is to attach a curtain to them to hide the books and voila, instant calm.  Well almost, I still have to paint and do a few other things but then it will be calm and serene.  The only problem is that I have my home office in the same room but I am trying to come up with inventive ways to hide the office or at least make a soft separation between the 2.