Monthly Archives: January 2012

Jan 24 2012
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Spray Paint is my BFF

It took me 31 years, but I’m finally starting to understand why graffiti artists love using spray paint as their art instrument of choice. Not only is it ridiculously cheap for what it is, but you can get the most instant results and the best coverage imaginable. I think I’m having a minor love affair with spray paint, and I’m not afraid to admit it.

I think the “at” symbol was the first place we began our spray paint addiction with.

Then we moved on to bigger and greener pastures. Well, not green so much as the same glossy white we used on the “at”.

Those white nightstands? Yeah, they used to be scratched-up, red-toned wood. In white, they just look so crisp n’ clean! I decided, though, that my love of spray paint had to move beyond the white! Timm and I stocked up on spray paint ready to paint anything that would sit still for us.

The other weekend, I picked up some old, scratched candlesticks at Goodwill for a measly $2 each.

I knew that I loved the shape (and y’all know I loved the price), but I had other visions for them. But oh no, I wasn’t ready to bring out my old friend, Mr. Spray Paint yet. I thought I was smarter than that, Oh ho ho! I darted over to Lowes and grabbed a $3 sample paint pot in Polly Green.

I loaded myself up with an arsenal of little brushes, sponges – the works – and I started going to town, only to find…

Yeah, to be blunt, it looked like CRAP. Streaky, uneven, etc. I just didn’t like it. So, I took a deep breath and decided to talk to my friend, Mr. Spray Paint.


Doesn’t that color just make you want to do a little happy dance??

Three very thin, very even coats later, and Mr. Spray Paint made me fall madly, blissfully in love with some inanimate objects.

They look amazing on our dining room table right now. It has definitely settled my fear a bit in dabbling into the foray of spray paint. Now I’m just worried I’m going to spray paint EVERYTHING. Muah-ha-ha!

Do you have any home objects you’ve transformed with a little bit of paint? What’s your method of choice? Am I the only one who calls things “Mr.” and “Mrs.” (as in Mr. Spray Paint)?

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Jan 23 2012
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Man Cave. Mantuary. Man Space.

Whatever you want to call it, the design theme for our “office” has become anything but boring. The reason I had free reign in designing our guest room was because Timm had free reign of the office. Yes, the room has two small desks. Yes, our computers are kept in the room. Yes, there are some books in there. Otherwise, nothing about this room says “office” so much as it screams “Man Cave”.

Note: Timm pointed out that Wikipedia gave some other names to a Man Cave, so “Mantuary” is my personal fave and what I’ll be going with from here on out.

As soon as people see our house for the first time, the Mantuary is what they notice, comment on, and usually like the best – and it’s ALL Timm’s baby.

Completely badass, right? Plus, between the paint color, the furnishings, the accessories, and even the carpet, it’s easily the most put-together room in the house. The paint color (Tempered Steel from Pittsburgh Paints) is completely perfect, AND we got it on a crazy discount from some friends. BONUS.

The music wall is probably the thing you notice first. The line of 5 guitars (with a bass guitar on the floor) makes for SUCH a cool focus piece. Plus, not only does he actually play all of these (and play them well), but see that guitar in the middle of the wall? Looks sort of like a coffin? Yeah, HE MADE THAT FROM SCRATCH.

It’s pretty much the coolest guitar ever made, and the body is made from a cigar box.

On the shelf below the guitars, you’ll find a jar full of babydoll heads (inspired by the opening credits of American Horror Story), a rusty, book-style box, and this SUPER old radio that we found antiquing. Sure, the front is fine and all, but it’s the back of the radio that looks amazing.

The shelf holds books, for sure, but it also holds a bunch of spooky lil relics that go with the room perfectly. That vintage typewriter was a $20 find from a local antique store. It’s actually in working-order – just needs a bit of tweaking.

On the filing cabinet, we have a torso sculpture (snagged at Homegoods for $15!), and Matt Damon. Yes. The two-headed baby’s name is Matt Damon. (Matt is on the left.)

And finally, we have “that piece”. I remember watching bad 80s sitcoms as a kid and there was always “that piece” of furniture that the father of the family loved, and the mom hated. Usually, it was some sort of beat-to-hell leather recliner. In our house, it’s the Red Velvet Monstrosity (or RVM).

Timm showed me the RVM on Craigslist one day and said he LOVED it – wanted to know what I thought. I hated it. Seriously. Velvet is one of those materials that gives my skin the creepy-crawlies, and plus, it’s just.not.my.thing.

…two days later, I found it in the house anyway. Sheesh.

I’ll admit it – it looks like it “goes” in the new office…but I’m still not a fan. What do you guys think? Do you have any furniture/art pieces you just can’t see eye-to-eye with your housemate(s) on? Do you have a Beyonce chicken of your very own?

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Jan 17 2012
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Be…our…guest, be our guest!

I like the idea of posting about rooms that aren’t quite finished yet. It’ll give us something to look back on and say, “Remember when we did that? Holy schnikies, it looks so much better now.” And yes – I do say “schnikies”. But I digress.

When we moved into the house, we went on a freaking painting bonanza. It was something akin to this.


(source: Hyperbole and a Half)

We tackled (with some help): Kitchen, Living Room, Dining Room, Sitting Area, Bedroom, Spooky’s room (most of it), Half-Bathroom/WC/Loo, and Office within 60 days.
Note: I’m not sure why each of those rooms required their own capitalization, but so it goes. You’ll live.

The one room that sat COMPLETELY unfinished was the guest bedroom. I just didn’t know what to do with it! Timm had free-reign of the office (a room which I’ll focus on this week), so I was given complete, masterful control of the guest room. That would have been awesome if I had any idea of any cohesive theme for it. Boo and hiss.

Until…

My grandma’s painting gave me an idea for the color scheme I wanted to go for – a light, almost robin’s egg blue. I grabbed some swatches and placed them in three different walls in the room to see how each color caught light differently.

After staring at them intently in bright morning light, evening sunset, cloudy light, and Light-From-A-Lightbulb light, I fell in love with Valspar’s Sea Kiss.

Finally…it was on. It was on like Donkey Kong.


Paint, I’m about to make you my bitch.

After a few hours of painting, I had Timm help me finish the second coat while I did some dramatic attempts at Cutting In.

The end result in the sunshine (with freshly painted trim and baseboards) makes me all giddy in my guttiworks.

Of course, as soon as we were finished painting, Timm stepped back and mused, “Huh. It looks like we were painting for a nursery.” Well crap. Being that we’re not in the market to have kids at the moment, we don’t want people getting any crazy ideas. haha Finally, we could move furniture back in! For now, the bed is a temporary (but COMPLETELY generous) hand-me-down. I’d love to have a futon in there someday.

The boring side. The closet takes up a whole wall, so that will pretty much stay as-is. The side table is one that I made from an A-frame and a cabinet door-front that I snagged for $8 total from IKEA’s As-Is section. We have the violin we found in our crawl space laying on the table for now. I figured it was best to keep it close to where we found it in case the ghosts want it back. I’m kidding. …or am I?


View from the door. Aren’t our windows the best?! I think the fun curtains we snagged for $15 from IKEA really go well with the room.


Burdie.


This is my Makeup Command Center™, as it was dubbed by Timm long ago. I have a wee bit of a makeup addiction and it’s pretty much my happy place. Those white drawers on the right? Yeah, they’re ALL filled with makeup. DON’T JUDGE ME.


The only real “decoration” in the room right now is here. We have a shelf with my Ghoulia Yelps Monster High doll, and my two A-MAZING Paint by Number paintings (that I completed) that were a Xmas gift from my Sister-in-Law. Then we have some IKEA spice racks that I use to hold my nail polish collection.


These guys were also a Xmas Sister-in-Law gift that I can’t WAIT to hang – lightboxes with old-time movie monsters. Happy Linda.


In the corner, we have a suitcase with goodies meant for guests to use when they stay over. There are some essentials, like a toothbrush, shampoo, etc., and of course, a teddy bear. (Hey man, anyone who says a teddy bear isn’t essential in life is nutso.)

And of course, on the wall opposite of the bed…

There’s still SO much to do in this room – I’d love to have a futon, a carpet of sorts, more art on the walls, etc. We’ll get there. For now, I’m pretty confident that we have a comfy lil room going for our guests. If you’re ever staying over and that violin starts playing in the middle of the night though, I give you full permission to run out screaming.

I know I would.

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Jan 16 2012
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Naked ladies! ALL NUDE!

*ahem* Now that I have your attention with that post, I really do want to talk about a nude woman. Seriously. Stay tuned.

When my grandma passed away a few years back, I immediately knew what I wanted to remember her by. She always had a picture hanging in her bedroom from when I was a little girl. I remember thinking it was horribly scandalous and risque…but I couldn’t keep my eyes off of it and how beautiful it was.

My grandfather used to joke and tell people that the painting was of my grandmother. (It wasn’t, but my grandma was so beautiful that I’m sure it was a believable lie.) The picture hung in our apartment, and then was (oh-so-carefully) moved to the new house, where it was decided that it would hang in our guest room.

The light-woodgrain frame never really “went” with our decor, but I was so scared at the idea of changing it that I never attempted it. I was paranoid that I would somehow ruin it and upset my grandma. Silly? Probably, but that’s the way my mind works. Also, the framing/matting job was done professionally, and was of such good quality that I didn’t want to muck it up. It also isn’t in my budget to have it reframed right now.

This weekend, I got up the guts to paint the frame. Every single step of this process had beads of sweat dripping down my forehead, but somehow (deep breath)…I survived. I started by laying the picture on a dropcloth and cleaning it REALLY well. Years of dirt poured off the poor thing!

I trusted my beloved 1.5″ Frog Tape to carefully seal the edges of the frame from the glass covering the picture. I made sure that the edges of the tape wouldn’t allow for ANY bleeding by running the side of a credit card down the tape to ensure no bubbling/lifting.

I was nearly panicking as I was carefully painting the frame with Valspar Ultra Premium Gallon Interior Latex Semi-Gloss Ultra White, first with a mini roller, and then with a finer brush. I did four very, very, very thin coats of paint to ensure there would be full-coverage with no drip or brush marks.

After letting it dry for a full day, I stepped back and surveyed the results.

I. Love. It. I think my grandma would love it, too. It makes the picture pop, and it looks SO GOOD against our freshly painted guest room walls. (Stay tuned for a post this week about the guest room!)

Now we have a pair of fully-glorious boobs on our wall…and I couldn’t be happier.

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Jan 04 2012
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New Year – New Promises

First things first…HAPPY NEW YEAR!

A few years ago, way back in 2010, Riki Rachtman posted online that he was creating himself a list of 30 things he wanted to accomplish that year. These had to be specific items that you could cross off of a list, rather than general goals. For example, instead of saying “Lose Weight”, it would be “Exercise 10 times in the month of January”. I took the initiative and made my own list.

I was able to cross most of the items off of my list (“Visit a State I’ve Never Been to Before” – Washington), and some items remained untouched. No matter what, though, that list motivated me. It kept me going. It made me want to check every item off of that list. What can I say – lists motivate me. It’s a quirk of mine that my husband loves to tease me for.

I decided that I wanted to make another list for 2012. Some of the old items have popped back on the list, but being that we’re in a house now, many of the items revolve around house projects I want to complete. That’s why I figured that this list wouldn’t be completely inappropriate on this blog.

Without further adieu…


1. Learn to do a cartwheel.
2. Take at least one Level Three pole class at Xpose Fitness.
3. Ride on the back of a motorcycle.
4. Have a huge yard sale.
5. Plan a summer Deck Party.
6. Raise at least $500 for the Yellow Ribbon Fund (alone or with others).
7. Purchase/pose for a photoshoot.
8. Take down the faux-tile wall in the upstairs bathroom. (It’s plastic. A sheet of tiled plastic. Tiled floral plastic. Tiled beige, floral plastic.)
9. Unpack all boxes in the basement. (Truth be told, there might only be 6-8 boxes that need to be unpacked, but it must be done.)
10. Make a more organized bedroom closet.
11. Repaint “bald” spots in master bedroom. (I may or may not have rushed through getting two coats on the walls, only to see a million bald spots.)
12. Get my lil tattoo. (I have a little tattoo I’ve been pondering for a long time now. Key word here: LITTLE.)
13. Wear red lipstick at least 3 times in January.
14. Ride on The Swings at an amusement park.
15. Have my toes buried in the sand at some beach.
16. Make at least one gift for someone by hand.
17. Buy at least 10 Xmas presents on Etsy.
18. Finish painting Spooky’s room. (Yes, my cat kind of has her own room. I’ll talk about that in-depth sometime soon.)
19. Do at least one thing that scares the shit out of me.
20. Travel to at least two states that I’ve never been to before.
21. Attend at least 10 live shows (music, theater, etc.).
22. Attend at least one drag show.
23. Give away at least one thing for free on Craigslist/FreeCycle.
24. Sell at least 10 things online (Ebay, Craigslist, LJ, etc.).
25. Choose a paint color for the guest room – PAINT IT.
26. Take one photo for every day this year and post to ShutterCal.com.
27. Post at least 8 blog posts in January. (I suppose I can take that down to 7 posts once I post this one.)
28. Take at least one solo trip to NJ to spend time with mom & friends.
29. Dance with friends at least once – whether at a club or someone’s house.
30. Do at least one thing that you would consider “life-changing”.

So there you have it. I’m putting this out there to “The Internets” in hopes that it’ll motivate me even more. Do you guys have any New Year’s Resolutions? What projects would you like to complete in your living space this year?

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