I finally did it! I've been thinking about this for at least a year. Sometimes my momentum for a project is slow to build and then I just HAVE to do it and there is no stopping me. It's kind of like trying to get children out the door to run errands. When I get to the threshold of no return I can't turn back, even if it means my child is wearing socks for mittens. Oh yes, I've done it.

ANYway, here she is! I always knew those shapely legs would look good in white.

One of the reasons it took me so long is this top. It's a formica or laminate or something. Which I KNOW I could paint, but a) I LOVE the kid friendliness of the wipeable surface, and b) the paint would scratch easily on a surface this smooth and that we use so much.

So I'm going to live with it for awhile before I decide whether to keep the top, try to paint it, or replace it with something else. And whether to distress it. In any case, it is really nice and bright and brings out the colors in the rug. And I think it'll look great with our new sofa! I'm excited to get rid of some of the brown in the room. Not a bad color, just overpowering right now.

What do you think, should I distress those beautiful curves?

Sockin' it to Ya!

Ava is mobile in full-force now. We are used to the spills, slips and bumps that come with the territory. I realized, however, that most of her socks don't have "grippies" on the bottom. Maybe that's because she has tiny feet and most of her socks would fit a baby that can't even crawl yet. :0) So I remembered a tip I saw in Real Simple: use puffy paint! Remember? From the 80's?

Here is a picture of her new socks. (or "shaaaa!" in Ava-ese) I put cardboard inside the socks so the paint didn't leak through to the other side. It was pretty super easy. And Ava stays on her feet (a little bit) more. :0)

PROGRESS. Feels good.

Here's a bit of an update on the dreaded stairwell. Details of the nasty before pictures can be found hereI apologize for the lighting. There are currently no working lights in the stairwell. I used classic taupe by Behr, because we had it already. It's okay. But in the wrong light it looks like the dusty rose I had in my bedroom ca. 1987 when I "designed" my bedroom. The pink bunny room. Not exactly what I was going for here, so I'll just choose to view it through taupe colored glasses.

I know, this hardly looks like an after picture, but it truly truly looks much better. We don't really want to put up new drywall or do a major overhaul, but the paint really brightened up the space.

I researched how to paint a stairwell and extension ladder safety, so I was pretty confident in my ladder technique, but I was still sweating bullets when I painted the stairwell. It was scary! And I'm not even really scared of heights. I was so tense that I felt like I had pulled muscles the next day. It was crazy. But anyway...

Set the feet of the ladder against a stair (or better yet a wall), making sure the feet are even and flat against the ground. Make sure it is not too vertical. And the top goes against the opposite wall. *DO NOT TAKE THIS AS EXPERT ADVISE. TAKE PROPER PRECAUTIONS WHEN YOU USE A LADDER*

I had to get rid of some mildew on the cement blocks before I primed (Kilz) and painted.

I sprayed this mixture of one part bleach to three parts water on the mildew and let it sit 10 minutes before wiping it of with water.

I've got some other plans in the works for the stairwell to make it a utilized space. I'm really excited about it, AND I got to use a table saw for the first time! Woohoo!