MilShelb's Room Part 2

After I painted the room yellow, I knew I wanted to add pink accents- the MilShelb are girls, after all. 

So, first I put pink polka dots on the wall where their book and toy shelves are.

I painted the closet doors... again with getting rid of the brown! I also painted the door knobs a super cute pink which matches the polka dots on the wall.

Milly and Shelby were the first to get new blinds in our home. We bought fresh new white blinds and I now want to change all of the blinds in our house. Our blinds in the other rooms are off-white and gross.

I got pink with white polka dot curtains from Walmart. They were so cute and when I saw them in the store I knew they were exactly what I was looking for!

We bought Shelby a turtle sand box and put a fluffy pillow in it for her. We call it her "turtle bed" and she loves it!

This is the wall with the polka dots, but now you can see the shelves. They are actually shoe shelves from Walmart but they were exactly what the girls need because they are low to the ground, just like the MilShelb.

For decorating I was trying not to break the bank. I went to Goodwill (which I do often in search of treasures to fix up and have fun with). I got the picture frames for about $1.00 each and the cute shelf for $2.00. 

Here is the shelf before I painted the whole thing. The bunnies were cute, but Milly and Shelby needed something colorful!

I painted it pink and green and put M.S. on it which is short for MilShelb, of course!

Here is their shelf with some of their toys (yes, only some. These kids have more toys than a lot of  2-legged kids I know).

Here is a view of the painted trim. I love how it brightened up the room!

This is a picture of one wall in their room. I put quotes and some pictures of them. The fabric boards are just old sheets or pillow cases cut out and hot glued on to card board. 

I painted the canvas in the middle with a quote the MilShelb Dad picked from Yertle the Turtle that says, "And the turtles, of course, the turtles are free as turtles, and maybe, all creatures should be."

Milly and Shelby loved their new room! It was their Christmas gift and they were very excited! They actually use it more than I really thought they would.

MilShelb's Room Part 1

Before we made the big secret plan to make this "Milsehlb's Room" it was our guest bedroom. We moved the guest bedroom (which has never been used) to the upstairs bedroom. There's only one bedroom upstairs and it is the room above the garage. We don't use it because Milly and Shelby aren't supposed to climb stairs and because the window AC is the only AC up there and it's broken and, let's face it folks, it's always hot here in good ol' SC.

So, this was the bedroom once it was cleaned out.

This is another view of the bedroom before we made it MilShelb's room.

The room was the same color as the rest of the house before we painted anything. This may look like an ok color, and it is, but when you have lived in rentals for the past 6ish years and stared at oatmeal and white walls you are ready for some color!

We started the process of changing this room by taking out the carpet. This was the second room we took the carpet out of and replaced it with laminate flooring.

Here is a view after the floor was down.

This is another view of the room after the floor was down.

Looks much better!

Then, I got the bright idea to paint this room yellow. I will never paint another room yellow for as long as I live. I mean it. It was a HORRIBLE experience. This room took 4 or 5 (I can't remember now- it may have even been more) coats of paint. It took over 2 gallons to paint this room. The room isn't all that big- it's like 10x12 or something like that. 

I went to Home Depot and picked a paint color. I told the guy which one I wanted. He confirmed the color. Had I paid extra close attention like I should have I would have noticed that he actually wrote the "1 gallon" on the WRONG shade of yellow on the color swatch. UGH! So, I wanted "Yellow Brick Road" and ended up with Pineapple Soda. Now, it's not a bad color- it's MUCH brighter than I had intended, but the big issue with Pineapple Soda is that it is a VERY thin paint color. It has a "t" on the swatch, which to everyone under then sun (except me) means that you need a tinted primer. Now, was that explained to me? No. No, it was not. I bought the Behr paint and primer in one and went on my merry way. The guy asked if I wanted primer and I asked if I needed it and he told me since I got the paint and primer in one I should be fine. 

I was NOT fine.

After I painted 2 coats of paint and it was SUPER SUPER SUPER streaky I called the store. The people in the paint department were NO help. I called my grandmother and told her about the situation. She told me to call the manager. I called back to the store and explained to the manager that I had bought this paint and this was not the first Behr paint I'd bought but it was SUPER runny and normally their paint is VERY thick. She said that it was strange for it to be runny and for me to bring back what I had and they would give me another gallon. That was generous of them, I felt, and I took it back. 

When I got to the store there was someone different working in the paint department and I actually recognized him as someone who actually normally works in the paint department. (Yes, I go there all the time. I know who normally works where.) So, I nicely explained the problem to him and he asked if I'd gotten tinted primer. I said no. He asked why and I explained the whole thing to him. He then explained to me that when you see a "t" on the swatch it means that you need a tinted primer. I told him that he should tell people to educate their customers. LOL! He was really nice about all of it and mixed another gallon of paint. I took it home. 

SAME thing again. UGH! 

I was so frustrated I wanted to scream. I ended up still having to buy another gallon of paint after that one and I HATED the color and the runniness of the paint. So, all in all, lesson learned here is I do NOT have the patience for "tinted primer needed" paint and I will not be using it again.

This is how MilShelb's room turned out after I gave up on painting. It is still not perfect, and I will probably paint it again in a few years because it drives me nuts every day, but they don't seem to mind one bit. LOL!

Kitchen Re-do

Before we even moved in last summer I knew this kitchen color had to GO. I did not care for it one bit. The entire house was that color. So, I wanted to start somewhere and I knew I wanted a green kitchen. 

This is a picture of the kitchen. Again, not a true "before", but you get the picture. This is a view into the dining room from the kitchen.

This is part of the kitchen before we painted. Again, not a true "before".

Another view of the dining room before.

It's painted!

So much better!

I love the green!

This is the dining room after.

Another view of the dining room after (except for the missing curtain panel- silly me bought one that was the wrong size and I had to take it back.)

The art in the dining room. This art has been in my family for a long time. (The birds, not the cups.)

The green in the dining room is a shade or two darker than the kitchen. I would have painted the whole kitchen that color, but I felt like it was too dark with the dark cabinets. The name of the paint in the kitchen is "Herbal Garden" and the one in the dining room is "Thyme Garden." I think they are both Behr colors but I am not sure. It could have been Valspar. I like both paints, but really like that Valspar allows you to bring it back. I didn't know that when I had a paint fiasco in MilShelb's room with Behr paint, but I know it now and plan to stick with Valspar. (I will say that Home Depot allowed me to bring the paint back once and gave me another gallon when that whole mess happened, but it didn't help. Apparently the color I selected (which I didn't really- but that's a story for another day) just stank. Oh well. Live and learn.)

Fixed that Desk Issue

Before we decided how to fix this issue... or even really before we decided this was an "issue" to fix, we had two desks. Two people, two desks. It took up a lot of room, though, and was not well arranged.

This was my husband's desk.

This was my desk.

We had both seen built in desks and loved them. We'd seen various ideas of how to do this and what we wanted it to look like. So, we combined some ideas and this is what we came up with.

We bought peg board to hang things on and be more organized. Neither one of us are what you would call naturally organized people, so we need "tools" to help us stay organized. 

We used 2 plywood boards we had from something we were doing earlier in the house and bought deck railing for the legs. We looked at table legs at Home Depot and Lowes, but they were way more than we wanted to spend since we needed eight. We bolted a piece of 2x6 into the studs in the wall behind the desk to give it extra support and then screwed the top boards into the 2x6. We put the legs in place and screwed those in. Then, we added molding and painted the whole thing white. 

I found white cups at Target to put in the baskets on the peg board to hold pens and pencils. We bought some hooks for peg board to hold scissors and things like that (that's not in the picture).

This is the finished product (minus the tape on the floor, of course). Now we have a lot more room in here and plan to put our sofa in here once we buy a new one for the living room. I am excited about the progress we have made in this office!

Carpet is NASTY

I hate carpet. I know that hate is a strong word and I mean for it to be strong. That is how I feel about carpet. I hate it. It is nasty and you can NEVER keep the stuff clean. The only thing worse than nasty, dirty carpet is nasty, dirty carpet that you moved in to and didn't make nasty or dirty- it came that way. Sick! So, being the MilShelb Mom that I am I knew that the nasty carpet would only become worse because MilShelb are pee pad trained and (for some reason) have not learned to tell the difference between a pee pad and carpet. Gross, I know. So, we have set out to remove all of the carpet from our home. This was the last of it. The office. We saved this room for last because it is a room we can close off and keep them out of unless we are in there, so it wasn't a huge deal and didn't really get that nasty from them. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for whomever lived here before us.

(The closet organization will be another post as it is yet to be photographed- so please excuse the mess.)

This is the office before we took out the carpet.

This is the office after we put down laminate and painted the baseboards. So much better!

This is another view of the office before we took out the carpet (and got rid of that desk. That's another post for another day as well).

This is the office after we put down laminate and painted the baseboards. Whew! What a difference! We've also gotten very good at putting this floor down (this was the third room we did) so it took us next to no time to complete!

Getting Rid of the Brown

As I've said before, when we moved into our home, it was stuck in the 1980s. At first I loved the wood trim and thought it was warm and inviting. Since then, I have changed my mind. My husband and I both feel like it is outdated and dark. In the picture below you can even see how a BRIGHT green kitchen wouldn't even make that wood seem brighter. 

So, I have decided my summer mission (and being a teacher I do have a tiny bit of time in the summer to do this) is to get rid of the brown in our house. I am horrible at remembering to take true "before" pictures, but the one below is as close to "before" as we are going to get. All of the trim in our house is this color. It is a nice shade of brown, but when you have so much of it it can really be overwhelming.

The picture below is the "after". Once I started this I really got excited about how the house will look when it is finished. I think it will be awesome! I cannot wait to be rid of this brown. I think it looks really great!

Laundry and Bathroom Cabinets

I wish I had done posts of our home "mini-makeovers" all along, but I haven't. One day I might go back and do that... probably not. (LOL!) Anyhow, to give you some background knowledge, we bought our home about a year ago and we moved into the "1980s gone wrong". Seriously. It was the 1980s in this house. (And still is, in some parts.) So, we have slowly taken over and made it our own and we are still working to do that. It is a slow and long process, but one that we both truly enjoy. Who knew we were DIYers? Not me. LOL!
All of the cabinets in our house are stained wood. They are nice, solid cabinets. Not the cheap kind. But, they are ugly nonetheless. So, I have made it my mission in life to fix them. I just can't take looking at the ugly things forever.
I have been on summer break for about 2 weeks now and have painted the cabinets in our laundry closet and half bath.

These are the laundry cabinets before I got ahold of them.

These are the laundry cabinets now. (I realize that there is paint on the wall... I missed the tape. Oh well. It's ok, though, because painting the walls in there is on my to do list. This to do list just keeps growing!)

These are the half bath cabinets before. Now, obviously, I forgot to take the before until "during", but this is what I've got. haha!

These are the cabinets "during". I say that because I am not finished with them yet. I painted the cabinets black and white on purpose. Our half bath is our "Gamecock" bathroom. It has different Gamecock decorations and these cabinets will soon reflect that. As soon as I find (or make- YIKES) a stencil of the Gamecock, I will stencil a garnet Gamecock on the cabinets in the part that is currently painted black. I think it should look pretty awesome. I am really excited!

Happy Father's Day, Michael!

I want to wish a very Happy Father's Day to my Dad, Michael. 

Last year on Father's Day I explained the relationship I have with Michael. 

This year, I want to take a moment to thank him for everything he does for me.

Thank you for walking me down the aisle. I know it was nearly three years ago, but thank you. 

I am so glad you were the one to walk with me.

Thank you for being the goofy man that you are. You have taught me how to not get so stuck on the serious things and to truly enjoy life.

Thank you for being a Dad to me. I know it hasn't always been easy, but you did a great job, if I do say so myself (and I do).

Thank you for loving my Mom and making her happy. It means the world to me to see her truly happy. 

Thank you.

Of course, I could not leave out the picture of "Troll Daddy". LOL!!

Happy Father's Day, Michael!

Love, Maggie

Happy Father's Day, Gpa! 

Love, 

The MilShelb

(PS- Wanna play ball with me, the Mil Girl?!)

(PS- Wanna lay around in the sun with me, the Shelby?)