I hate, hate  to say this but my husband was right... and I was wrong.  Also, I'm sorry Daniel.  *smh*

Daniel hates Pinterest.  Hates it.  With a passion.  Sooo much.  LOL

The chalk paint is fine, there's nothing wrong with it, perfect recipe, go ahead and use it.  But  if you change your mind about using that technique because it's not the look you want after all, there are consequences.

First of all, it is not, I repeat not  to be used like a primer.  Regular paint does not adhere to it.  At all.  So if you choose to scrap the chalk paint, learn from my mistakes, and sand it or strip it all the way gone.  Here's a reminder of what that technique looked like.

First (and only) coat of chalk paint

It's great if you're going to use a wax finish and are going for that Shabby Chic look.  After I did the first coat, I thought, "Hmmm, why don't I just use regular paint now and roll it over the chalk paint?"  Terrible idea.  Luckily I only tried this on one section of the headboard.  Unfortunately it took me an hour of peeling and sanding to get it off of said section.  I would recommend having paint stripper on hand.  I did not, hence the hour of tedious work.  Daniel had a few choice words for me and Pinterest before I took over fixing my problem.


Like I said, if you're going to see it through, this technique is great.  If it weren't for the problems I created we had, this would have taken a couple hours to finish.  As it was, it took us all day.  We ended up spraying everything with the spray gun, which is so much easier than hand painting.  By the way, when I say "we", I mean Daniel.  Of course I forgot to take a "before" picture of the bedroom, but here's the final result. 

Need to move that picture now...

I love it!  It's way bigger than I expected but that's good.  We finally have grown up furniture.  Hurray!  Now we need to install our baseboards and hang things on the walls and we'll be done with the bedroom.  Oh, and still need to re-finish the nightstand.  Not 100% sure what I'm going to do with it but I'll tell Daniel I came up with the idea and not Pinterest. Shh, don't tell.  ;)

This was all on Saturday and Daniel also cut a piece of plywood for the kitchen counter which was a gaping whole for a few weeks.

On Sunday, Daniel sprayed the second coat on our first batch of kitchen cabinets.  Now they just need a coat of Polycrylic and new hardware and they're good to go!  Only a million more and the boxes to go.  Haha

Hope you had a great weekend, we were busy little beavers.  If we can keep up the pace, we'll have a bright white kitchen in no time.

♥ Holly ♥

Happy Thursday!  We made it over the hump, yahoo!

I had never had a fish taco until this year.  Crazy, but true.  A couple weeks ago Daniel decided to try to make some at home.  He got the recipe for the white sauce from our friend Michelle who works with him.  We made two tweaks, but first, here's the original recipe:

• fresh lime juice to taste (around 2 Tbs)
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1 Tbs Sriracha or equivalent hot sauce
• 1/2 tsp crushed oregano
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp dried, crushed dill
• 1/2 tsp ground cayenne chile 
• ground white pepper to taste

All you have to do is mix the ingredients together in a bowl.  As for the tweaks, we don't have white pepper so he used regular old pepper and instead of sour cream he used plain Greek yogurt because that's what we had on hand.   Bonus!  Greek yogurt is fat free as apposed to sour cream which is not great for you. 

And the easiest part of all, the fish.  We just used Van de Kamp's Beer Battered Fish Fillet's.  Cook according to instructions and pop those babies in a fresh corn tortilla smothered with white sauce.  You can chop the fish up if you want, but we left them whole.  Add cabbage or salsa if you want, we used cabbage when we had these last night.  Sooo darn good.  Seriously, you have to try it.


Aren't I a great, professional photographer??

Okay, fine!  I stole this picture from Sunset Magazine...  Jeez.  This is basically what they looked like though. 

In other news, I went home at lunch and painted the other side of the headboard.  I had just enough paint to finish it, so the first coat is done.  The paint was pretty hard due to the fact that there's plaster in it and all, so I added a splash of water and stirred it up.  It was fine.  So it'll be ready to sand as soon as I get the opportunity.  Then I'll tackle the second coat and finish the thing.  I'm pretty sure I'm just going to spray it with the clear gloss I have after it's painted.  Basically because I'm lazy and I don't want to try other options.  Truth!  LOL

That's all she wrote!  For now.
♥ Holly ♥

Howdy!

So, I went home and didn't get all lazy yesterday!  Progress.  I bit the bullet and tried this awesome  Chalk Paint Recipe from Virginia over at Live Love DIY  using the following supplies:

• Plaster of Paris, which they have a our Home Depot but only in the 15 lb bags so I got this 4 lb container at Lowes.  
• Flat paint in color of your choice, I used white.
• water
• something to mix it all in 

 
The recipe is just 2 cups of paint, 2 tablespoons of water and 5 tablespoons of Plaster of Paris.  Then mix mix mix.  I used an oh-so-professional empty tub from Broccoli Cheddar Soup a la' Costco to mix mine in.  Worked like a charm, the tub and the recipe. ;) 

I just wanted to test it out so I used a brush.  Next coat I'll do a roller for the big sections and use the brush for the detail spots.

Here's a "before" pic

 Isn't it inspiring sitting there wedged between the weight bench and the boat?  I don't think so either.

 As you can see, there are a lot of brush strokes so I'll do a light sand with a fine grit sand paper before I tackle the second coat.


And yes, I wedged myself in between the headboard and the boat because, like I said, I just wanted to see how it worked.  I didn't have much time either because I did this before Back to School Night. 

Luckily I tried this really great crock pot roast beef recipe from Pinterest (natch) so I didn't have to make dinner.  Dinner was delish!  I highly recommend that recipe.  We put it over mashed potatoes.  Can't wait to eat my leftovers at lunch!  But I digress... I digress a lot. 

Anyhoo, the great thing about this chalk paint is that there is no prep to the surface involved.  I mean, I dusted the headboard off but that's all!  The paint dried really fast too.  I could have sanded it after dinner if we didn't have Back to School Night.  I plan on working on it some more tonight. 

Thoughts on the paint:  It's really thick and goopy so I wouldn't dare try it in my handy dandy sprayer.  Just in case.  Virgina at Live Love DIY doesn't even have a sprayer and she has done some really beautiful work, so I knew I could do it.  I have to play with the finish though.  With chalk paint you're really supposed to put soft wax on it afterwards but I heard that melts easily and our bedroom gets hot during the day so I'm afraid it would make a mess.  I have spray gloss but I dunno if that will look right with the finish of the chalk paint.  I don't want to lose the charm, you know?  So I'll be testing some spots, probably on the side of the nightstand, to see what looks and feels best.  Here is said nightstand:


Sorry about the crappy photos.  I took them before I left for work so I didn't have much time.  It's pretty good size and has 3 drawers.  The bottom "2" are actually one big drawer.  I plan on making chalk paint for this as well but in a different color.  Not 100% decided on the color yet.  Gonna change out the knobs too.

I'm really excited about this project because it's so simple and I think I'm gonna be able to have my headboard in the house by this weekend!   Yay!  *fingers crossed* 

Can't wait to finish so I can share the "after" pics!

Happy Hump Day y'all!

♥ Holly ♥