Untold Stories: The Lovely Residence

Are you feeling a lack of communication from Mrs. Lovely? Sorry buddies!


The days have been coming and going and coming and going and life is different as we know it. The days of not tackling a paint project or moving furniture around use to be few and far between. Now I am afraid to move our furniture because I might have to vacuum up all the food that falls out from in between the cushions. If you are peeking in our windows these days you will most likely see me minding my own business and then suddenly jumping in front of Oscar and roaring like a lion! He loves it!


So, although I have been consistently blogging about my spray paintin', house improvin' ways, times are a changin'. Don't worry, we are not breaking up!! I am just feelin' a little guilty and a little worried you are all calling me lazy behind my back. So, here it is, expect to see more of Oscar dressed up like Daniel Boone and

Oscar eating various relatives, in this case his Cousin Caraline and

family outings to basketball games and

Oscar's weekly updates and

I will continue to keep you posted on my thrifty finds, my spray painted treasures, and how we manage to get that darn bathroom fan installed without being forced to sell one of our kidneys (plans are in the works) so we can install this sink

that is sitting on the closet floor in our guest room {insert pouty lip}.

Update on my visit to the sheet metal factory: Imagine a squirrel jacked up on pixie sticks (that's me) meeting an 18 year old Labrador. I went in inquiring about hiring them to cover our dining room table with sheet metal. Yikes! I said in my high voice "You know, like Industrial Chic!" and his flat response was "no".  After he told me he did not agree with my decision to cover our antique table with metal, we did in fact, break up. Now I am pursuing a relationship with a mixed metals artist.

Last thing, promise. Remember my ramblings about Dover White paint? No? Read about it here. Well, I found spray paint in DOVER WHITE. I almost did a herkie...

but instead stuck 2 cans under my arm and walked to the cash register chanting DO-VER WHITE DO-VER WHITE!

Mirror Wall...Help!

I did up our foyer wall Fun House Style!

Fancy huh? Afterall, I did just call our entryway a foyer (is there a difference?) I have been collecting mirrors for years (unintentionally). I think they make good wall art, especially when I see what's staring back;) I gathered them all into one place and now I love to admire myself  collection. 


This is where the magic happens. New paint job, new wall decor.

I measured the space, which happened to be as big as this throw blanket, perfect place to layout my plan. The bottom (closest end in the shot) two mirrors are plastic. I wanted to make sure heavy mirrors didn't get banged around or squish any little people.

Speaking of little people...

Always such a willing helper.

I used putty to secure the sides of the mirrors to the wall. It isn't a permanent fix but it helps with daily accidental brushes and jiggles, which has yet to be a problem.

Opinion time...

Mirror mirror on the wall

What color should I paint you all?

What color should I paint these mirrors? All one color? Glaze? Different colors? 

Please help!

Pictures and Paint Accents

I think, painting our house's guts turned out to be the best thing we have done to date. The color is fresh and clean and more Lovely like. I added some finishing touches to go with the big paint job last weekend.

The befores. These are the before befores, like 'we were touring the house as interested buyers befores.'

Prepping for the painted accents, and a little reminder of the gallery wall before.

The linen closet accent:

The landing window accent:

The gallery wall is back:

Once again, I measured my little heart out. Those diamonds are not from a stencil people, I used a good old fashion ruler and pencil. I painted the gray on with a stiff bristle brush. The paint looks a little worn, and I like it like that. The gallery wall went back up as fast as it came down. Henry left the nail holes in the wall and Oscar and I delivered the frames while referring to a past blog post. There was the potential that I could have ended up on the landing have a gallery wall temper tantrum. Phew, thank goodness I started this silly blog.

P.S. Teaser Alert: Tomorrow morning I have a meeting at Duluth Sheet Metal!?

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day from The Lovely's

with a little effort...

Dear Reader,

I love you for reading my blog!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Lovely

ONE WAY

Our back entryway is teeny tiny, I think it is a safe to compare it to a mouse maze. The double doors go into our sun room, that we don't heat, because we are using it as a holding place for all of our junk, so there is no chance that we can keep them open.

To better illustrate the size...5 tiles wide. Sure a person fits fine. Add a pile of shoes and boots or try to get in the door with an armload of groceries and things get ugly- fast. Don't even think about putting the trash by the door, nobody will ever get out.

Adding hooks or shelves is kind of out of the question, ugh, I can't even imagine the chaos. So, I decided to give the space a little boost with paint. I was inspired by this sign I saw in Country Living Magazine.

I created my own ONE WAY Sign in the back hallway. That's right Home Slices, I became a measuring sensation over night. Who knew I had it in me.

After I got done measuring out my masterpiece, I added the tape, and was likin' what I was seein'.

With a foam brush I painted navy blue inside the lines, elementary school style!

I have read that the tape should be removed when the paint is still tacky so it doesn't rip off big chunks of paint. Which is fine by me! 

Now our back entry screams "Keep it movin'!" I am still uncertain how I am going to paint the ONE WAY. Probably looking at making letter stencil on the computer. Anyone know the correct font?

As a cool FYI, Oscar's initials are ONE, Oscar Nicholas Eichman, and in our house Oscar certainly gets his way (he gets that from his mom:) 

I also debated writing FUN WAY, but thought that was too much pressure. I don't want our guests to expect a Lovely Family Variety Show every time they visit.

P.S. Little Lovely is 31 weeks old, CUPID STYLE!

Check out other amazing ideas:

Sesame Street, this way!

"Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?" For a while we had an Oscar and a Cookie Monster in the house.

Oscar gets to stay.

But these little monsters got eaten up in a weekend.

Can you stand it? So easy, what you see is what you get. Of course, I baked out of a box and bought the tub of frosting. Throw in some mallows, choco chips and cookies and the Monsters were born!

Q. What do Cookie Monster and Rambo have in common? 

A. nam nam nam nam nam nam nam

We painted our guts!

It took a few weeks and to my surprise I fared the disarray with composure.  I think I am coming to terms with a shift in priorities (you know, Baby Lovely) and I am finding peace with our new routine and project timeline- but, since Henry finished painting the guts of our house last night, I couldn't wait to share. Our house is separated in half by the entry ways, hallway and then stairwell; the kitchen and dining room make up one side and the living room and sun room are the other half. Everything in the middle got a fresh coat of paint or two.


Here is a little baby peek.

 A walk down painters lane...

Tested samples. Yes, very grown up of us.

The full tan on tan biz.

{Applause} The new colors make the wood work pop, our pictures look better and it even helps make the other tan rooms look better. I love it!

Bonus Picture:

Oscar loves the Johnny Jumper. Loves love loves!

So cute blah blah blah, back to our walls. I feel like this is way more us. Crisp and just the right shades of gray and white.

Now I am going to get busy with a few paint accents and rehanging our picture gallery. I will be back with some more updated photos soon, or not so soon:)


P.S. Little Lovely is 30 weeks old!

Craigslist Score!

Warning to my work g-friends...you may want to skip this post if one more mention of my new cabinets is going to make you hurl!


I have been looking for some cabinets to make a command center in our dining room to collect all the mail, leave messages and hide all the chotchkies that end up on our dining room table. First, I like calling it a 'command' center, cause lets face it, I am the Commander of our house, so naturally I should have my own corner to help me bark out orders. Just kidding Henry, kind of;) Second, I looked up how to spell chotchkies and the definition is 'a small piece of worthless crap.' Chotchkies is EXACTLY the word I was looking for!!


Back to the cabinets. I was looking for something older and industrial because of this picture. Looking looking looking...


Holla!

Here is how it went down. I spotted the cabinets, started having heart palpitations, consulted my work buddies, emailed Rick, called Rick, called Rick again, called Henry in a panic of excitement. I was prepared to convince him that we needed to figure out how to drive 35 miles to pick up this amazing find...TONIGHT! (this was last night). In true Henry style he listened to me and then in a monotone voice replied "okay." Now I am really wound up, as always I expected more excitement. I made haste to the ATM, packed up my belongings and Henry picked me up, only to drop me off at home with the shortest Lovely...we wouldn't all fit in the car with our new cabinets. Henry was on his way to get the cabinets and I waited patiently (you can imagine) at home in the throws of Oscar's nighttime routine. Waiting waiting waiting...He arrived home 1.5 hours later with 2 cabinets in the back of our SUV and one strapped to the top! 


Wait, there's more. Rick told Henry that he got a lot of phone calls and interest but wanted to sell them to his wife because she was so excited! Isn't that the sweetest thing you ever heard? The best part...that's right it gets better...he asked Henry if his wife wants anymore of his perfectly lovely junk! Can you say "road trip?"


P.S. Just so you don't think Henry does all the heavy lifting, I think you should know there was a grilled cheese sandwich waiting for him at home. Okay, you should also know that one side was burnt because I was working on Valentine's Day crafts for all of Oscar's buddies and forgot that I was in the middle of making my big strong man dinner. I suck.