Decorating with Blessings

One thing I know for sure is that we have been blessed! God never ceases to amaze me when it comes to my needs or my wants. He has truly blessed us when it comes to our new home.

As most of your know, it took us 15 months and around 30 offers before we got this house. Looking back we can both say that it was worth the wait and all the trouble of the past 15 months. God knew exactly what He was doing and I am so glad that we trusted in His sovereignty the whole way.

As you have read in recent posts we have been blessed with paint in many ways! We were also blessed with light fixtures! A friend of mine bought a house about a year ago and did not like the light fixtures that were in the house. They just were not her style. So she offered them to me and happily took them and had been storing them in the garage at our old house for the last year. Let me tell you here people, these fixtures fit into our house perfectly! All of the light fixtures that were here when we moved in were very out dated. Some were broken and some were just not even there :o) Here is what the blessings look like in our home:
This one (above) went into the master bathroom. To tell you the truth, I can't remember what the old one looks like now :o)

This one (above again) is in the girl's bathroom. Don't you just love that wallpaper! It has to go. Half of it is missing. Sorry, folks. Before there was no light fixture here. There is another fixture on the other side if the bathroom that is very long. It was just a silver color so we spray painted it to look like the rest of the brushed silver in the bathroom.

This one is in the entry way. There was no light at all here when we moved in, just the wires. My brother-in-law put this one up for me without a ladder! He is very tall. Very tall! The light fit here perfectly.

Thanks Aleena for the lights! We are so grateful your generosity!

Many Blessings!

~C

Painting on the Cheap

Paint!?!? It can brighten a room while draining your budget :o)
Yes, I know that they say that a coat of paint is the cheapest and easiest way to add "pizazz" to a room. (Do they really say that?). But when your budget is $0 even color has to go on the back burner. So what is a girl to do? What is this girl to do, who has been dying to put some color on her walls since she moved into her first rental some 9 years ago? All I want is some color in my life people, that's it just a little cheeriness and at this point I don't care what color it is I just want COLOR! UGH! Sorry for the momentary lapse of insanity. I am back now.

For starters, I have many people offer me paint. Seriously. It has been fun. Our old neighbor (no she is not actually old, we just live in a new house now and have new neighbors so all the neighbors at our old house are now our old neighbors) offered me four different colors of paint that she had used in her girls' room. The colors were perfect. We had 2 shades of pink and 2 shades of lavender. None of the colors had a full gallon. So we had to figure out how to make it all work and get all the walls covered. Here is how we did it:
The closet (which you cannot see) was painted the darkest shade of pink. Most of the wall was painted in the other shade of pink (as you can see above). There was less than a half gallon of the darker shade of lavender and almost a whole gallon of the lighter shade. The problem was the lighter shade was really light and I wanted something darker. So I mixed the two shade together and came up with the color you see above for the ceiling and the top part of the wall! When money permits we will get a pretty white molding to put up on the line between the colors. I was so happy with the way it turned out! Painting the girls' room= $0. Thanks Raquel!!!!! You rock!!!!!

Another way we have been able to buy some color is to hit up the "oops" paints at our local "man stores" (H*ome Dep*t/ L*we's, and even w*llym*art).
I found this can of paint last summer (when we thought we were moving into a different house) and will use it to paint all of the bathroom cabinets. It's a dark grey color. Bathroom Cabinets= $6.

I needed to paint the inside of our closet with a good semi-gloss before we moved all of clothes into it. I headed off to w*llym*rt to pay full price (shocking I know) for a gallon of white semi-gloss. When I go there I noticed their section of "oops" paints and started in on them. To my surprise they had a can of almost white semi-gloss paint right there for only $6! I use the whole gallon to paint the master bedroom closet and all of the hall closets (we have 4 of them).

I had hopes to have enough of the almost white paint left to paint the laundry room but I did not. I was a bit sad but that sadness to turned to happiness when I decided I could paint it red! Finally a red room! Some GOOD color! Thank you Lord!

Off to the above mentioned place again to get me some red paint. Again, planning on paying full price. Have I told you how much I hate paying full price? I, of course, decided to devour through the "oops" paint once again knowing that they would not have my shade of red in there. Well, can I just shout, GOD IS GOOD!!!!! There was my red paint. In my perfect shade! At that moment life just could not have got any better. Well, it could have if someone would have offered to come and paint the laundry room for me right then and there for free :o) But I am a realist and life was plenty good at that moment just the way it was

Laundry room= $6. I already had all of the turquoise buckets from the old house. I am going for the Greek isle look in here. Like in Mama Mia. Oh I so do love that movie! Please, no judging here people. We are all entitled to our own opinions :o) I am going to trim the shelf with ribbon as soon as I find just what I want. So fun!

I also have another friend who has offered me a gallon of paint that she has lying around. I plan on using that one for the office. I also go and check the "oops" sections every time I am at the "man store" (this is what my kids call it) just knowing that one day I find the colors for my front room, kitchen, hallway, and bathrooms!

Happy Painting!

~Caroline

Making a House Clean

Now that we are into our own home (we were renters before) I am frugally decorating it to the best of my abilities and pocketbook. My abilities always outweigh my pocketbook. Why is that? While the house we are in is very sound and sturdy it does need some sprucing up. Here is a bit of what we have done thus far....

Step one: Wipe ALL the walls and ALL surfaces down with TSP. The people that lived here before let their kids be "artistic" all over the walls (including the brick) so we had lots of cleaning to do before the paint could go on. TSP is great stuff, people. You dilute it in water and just go to town. It took off lots of stuff that was very "mysterious" to us.

Step three: Take off all hardward (light fixtures/ switch plates/ vent covers/ etc....) and soak them in TSP.

Step three: Paint ALL the walls with a coat of KILZ. This is also great stuff. It basically "locks" in all the stuff that just won't come off of the walls.....like red crayon :o) Painting the whole house with KILZ took us 3 days (even with all of our helpers). After this I decided that I never wanted to paint again for the rest of my life. Then I realized that I do need color in my life so the painting must go on.

Step four: After letting all the hardware soak for a few days (seriously, it was that bad), wash it off and dry it. Here is where we got frugal: Many of the hardware pieces were pretty bad. Some of the vents had rust on them that we just could not get off. Some of the light fixtures were bronz colored and that did not match my decor. SO out came the cans of spray paint and my dad who is the world's best spray painter. Seriously, folks, the man knows how to spray paint better than the professionals :o)

Here are the light fixture and vent in the front bathroom after their coat of glorious spray paint. The silver goes much better in out house.

And on the right-> is one of the switch plates that use to be gold but is now silver as well.

After everything was clean and pretty we put it all back in or up, whichever it needed :o) I can't even began to tell you the difference just these four steps made in the appearance of our home.

Oh, yeah, we also took down all of the drapes and tossed them. Not only were they outdated they were so full of dust. Major allergy attacks! We put newspaper in the windows until we were able to get replacements. We still have a couple newspapered windows. I think they give the house character ;o)