Sprucing things up a bit

Other than the baby projects I’d like to get done, I’ve started two projects recently that will add to our kitchen and living room. They aren’t quite done yet, but I’ll share what I’ve done to this point.

The Wall O’ Travel

Andrew said something to me recently about hanging more of our travel pictures, specifically from our trip to Bolivia last May. He brings up moving there about once a week now, and he just wrote one of his grad school papers on the groundwater situation where we worked. Who knows if that’s where God will call us, but we’re both more than okay if Bolivia is a stop!

In order to display some of those pictures, I first had to think about where they could go in our home. We don’t have a ton of wall space, which is sad to me since I love love love hanging pictures and have a TON. In fact, we were going to hang several of the paintings we’ve collected from overseas trips in our guest room, but that got nixed when we found out we were pregnant.

We have two really large windows in our living room, and there happens to be a nice space between one of those and our kitchen. I decided that would be the travel wall space, but I wanted to do something fun to it besides just hanging framed pictures and art.

Then I remembered a shutter I bought at an estate sale last summer. It cost a $1, but it may have been thrown in for free with the other things I bought. I was picking up some cool bottles for my friend Amanda’s wedding when I stumbled upon the old shutter. I figured I’d find something to do with it one day!

My plan is to glue letters spelling “travel” on the shutter and hang it horizontally at the top of the wall space. Then we’ll hang our framed pics in a collage underneath it. I originally wanted small wooden letters, but I ended up having to go with what Michael’s had--they're slightly larger than I wanted and cursive lowercase. So far I have the “t,” “r” and “v.” I’ll check back once a week until I have them all, then stain them in a driftwood stain we have in the basement.

Windowpanes in the kitchen

In addition to shutters, I also really love windowpanes. I have a huge one I got in college that we’ve never found a space for in the house. Maybe one day. For now, I have the one my friends turned into a chalkboard/bulletin board in our office. When they found that one, it had a friend that they left for me in our mudroom. I’m turning it into a chalkboard for our kitchen so I can use it for menu plans and/or grocery items.

So far I’ve cleaned it up and painted two of the three panes. One of the panes has a crack in it, and rather than have Andrew fix it for me (he did that for my big one in college) I think I’ll try to tape it up and glue cork to that pane to hang notes.

My soapy water to clean the shutter and window

Stay tuned for the finished products!

Shutter Shift

When we bought our beloved, ugly ranch, it had red shutters. This wasn't a huge problem, except that a previous owner had used the wrong kind of paint. We noticed when we first looked at the house that red paint had run down onto one side of the house. We initially thought the shutters had just been put back up before drying, and rain had caused the red run-off.

Once I had time to really look at the shutters, I noticed that they stained my fingers with a chalky residue.

They were definitely painted with the wrong paint. I wasn't sure if we'd be able to paint them with anything that wouldn't run because they were vinyl shutters, not wooden.

Then I remembered a good friend: spray paint.

Spray paint is awesome and a quick fix for small projects. I decided to paint the shutters a sage green. They'll look really good with our new front door...if we ever get that installed!

pre-makeover

I used dish soap and water to scrub all the cobwebs and dirt off the shutters

up-close before

Progress! I did use more paint than I originally thought I would. It took 5 cans total for 14 shutters of varying sizes, but for less than $30, that was a great deal compared to buying new ones.

summer before with red shutters

winter after with green shutters

close-up of the green shutters