What Would You Do With . . . Paint??

Another installment of What Would You Do Wednesday with Aubrey and myself!!

I don't remember which one of us suggested paint for August, but I knew right away that I wanted to paint one of the rooms in my house.  I tried to use our "gold" theme last summer to get Olivia's room painted (it will be white with a gold design on one wall. . . I think!) but it didn't work.

This month I planned to paint the Saturday before What Would You Do Wednesday.  And I was bummed when our day got too busy to paint.  Another month of phoning it in, I thought.  Then I realized I was looking at the wrong Wednesday!!  Hahaha I still had a week and a half.

So I did it!!  I painted my kid/guest bathroom Aloof Gray (by Sherwin Williams, but I had Glidden at Home Depot color match it)  I should probably be the spokesperson for Aloof Gray.  I love it so so so much.  It's a gray that definitely doesn't turn blue when you put it on the walls.  And it's really calm.  You might not even notice it's gray unless you see it next to some bright white, which is why I decorate with so much white :)

(excuses excuses:  This bathroom gets zero natural light and is super tiny so it's hard to get a good angle!  Okay enough of that)

BEFORE:

AFTER:

With about $30 at IKEA and Joann Craft I got some new accessories and now I just really love this space.  The pictures just don't do it justice (pretty much I can only take pictures in perfect light) I need a couple of awesome art pieces to go above the toilet and towel rack, but other wise I'm happy with it! 

What would you do with paint??  Link up your post below!

Next month is APPLES!!  If every month had a food, I think September would be apples.  It's just the perfect way to kick off fall.  :) 

An InLinkz Link-up

House Tour: Master Bedroom (sneak peek)

(First, don't forget to enter my giveaway here!!  Even if you don't have a toddler girl, this would make such a fun little gift for someone this Easter!) 

Sometimes when house work feels out of control, it's good to just take one little area and really clean it and make it beautiful.  I'm sure I'm not the only mom whose bedroom comes last in the cleaning list.  But really, my dresser is the first thing I look at every morning and it was CHAOS!  It had never really been organized since we moved in and it was just sort of a dumping place for. . . everything.  Books, jewelry, receipts, hair accessories, gum, pens and pencils, etc, etc, etc. 

But today!  Today I got a little tray for the printer paper at Target and decided to finally get this space under control.  And it has just made everything so much more cheerful!  This area has to kind of double as an office space and our dresser.  Since we have a laptop, we don't really have a computer desk, nor do we have the space for one.  Which means our dresser became the home of our printer and computer paper.  (The open space in the middle of the dresser is where we put the computer when we're printing something.)

I have a before picture, but really the only change is swapping their furniture for ours.  I did feel like the dark heavy wood really over powered this smaller master bedroom, so I do prefer our shorter white dresser.  But other than that it's not a huge change :)  And I'm going to call this a middle, not an after because there are still improvements I would like to make (like having only ONE change jar and not two. . . baby steps guys)

BEFORE

MIDDLE

The little frame in the middle is from Fiji.  Never did get pictures printed to put inside.  Someday. Someday.

A picture that includes our crappy blinds, for reference.

House Tour: Kitchen

My new friend in the neighborhood suggested we do a kid swap twice a week.  I take her daughter for a couple hours on Tuesday and she takes Olivia for a couple hours on Thursday.  While Olivia is gone, Axel takes his morning nap!  And I get a couple bonus hours of free time.  This week I used my time to deep clean the kitchen.

It only took 30 minutes!  It's amazing how much you can get done when you're not being pulled on every five minutes.

Then I used the rest of my time taking pictures and playing Frozen Free Fall on the iPad (try it!  It's just like candy crush but SO pretty because it's based on the movie Frozen!)

Of course I'm going to blog the pictures. Ha!  I'm a little bummed though that my paint doesn't look nearly as beautiful in the pictures as it does in real life.  I need someone to come take pictures for me.  Anyone want to practice interior pics with their DSLR?  This is what the walls actually look like:

Anyway, on to my kitchen.

BEFORE

AFTER

I decided to leave my sewing pile up because I didn't want to move it.  Also there is a vase of sticks above my spice rack that I took down after this picture.  I just stuck it there to see if it looked good and now two months later I'm deciding that it doesn't. 

BEFORE

AFTER

That white cup next to the sink is there all day.  If I drink 7 of them it's a little more than 100 oz.  I usually make it to 4.

BEFORE

AFTER

This is the most unkidfriendly (is that all one word?) dining room set of all time.  A new one is in the plans.  Also in the plans, a new light that we got for Christmas from Oilo, but haven't picked out yet. 

Maybe new tile someday.  And art on the walls, obviously.

I put some apples in a bowl just for these pictures.

Painting the cabinets white is in the plans for the summer, along with a new dining room set (my grandparent's vintage tulip style chairs!!!  I just need someone to haul them up from Orange County) and a new light fixture. 

House Tour: Living Room

I've been waiting to finish decorating before I post pictures of my house on the blog, but yesterday I "deep cleaned" the living room (there isn't much in there so basically that means I put everything away and vacuumed) and I thought I could use some advice/ideas/fresh eyes.  So I'm going to post before and middle pictures instead of before and after.

Naturally when I went to look for my camera it was no where to be found, so I had to improvise and use my iPad camera.  I tried to replicate the angle of the original as much as possible because I hate before and afters when I can't even tell that they used to be the same space.  Obviously we haven't changed things THAT much, but still.

I have to say that I'm not a big fan of accent walls.  Also these dark colors just really brought the walls in a lot.  So we brightened it up with some light gray paint and light furnishings and art. 

BEFORE

MIDDLE

I realize now I should have done these when the sun wasn't shining in the window but I'm not going to stress it for my "middle" pictures

BEFORE

Yep, the kitchen was yellow (AND RED) meaning that you can see three colors when you walk in the front door!  And that is all I'm going to say about that.

MIDDLE

Obviously I need to fill the frames, and the couch is nothing special.  I am going to make a taupe slip cover for it, so that's in the plan.

And another picture because I couldn't fit it all in one picture.  I didn't think to turn the iPad sideways.  Duh.  Also, do you love the color of my kitchen?  I'll post pictures of it soon.

Now I'm trying to decide what more to add to this wall.  Since the wall above the couch has my gallery wall, I don't really want to repeat that on this wall, but it does need something.  The DVD player there is temporary (our blue ray wont play library DVDs!  Go figure) and obviously I'll need something there to balance out my vase with sticks.  And yes, the vase does need a few more rocks.  I thought I had enough, but I was mistaken. 

So I know that my pictures aren't as great as the befores, but I really love the colors I have going on here!  I just need lots of money so I can finish my plans (I actually have some Christmas money left and I'm going to use it for the couch slip cover).  Also if you have any ideas for the TV wall, let me know!