So I Married a Younger Man!!

Happy Monday to you all, I hope that you had a great weekend!

We were busy painting and then did a little more painting and then some more painting!!

I forgot how much a pain it is to paint the ceilings!!

But,

the good news was that my wonderful hubby helped me so we were able to get more done.

The funny thing is the last time we painted this room, it is a big room with textured walls, he swore up and down that he would NEVER paint this room again!!

Never say never honey!! :)

Speaking of my darling husband, today or tomorrow or somewhere in between he turns

10 3/4!!

Yes, I married a younger man....lucky me huh? :)

It is his unbirthday birthday as I like to call it.

He is a leap year baby and actually he does act his "Age" at times! :)

Anyway, we celebrate it either today or tomorrow or both if he so inclines.

A fun thing about his last actual birthday was that he and my daughter both turned 10 in the same year! They were even in our local newspaper! My daughter thought that that was the coolest thing!

So anyway,

Happy Unbirthday Birthday my love! I love you more than you know!!!

And thank you so much for helping me paint this weekend.

I love you!!

Let me show you some of out handy work...

It started as this.

And after

this...

(probably would have been smart to put a hat or something on, but it did wash out)

(creepy picture, I know)

this...

(every time! I don't know how they do it but every time!!_

and this..

I thought he was going to suffocate so I poked holes in the plastic for him! :)

We got this..

this..

and this.

I still have to finish the hall and entry way but that won't take too long.

I absolutely love the Simple White from BM, it is perfect!

Thanks Kat! :)

I am so sorry I have not been around lately to visit, I have been so crazy busy with not only painting this weekend but my little guy was sick last night, he feels better today but still not his best and my daughter has basketball, a choir concert and dance this week as well as my volleyball, finishing painting, laundry, cleaning blah, blah, blah and work!

Someone please stop the this ride, I would like to get off!!

Oh well, I am usually the cause of most of my stress, but please forgive me.

And to those that I sent emails to and visited your blog last night, I am really sorry if I made no sense! I was tired and had sniffed too many fumes I think!

I love you all and I will catch up one day!

I will be back later with some questions for you!

I also wanted to thank Roeshel of The DIY Show Off for featuring my bedroom this weekend!

Thank you so much Roeshel! If you have not, please visit her wonderful and inspiring blog, you will leave with so many new ideas!!

Have a wonderful week!

Step On Through!

Let me take you back about 5 1/2 years ago, I was pregnant with the boy and we were redoing our bonus room above the garage. Exciting I know!

We did the majority of the work ourselves to help save money. Basically when we moved in to our home the room above our garage was storage space, it looked kind of like this....

Not ours but close.

We insulated, hung drywall, painted, ran electrical and added a new window.

(By we, I mean my hubby and his friend, I am a touch pregnant at this point but I did paint)

Anyway, my hubby decided to run some wires from the basement all the way up to the bonus room for the computer. Now, the bonus room is just above the garage, not the whole house, so he needed to go into the "attic" in order for the lines to be able to be reached and hooked up right, blah blah blah...I don't really understand that stuff so I just took my little flashlight, went to the basement and waited for him to feed the wires down through the walls and into the holes that he drilled into the basement ceiling.

So there I stand, flashlight in hand, waiting for this wire to come down for me to grab and pull through....

waiting.....waiting....waiting......

I then faintly hear some yelling and screaming.

Not knowing what was taking so long, I went upstairs to the main floor, turned into the family room and saw this.....

YUP, that would be my hubby's foot through my family room ceiling!!!!

with this all over the floor.

Was I mad you ask???

Actually, I burst out laughing!!!!

I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants (after of course asking if hubby was ok, which he was)

I couldn't even believe that this happened!

This is the stuff of home video shows.

Too bad we didn't have a camera rolling!

Well, needless to say it was a good thing that we did a lot of the work in the bonus room ourselves because we needed that money to hire someone to patch the hole!

There was no way we were attempting that!

Fast forward to now, the ceiling is patched and looks great but you can still see a ring around where they fixed it because we couldn't match the paint exactly and I wasn't painting a ceiling at 5 months pregnant!

So that brings me to my next big project....

My family room!

Right now it currently looks like this..

various shades of white scattered here and there to see how it looks in different parts of the room during different times of the day.

I have no idea what colors they are but I did settle on a color thanks to my friend Kat who suggested Simply White by Benjamin Moore.

It is not too bright white but not too cream either.

I really love it!

Below are a few of my inspiration pictures. I am really looking to "beach up" my family room a bit more, create a cottage feel.

Coastal Living

(source unknown)

This project is going to take me a while I think!

I am starting with the ceilings and will work my way down to the floors.

Mostly it is painting and then with the help of my mom and dad,

(thank you mom and dad!)

we will no longer have to live on sub-flooring!

Woo Hoo!!!

So hopefully you will bare with me on this journey and I am sure that I will be needing your help along the way!!

I will show you some before, during and after pictures, I know, you are so excited about that, to show you my progress. :)

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

And remember to

THINK SPRING!!!!!

Beachy Bedroom Reveal

First I would like to thank Kindra for taking over my blog yesterday, it was so fun to swap with her and thank you to all of you who commented both on my blog and hers, you gals know how to make my day!

Ok, so I know that I have "revealed" my bedroom before, like about three months ago, you can see that here, but I really missed my beachy bedroom.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the color that I had before this one, it was very cozy, but I just felt like it wasn't me.

My bedroom is the one place that is mine to relax and unwind in, to lay in bed and be able to look out my window at the stars and be surrounded for 8 hours or so by the things that I love.

So I went back to my beachy blues and white, added some more treasures and gave my windows and bed that breezy feel with new curtains.

I am really happy with the way it turned out and so happy with the "frantel" (thank you Lisa from Informal Home, I love that word! :) ) and wanted to thank ALL of you for the wonderful and sweet comments you left, I so appreciate it more than words can say!

Here we go....

Before

After

The walls were painted with "Shoreline Mist" from Behr or Glidden, now I can't remember....must too many paint fumes.

I added two sheer panels that have a crinkle look to them (they are the same that I used for my daughters room) to each window and hung at the level of the board and batton and then draped one panel on each of the bed posts.

I can't wait until I can open the windows and feel the warm breezes and watch the sheers blow in the wind.....aahhhhh summer breezes!!!

My wire basket-o-driftwood and a driftwood garland that I purchased last summer.

I still kept the same ruffled gray bedding but added white sheets and blue pillow cases (I got the bedding at TJ Maxx)

My bedroom is also the favorite spot for the cats, they must enjoy the beach too! :)

So there is my little paradise away from paradise, a place that I can unwind and dream of the sea.

Thank you so much for following me on yet another bedroom redo, I will back later to show you some of my favorite little details.

My weekend is pretty pack full already but I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend full of sunshine warm weather!!

(I will be linking up to the parties in my linky party tab)

Little Touches

Hello Dearies!!!

How are you?

I hope that you all are having a great week so far. I am a little behind on things and spent yesterday trying to catch up with everyone. This weekend was a busy one for me and I wasn't able to visit with you all like I wanted, but I am slowly making my way over to your place. :)

I wanted to thank you all for your wonderful comments about my beachy bedroom! I am enjoying it so much and I can't wait to open those windows and let the warm summer breezes blow through the sheers......ahhhhh!

When I picture a house on the water that is the image that comes to my mind; warm, soft breezes flowing through the house gracefully sweeping the soft sheers enough to see them dance.

COME ON SUMMER!!!!!

I just wanted to quickly show you some little touches around the room before I dive head first into my next project.

Speaking of sheers, here is how I attached the ones on the posts of the bed. It was pretty easy and I didn't even make any holes, which made my hubby happy!

I simply found some thicker gauge wire, thread it through the top of the sheer..

and then wrap it around the top of the post!

Easy peasy!!

On one side of my dresser I have my apothecary jars filled with my treasures from the trips to Florida, Mexico and just some beauties that I found at local shops that I loved.

On the other side of the dresser are some of my favorite photos. My son when I took him to the beach one afternoon when he was about 8 months old, my daughter when she came home from the hospital and two pictures of my trip to Belize on a little island that we snorkeled from called Gilligan's Island!

(no the Professor and Skipper were not there) :)

I also added a mirror to the barnwood frame that I had displayed on my frantel. I was so inspired by Kindra from At Home with K and her door mirror that I HAD to do it!!

A while back I received a little package from one of my dear friends Laurie from Heaven's Walk, sorry Laurie I did not take a picture of the package, I was so excited to open it, I know, bad blogger! But it was so cute and came with a little note and some dried lavender.

Inside where these little beauties that she made.

Aren't they beautiful?

She just started making them too! She is a pro already!! If you have not met Laurie, please stop by and say hi, she has a heart of gold and will welcome you with open arms!

I also recently won this beautiful sign from Anne at Bird/Like. She is so sweet and talented and if you have not met Anne either, please stop by. I love her home and her love for birds shines through! Everything is so beautiful!

So there are a few touches around my room, I am still playing with and rearranging things and Anne gave me the suggestion of putting a mirror in the open area of the frantel to reflect the candle light, make it feel more like a fireplace. I am thinking of doing the method from Kindra on a bigger piece of glass and see how that turns out, I just love the look of the aged mirror.

I also wanted to thank Sharon from Infatuated with Homes and Gardens for sharing an award with me!

Thank you so much Sharon and please stop by her place, there is so much beauty and inspiration there and I am enjoying getting to know her!

Have a wonderful day and I will be back later to share with you my next big project!

Hey guess what?

I am painting again!!!!

Hugs!

Guest Post: At Home With K

I am blog swapping today with Kindra from At Home With K.

This is my first blog swap and I know that you will love Kindra!

Hello Emerald Cove Readers, Followers and Friends! I'm Kindra from At Home With K and I'm taking over Michelle's blog for the day. :)

A little bit about myself...I'm a full time stay-at-home mom, part time night nurse. I have 3 Fabulous Men in my life-Hubby, Mr. K (7) and Mr. T(3). They are the light of my life! In my spare time, I love to Create and Decorate on a Budget...and blog about it!

Recently I did a project on an old door that I would love to share with you today.

I love old doors, don't you?! They just don't make them like they used to. I found this door below for $5.

It wasn't the best of shape.

Peeling paint, dirt, grime...

Complete with dog/cat scratches at the base of the door.

My hubby cut a small section off the bottom of the door where it was beat up.

I scraped off the loose paint. Then I cleaned up the surface with bleach and water.

After it was dry, I painted the best side of the door with some paint I already had.

Here's what I used.

After it was dry, I took my electric sander and sanded down the surface and edges to give it a more distressed look.

Then I stained the surface with MinWax Dark Walnut Stain.

All you do is wipe on the stain and then wipe off with a clean rag.

Here you can see the difference where I stained and didn't stain.

I thought the stain made the door a little too dark for the look that I was going for...so I dry brushed some of my white paint over the stain to lighten it up a little more. I probably would of used MinWax Early American instead but I was just using what I had at home and Dark walnut was all I had.

After it was dry, I could of stopped there. But I had more plans for this cute little door.

I saw this mirror post from Meridian Road and just knew I had to try it out someday.

So I went on a hunt for some mirror spray paint. This stuff is kind of hard to find. But on a Hobby Lobby trip one day, I found it! With a 40% off coupon, I got this can for around $5.

This spray paint is cool! You make your glass surface into a mirror. Now it's not the same as a real mirror but it does give a neat looking glass image.

According to the directions I sprayed the BACK side of the window with 5 light, even coats. It takes an hour to "cure". I did this while the door was propped up against my work bench.

The paint gave the glass a wonderful mirror look and I loved it! But I didn't stop there. I wanted to give the "mirror" a more aged look. So while the surface was still tacky, I placed my door on some saw horses so the door was laying down.

Not knowing if this was going to work or not...I took a spray bottle and (crossing my fingers) sprayed around the edges randomly. And as you can see some of the area where I sprayed began to bubble up! It's so nice when an idea actually works. :)

I waited for all the water to dry before moving the door upright because I wouldn't want water marks running down the mirror. It took about an hour in my semi-cold garage to dry.

And here is my mirror door today!

Here you can see where I sprayed the water to give it an aged look.

Hey, that's me! See how cool this paint is?!

We added the door to our (boring) bedroom. This room will get a makeover soon. Now this just inspires me to get going on this room project!

No door knob, but that's okay. I took the plate and I dry brushed some white paint on it. After it was dry I sanded it down and added some stain. I love the look it created!

Wouldn't this mirror spray paint be cool to use on the glass of some old picture frames?! You could make a collage of mirrors on your wall. Real mirrors can be pricey sometimes, so this would be a great alternative!

For other thrifty projects like this, come on by my blog-At Home With K and check out some of my past projects!

Thank you so much, Michelle, for letting me guest post today! You're the best!

Thank you Kindra!!

I just L.O.V.E. that door and mirror!! She gave me the idea for the little mirror in my room and I was so giddy when I saw hers (yes I think I even squealed a bit) that I HAD to do that too! I will be showing you that when I post on my bedroom!!

Thank you Kindra for coming over and sharing your amazing door and or always inspiring me with your creative talents!