Tag Archives: home improvement

when life hands you a wood slat wall {paint stripping tips included}

  By Karah | May 21, 2013 - 7:08 am | , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2 Comments

Strip it. Then whitewash it. Then strip it again. Ok, maybe that strategy isn’t the best approach.  ;) You’ve all seen the whole mood board concept, right?!?!  Where people put pretty images all in one spot and use it as inspiration to design and decorate a room.  And then the room ends up looking eerily similar to the original mood board. I honestly have no idea how people do it. I think I have more “mood moments”.  And they can be fleeting.  :) To take you back to when we moved into this house in the beginning of April and there was paneling Ev. Ry. Where. We got busy tearing down all of the paneling only to find drywall (painted pink in spots!) so we took a leap of faith and started tearing down the drywall, knowing there was a chance we would need to just re-install new drywall.  I definitely prayed to the DIY Gods about our work not being a waste of time and money and energy and potentially my sanity. But it was the best decision ever!  Like ever ever, even. We uncovered beautiful wood slat wall after wood slat wall.  And their paint colors even made me a little giddy. I can’t even tell you how many different design places my mind has wandered with these planked walls. How fun would it be to salvage the original colors? But how cool would it be to strip a couple to expose the beautiful wood? What about a dark stain for contrast against light painted walls? Or what about a whitewash for a more nautical/beachy look? And when my mind is shifting through these ideas faster than Kim K is getting press over another questionable pregnancy outfit … I’m just sitting in the middle of the madness. Do you do … continue reading →

how to pick paint colors

  By Karah | May 14, 2013 - 7:08 am | , ,
17 Comments

So, which end of the paint color picking spectrum are you closer to? The ‘any ol’ color will do’ or ‘I can’t paint anything until I find just the right shade of perfect’ end? I would have said I was closer to the end where as long as I liked the color I was fine with it … until this house.  I’ve never really been stuck with analysis paralysis when it comes to paint, but I have two strategies that have worked basically fool-proof for me over the years.

how to install board and batten {and what’s next for the living room}

  By Karah | May 10, 2013 - 7:08 am | , , , ,
20 Comments

OK, where did we leave off?  Oh right, we have a high board and batten wall!!! Have I mentioned we love it?!?  Yes, it is the only finished wall in this place, but we are still in love. To get all of the background on this wall and how we learned that part of it used to be a hallway and how this board and batten (some call it wainscoting) is the perfect solution to cover up all her imperfection go here. This is going to be a full rundown of how you, too, can design and create your own accent wall that can serve the purpose to cover up an unsightly wall.

diy lesson learned the hard way {primer before painting}

  By Karah | May 7, 2013 - 7:08 am | , ,
23 Comments

Because I begged and pleaded and told them about my secret crush on them, Kilz is my primer sponsor for our Key West conch home remodel.  I love them to pieces and am excited to share with you why.  I will never write a word about their products I don’t believe 100%.  You can find my full disclosure here. Confession time. I’ll go first. We bought our first house in 2001.  A cute, cute little brick ranch in Indianapolis, Indiana. That had been owned and lived in for over forty years by the same old couple … who were smokers. The house was literally stained with smoke.  There were squares on the wall where pictures had hung and the ceilings were more of an ashy grey than the white they had started out. It sounds so prehistoric now, but we hadn’t jumped on the digital camera bandwagon yet so we don’t have any digital photo evidence and I can’t even find our old photo albums to try to scan some pics for you.  (I can’t imagine why.)  But here’s the outside, hiding all of that smoke stain and stank inside. Cute, right?!?! Well, what is not cute is my personality after painting the same ceiling 5 times. Yep.  It was our first house, and we were young and ambitious and bought a little bit of a fixer upper, in the form of all-smoke-stained-surfaces-needed-help.

how to paint over cracked paint {spackle the crackle}

  By Karah | May 3, 2013 - 7:08 am | ,
22 Comments

Have you ever been known to do something?  Something that seemed weird to others?  Or may not even really seem like a good idea to some?  Something that you yourself even question at times? No, I’m not talking about frequenting strip clubs.  Get your mind out of the gutter. I’m talking about spackling over cracked paint.  I will admit that this is a technique I’ve used since we bought our first house and has always seemed just a bit … I don’t know … like more of a shortcut than a real solution.  Even though it always works. Don’t feel like stripping that cracked paint?  Just spackle it. Don’t feel like working out to get rid of that extra inch around the waist line?  Just put a sweater on. Those two solutions seem like a similar approach.  You know?!?! So when I recently went into our local home improvement store to inquire about the best way to paint over cracked paint (not chipping or peeling) on our newly uncovered Dade County Pine ceilings I was flabbergasted to hear the suggestion. Just spackle the crackle.

how to remove a drop ceiling {drop it like it’s hot}

  By Karah | April 30, 2013 - 7:08 am | , , ,
12 Comments

We’ve definitely transitioned from a few small pieces of molding on the floor to a full-scale demolition in our lining room (you know that room, the living / dining room combo room).  Here’s the full house tour video {before} for a glimpse into where we started. It was so fun to hear from those of you who watched the video … we’re excited to see the transformation, too!! Knock on wood … because there is an abundance of it around here … but we’re pretty happy that we haven’t had to take any walls all the way down to the studs … yet.  We’ve uncovered Dade County Pine on every surface (walls and ceilings) so far. Luckily we love the wood slat look.  :) Now, we aren’t necessarily the ‘define a plan’ and ‘follow the plan in order’ kind of DIYers. Especially when it comes to these older homes.  We’ve learned to never get our heart set on one idea, because you just never know what you’re going to find when you start uncovering the changes the previous owners have made over the years. Hello old front doorway hidden under paneling. So when we first brainstormed ideas for this combo room transition I was in love with the idea of vaulted ceilings.  We have high ceilings in most of the house, but this weird shorter ceiling in the very front, where you enter. This front 5 feet of house was the original porch.  And we love the added square footage the previous owners created by enclosing that porch and then adding a new porch to the front of that.  But we don’t like this weird ceiling line it created. And that it is so short right when you walk in we think it makes the whole room feel smaller, even though the … continue reading →

dumba$$ disclaimer {some common sense required}

  By Karah | April 22, 2013 - 7:08 am | ,
12 Comments

Hey y’all!!  Happy Monday to you!! I hope you had a great weekend.  We were finally able to dive head first into living room demolition around here, and man did it feel good. Well, not the stepping on staples after taking down the drop ceiling because I was walking around with bare feet, or getting debris in my eyes as I was trying to tear down drywall because I wasn’t wearing safety glasses. Those things really didn’t feel good. And as I was taking a few ‘action shots’ of some of the steps of our demo … a thought occurred to me.