Playroom Makeover!!

Let's start with the before. I had already started moving the furniture to the middle of the room when I remembered to take pictures! Oops! So as you see, nothing special. Yucky paint color, blah windows and you can't tell in the pictures but the trim was so gross. So gross. Dirty and paint splattered and ew. Not sure what happened in this room before we bought the house! Eek! 

                                      

So the first thing I did was paint the trim in Valspar White, not a mixed color. I then rolled on Valspar Gravity and it covered in just one coat. Oh, Valspar paint how I love thee.

White Trim, Gravity walls. Those blinds....yuck.

Now to the thing I've been wanting to do in this house forever..forever, ever...BLACK DOORS. All the doors in the room got THREE coats of Sherwin Williams Tricorn Black. The doors also were gifted with new knobs in aged bronze! What a difference! 

 

Oh black doors, you gorgeous things.

So behold the Oliver approved new playroom!!

Now Let's See That Entryway Again....

With a BLACK DOOR! Yay! I love, love, love the look of black interior doors. I'm actually starting to get brave enough to do all the doors throughout the house this way, but for now here's one....

 I think it makes a HUGE difference!

Kitchen Table Redo

We have a beautiful kitchen table that I've always loved, but I just felt like it was too big and dark in the new space. Here it is...(still can't find that picture!!)

I wanted a cheapo option that I could makeover myself, so off to IKEA we traveled and came home with this....

  

Not too exciting, huh?? So the first thing I did was stain the top with Minwax Special Walnut (the same stain as my dining room table)...

I actually put three coats of stain to get it as dark as possible, then added two coats of a semigloss polyurethane. Next I painted the base and legs with Sherwin Williams Honeycomb. It was a pretty bold yellow to say the least!

 Here's where I should probably add that I didn't just use the regular paint, I made my own chalk paint. I use one cup of flat paint, 2 tbsp of un-sanded grout and 1 tablespoon of hot water. Mix the grout and water together first, then add to the paint and mix, mix, mix. The paint will be super thick, like pudding, but boy it goes on like butter, and I only had to use one coat. After the paint dried I gave it a light sanding (220 sandpaper) and started waxing it (very, very, very, very lightly) with Annie Sloan Dark Wax which really helped tone down the yellow. Yes, I'll spend the money on the wax because it will last forever and ever. However, I will NOT spend over $40 for a QUART of the chalk paint, that's why you see the above recipe. :) It was about $13 for the quart of yellow paint.

Aaaaaaand TAAADAAA!!! The finished product. I think it's quite lovely.

The Big Move and Project #1!

Woohoo! The Huckabys are on a new adventure. We had outgrown our previous home. We had around 1400 sq. ft, but with the layout and usable space we really were only "living" in about 700 sq ft. We were really crowding each other. We had also grown tired of neighbors breathing down our necks. You could hear them drinking their Budweiser and listening to Kid Rock from the living room. Really tired of it. So we began our search  by utilizing a lot of realty websites and a LOT of riding around looking at different properties until we came across the "Dream Home Within Our Budget". It was the only home we actually went inside on the search, but with so much access to listings and pictures it was a no brainer that we didn't have to spend days going inside homes we just didn't like, just to say we did. So we got to work on our home and had it ready to list, pending a few repairs, within a week. We really loved the "Dream Home Within Our Budget" and didn't want to miss out on the purchase so we got the seller to agree to a contingency contract. So, basically, the house was ours IF we could close by September 30! That meant our previous home had to sell by August 29. So to make a long story short, we signed a contract with a buyer on our property ON August 29 and the rest is history. We love our new home. Friendly neighbors, quiet neighborhood, lots of open space, huge yard, garage, bonus room,