Hiding things in the walls, part 2

I love hiding things in our house for future residents to find. We don't plan on moving anytime soon, but it's fun to think about someone finding things I've stashed in our walls.

This time, I printed up before and after photos of our recent kitchen renovation and slipped the page between the wall and the counter top. No one's finding this one until they rip out the cabinets!

See more things I've hidden >>

Office paint sneak peek

The painting in the office is coming along, but it's not quite finished. Most likely delayed by all of the junk shuffling we've had to do in lieu of emptying the room completely (no space to do that). I also made a promise to myself that I wouldn't put anything back into the room that doesn't belong in there, so that's slowing me down too. The purging continues!

I still have one wall to do (out of frame), but the new color has really freshened up the space already. Hopefully, I can get it finished up and put back into some functional state this weekend.

Next up: Mini office makeover

This is our basement office. It's the only finished space in our basement, and you have to walk through unfinished space to get here, but Dan and I both use it pretty regularly. (Dan, for MBA schoolwork and guesting on podcasts. Me, for sewing and storing random project supplies.) It's basically the same as the last time I showed it to you, but messier. Now I want to make a few changes.

It needs a purge, a good scrub, some organizational systems put in place, a new desk chair and oh, a new paint job. I've never liked this weird shade of beige that was here when we moved in, but it wasn't offensive enough to top the priority list. Its day has finally come, though. The walls are an odd, drab tone that I swear was matched exactly to one of those standard beige outlet cover plates. See what I mean?

I want something lighter, fresher and with a bit more energy. So dipping back into my paint stash, I'm going to go with the same barely aqua I used in Elise's closets. There's plenty of paint left and shades of blue are supposed to be conducive to creativity. So it's a win-win.

The ceiling also needs to be done. It has a bunch of random smears and scratches. I usually detest painting ceilings, but this one is only 6'9". Meaning, I can touch it while standing on the floor. That's short! I'm thinking that might be easier to deal with. I'm going to try and find some paint I have on hand already that will work for that too. Gotta use up that stash!

I'm gearing up to start painting this week when I get some free time. Dan spent hours on Sunday moving things off of two of the walls. This small room is pretty packed with stuff, and there's really no space to move it all out completely, so we're going to have to tackle it piece by piece as we can shuffle things around.

See the last office makeover >>

See details about the office artwork >>

Stairway update: Camouflaged plumbing access panel

Over the weekend, I finished up the plumbing access panel at the bottom of our stairway. It's the design dilemma that's been driving me crazy, the one thing holding up the completion of this project.

My initial thought was to embrace it. Showcase it. Make it look like a feature instead of an oddity. But that didn't really work.

Instead, I took the advice of reader and blogger Michele. She suggested just making it go away, and after that first failure, I totally agreed.

So I made it disappear! Hiding it in plain sight with the same striped paint treatment I did on the walls.

Of course, it's not completely invisible; you can still see the dimension of the trim. But it blends in so well, it doesn't trip up the eye anymore.

I'm calling it a success. And now I'm able to move on and put the finishing touches in the rest of the space. Another update to come posthaste!

See all the stairway related posts >>

p.s. Do you instagram? Follow me @lansdownelife and I'll follow you back!

Stairway progress: Painted wall stripes

Are you ready for some stripey goodness? My stairway just got a whole lot more fun!

I envisioned bold, contrasting stripe, but instead of a pure black, I used the same dark gray-brown that I used on an accent wall in our bedroom (Olympic's Oswego Tea). (Which also means I didn't buy any extra paint for this project!)

There are probably a million tutorials on how to paint stripes out there, none of which I directly followed. Here's what I did.

After painting my main wall color, I drew pencil lines on the wall using a laser level (plus a regular level, a yardstick and smaller rulers) and then applied my tape to the pencil lines. Honestly, if I had a three or four foot level, I would have just used that instead of the laser level. Measuring and taping took a few hours, but it was the most tedious part of the process.

Before painting the stripes, I pressed down the edges of the tape with a plastic ruler to make sure they were completely adhered. I also put a little dab of tape in each of the white lines that weren't going to be painted. This might seem unnecessary, but believe me, when you are staring at tape lines six inches in front of your face, you need something to help you from going cross-eyed.

I painted the edges of the tape very lightly, almost dry-brushed them, with the base color. This is to prevent the second color from bleeding under the tape and creating jaggy lines. You can see in the photo above, I only painted the edges that face inward toward where my brown stripe would be painted.

I used a small foam roller to fill in the stripes. Again, I went really light on the paint. No thick globs or heavy coats. The stripes on the left are after one coat and the stripes on the right are after two coats.

After the first coat was dry, I painted the second coat, then ripped the tape off immediately before moving onto the next stripe. That is, I didn't let the second coat of paint dry on the tape. The lines came out crisp and clean. I never dreamed they would turn out so perfect. No jagged edges!

I did do a bit of touching up once the second coat of paint had dried. There were a few spots where the paint was thin, but I carefully fixed those areas without applying any more tape.

I LOVE the way they turned out. I don't always feel this strongly about the things I make/do, but in this case, I really do love them.

I asked Elise, "do you like my stripes?" And now every time she sees them, she asks me, "do you like my stripes?"

Next up for a paint job are the stairs themselves. This project is sucking all the free time out of me, so I probably won't have any more posts this week. Stay tuned! I (for one) can't wait to see how this thing turns out!

See all the stairway updates >>

Mixing latex paint leftovers + "oops" paint

Yesterday, I talked a little bit about liquidating my paint stash. (Lots of paint, need to use it up before it gets gross.) So when it came time to paint the stairwell, I knew I just had to make it work without buying more paint. And I'm proud to report the white paint I used in the stairwell was all stash, baby.

But there was one catch; I didn't have enough of any one shade of white to do the entire area. I had 3/5 gallon of off-the-shelf white, about half a quart of some exterior white, a small remnant of the white used upstairs on the trim and a full quart of a near-white "oops" paint I picked up on clearance for $2.50. All semi-gloss.

You can see where I'm going with this. I just dumped everything into the gallon can, stirred and stirred some more. And voila! A full gallon of paint! Don't be afraid to mix it up! It's paint. It's not going to explode or anything.

I understand if you wouldn't want to try this for one of the main rooms in your house; I probably wouldn't do that either. But think less traveled areas: basements, closets, laundry rooms, etc. Places where cheap trumps finding the perfect shade.

Pay attenion to sheen if that matters to you. And it should go without saying that you should not mix latex and oil paint together. That would result in quite a mucky mess. Big no no.

Thinning the hoard: Let's paint some closets!

I recently read somewhere (not sure where) that latex paint only lasts about three years in the can. I don't believe this 100%, as I've used paint older than that without any issues. But it did remind me that paint isn't going to stay fresh forever, and maybe I shouldn't be hoarding quite so much of it. So I decided to make an effort to start to liquidate (no pun intended) my hefty paint stash.

It's kind of backwards having the paint, then looking for a place to use it, but let's just go with it.

This was a brand new, never opened gallon of paint that I originally bought for the bathroom when we moved into this house four years ago. But I changed my mind about the color. The bathroom didn't get painted. And then we later renovated the entire bathroom anyway.

It looks white here, but it's actually a very faint aquamarine (Olympic's Free Spirit).

First up in my "use up the paint" assignment: Elise's bedroom closets. I never got around to painting them after we moved in, and they were looking dingy and worn.

The paint was chipping, there were cracks that need fixing and the baseboards were seriously banged up.

I promised Elise she could help paint, and then spent the next two hours clearing out the closet and prepping the walls (caulking gaps and cracks and cleaning up). Some kind of promise that was. I'm teaching patience, right?

I primed unassisted, and the next day, we painted. As you can see, she takes her painting very seriously. She stayed interested longer than I anticipated -- upwards of 15 minutes!

A few coats later (by me)...

The color change is subtle, but it's clean clean clean now.

My new choice for trim paint around here is this latex enamel. I've kind of fallen in love with this stuff. It dries so smooth and glassy! Looks like oil paint. I don't think it's labeled as low VOC, but the white has no smell to speak of.

Nearly all of the trim throughout our house was painted when we moved in, but for whatever reason, many of the door frames themselves weren't. The trim around the doors facing into the room was painted, but the jambs were not. (Door jambs are those parts of the door frame that face inward toward the door where the hinges are attached.)

It looks crazy. I've challenged myself to slowly fix them one by one. Two down... a lot more to go.

I left the shelves unpainted because they were in decent condition. I don't have plans to paint the doors anytime soon, so at least they have each other to talk to.

For completeness sake, I also painted this closet's twin on the other side of the room. Done and done!

Now to get with the rest of the painting!

Stairway update: Painting the walls

I am inching my way closer to completion with my stairway project. We have painted walls, people! White walls can be exciting (when they are replacing dinginess). More than anything, the stairwell feels clean. And that's a sentence I could never write before now.

I painted the walls white to bring more light into this dim space. And since I myself have a hard time not touching the walls while going up and down the steps, I assumed everyone else in the house would also be touching them. A durable semi-gloss was definitely in order.

A reminder, here's what it looked like before we started this whole tear-down-the-wallpaper-and-why-not-the-walls-too process.

I'm just going to glaze over the part where I meticulously patched the plaster. I didn't think you all could stand another post about ugly plaster walls. I spent way too much time trying to smooth out all the imperfections.

Safe to say that the reason these walls were probably wallpapered in the first place was because of all the cracks and unsightly bulges. I did the best I could, but some areas were just too far gone to make them completely square and level. This is an 82-year-old house, remember? And with that brings walls with bumps and lumps and a subtle wave. Just part of the charm, right? Right.

Bumps or no bumps, I am thrilled about how bright the space is becoming. I still have a lot of work ahead of me, but it's mostly fun stuff. (That is, more painting.)

See all the stairway updates >>

Stairway update: Design plan

We've been working hard on the stairway walls to bring them back to a paintable state, but it's a slow process. I've been scrubbing off wallpaper paste, patching the plaster and sanding like crazy. My dad has been taping and mudding drywall. But we're not quite done yet.

Instead of showing you more dull photos of unfinished walls, I thought I'd let you in on my design plan for the space.

First, a few parameters:

• I want the walls to be light. This area gets next to no natural light. Dark in the daytime!

• Looking at the stairwell from upstairs, it is obvious to me that the upper walls should be white. I want it to feel like an extension of the room, instead of treating it like some weird, detached "other" space. (Excuse me for using an old photo of the playroom. It is not nearly this tidy at the current moment, with loads of tools and toys all over the place.)

• The space below is pretty well isolated from the rest of the house. You don't see it from upstairs (unless you are at the top of the stairs). And you don't see it from the main living space downstairs. You get a tiny peek through a door frame from Elise's room, but that's it.


• It is small and a transitional space (that is, you pass through it instead of spending time in it).

Those two things mean it's time to go bold with color and pattern. I want something clean, vibrant, youthful, fun, modern, but sort of classic at the same time. And all of that adds up to.... stripes!

I thought about doing an all-over stencil, or some hand-painted pattern, but in the end I just keep coming back to stripes.

Now, I admit this crude Photoshop mock-up looks a bit intense. In reality, I'm pretty confident it will not be quite so bright and in your face.

I painted a sample board of the stripes, mainly just to decide on a width, but I really think they are going to work in this small area. (And yeah, that photo was taken before I washed the walls.)

As for the stairs themselves, I'm going for a mid-tone green. Not too dark that it sucks all the light out of the space and not light enough to see scuffs or dirt.

I brought home a bunch of green paint chips. They are all really different. And of course, the all look way different in the dark stairwell.I'm going to wait until we install the new lights before I choose the right shade. I'm also thinking of trimming out the "runner" with some stripes in coordinating tones.

So that's the plan! What do you think?

See all the stairway updates >>

Hiding things in the walls

I'm kind of enamored with hiding things in our house for future homeowners to find. Maybe it's because I would love to find things someone else hid long ago.

With the upper stairway walls open, I took the opportunity to stash another piece (the first being under our front porch steps). I printed a recent photo of our house on cardstock, then slipped it behind a piece of drywall before the piece beside it went up.

Who knows if anyone will ever find it (or if I will be the one to find it), but it's fun to think about either way!

Stairway update: Drywall and ugly plaster

The stairway project has been a bit slow going, but we are making progress! Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of pretty things to show you yet. We are almost back to square one with the upper walls. The drywall is up, but still needs to be taped and mudded.

And on the lower portion, I started scrubbing the walls, cleaning off all of the leftover wallpaper paste. It's a tedious job, but I've been surprised at how clean the walls are after using only diluted vinegar.

Check it out... I went from these cruddy, sticky walls post-wallpaper removal...

...to this! Oh vinegar, is there anything you can't do?

But really, this step isn't just about making the walls look better. The walls need to be clean and smooth-ish or the primer and paint won't stick.

But in cleaning the walls, I've discovered there are a few plaster repair patches that are pretty uneven and ugly. Upon closer inspection, it seems like someone laid plaster on top of bits of wallpaper they didn't care to remove. I'm talking about remnants of old wallpaper underneath the layer that I removed.

I'm going to try and scrape them off and see what's under there. If I have to repair the plaster, I think I can make it look better than what's there now. I'll have the patching plaster out anyway because there are multiple other damaged spots that need attention.

So that's that the boring, cruddy update. The good news is I finally seem to be getting my design plan for the space together. I was drawing a complete blank for a while, but now the color palette is starting to come together in my head. More on that soon!

See all the stairway updates >>