My Parent's Reno

My Parents have lived in their home for about 15 years.  In the Spring they decided to put the house up for sale and move a bit further South, so their garden growing season would be longer. 

They love to grow vegetables.  Their long-time friends already lived there and so the decicion was made. 

The house, however was not as ready as my Parents...

It needed alot of work.  Mostly cosmetic, but non-the-less.

You've already seen the staircase, here are some pictures of the Master Bedroom "After"

We didn't even paint... the idea came from that fun bed cover.  Don't you just love it?   I know, I know everything is dusty blue and white nowadays, but I wanted to have some fun in the Master Bedroom.  So we re-arranged the furniture, and I went through what seamed like thousands of bed sheets in their linen closet...

Finally I found those hot pink and orange sheets and pillow cases.

Those worked perfectly with the new bed cover, that we both loved so much. 

My Mom made the curtains from a fabric I bought years ago for $2.00/m.  The white lace curtains were there to start with. 

We didn't have anything nice to hang on the walls, but I had 4 IKEA frames... I needed something nice to place in those frames...

I bought Watercolor paper at Walmart and searched flower paintings and pictures on line.
Than I printed those on the Watercolor paper, cut to size and fitted them into the frames.

Those were placed above the bedside tables on both sides of the bed.

and two more...

What do you think?

This will also works with your own pictures... In fact, I love to take photos of my favorite garden flowers... than I print my own pics on the watercolor paper... Instant ART!

Master Bedroom Blues

Of course I didn't do my before shots... before we started painting... I can tell you that we had light yellow walls and that I couldn't wait to paint the bedroom the softies blue...

I finally got the nerve to ask my Hubby to paint.  We went to Home Depot and chose a soft blue. 
Behr Celtic Gray 490E-3 and mixed a 5 gallon bucket of it.  We got it home and Hubby started to paint around the door frames.  I started to get a bit worried. 

This beautiful paint color should look like this: (source)

But on our walls, in our light the color looked very bright and somehow it had a very aggressive feel.

So off I went to a craft store, to get some pure black pigment to tone the brightness down. 

After several tries, full craft bottle of black paint and a gallon of white latex, we finally managed to get the perfect blue for our bedroom.

Here it is: 

We are supper happy with this choice, just wait till I show you what it looks like with our furniture.  

Staining the deck

Our beautiful deck has been used often for Family gatherings, and Mid-Summer

Night Suppers followed by bonfires in the back yard.  We are planning one in July... can't wait. 

The deck however... well it could use some sprucing up... it's only two years old... but it could use some sprucing up!

We used the water based finish, applied with a foam applicator. 

Here is the AFTER:

We plan to apply the second coat as soon as the weather permits.  It`s been very cold and damp lately.