Celebrating my Birthday!

Hi all!

A few days ago, I celebrated my Birthday, whose original date is August 11th. It was supposed to be scheduled for August 20th, but the hot weather made us wanted to go to the beach instead. But, as we had already reserved a table in the restaurant where we were going for lunch, and we had ordered a Birthday cake for the occasion, we had to pick it up and decided we would invite my family to come over my home to share the cake on August 21st. My "official" Birthday lunch was postponed for next weekend.

So, the first picture is the cake we ordered. It was just delicious! It was made up of cinnamon flavored sponge cake, filled with a whipped cream and fruits: kiwifruit, peach and pinneaple. That all was covered with a sweet made with egg yolk and sugar, cinnamon and sugar again. Yummy!

Anyway, I received my presents that Sunday, and I thought I would share them with you! =)

So, the gifts I received from my family were: the book Modern Baroque Interiors and this month's issue of the American Edition of Architectural Digest.

Some money and the wooden NYC box you see in the pictures. Of course, several Birthday cards came with the money, hehe.

This nice tee from Pull & Bear. I had seen it in store for this new season and I loved it!

This Manhattan box; A nightstand set of a pitcher and a glass (I usually drink a lot of water when I am in my bedroom at night); and, the awesome leather belt in green and purple from Massimo Dutti.

Hope you like them! Thanks for visiting!

Door painting

Finally! I can share one of the doors in my house TOTALLY finished... The bathroom one. I mean, I have finished more doors, but, this is the one I had taken some 'during' pictures. Still have some doors left though, but I am getting closer to have them all painted!

Actually, the doors were painted a cream/beige/sand/ivory/light yellow color... I do not know what to call that ugly color (for doors). In addition, they had been painted with a roller and in a glossy finish, and they had several coats of paint under that last one: white, black, blue, red, orange... (depending on the room); so, they looked pretty bad. I did not want to get something worse than I had, so I decided I would strip the paint to paint them the correct way.

Stripping the paint is the hardest step. It is not difficult at all, but sometimes it is really boring and it takes a lot of time. However, if you do this with patience and get to strip all the paint off perfectly, you will get a perfect final job: the door will look just like it had not been painted or even varnished.

After stripping the paint with two different scrapers and a scurer (for smaller areas and moldings), it is necessary to clean the door with paint thinner, in order to remove all the grease of the previous products. The next step is sanding the door and clean again with steel wool, so we can get a soft finish for the wood.

The last part is the fun one: priming, sanding; painting first coat, sanding; painting second coat and sanding, in case you need to apply a third coat. I just needed two coats of Valentine's Valenite in a satin finish to get to the result you see. I also used an enamel blender to make it look less 'glossy'. The color is an off white called "coco" (coconut).

I had planned not to paint the original door hinges; but, after cleaning them I realised that I would get a "cleaner", more even look if I painted them, too. And, I am happy with the result.

So, now I have a fewer number of doors left (four, exactly), since it takes a lot of work. I will try to have them finished for September - October, though! Oh, and just ignore the UGLY floor in the hallway, please; it is still waiting to be replaced/painted/covered (I am not sure yet, hehe).

What do you think? =) Thanks for visiting!