Currently...

Hi all!

I have decided I am going to post something here on the blog more often. At least, I am going to try.

So, my current project is the one you can see here... So much fun, huh? I am stripping my bedroom door! Quite tedious stuff, but it is always worth it when you see the final result after painting the door: a perfect finish white door.

Hopefully, I will have finished stripping it tomorrow and I will put it back in its place to start stripping the living room door. I say 'hopefully' because I am going to do the monthly grocery shopping tomorrow morning; also, some window shopping at the mall will keep me busy until the afternoon, and that is when I will have the time to work.

Please, just ignore the ugly floor you can see on the second pic... It is actually the floor in the spare/storage room we keep to take these projects, hehe.

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!

Lamp makeover

Hi!

I am going to show you something I did several weeks ago... I did not feel like sharing it until now though, hehe.

Remember how my entrance sideboard used to look? Well, I had been planning on buying a new table lamp/a new pair of lamps for that place. Nevertheless, I cannot (still) afford their price... Just yet. Lamps are something I like to "splurge" at, I love them and I think they can actually do a lot in a room.

So, I decided to give a new opportunity to the one I have at the moment via a new coat of paint.

This is how the lamp used to look before the makeover.

I remember I loved it when we purchased it. I really liked its classic and traditional look. It has turned a little bit old-fashioned since then, in my opinion. So, what about a new color for the lamp base and a new shade?

This is the golden bottom of the lamp base. The previous "gold color" looked more like copper-colored, and I was tired of it.

The top of the lamp base is also gold, and I chose a black satin-glossy finish paint for the main body. For the shade, I thought of a black cotton exterior and a gold satin/silky interior, which creates a warm atmosphere and light and a contemporary look.

And finally, this is the result! What do you think, do you like it? I hope so! I can really feel the change in the room. It is not a new lamp but it actually works there... At least for now, hehe.

Thanks for visiting!

What am I doing?

Hi all!

As usually, later than I expected... Well, I think I should explain several things up from my previous post, right?

About my bedroom: I guess it does not need a lot of words to explain... Just that I should probably say "My bed" instead of "My bedroom", since I am only showing my bed. The rest of the room is not good enough to share yet... Hehe. You will see it as soon as I can.

The hallway: the most important thing here is, no doubt, the chandelier. It is really beautiful, isn't it? Anyway, I love every kind of crystal lamps: classic ones, modern ones... I bought this one originally for my foyer. Unfortunately, it is too high and it would crash with the entrance door, so it is finally hanging in the hallway.
What you see on the right is a shoe cabinet that is provisionally there; also, the doors are going to be painted white, and do not even look at the floor, I know it is too ugly: it is going to be fixed/replaced some time.
I am going to hang some art in the walls of the hallway, too.

Today, I finished priming one of the living room walls; next step, tomorrow I am going to paint it! The color I am using is the same I used for the hallway walls, from the NCS color system: 1002-Y50R. This is how it looks in my screen:

After finishing painting the living room, I have to continue with other unfinished projects at home. Yay!