All Because of a Candy Striped Shower Curtain

Sometimes you get lucky and stumble across a cinch piece. That perfect bit of art, fabric, or furniture that can tie a whole room together. With that single discovery, everything else just clicks into place. It's wonderful!

Sometimes you get really, really lucky and you stumble across a cinch piece that is 100% FREE! Woot!

A couple of months ago, my sister switched apartments. In the process, she went through all of her belongings and gave away a bunch of stuff.  I gleefully took some of her clothes and linens. I'm a serious sucker for free stuff. It's a problem.

So there I was, standing in the kitchen, staring down at my new pile of linens, and contemplating their potential uses... when the light bulb went on.

"OH MY GOODNESS!!!!! THAT STRIPED FABRIC WOULD MAKE PERFECT KITCHEN CURTAINS!!!!"

Everything snowballed from that point on.

If you give Caroline fabric for curtains, she'll want a new wall color to go with them. If you let Caroline pick out a new wall color, she'll want to switch out all of the art work. If you let Caroline switch out all of the artwork, then she'll want to turn her door into a chalkboard. If you let Caroline create a chalkboard list making location, she'll want to completely rearrange all of the furniture in her house. Et cetera.

See. Snowball effect.

Personally, I blame my sister Sarah. She gave me the "must change everything around once a month" bug. You'd think as a physician's assistant that she would warn me it was contagious, but did she? No. Wench.

I'm leaning more and more towards bright happy blues and greens in my home lately. So, I pulled out all of my cheerful turquoise/teal blue paint chips and after about 5 minutes of deliberation and elimination, I settled on Eddie Bauer's Signature Weathered Glass.

It's super cheerful. Like "you WILL smile while you scrub dishes" cheerful. When I first painted the kitchen, I kept waffling back and forth between, "I LOVE IT!" and "OH, GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?" Now that I've lived with it for a while, I definitely love it.

Anyways, back to the destiny of that fabulous striped fabric. After coming across fixed flat roman shade tutorials at both Centsational Girl and Fly Through Our Window, I'd been itching to make some for my kitchen. So I put on my sewing cap and got to work. In my kitchen. Is it weird to sew in your kitchen?? Inquiring minds want to know.

Did I mention that the striped fabric is my sister's old shower curtain?? Yes. You heard me. Her shower curtain. Crazy, I know, but when I cut it into fourths, there was just enough fabric to make shades for all four of my kitchen windows. It was meant to be.

I had some black out fabric leftover from the nursery.

 So, I lined each of the four pieces of the shower curtain with it.

After that, it was simply a matter of figuring out the width and number of folds and tacking them in place.

I slid dowels into each of the folds to keep them from sagging. As for hanging the curtains up, I used the rods from the icky old vinyl shades that were hanging in the house when we first bought it.

It took me a while, but it was actually a super easy project. And I'm in love with the results.

They are fabulously bright and cheerful. They make me think of candy stripes. And candy is always good, right?

Ignore small child consuming mandarin oranges. He's not relevant to this post. Oh, who am I kidding. He's cute and fantastic. Please admire him at your leisure.

The burgundy stripe in the fabric perfectly complements the cabinets while the rest of the stripes allow me to bring a variety of other colors into the room.

Wait, could that be a triangle hanging next to that ridiculously long and unrealistic "to do list"? Surely not. She doesn't really announce dinner with a triangle does she?? Nuts.

Yup, my candy stripe shades give me the courage to play with such colors as turquoise, green, and orange. Colors make me happy :). I need rainbows, stat!

Now I just have to figure out how the hell I'm going to build a sink surround.

And finish gluing/sanding/varnishing the counter top to the right of the stove.

Maybe build some more shelving, install some backsplash, and rearrange everything. You know, just a few small little tasks that need taking care of. *sigh* It's only been two years. What's a little more time?

I was determined to wait until the kitchen was completely done before showing it off to you... but it's been over a month and I can't stand it anymore. I'm more of a "Hey, look at my progress!" kind of girl. So, here are a few before and afters:

Before - Beige & Bleh

I have a sneaking suspicion that Hurricane Joseph has been in the cabinets again.

After - Colorful Awesomeness

Before

After

Before

After

I think the shades work really well with the rug as well. I'll share more about the artwork in the kitchen in a later blog post. For now, I'm just going to enjoy my candy striped windows.

Monsieur High Heels & Mademoiselle Unibrow Sitting in a Tree

We spent Easter weekend with family in Richmond and had a blast. Anytime we visit Richmond, the Goodwill Outlet is a given. I have to go there. I might wither and die otherwise. At 50 something cents per pound, I'm like a kid in a candy shop, but I try to keep my cart under $20. FYI, $20 is like 5 large bags of goodies at the Goodwill Outlet. It's thrifting heaven. Where the junk angels live.

Speaking of junk angels, look what the little darlings brought me. Three gaudy golden plates for under a dollar! YAY!

While digging through the bins, my sister-in-law Sarah found the larger of the three plates. "Hmm. Big plate. Semi-historical-like scene on it. Caroline!" Angel that she is (yes, Sarah, I just insinuated that you are a junk angel ;). ), she brought it over to me to see if I would be interested. "Nah. Thanks, but that lady's unibrow is kind of creepy!"

Then, as I resumed my digging, I came across two similar plates. A matching set of 3? With preattached hangers? Ok, junk angels, I can take a hint! But I still think they are kind of ugly. Unless... SPRAY PAINT! Why do I always forget about spray paint?

I went digging through my paint closet and came out with some spray primer. Three coats later, those plates were looking a lot less gold. Hallelujah!

I decided to hang them up in the front hall for the time being.

Since they replaced an old, empty frame in that spot, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they are a nice improvement.

I'm really digging the white with the texture.

So what have we got? Four guys debating the great mysteries of life - Ninja vs. Pirate. 

Monsieur High Heels asking out Mademoiselle Unibrow (who is still kind of creepy).

And two guys plotting to steal that lady's loaf of bread in a tavern.

Or maybe they are propositioning a tavern wench? Hard to tell. Do tavern wenches lure men to them with fresh baked bread? I don't see how anyone could fail with that ploy.

Regardless, welcome to your new home, plates! I'll find you a higher gloss spray paint sometime soon. In the meantime, chillax on the wall & tell your stories until I decide to move you. Probably in a couple of weeks.

Dear Richmond Goodwill Outlet Angels,

Please continue to provide me with entertaining home decor. Thanks!

Much love,

xoxo

Caroline

My Hall Curtains Match My Blog

Branching off of the upstairs landing, there's a small hallway with built in shelving:

 

A month ago, those shelves were overflowing with cluttered books & random junk. I've been on a "Goodwill NEEDS this thing!" spree. I'd say it's going pretty darn well. Eventually, I want to decorate the shelving with pretty things & hide not so pretty things in snazzy little baskets or bins. For now, though, I am taking advantage of some free hand-me-down curtains that just so happened to match the hallway walls (and, strangely, my blog):

I was on my way to paint Joseph's big boy room when I had a sudden whim to hang those curtains without delay. Fifteen minutes later, I had a completely different hall. Nevermind the fact that I didn't have any curtain rods on hand...

That's what 1x2s are for.

Paint, Paint, Paint!!!

Valspar is doing a paint sample giveaway at their website. One per household.

I have five.

No, I don't have five houses. My mother-in-law had the russet red sent to my house, the field green was my sister-in-law Theresa's. I sent a teal jade color to my mom's house. The house next to me is empty right now... So, I might have had a sample sent there and I might have casually walked by the back step and picked it up. And for the last turquoise sample, my neighbor Kenny let me use his address. He's a renter and not planning on painting anything anytime soon.

The best part, though? They all came with $5 off coupons for Valspar paint! (The sixth coupon was my Mother-in-law's. Thanks, Mom!)

I've got a lot of painting to do this summer, so these coupons are going to be extremely helpful. Since they expire the end of May, I have until then to figure out what paint colors I plan to get.

I already know I'm going to use one coupon for Olive White in Joseph's big boy room.

I'm going to have to paint the Sandwich Shoppe once we finish mudding/sanding it. I'm leaning towards a deep teal color in that room. It's crazy bright in there all day long, so I'm not worried about using the darker color. Besides, YHL's teal guest room gives me courage.

Or maybe something slightly greener. I think it will work with the retro look I'd like to achieve in the Sandwich Shoppe.

I've got plans to repaint the kitchen and the living room. I've lived with beiges in both of those rooms for over a year now and I'm still not in love with either of them. Beige is boring. Beige is so yesterday. Blue & green walls are the future.

I still think I want to paint the living room a turquoise color. I think it will look great with the dark red couches. I like red & turquoise together.

Right now, I'm working on a plan to incorporate turquoise into the kitchen. I don't subscribe to House of Turquoise for nothing. I think a nice turquoise will complement the reddish cherry cabinets and make for a very cheery space. Kitchen's should always be cheery in my opinion.

So, what do you think? Have I gone off the turquoise blue deep end?

Oh, and don't forget to go get your free Valspar sample and coupon! They only give out so many samples per day starting at 9am central. It took me a few tries to get in, but once I did, it let me pick whatever color I wanted. Good luck!

Twenty Dollar Kid's Bathroom Makeover

We have two bathrooms and one soon-to-be-a-bathroom-in-the-future bathroom. But the downstairs pink bathroom tub is in serious need of some TLC and is currently being used as a storage bin for my excess supply of diapers. So, we really only have one fully operational battle station... er... bathroom at the moment and that is the upstairs bathroom. Since the plan is for the addition to eventually become Stephen and my bathroom, that makes the upstairs bathroom the kid's bathroom. And what a scary bathroom it is...

The red and brown shower curtain is from our first apartment. It's awesome, fully lined, and has been hanging up in this bathroom since we moved in... Along with the dark blue plastic shower liner... Add in yellow tub, yellow sink, brass fixtures, and harvest gold shower tiles, and you have a seriously winning combination!

Not.

Anyways, I'm in the process of prettifying my bedroom and I required the lovely red and brown shower curtain to do that. So, now the uber-ugly upstairs kids bathroom is without a real shower curtain. Shucks.

The only thing that this bathroom has going for it is the fact that we replaced the really, really hideous greenish, yellow toilet with a lovely white toilet sometime last year. That's it.

The room itself is kind of oddly shaped, with the toilet, sink vanity, closet, and radiator in odd places. Even the vinyl floor is in dire need of replacing because whoever installed it installed it in two separate pieces. Genius.

Also, no matter how much you scrub, the vinyl always seems to look dirty.

The sink is yellow, the faucet is badly-needs-polishing brass, the laminate counter top is covered in light yellow striping, and the cabinet is super dated with... wait for it...

...rosebud knobs! SWEET!

The medicine cabinet and above sink light fixture leave a great deal to be desired...

And the ceiling light fixture is rusty.

All in all, it's not the best room in the house. It needs a huge renovation. New sink, new tiles... Someday. When we've finished with the addition, sandwich shoppe, and 50 other ongoing projects. Someday when money comes pouring out of our walled up chimneys.

But that doesn't mean we have to live with rosebud knobs in the meantime. Nobody ever has to live with rosebud knobs.

Enter the leftover nursery paint, Target, and the most adorable shower curtain ever. Hello, adorable shower curtain. Please come home with me.

Umm... Since when can you Facebook "like" Target items??

$25 is a bit much for a shower curtain in my opinion, but I didn't want to wait for it to go on clearance and I had some remnant Target gift cards I could use to bring it down to $20. Besides, it was 100% cotton, the yellow in it perfectly matched our tub, the green perfectly matched my leftover nursery paint, and it was appropriate for a kids bathroom without having giant rubber duckies all over it. It met all of my requirements. In fact, I was so sure that it would be perfect, that I painted the bathroom walls that very morning before even purchasing the curtain.

I had just enough Valspar Willow green paint leftover from the nursery to paint the whole bathroom. It was close. I had to skimp some on the second coat. I've never painted a room so quickly. I did it during Joseph's morning nap and I really wanted to finish before he woke up. Fortunately, plastic wrap is your friend when you don't have time to clean your rollers and brushes before they dry and your baby is hollering at the top of his lungs. Once Joseph was awake, I fed him, popped him into his car seat, and sped off to our local Target where they had the shower curtain in "limited availability" according to the website. On the way there, I kept chanting, "Please let it be there!" under my breath. You better believe that I did a little happy boogie when I found it in the shower curtain aisle. Yeah... I get slightly obsessive when I'm on a project.

It's always amazing how much of a difference curtains and paint can make!

Except for the shower curtain, I already owned everything else that I used to decorate the bathroom. There was even enough space to move my old vanity into the room.. I've had it since I was 14 and found it on the side of the road in Japan. Yes, I was trash picking even then... It used to be black, but I painted it blue when I was in college. It does a wonderful job of filling up the random blank wall space.

The floor is still nasty, the bathroom still has crazy yellow fixtures, but they are no longer as noticeable. Mission accomplished.

It's the adorable shower curtain. It draws the eye away from the eye sores.

And it even looks good with the harvest gold sunflower tiles. Shocking, since I didn't think anything would ever look good with those tiles.

If anyone has a suggestion on how to cover up those naked light bulbs for under $1, I'm all ears. I'll listen to anything... Even suggestions involving parchment paper.

Notice that the mirror and over sink light fixture are now teal... I had this little pint of mistinted teal paint sitting in my paint closet... It called to me.

It told me to paint the rusty gold light fixtures.

And the mirror... It even tried to convince me to paint the ugly faucet, but I exercised the use of my will power to overcome that particular temptation. It was hard.

Yes, all of the soap on the countertop matches the room... Why do you ask?

As for those cabinet knobs... Sayonara rosebuds, hello plain willow green paint! I was actually going to remove the cabinet doors entirely and hang a little brown curtain instead, but Stephen objected. He seems to think that a) it would be weird and b) he would end up kicking everything under the sink. My question was, "Why are you kicking the cabinet doors in the first place?"

Oh, kids bathroom... How do I love thee!

Thank you, adorable shower curtain, for inspiring me to spiffy up the place!

Did I mention that there are owls on the shower curtain?

And cute little squirrels too!

Joseph likes the new bathroom. He told me so! Just look at that face!

Now, I just have to hang some art up on the walls.  I've got a lot of fun ideas in that regard. I'll be sure to share when I'm done!