Painting projects? Check!

This is the summer that we painted the main living areas in our house. It was far less painful than I imagined it would be. My husband is turning into a painting pro. The whole project took way less time than I thought it would - actually picking the colors was the hardest and most time consuming part. The finished rooms look so awesome. Seriously, I couldn't be happier with how it all turned out.

The only problem is that once your walls look all fresh and clean and you feel like you are living in a new house, your old furniture and decor tend to seem extremely dated and worn out.

An example of that would be this table and its twin brother that are nearly thirteen years old and showing every day of those years.

Load yourself up with some sandpaper, an old can of glossy black paint and a couple of cans of spray paint for an even finish and you go from Goodwill....

....to Pottery Barn. I didn't know how these tables would turn out. I didn't have extremely high hopes, but my hopes were blown away. They turned out great!

With new found confidence in spray paint and my ability to turn "trash to treasure", I tackled a few more little projects that I had stored in the basement and garage with intentions of getting to them "someday". That day was upon us.

My old doll crib made for me by my Grandfather. The wood was in excellent shape but needed a bit of girl-i-fying in my taste. On a side note, I am desperately trying to get Hailey into playing with dolls and thought that having her help paint the crib would make her a bit more excited about it. The jury is still out about whether my plot worked or not, but that is a post for another day.

The finished crib. I am thinking I might look for a decal or a rub on to fanci-fy the "bump" part of the crib. Are you totally loving the words I am making up for this post?

Victim number three. The set of shelves that I purchased at a garage sale last summer for one American dollar. These little squares full of potential have been residing in my garage since I brought them in from the car the day I bought them.

A couple cans of black spray paint = instant shelf makeover.

Last but not least was the shelving unit that I got from my Grandmother. It is not my usual style at all. It is very antique-y (there I go again) and ornate. There is just something about it that I love. And trust me when I tell you that something is not the lime green color that it was painted. It has been residing in the finished part of my basement in all its lime green glory since Spencer was a toddler. It has waited for its close-up long enough.

The two holes are for amazing beveled glass mirrors that fit into them. The mirrors have seen better days but since they are completely custom to that shelf, I don't know how we would ever replace them or if it would even be worth it financially since I will probably have pictures or some other sort of tchotchke that can cover the less than stellar parts.

After about four cans of Kona brown....here she is in all her finest.

We managed to get a ton of projects done this summer and as you can see the majority of them involved us inhaling a lot of paint fumes.

I am hoping this fall to get back into my de-cluttering and organization mode. I am thinking that with Hailey in school two mornings a week, I really have no excuse to not make considerable headway.

Famous last words.....