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From the Archives–My Very First Post Ever–Week-at-a-Glance Wall Chalkboard

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Christy

I thought it might be a little fun this Friday to repost my very first blog post, ever, from November 27, 2010. My, how things have changed since then! Bear with me on the formatting and pictures, but it’s still fun to see how much 11 Magnolia Lane has changed along the way. My Type A/OCD tendencies haven’t changed at all, though!

Happy Friday!

Week at a glance wall calendar

I am an organization addict. Combine a Type A personality with only-child syndrome and throw in a touch of OCD, and this is what you get! I have owned every Day-Timer and Filofax ever made, and for awhile there I was really good about keeping my schedule in my Blackberry, but now I am back to a good old-fashioned wall calendar that gives me the month at a glance and allows me to plan WAY far in advance (a must for every military wife and homeschooling mom). But for the current week, I have–drumroll, please–my chalkboard calendar on my kitchen wall!

Everyone laughs at my wall calendar, but I know that they are secretly jealous. They feel flattered if they “make” the calendar and then get to see their names prominently displayed in my kitchen. Since I have to write down every move that I plan to make or I will forget it, lots of people make my chalkboard in a week’s time!

The panels are simply chalkboard-style Wallies, the peel-and-stick wallpaper that can then be easily removed when the time comes. By the way, I haven’t tested that claim yet, so I am hoping that when we move they do peel off that easily, because I already will have enough nail holes to fill! Anyway, I bought the Wallies online from Amazon (click HEREto order them through our affiliate program), and I just measured and stuck those puppies on my wall. I suppose you COULD use tape and chalkboard paint, but that would obviously be a more permanent approach and our frequent moves make me more of a “temporary” than a “permanent” person.

Since there are eight panels but only seven days in the week (I know you know that, but sometimes I schedule enough for eight!), I have one panel left over for NOTES, where I keep a handy running to-do list of things that I have really been putting off for a long time (like make a new will and schedule our flu shots). My real, daily to-do list gets written on paper and stuffed in my purse, but that’s another post for another day! I also start my week on Monday, even though my pastor tells me that Sunday is the first day of the week, because I need to see the weekend days together. Of course, the beauty of the chalk board is that on Sunday, I wipe the whole thing off with a wet paper towel and get to start it all over again.

I should resolve that I will put more things on my calendar like “massage” or “lunch with the girls, “ or my personal favorite, “shoe shopping,” but unless someone creates that eighth day in my week, I’m not sure if I’m going to have time for those things before January!

Thanks to wordpress for featuring this post on FRESHLY PRESSED and for everyone who visited us from it!

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Posted in Office, Organization | Tagged calendar, chalkboard, organization, wall, week at a glance | 4 Comments

Quick and Easy Kids’ Artwork Wall Display

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Christy

I spent my weekend removing moldy caulk from my shower and recaulking, and replacing the ripped screen in our porch door, but you don’t want to see any of that, now do you? I know–boring! So, instead, I’m going to show you what I did on Friday to display some of my daughter’s artwork. The disclaimer is that I did not come up with this idea on my own; I’ve seen it all over Pinterest and the internet. However, after looking at five or six web sites, I can’t seem to figure out who really came up with the idea. So, forgive me for not crediting anyone specifically for thinking this up! Also, Amy did something pretty similar HERE (I get all of my best ideas from her!). As is true with most of my “tutorials,” it’s really too simple to be called a tutorial! Here’s what I did:

Kids wall artwork display

I started with 1″ x 8″ fingerjoint board, that I had left over from building my PANTRY shelves. Because I had two pieces that were about 34″ long, that’s what I used. I cut them to make sure they were the exact same length, sanded the edges lightly, and primed and painted them. Here’s the paint and primer I almost always use (it’s available at Home Depot):

Prime and paint 1" x 8" fingerjoint board

Harley is safely in the background. He likes to join me out back when I’m spray painting, but he does NOT like the hissing sound the paint makes. Maybe it reminds him of an annoyed cat?!

This is my high-tech spray painting station. Jealous?

Prime and paint fingerjoint board

When the two boards were dry, I simply glue-gunned bulldog clips onto them. I spaced my bulldog clips about 16″ apart, and I used three per piece of wood. Obviously you could use a different number of clips based on the length of your board. I’m telling you that they’re bulldog clips so you don’t have to look like an idiot at Hobby Lobby or an office supply store (like I did), asking for “those clipboard clip thingies without the clipboard.” I got my bulldog clips at Hobby Lobby; they looked like this:

Bulldog clips from Hobby Lobby

I then took my smallest drill bit (7/64″) and drilled a hole at each end of the board. Then, using 2″ wire brad nails and a level, I hung the board on the wall. The reason I chose this method to hang it was that I wanted to do minimal damage to the wall. Two small nail holes will be easily patched and painted when we remove the display. Here’s a close-up:

I later took a white paint pen and dotted paint on the nail head to make it less obvious. Also, when there’s artwork hanging on the end clips, it covers the nail as well.

I wound up hanging one board in the kids’ bathroom, and one on the half wall just outside of their bathroom, right at the top of our stairs. I considered putting them both in the bathroom, one on top of the other, and would have done that except that since we have board and batten in the bathroom (read about that HERE), I think the display boards would have been too high. Here are some “after” shots:

Did I ever show you the mirror after I framed it out? See above, if not. I think it’s a great way to dress up a contractor-grade “wall of mirrors.”

My daughter is the only one who brings me artwork anymore; my son is 12 and just not that into art anymore. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to have one board for each kid, though? You could swap their art out seasonally. Stick them in the hall, the bathroom, the kitchen, even their bedroom.

We’ve discussed “paper management” before, but do you have any great ideas for containing the paper trail that comes with having children? Let us know!

Thanks for stopping by.

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Posted in Crafts, Kids Rooms, Organization | Tagged artwork, display, Kids, wall | 4 Comments

Paint Technique Tutorial: How to Paint Harlequin Diamonds–Closet Redo Part 3

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Christy

I posted last month on my closet redo, and then followed up with a post on how I organized my shoe boxes with plastic bins and chalkboard labels {here}. I promised a tutorial about how I painted the harlequin diamonds on my wall, and this is it. Sorry for the slight delay–Fall and Halloween posts bumped it off the calendar for awhile!

Harlequin diamonds are simple to paint, but time-consuming. Having done a few paint techniques in the past, like the painted wallpaper I did in my laundry room, it’s easy in terms of difficulty, and moderate in terms of time. Are you with me? Good.

The first step is to gather your supplies. Are you painting first? I did–I used an interior flat latex from Lowe’s (the color is “Princess”). I gave the entire closet a coat of pink, including the ceiling (I often paint the ceiling in a small space). Decide what color you want your diamonds to be. Do you want a BIG contrast, like black and white? If so, then you’ll paint the lighter color on your walls first, and then use the darker color when you paint the diamonds, so you’ll need twice as much of the lighter color. In my case, I chose to use a glaze technique, because I wanted a very subtle, silvery sheen, and my 5′ x 8′ closet needed two jars of Martha Stewart’s glaze in Mercury (available at Home Depot).

Supplies:

Paint for walls (and ceiling if desired).
Paint or glaze for diamonds (about half as much as the base color). Don’t forget that if you’re using glaze, you’ll need to mix it with your base coat color of paint, so be sure you buy enough to do that.
Dropcloths, brushes, rollers, and all that jazz.
Painter’s tape, and LOTS of it. I needed 3-1/2 rolls for my closet. Better to buy more and return it than run out in mid-project! Also, I would buy the painter’s tape that works on newly painted walls. You’ll be taping over paint that has only had a few hours to dry, and you don’t want to peel any of it off.
Any embellishments you want to use to accent your diamonds. I used brushed silver/platinum upholstery tacks and just nailed them in when I was done. I’ve seen others use a gem or a pearl. Of course, you don’t need to use any of these.
Chalk
A level

OK, here are your steps:

1. First, prep and paint the room in your lighter color. Here’s my closet with its coat of pink:

2. Now, decide how big you want your diamonds to be. The rule of thumb is that they should be twice as tall as they are wide. I decided to make mine 20″ tall and 10″ wide. Obviously, the smaller they are, the more work they’ll be with all the taping you’ll be doing. I’ll be using 10″x 20″ for the purposes of this tutorial.

3. Using the level and a piece of chalk, draw rectangles on your wall that measure 10″ x 20″. The level will ensure that your lines remain straight. Start in the corner that’s opposite the door, or whichever corner will be most visible. In a closet, that’s none of them since they’re all full of clothes! Also, I started my first horizontal line 10″ from the ceiling, not 20″, because I wanted the top row of diamonds to be a full PINK diamond, not a full SILVER diamond. Translation: if you want your top row to be diamonds of the lighter/first color, do it my way. If you want your top row to be diamonds of the darker/second color, then start your top line 20″ from the ceiling. When you’re finished, your entire room will look like it’s made of rectangle bricks!

Use a level and chalk to draw rectangles on your wall.

I like using chalk because all these lines will need to be erased eventually, but if you have a hard time seeing them on your paint, go ahead and use a pencil. Just write lightly!

4. Now, mark the midpoint on all four sides of the rectangle. For my rectangles, this meant that I made a mark with the chalk at 5″ on the top and bottom, and at 10″ on the sides. Using your painter’s tape, you’re going to use those four midpoint marks as the “points” of your diamond. You’ll only be able to tape every other diamond, and it will look like this:

Tape every other rectangle to form a diamond.

5. Paint inside each diamond with your second or darker color. Since I used glaze, I mixed one part glaze with two parts paint. This made the diamonds a subtle silver color, which I loved.

NOTE: If you’re using dark paint for a high-contrast look, I would experiment with one diamond in a discreet area first to see how much of a problem you’re going to have with the paint bleeding under the painter’s tape. That will depend on the texture of your walls, the consistency of the paint or glaze you’re using, and even how well you applied the tape. If bleeding is a big problem, you can “seal” the tape line by painting on the line with your first/lighter color, waiting until that dries, and then painting over it with the darker color. Fortunately, I didn’t have to do that!

6. After your diamonds have dried, remove the tape, and do the same thing for the unpainted diamonds. Make sure you line up the tape with your already-painted diamonds so that their points all line up! When it comes to corners, you can always make a diamond a little wider or a little thinner without it being obvious, so some of my corner diamonds are 9″ or 11″ wide. Just don’t make the diamond taller or shorter!!

Remove the tape from the first set of diamonds. Every other diamond will be painted.

7. Paint your second set of diamonds and let them dry. Remove the tape. I used a damp washcloth to wipe away all the chalk lines.

8. Embellish your diamonds with upholstery tacks or gems, if desired.

9. Wipe your brow–phew! that was a lot of work–and enjoy the gorgeous diamonds you’ve painted on your wall!

Leave me a comment if you have any questions and I’ll be happy to answer them.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Posted in Before and After, Closets, DIY, Home Inspiration, Real Spaces | Tagged diamond, diy, how to, paint, technique. harlequin, tutorial, wall | 1 Comment

Board and Batten Wall Treatment in the Kids’ Bathroom

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Christy

I’ve been hard at work on our master bath/bedroom/sitting area, but I’ve kind of stalled out on it. The painting is all done, and I love it–Benjamin Moore’s Pebble Beach–but until I get all the furniture arranged just the way I like it, and the bedding figured out, I can’t show you the final reveal. In the meantime, though, I wanted to share the board and batten treatment that I did in my kids’ bathroom. It was a very easy project, and I love that it added six hooks to my kids’ bathroom wall–they don’t use towel bars, after all!!

Here’s a quick before picture. Sorry that I already took off the switch plate on the light switch. It was just a boring wall, with one towel bar on it. What a waste of space!

There are so many board and batten tutorials out there in blogland that I won’t recreate the wheel here. I did use Centsational Girl’s post more than the other ones; you can check it out here.

**By the way, if you have tile in your room like I do, try to determine whether or not the baseboard was installed before or after the tile. My baseboards were put in before my tile, so when I removed the baseboards it was a NIGHTMARE. If I had known that, I would have left the baseboards in place and just dealt with it.**

I have a miter saw but not a table saw, so I took all my measurements to Home Depot, and had them cut everything for me. All of this was done before I had my nailgun birthday gift, and while it would have been way easier with the nail gun, this still wasn’t too bad.

Here’s a during picture, with the battens put up but not painted:

And here are some shots after I primed, painted two coats of semi-gloss latex, and added the hooks (and towels).

While I was at it, I decided to trim the HUGE mirror the builder glued above the double vanities (the one in my bathroom still has to come down, and hopefully I won’t cut myself to shreds doing it). Here’s the before of the mirror (sorry for the mess!):

I really liked how this turned out, and it was easy with my miter saw, some finish nails, and a little Gorilla glue!

I have a boy and a girl, and they share the bathroom, so we have to go with a color scheme that works for both genders. We chose “colorful” for our palette. Bright washcloths in a galvanized pail and flossers in a small apothecary jar mark the line between brother’s and sister’s sinks!

Let me give credit where credit’s due: here’s the link for the printable from TechnologyRocksSeriously.

I changed out the cabinet knobs and drawer pulls with this cheerful polka dot ones from Hobby Lobby; but I kept the old silver ones in case I need to change things back for resale one day.

And, yes, there’s still one thing to do…I have to patch the drywall on my daughter’s side of the sink, where I pulled out the medicine cabinet. There wasn’t enough room to trim the mirror and keep the medicine cabinet, so now there’s a hole! Always happy to show you my dirty laundry (as it were) here on Magnolia Lane!