Sunshine Daydream

The start of this blog and me painting this piano coincided. I've wanted to start a blog for some time but kept putting it off. Always thinking I was 'too busy'.
But who isn't 'too busy' with life?!
Suddenly a very good friend of mind passed away. It was very hard for me. Even though we haven't talked for awhile. We were friends since I was 16. That seems like forever ago now but when I look at pictures it feels like just yesterday.

It made me really realize that I need to stop putting things off. So I put the fire under my ass and started. On both the blog and the piano. I thought this piano would be my first post but it sat here for a little while till I could finish it...

The piano was here when we moved in. Left by the previous owners.
It's out of tune and one key is actually broken.
It's also extremely heavy. I pushed it from one side of the house to the other and that was hard. So there is no way I am pushing it down our long driveway.
Plus I love painted pianos!

It's actually the best thing in the house sometimes.
When people are over they will play it.
And the kids can play with it all they want and they are not going to break it :)

I searched 'painted pianos' for months now. I knew I was going to paint it yellow. Yellow or pink.
I already painted the inside of the cabinet pink and I painted the trim on the walls blue.

So I thought yellow would be good for the piano.

I picked Goldfish for the color.

So I totally got ahead of myself and just started painting. I have no patience sometimes. I should have sanded it. Or at least primed it white.
But no.
I had to be difficult.
So this is almost 4 (yes, 4) coats. Of paint with primer in it.

I am so close....

It didn't help that the piano was super dark brown and I was trying to paint it yellow.
So after I ran out of paint and went and got more.

I finally finished it!!
I can't stop looking at it.

It brings so much happiness and light into the room now.

I'm so glad I finally did it.
Please ignore the messed up floors. We ripped up the carpet when we moved in and this is what they looked like. Gross.
We are planning on sanding and staining them this spring!

So if you have an old piano you hate. Don't throw it out. Paint it!!!
And remember you are never too busy.
Pick up the phone and call a old friend or relative you don't talk to much.
Because if we don't have our friends and family, then what do we have?!

RIP TCR, I will never forget the times we spent together. Thanks for all the memories :)

XoXOxOXo
Stephanie

She Who Leaves A Trail Of Glitter Is Never Forgotten

I love Holidays. Who doesn't?! If it was socially acceptable to dress up for every holiday like we do for Halloween, I would. And I would totally be an adorable bunny for Easter :)
Since buying the house I think it is a must to decorate. And I try to make as much stuff as I can. Without it looking like a total mess!
That usually entails trying and failing a couple times before I usually get it right.

Thanks Pinterest, for making me think I can do everything I pin.

So I am going to start with some simple things like sparkly candles and eggs.
Because who doesn't love glitter!?

I went to the craft store and bought some glitter, foam brushes (they were 14 for $1, amazing) and paper mâché eggs.
I already had the Modge Podge and candles.


I coated the eggs with the Modge podge using the foam brush.

I sprinkled the gluey egg with glitter.

I also rolled it around in the glitter in the dish.

Please put a dish under your egg when putting the glitter on.

Dump the extra glitter from the dish onto a piece of paper.
Fold the paper in half and pour back into bottle.

Repeat the steps with the different glitter.

Voila! Beeeaauuuutiful :)

I also bought some crushed glass. The store advertised it as vase filler. It kinda looks like sand.
It comes in different colors.

I tried one of the eggs in this.
I really liked it! It was a totally different style. Kinda rustic glam.

I decided to do the candles in this glass.
I had these candles outside in my lanterns but I brought them in for winter.

Get a bowl big enough to fix the candles in.
Fill the bowl up with the sand.

Coat the candle with the Modge Podge with a foam brush.

Roll the candle in the glass.

Cover the rest of the candle with glue and keep rolling through the glass.

I think they look great! I'm going to do more eggs like this.


Let me know how it works for you :)

This was my breakfast this morning.

And I could of pulled a Bruce Bogtrotter and ate the whole cake. Ugh :-/


Xoxoxo
Stephanie

Monday I'm in love

I know all of you with 'real' jobs probably hate Mondays but I LOVE them!!! My husband (Tyler) is back at work and my oldest son (Logan) is at school. And I'm with my youngest son Dylan all day.
It's amazing!
Don't get me wrong I love my family-most the time- but it's a madhouse here on the weekend.
The kids want cookies and cakes.
They are switching movies every 30 mins. And who knows where Tyler is! He's hiding in the basement playing the guitar or outside doing "yard work".
So Monday morning I'm pumped. I'm ready to get out and do stuff!
Especially when I have something planned.
Today I went to the craft store to get everything to make these sparkly beauties!!!

I know!! You all are thinking 'Easter? Already?!' Yea, well I thought they were adorable and I wanted to make them. So there. Ha!
I have big things to do next week. Like finish tiling the upstairs bathroom.
So something little this week will be nice :)

I'm super excited to make these! I saw them in the Pottery Barn catalogue but I was not paying $20 for 3. That's crazy stupid! I can make 6 for half of that!

Tomorrow I will post the steps.

This is one I did already.

It is so sparkly! I love it!


When I went to Michael's Craft Store today they had these Martha Stewart glitter for $1.50!! Amazing!! I loved the tinsel

We will see how the rest turn out.
Check back later!


XoXOxOXo
Stephanie

Where Brooklyn At

I went into the city today.
It was perfect.
I was going to go yesterday but it was rainy and yucky.
It was beautiful out this morning! As soon as I got into the car one of my favorite songs was on the radio. Don't you love when that happens?!
Today I went to one of my favorite stores in Brooklyn, Stella Dallas Living.

It's a vintage household store. It has curtains, quilts, boots, jewelry, crates, just about everything. As its all vintage. Old, dusty and full of history.
But they didn't open till 12:30. It was 11:45. Ugh.
So I went to another one of my favorite stores, Milk.
Milk is a bakery. Kind of.

They have amazing, never-thought-of-that stuff. Like cornflake chocolate chip marshmallow cookies. Whhhhaaaaa?!?!

Yea, they are awesome!
So while Dylan ate cookies.

I waited.

And ate a bagel bomb. It's an everything bagel with panchetta and scallions cream cheese in the middle. Yum.

Then finally Stella Dallas Living was open.

I loved all the vintage curtains. I think I'm going to make some. But first I need curtain rods.
Hmmmmm....

One of the things I miss about Brooklyn is all the creativity. Everyone is different. Nobody is afraid to be different either.
It's great. All different cultures all together.
It's truly beautiful.
Here are some pictures I took while we lived here.

Go out and do something creative!
I'm going to make curtain rods out of industrial pipes.

XoXOxOXo
Stephanie

Home is Wherever I'm With You

Hello everyone!
This is the first entry of my new blog! Yaaayyyy! I've been wanting to do this for a whole year now. This is so exciting for me! (Please bare with me as I have no idea what I'm doing and I need to bug my husband to do my graphics :))

We bought our house almost one year ago. My husband works in Manhattan. We knew we had to be close to public transportation but it also had to have a great school system. So we found a great area but now we would have to get a "fixer-upper".

We bought the Money Pit house. No joke.

In less than a year we put on a new roof.
Completely renovated 2 out of 4 bathrooms.
Replaced half of the kitchen.
And ripped out a hot tub. But more on all that later.

I have been working on it non-stop. It's hard to get stuff done when you have two kids under the age of 5 running wild. Did I mention we have two boys?! So I could go without saying its complete chaos around here 24/7. We also have a boy dog, Sir Roderick Buttersworth aka Buddy :) Throw my husband in there and that's 4 guys in the house. I'm totally outnumbered!

This first post is going to be about the small powder room I just finished doing. It is small and old and we weren't going to completely gut it. We already had to completely gut two other bathrooms when we first moved in because of mold. So gutting another bathroom right now is not at the top of the list. Maybe a little more down the road.

This is how it turned out...

So between making lunches and diaper changes I try to renovate the house. This bathroom has been the most recent accomplishment (not counting the painted piano because its not finished yet). We took down the wallpaper that was already up- it was little yellow roses-awful! Scraped the wall clean and primed the walls. I also painted the ceiling because its easier to do before the new wallpaper is up and it just looks nice. I put up a new light too. My wonderful friend Andrea also helped me paint the doorframe to match the new dark window frame. The paint is called Beluga.

This is what the bathroom looked like before-

I knew we were going to keep the floor and wall tile. We also liked the old vintage sink. We got a new toilet when we moved in. The old one was attached to the wall ( crazy old toilets to which I have never ever seen in my life till now) and it left holes in the tile. I need to fix the holes or find the tile to match :-/
So I looked for a wallpaper that would kinda go with the 40's yellow tile and pinkish floor.
I fell in love with this vintage Peter Pan wallpaper.

But it was a little more than I wanted to spend on this bathroom.

So I found this on Anthropologie.

I look at wallpaper as art. Or if your house was a person the wallpaper would be your favorite outfit!
So this is my outfit for when I go to Europe ;)

I definitely find myself just hanging out in the bathroom starring at the wallpaper. Haha!
I hope you all like it.


Xoxoxo
Stephanie