Smittles Overhaul the Hizzy:Kitchen Update and Dining Room

So, because we are crazy and had NO idea what a chore it would be, we completed the kitchen FIRST. I mean, we took cream cabinets and painted those suckers GRAY. It took forever to keep the kids off of them long enough that they could dry!! I posted the pics of the kitchen here, but we've updated it quite a bit as I've gotten things here and there, so I wanted to give you a brief update, then share my most favorite room of all, the DINING ROOM!!

So, over Christmas break we went to visit Manly's family. I mentioned that I loved a few of the things they had around their house, and that's when it happened. Manly's granddad invited me to come into the BASEMENT! I had only been one time before in all the time I've known Manly and his family, but I remembered one thing: there was a LOT of stuff down there!! We slowly walked the stairs down to what can only be described as pure mid-century bliss. Imagine a space filled with every artifact from the 50s-80s. Everywhere. Then he turns to me and says, "Well, what do you want?" ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!?!?! I WANT IT ALL! I nearly cried, ya'll. I went straight to the back and worked my way forward. We're talking vintage clothes, vintage game systems, antiques, precious clothing worn by my Man and his cousins and Aunt Steph. I was in heaven. I collected several things I'd had my eye on while shopping flea markets. I kept saying, "This is amazing!" over and over again. I pack our suburban down as much as we could and vowed I'd be back! Most of the items we got(aside from some KILLER outfits for Lulu and me) were cleaned and placed in the kitchen. I was wanting a modern version of a 50s kitchen in here. I don't really know what it is about that style that lures me in, but I'm hooked!

All of those colored cups came from the Grands. I LOVE them for the kids. The yellow coffee cups are plastic, and PERFECT for hot cocoa! The black thing on the top shelf is a coffee pot that's all tarnished. I was going to clean it up, but it has so much charm! We got TONS of tiny mason jars with little stars on them that are so cute, a whole set of punch cups, and some vintage coffee cups that Manly can remember different members of his family using. The teapot is from MY grandma.

 

I used a tension rod to add this curtain to my spice cabinet. I got some extra fabric that matched the barstools I recovered at the beginning of our makeover journey. This keeps the "ugly" from showing. It also reminds me of Friends! Ha! Sometimes I even pretend I'm Monica.

 

I also decided to follow something we did at my mom's house and hang a few signs IN the cabinets. I like how it makes even the cabinets seem like artwork.

 

Ya'll are you kidding me with all these cuties?! I love the little hen! The bowl set is reDONKulously beautiful!! I actually bought the hippos for Manly for Christmas. He had always said he wanted to have a salt and pepper shaker collection! Now he does. Ha!

 

A view of the other side of the kitchen. We will eventually change out the fridge and the oven. We've just been updating them as needed. See the cute little clips on the fridge? Those are for all the kids important papers from school or church that we need to have close daily. Each child has their own color to keep things simple. Works out great for us!

 

Family calendar.
 

I love this wall in the house. Aside from a few prints I got from IKEA these are all original Little Smittle originals. I plan to keep going around the room with them, but I'm filling in this wall first. I plan to add in other little prints as we go. It adds such a pop of color!

 

My cutie table and stools. I found this table at Salvation Army for $8, took off the top, and built a new one. I used sand paper to clean the rust off the metal. I love this tiny place for the girls to do homework, or to use if we are having snack in the kitchen(to go along with the barstools at the bar.)

 

Another view that also includes the cubbies and my public market print. If you know me, you know I love Grey's Anatomy. I love this print they have at the hospital, so I looked it up and found a print! Love it! You can also see the kids colors again in this pic.

 

Another pic of the cubbies. Manly saved these cubbies from the dumpster, brought them home, painted them, and added hooks.

My tiniest Littles eating their lunch and being cute!

 

And now, moving on to the Dining Room. My favorite room in the house!

Such a cool print from IKEA. I liked it for the character and simplicity. It really stands out against the darker grey(Benjamin Moore-Kendall Charcoal HC166)

 

Dresser from when Manly and I first got married. Manly's prized possession(record player), and a cool accordion I picked up from Goodwill. You will also notice Manly has a nice record collection.

 

See this BEAUTIFUL table!? My good sweet Manly made it for me!! Isn't it perfect?! It's to beautiful. We did everything on our own from making a plan to staining/painting. I love it. We pared it with these wonderful clear acrylic chairs from IKEA. They are a little bouncy, so that's fun with six kids. Ha! They are easy to keep clean, and punch up the modern factor. That awesome wall? That was hours of hand painting. Probably the job that took the longest aside from the kitchen, but I'd do it again in a second! It was hard, but it TOTALLY paid off and we all love it! The background color is the same shade as the kitchen(Benjamin Moore-Revere Pewter HC172). I chose to use all the accent colors we already had in the house. It turned out really really cool.

 

A closer look of the stencil wall, and a pic of my wood shim mirror! I made this beast of a mirror with three packs of wood shims from Lowe's and three shades of stain.

 

LOVE this serving cart I got from my dear Aunt Teresa. I left it completely as is. You can raise the sides to make it a larger table.

 

A view of the other side of the room. You can also see my other cornice board. Such an easy way to style up the otherwise UGLY sliding glass door! 

 

 

 

My beautiful beautiful chandelier One of my favorite IKEA finds. It casts such a lovely glow on the room.

Look how pretty it is in front of my wall!! The mirror! It's just too much!!!

 

Manly found this vintage tray on the side of the road. Love the mid century style. The art behind?! Oh EM GEEE!!! I totally totally love it!! I found them at a Flea Market for $5 for a set of FOUR!!! Two birds and two cats. I should have taken a pic of the other side. Sorry!

Table top. Manly did such a great job! Also, the chandelier is so pretty!!

 

View from the living room. Love this place we call home!

Furniture Painting

So, I promised a quick run through of how I painted the chair, what I think of it now, and if I recommend it to others. Here's the scoop.

The chair started out looking like this:

Well, without the bags and painters tape. It was a sweet little chair that my BFFs grandma had bought at a garage sale years ago. It had been recovered several times. So I removed all the covering until it was down to the original. I had originally intended to recover it myself, but then I started seeing all of these posts about painting the fabric of furniture. One day I was having spray paint withdrawals(this happens from time to time when I haven't painted anything in a while. I blame the instant gratification...and the fumes), so I decided to wrap up the wood(which is the reason I loved this little chair in the first place), and go to town on it with the black paint. I had several cans of black paint, and I thought it might make a good accent piece if it was black.

Here it is midway through. This is my painting tarp(can you tell?), it's covered in just about every color paint under the sun. I always do spray paint outside because it gets on everything and smells TERRIBLE! Make sure you're working on a nice sunny day so you can leave it out to dry a bit.

 

Here is the point in the conversation that I must mention I used CHEAP black flat paint. I have since learned that there is spray paint that is specifically for fabric(haven't seen it for myself), but this is NOT that paint. Ha! This is the $.99 cans my husband picked up that one time I asked for black paint. I generally use Valspar only because I think it's the best at covering, still reasonably priced, and comes in TONS of trendy colors. You can usually match it to the regular paint as well, which is cool if you are needing to paint the wall to match.

Here it is finished. Don't you just love the contrast of the cherry colored wood and the black. I also like how the black pops against the gray wall. Now, I should mention that for the most part this chair isn't sat in. If someone sits in it its usually one of the kids. I wasn't too worried about the paint rubbing off on anyone because of it's lack of use. I also wasn't worried about if the fabric would become stiff. I honestly just wanted it to LOOK cute. I don't recommend using cheap paint on a piece that you want to use regularly, as this paint DID made the fabric a little stiff, but more importantly it DOES rub off if you rub on it too much. It may also have to do with the particular fabric on this chair as well, but like I said, since it's rarely used we aren't too worried about it. 

Here she is all dressed up. I love that we were able to bring new life to this chair without spending a dime! It looks just right for the space, and I love it! This is a picture I took right after I finished it.

Here it is this week. You can see that it still looks fine, but the color does show through a tiny bit, and it doesn't look as crisp as it did before. I'm still OK with it though. It serves it's purpose, and fits in just fine. SO, in the end, it's fine for this particular purpose, but I can't say that I recommend it for you unless you're OK with needing to recover it in the end(which we still may do some day), or scrapping it all together. Try doing some research on it(it's ALL over the internet these days) before taking the plunge like I did.

 

Smittles Overhaul the Hizzy:Entryway, Living Room, and Guest Bath

So, now that we've covered my safe haven bedroom we can move on to the FUN parts of the house!! SO, welcome to the Smittle Family Home!!

 

This is the first thing you'll see when you walk in to our home. It's probably in the top five of my favorite things in our home. I bought it from IKEA, and it was well worth every penny! It makes fun polka dots all over the walls when it's on. So fun! The large tree print is also from IKEA. I loved the colors in it and the simple design. I found the smaller paintings in a folder I had kept from a nature art walk we did several years back. Each of the girls painted one of these. I love that they go so nicely with the larger print. A little tip: group like things together and suddenly it appears you have a little collection. This can be anything from vases to framed t-shirts(although the style factor may vary, the statement won't)

Another look at this corner. I'd love to find a big old retro floor lamp or a tiny table and a table lamp for this corner. No one ever sits in this chair, really, but I thought it made a nice statement. It's an old chair that I decided to spray paint. More on that tomorrow... The color on all of the main walls in the house is Chelsea Gray by Benjamin Moore. I again pared it with White Dove for all the trim work. We had an off-white color on all the trim originally and we felt like the jump to white really punched up the feel of the house. Because everything had been off white before we had beige outlets and switch plates, so Scotty learned a little electrical work and changed out ALL of them in the entire house for fresh white ones. It made a HUGE difference!! We also painted all the doors and spray painted all the knobs in a matching color.

 

Found this entry rug on clearance at Target for around $10. I love that it's funky but still pretty and has nice coloring.

 

The accent wall across from the front door. I totally snagged this paint from a girlfriend who had an extra gallon from painting her daughters room. The color before was really cool, and there is a really cool texture on the wall that we decided to leave that I'm pretty sure was created by applying tissue paper. I love the BOLD pop of color it provides to the foyer, and how it pulls a smile out of just about everyone who comes to my door. Even the mail lady complemented the color.

 

I got these mirrors from a friend who was finished with them. I'd like to add a long skinny table to this wall, and eventually I'll make one, but for now it's just fine.

 

 

 

This is a look at the foyer from the living room. I made the cornice board from some extra wood and burlap. Manly helped me think of a safe way to hang the giant thing. This window space is over 100" so we needed to be sure it wouldn't fall on the kids if they were to mess with it. I'll do a tutorial on that some day...maybe. 

This is also a good visual for our new flooring. We got vinyl wood plank flooring over all the others for two simple reasons: price and durability. Here is a description of what exactly it is. I originally wanted bamboo which would have been great(and someday I might have it), but I would have always been nervous about the kids ruining it. With this flooring I literally have wiped it with a wet rag after someone puked on it and it was fine. We've also removed gum, paint, and marker very easily. We have LOVED it so far. It's a breeze to clean, and SO SO durable with the kids. We(mostly Manly) installed it ourselves and if I do say so myself, it looks GREAT. Manly did an awesome job trimming it out afterwards and it looks so pretty and fresh.

 

Several of you have commented on my cross wall before, never fear, it made it into the remodel. We just moved it into the foyer. It looks really nice here, and again, brings in some pops of color.

 

This little half wall has been my enemy since we moved in. Our living room is very large, so it's nothing to do with space, it's just been hard knowing how to USE this little space. We decided to knock the thing down, but once we had hacked into it we discovered there was a PIPE in the middle of it!! SO, we learned to drywall, and put it back. I decided to just leave the barstools there as they were before, add a lamp, and a giant elephant(that my BFF gave me from her giveaway pile in her garage). It's a great space when we have a lot of guests over, because it adds extra seats, but also is its own little chatting space. Ideas on what to do???

 

I wish I was a better photographer so that you could get a better idea of how giant our sectional is, and how AWESOME this room is!! This is the sectional that started it all! I don't know WHY Manly and I decided to buy a GREEN couch, but we loved it. I'm so glad we did. It is SO cool and seats SO many people!! I'd love to add more pillows, but they are so darn expensive that I've just been getting them little by little. The painting? Why? No reason. I just fell in love with it, it went on sale, I bought it. I'd do it again. It's REALLY huge and sort of odd, but it's us. Ha!

 

Once I decided on the color for the walls, the next step was to make my burlap curtains! I knew from the beginning I wanted gray and burlap, and that's just what I did. They add a rustic charm to my otherwise totally funky style. I LOVE them. Bonus: they were NO SEW, and took me less than an hour to make!! The hanging lamps are IKEA, the piano(which I'd secretly LOVE to paint a mustard yellow color) is a family heirloom, and the fireplace is still not my favorite.

I just can't decide what to do with it. For now it's fine, but I'm just not in love with it.

 

Oh, that chaise lounge? Manly FOUND IT ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD AS TRASH, picked it up, totally rebuilt it, and we put a vintage pillow from his grandparents house on it and BAM, one of the best spots for napping in the house! Print from IKEA.

I'll post on the dining room later, but this is the view from the living room. It's by far my favorite room of the house. (Swoon.)

 

Our family photo wall. These pics of our family are so special to us as they mark 10 years of marriage! They were taken by the very talented LindseyFaith Photography. We highly recommend her! I changed out the shades on the lamps, spray painted them teal, and painted the frames a fresh coat of white. I love the personal touch family photos give a room. Side note: I'd love to add tin to the top of that side table. Probably will soon...

 

I got this cool painting from The Not So Blank Canvas. Her work is so cool! Check her out! This is a tiny shot of the kitchen too. I'll post an update on that soon.

 

SO, last but not least, the guest bath. I mentioned in my Master suite post that we had TERRIBLE issues with PRE-WALLPAPERED sheetrock. Seriously, this was some back aching work! There were also SEVERAL layers of paper. By the time we got to the actual wall it was pretty damaged. We decided to do a really thick texture on the walls with joint compound. I love it! The color is Kendall Charcoal by Benjamin Moore. It's one shade darker than my Chelsea Gray walls. I used it for all the smaller spaces. Don't be afraid to do a dark color on small spaces. We found that it actually made it feel a little larger.

  

I will be adding tile to the counter top OR just getting a new countertop(butcher block) all together soon, but for now it's fine. I got this SUPER cool retro medicine cabinet at Re-Store for $5!! Manly rewired it, we painted it a fun purple, and added Edison bulbs. I LOVE it!! It's really funky, but a great fit for a fun guest bath.

The vase was given to me as a house warming gift when we first moved in by my Aunt. It's always been one of my favorite pieces. It's HUGE, and looks GREAT in this space to add some white.

 

The painting on the left was a cool water color weaving that Lulu did.

Those AMAZING hand towels are from World Market. They are SO soft AND reversible. Ha!

An upclose look at the textured wall. It looks really cool and was REALLY easy. Joint compound, hands, and lots of time waiting for it to dry.

The toilet side. Ha!

 

That's all for now. Up next: Kitchen and Dining Room! Yay!