Crea ambientes con papel pintado / Decorating with wallpaper

Sin grandes inversiones se puede conseguir un cambio de ambiente espectacular, utilizando papel pintado 

puedes conseguir de forma fácil el ambiente que deseas y dar un nuevo aire a la decoración.

Solo tiene que pensar el estilo que quieres conseguir y elegir el papel adecuado.

¿Quieres un ambiente que sea  un homenaje a la vida al aire libre, a la temporada de verano y todo lo que va con ella?    

Combina delicados motivos florales  con un toque un poco nostálgico. 

Elige rayas marinas y combinaciones de colores azules , rojos y blancos., si quieres un estilo 

costero sobrio y elegante al mismo tiempo.

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!Feliz fin de semana !

♡ ♡ ♡ 

Gracias por tu visita ¡  Vicky  

Mud room bench, done!!

HELLO! It’s Friday and the bench is done! Can I get an AMEN?

Last I left you it looked like this:

Not bad but not done.

Like I said, it felt like all I had to do was paint those cabinets and slap on the hardware and I’d be done. But there was more. Lots more.

I’ve shared how to paint cabinets here but I’ll share the basics again today. Cause I’m in a good mood. :) I was starting with unfinished cabinets so I didn’t use a special primer, just a basic one:

So I experimented this time with a different color primer. Every time I prime unfinished wood it takes SO many coats to get nice coverage on it. So I tried using my tinted gray primer this time, thinking it would coat better at first, giving me a better base.

It did! But it still took three coats of white paint like usual. :) So it was a wash. But I learned. Something.

Anyhoo, after applying one coat of primer, be sure to sand everything lightly between coats:

The primer and paint (mostly the first coat or two only) will pull up the grain on the wood:

So you want to knock that down a bit.

So I used my basic white paint (off the shelf) I use for all of my trim and built ins but I could tell it was getting old. I noticed on the basement kitchenette that it was getting thick and hard to work with. So after attempting one coat on the bench I went out and got some new white paint, this time from Sherwin Williams:

This ProClassic is AWESOME – I used this on our kitchen island and it’s held up GREAT. It’s their base white called Extra White and it went on SO easily and so smooth. Love it! (And no, I’m not paid to say that, I have just become a die hard SW fan over the past couple of years.)

I did three coats of white on the cabinets, then put the doors back on. It was then that I realized that the bottom trim looked like poo:

It was flush in the middle and but not on the sides so it looked weird. I had some scrap trim that I used for the base so I just placed that right over it and I’m so much happier with it!

Another big project was installing the trim around the top of the beadboard. Once I was done I knew I had to address the corners. I don’t have a table saw so I scored my beadboard down to make cuts to fit into the inside corners and outside corner. The result was crappy but I knew I would fix it:

 

See the big gaps? I use dowel rods to fill those in. I shared how I did it years ago on the kitchen island here. It’s the perfect solution since it just looks like the “bead” of the beadboard.

Now with the dowel rods and some caulk you can’t even tell there were gaps there:

After all that, and touching up some more paint, it was time to poly the bench:

I did one coat, sanded lightly and then did one more.

And here’s the final result…finally:

I still need to paint the trim around the doors, and a ton of other stuff. But the bench area is D.O.N.E. And I am H.A.P.P.Y.

I’m really proud of myself for making this happen. For the months years that I was planning this room I didn’t think I’d be able to do the bench myself. I knew I could build a bench, but a bench with storage I figured I’d have to hire out. I’m SO pleased with how it came together:

That center panel I was worried about between the two cabinets is now hardly noticeable, with a lot of sanding, spackle and paint. :) If I could do it again I’d have the cabinets next to each other (and no space between) but I couldn’t figure out how to get them secured to the wall if I did that.

I’m in love with the hardware in here too – it was all from Lowe’s. I went simple with the hooks so I could fit them on the trim:

I originally planned on four along the back but decided on three there and then one on each side too. I need to go back and get one more for this side:

I figure the back ones will be for coats and bags and the side ones can be for keys and dog stuff.

I got a shot straight on with the help of my wide angle lens:

      

SO HAPPY!!

Now…to decide on what’s happening above. I thought I had something in mind but now I need to think on it more. I want lots of storage up there so I’m just figuring out how much I want to be open and how much closed. (My plan is both.)

For now I’ll take a break on this space and just enjoy it! The cost for this area was about $300 – that includes the additional beadboard, the trim, the butcher block from IKEA and the cabinets. I used scrap wood for some of it too.

I am looking forward to adding some decorative stuff in here down the line – but for now just being functional is pretty awesome! Especially considering this space used to look like this ALL THE TIME:

Have a GREAT weekend!! Whoot! 

P.S. Here’s how I built the bench and here’s an in between update if you’d like more info on how I did this project.

A fresh, bright and beautiful Dutch cottage

I do love a weekend escape. This white country cottage belonging to interior designer and co-owner of NU interieur /ontwerp Nathalie Fransen, architect Bas Van Egmond and their three children in the Netherlands hits the mark! The Dutch cottage has been renovated into a beautiful, fresh, light space using among other things, a lick of white paint, a new kitchen and bathroom. For a relatively small space of 34 metres square this family weekend retreat gives an illusion of space. Take me there!

Holly Marder for Decor8

I love this cottage, it has everything I could dream of in a holiday cottage, how about you?

You can see more pictures and read more about this Dutch space here. 

For more Scandinavian retreat inspiration you might want to check out this page (warning: you might want to pour yourself a coffee first, you could wile away a good hour looking through these Scandinavian rural retreats!). 

Have a lovely weekend!

PS we're off to the jungle here in Thailand for the weekend, exciting! See you Monday. 

En tonos pastel/ Soft tones

Simple, limpio, moderno, es lo que siento al ver estas preciosas  imágenes 

  en tonos pastel llenas de luz y vitalidad, tomadas por el fotógrafo de interiores James Stokes

¿Quien piensa que los tonos pastel son solo para habitaciones infantiles?

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Gracias por tu visita ¡  Vicky  

My favorite appliance

Hello friends, it’s almost the weekend! Thursdays rock.

I was SO hoping to have the mud room (well, the part I’ve been working on) done to show you today but for all that is good, it is taking FOREVER. It seemed like a couple coats of paint were going to finish it up but it’s all kinds of little things. I really hope to have it done to share tomorrow.

Today I’m talking about something I’ve wanted to share for a while – my very favorite appliance. I like sharing what works well in our home (and what doesn’t) and this is one that I couldn’t live without. Well…I would survive – but it would be tough. :)

It’s not the fridge – although I do love it. It’s not the oven (boring), or even my beloved microwave, but instead the appliance that you may have seen in our kitchen island:

(Yes the snow wall is still up. But I’m about over the snow outside so it’s coming down soon.)

So yes, it’s not the prettiest thing, and when my hubby and I built this house this was one of the things I fought against. The money was adding up and I was starting to freak out and I was all, who needs a trash compactor? Hello…it’s just an expensive trash can.

It is pretty spendy for a trash can but let me tell you – it ROCKS. Ours is ten years old and when we picked out appliances I did a mix of stainless and black, which I wish I could take back (and go all stainless). So it’s not something that’s easy to blend into the island, but it’s worth it:

My husband had had one in an old house and loved it. I was skeptical. When we moved in and I looked at the inside and saw how small it was (I’m sparing you pictures of our trash, but it’s small), I was questioning this purchase even more.

And then we started using it and as I mentioned in the title of this post, it is now my most favorite appliance, hands down. Speaking of hands, you don’t use them to open it:

You push on the lever with a foot and it opens up, hands free.

Our trash compactor and the lever on our powder room toilet make for fun times when we have company over. No one knows how to use the trash can or the toilet. We’re great hosts. ;)

When the trash bag starts to get full you just turn the dial and it smashes the trash down. We only use one small compactor bag a week, if that. (That doesn’t include trash in the rest of the house, but the majority of it is in here.)

The only drawback to a trash can like this is finding the bags. You have to use special compactor bags:

They’re hard to find – we get ours at Sears and it’s the only place we find them locally. Thankfully we don’t need to buy them that often since we only use one a week.

So there’s more info about my favorite appliance. :) The built in compactor also solves the question of where to put the trash can – there’s not a great spot for one anywhere else in our kitchen.

And I just have to throw in a before of the kitchen island for kicks because it’s come SO far:

Do you have a trash compactor? We don’t know anyone else with one. They are very old school, right? Did you have one growing up?