C'est Fini

I love it. It looks much better than the yellow.

Progress in the Kitchen

No. I did not learn to cook. What would make you think that?

While we're on the subject . . . . This weekend Michael's aunt asked me to chop an onion for her. As I chopped she and her husband asked me what kinds of thing cooked now that no longer work. "Oh. I don't cook. Its all peanut butter and jelly until Daddy comes home." They thought I was joking. Maybe I should learn to make something . . . .

Anyway, I am excited to tell you that the wainscoting it up in the kitchen! YEAH! It looks fabulous.

I am less excited to tell you that I tried to paint my desk but forgot to sand it first. I'll be redoing that this week and I need some advice. Bearing in mind that the desk is going to be black like the wainscoting--which drawer pulls do you prefer?



You should also know that if I use the dark leafy ones they will both be the same. If I use the hand painted ones there will be one of each.

Also, I decided I still don't like the yellow and bought a gallon of green paint to replace the yellow. What do you think?

In the picture you can see the yellow I painted before and the green I am changing it to. The darker blue strip is the painters tape so just ignore that.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to say that painting is a lot harder when you don't have a tall friend visiting. Seriously.

Random Thoughts

This morning after Michael left for work the boy started responding to everything I said with, "co ten tack oh no chi wa." I have put a lot of thought into it and believe he is trying to say, "guten tag , konnichi wa." Why? I have no idea.

I have two bits of very sad news to report.

Bit number 1: Jason's Deli no longer carries Dublin Dr Pepper. Apparently carrying Dublin Dr Pepper broke the contract they had with Coke. This make no sense to me. I thought Dr Pepper was its own thing and not a Coke or Pepsi product. I have also been told that Dr Pepper is now a part of Pepsi. Either way I'm confused. I realize that being a Dr Pepper enthusiast I should know these things, but I don't study its history, I just drink it.

Bit number 2: A very large quail flew into my kitchen window and died the other day. It was very sad and I feel responsible. Jessie and I took the curtains down when we painted. I haven't put them back up yet because I want to spray paint the rod black before I put them back up-- which I haven't done yet. I do realize we are talking about a bird who prefers walking to flying even though God gave it wings. But don't you just love seeing the baby quail crossing the street all in a row like little ducks?

Lastly, my progress on the sweater I'm making. Someone asked me the other day when I was going to start knitting real things, not just baby clothes. I've been thinking more and more about it. It's probably time. I'll add something to the queue.

Embossed Wall Follow-Up

As requested I am putting up pictures of the embossed wall from a distance.

Ignore the fact that we are obviously not finished with our kitchen make-over. We still need to put up the black bead board. I also am not sold on the yellow yet. The color we ended up with turned out to be more yellow and less green than I wanted. But, I'm waiting to see what the yellow looks like with the bead board before I paint over it.

Back to the reason I put up the picture . . . if you were looking at the wall from this distance in real life you would barely be able to make out the embossing. You can't see it at all in the picture.


From this closer distance, the picture barely shows the embossing. However, I think you can see it pretty well from this distance in real life.

DIY: Embossed Wall

DIY: The Embossed Wall

As you know this week Jessie and I were busy working on the kitchen. We did a lot of painting and something a friend taught me. I like to call it wall embossing. Don't know how to emboss a wall? Well, today is your lucky day!

You will need: Stencils, craft knife, pencil, putty knife, painters tape, paint rollers, paint brushes, paint, and dry time spackle.

Pick a Pattern. First off, you need to decide what you are going to emboss on your walls. We picked maple leaves. But be creative, you can use a fleur-de-lis, a daisy, or a bird. Doing a child's room? How about cars, trucks, stars, or fairies?

Get a Stencil. After you have chosen a pattern you need to find a stencil. If you can't find exactly what you are looking for, it is easy to create your own. Simply trace your pattern onto a blank stencil sheet and cut it out with a craft knife. We cut out four maple leaves in various sizes.

Prepare the walls. We will be spackling and painting so give the walls a quick wash and remove any wall plates that might get hit with the roller. Don't tape off yet! If you put the tape on too early, it is harder to remove when you are done.

Outline. Take a pencil and lightly mark where you are going to be stenciling. We wanted the leaves to be placed on our wall in a tree branch pattern and drew lines accordingly. If you want your pattern to be placed on the wall at specific intervals, make sure to mark it off. Depending on how precise you want your pattern to be, you may want to use a ruler and a level.

Spackle Your Design. Grab your putty knife, it's time to spackle! We suggest using dry time indicator spackling. It goes on pink and dries white. The pink color makes it easier to see the design as you're putting it on.

Firmly hold the stencil in place, using your putty knife spread the spackle across the stencil. It works best to spread from the outside of the stencil in. If you want a more worn or rustic look, you can try filling in only part of the stencil. Have fun with this part! If you don't like it, scrape it off and try again.

Let it Dry. While your spackling dries, use painters tape to tape off any door jams, baseboards, ceilings or walls you don't want to get paint on.

Sand. Once the spackle designs are completely dry you will want to sand them. At this point the spackle is still fragile, so use a fine grit sand paper. Sand just enough to get rid of any sharp edges. You will want to leave some of the texture, as it adds to the look.

Paint. Now it is time to paint your walls. Make sure to use a primer if needed. If you find that your spackling is coming off during the painting process, spray it with a little varnish first. Remember to remove the painters tape while the paint is slightly tacky. Don't wait too long or you'll be needing that craft knife to remove it.

Details. Once the paint is dry, feel free to highlight your embossing with little bit of color. You can do this by rubbing a small amount of paint onto the embossed area, then wiping it off with a dry rag. However, don't go overboard, the embossing should be subtle.

Meet Jessie and Jens

This is Jessie and Jens. Jessie drove all the way from Las Vegas to help me paint my kitchen. What's more she drove all that way with two little girls. Why would Jessie drive all that way, just to help me paint a kitchen? Maybe she's a bit touched or maybe it was one of these reasons

Reason #1: She didn't want to miss seeing the huge nail in our wall. This nail was fat and long and refused to budge. We tried pulling it out and hammering it in. Michael finally just cut it off (see Michael doing just that in the previous post).

Reason #2: She wanted to see how cute Chase is when he gets on the bus. Hopefully this wasn't the reason. If it was, her drive will have been for naught because Chase missed the bus. There is a 20 minutes window of time we have to watch for the bus. The bus happened to come during the 1 minute I ran to the garage. So I drove Chase to school and handed him off to a woman who claimed to be his teacher, and hoped against hope that he made it home in the afternoon. He did by the way. Whew!

Reason #3: She was anxious to show off her ability to talk her way out of a parking ticket. I was just as anxious to see this ability as she was to show it off-- so when she asked if I thought it was okay for her to park pointing the wrong way in front of my house I said, "Sure it is!" She was a quick talker too. He changed it from a ticket to a warning. What a nice guy!

Reason #4: She wanted to figure out what crazy thing I was going to be doing to my walls. Not only did I tell her but I forced her to participate. So what do you think?

The Sparks are Flying

I mean that literally. The sparks really are flying. Don't believe me?


I need to make this quick so I can keep an eye on my help in the kitchen. If the first picture didn't clue you in to how things are going, this one should help.
We have now renamed this yellow paint, "Yummy Custard." It makes us feel better about the fact that we found the baby eating it.

Still not sure about how things are going? Here are two words for you, "missed" and "bus." Even better are these two words, "traffic" and "enforcement." I didn't take a picture of that last incident because I don't' think the police take kindly to that sort of thing.

The Kitchen

I am excited to tell you what we have decided to do in the kitchen. I don't know how much of it we'll get done when Jessie comes to visit. From reading her comments on my previous post, I'm not sure how committed she is to working. I picked out paint chips anyway.

The largest wall will be blue and the other three walls are going to be this yellowish green color. I am going to try something new with the blue wall. If I can pull it off, it will be really nice. However, I'm not confident about my abilities to pull it off so I'm not going to talk about it until after I've tried it. When I do things that are complete disasters I like to pretend like they never happened. Unlike when my children do things that are complete disasters and I document it with pictures and blogs. That's different.

We are also going to put up black bead board. I've put bead board up before, but never this much. I think Michael is planning on helping me with the bead board this time. While doing his bead board installation research (he is very research oriented) he came across this picture. I think this hand has seen better days. It took us a while to decided if he had cut the tips of a few fingers off. We finally decided he hadn't, but still if his method of installation leaves me with a hand that makes people wonder if I've had a run in with the saw blade, I'm not sure I'm up for it.

My Sink

In honor of completing my first week of fly lady I am going to be posting a picture of my shined sink. This is a fly lady staple. I admit that I love waking up in the morning to a clean and shiny sink.


It isn't as nice as the sink and faucet I left behind when we moved, but it cleans up well. Perhaps I can replace the sink and faucet when we finish the changes we are making in the kitchen this summer (I think I just heard my husband groan).

Speaking of the kitchen, I have added a poll about the color to paint my kitchen. Keep in mind we put in a dark brown (with black) tile and we are going to be putting up black bead board. I have red curtains, and oak cabinets. It isn't the cheap fake looking oak we had in our old house, but it isn't really nice oak either. It's middle range oak; too nice to be painted over, but more orangey than a really nice oak.

Vote AWAY!