A touch of chevron

OK…if you’ve been around these parts for awhile you know I show you the good and bad and the ugly around here. (Go here for a REALLY bad one that ended good.)

Not every project turns out as I had hoped, and some turn out…but I just can’t quite decide if I love them or not. This is one of those.

I’ve planned to do this project forever and was excited to finally get it done – it was a simple little trash can redo for my office:

I’ve had this wood one for YEARS. I think it was my first Pottery Barn purchase ever, about ten years ago. It was on clearance and it’s a great little waste basket. After all this time the structure has held up great, but the outside was a little nicked up. So I figured it would be the perfect project to experiment on. :)

I started by sanding it down super fast in my “workshop.” That would be on the trash can in the garage:

I got that sander a few months ago and it makes sanding SO much easier. It’s the first one I’ve owned that doesn’t leave skip marks all over everything. I loathe sanding and I love this thing so that’s saying a lot.

After I wiped it down I gave it a coat of primer and then a couple coats of a satin white paint in my other workshop. Or on an old sheet in the front yard:

Next was the FUN part. :)

I let the paint dry for a few hours inside so it would hold up to some painter’s tape. This wasn’t just any painter’s tape though – it was chevron tape!: I work with the lovely folks at Frogtape so I have had this stuff for awhile – I’ve just been waiting for it to come out in stores so I could show you! I saw it at Lowe’s a few weeks ago.

I sat and watched TV while I taped off the trash can:

So I’ve mentioned a few times that I’m usually eons behind the latest decorating trend. Either that or I’m so far ahead of the trend it’s not even cool yet. (I was putting chalkboards everywhere before they were the thing.)

Chevron isn’t one of those trends I’m hooked on – I haven’t added it anywhere in the house yet. When I got this tape a while back I knew it would be fun to use it somewhere small to see if I liked it. Just a little spot, a smidge. A skosh of chevron if you will.

When I redid my office years ago I added in a few touches of pink in the space just to break up all the blue and beige in there. I picked up a pink paint sample (Sunrose by Valspar) months ago to use on another spot in the room and figured it would be a cute accent on the trash can.

I didn’t worry about great coverage on this – I didn’t want the color to be super saturated, so I just did one quick coat of the pink. I was kind of excited as I peeled off the chevron tape:

It was looking super cute!

But by the time I was done taking it all off…I didn’t like it. At all. It was too much.

I was doing this at night so I tried to get a shot of it in the bathroom:

It’s hard to get a good idea of how it looked – it was just too bright and SO girly. I mean, I love some girly touches but it was just a LOT. In a little girl’s room, it would have been perfect. For my grown up office? A little much. (For me.)

Soooo, I tried to figure out how to salvage it. I didn’t hate the chevron, the color was bugging me more than anything. I decided to try using the sander again to knock it down as much as I could. I used a 220 grit sandpaper and then a 120 to knock it down even more.

And whew…I liked it SO much more.

It gave it a washed, old look that I liked so much more! Cause you know chevron is on all the old stuff. ;)

Do I love it? I’m still not sure. I do like the look of chevron, I’m just not sure I love the look of it in my house. ;) It really is pretty cute though:

I AM love with my new mercury glass “vase” on my desk – it was a clearanced out outdoor candleholder at Menards. Three bucks!:

I think it will be absolutely beautiful with a candle inside too – but I’m obsessed with my hydrangeas right now. :)

But oh, the possibilities with this fun tape!! It makes it so easy to add this look to anything! I’m not sure of the exact shapes they have out, but I do have a wavy look too that I’m thinking of trying somewhere.

Are you a fan of the chevron? Do you have it in your home somewhere? I thought it may go away but I am still seeing it all over! I don’t think it’s going anywhere soon. So NOW I’m totally caught up with the trend. Finally. :)

**For more on my office redo, go here.

Dining room (pretty) organization

Hey hey! How the heck are ya? There are some beautiful projects linked up at the before and after shindig – check it out here to see them or link up yours!

Today I’m back in the dining room – or is it the library? This room is a little confused right now. :) Last year we decided to do away with our dining room (that we used twice in seven years?) and make it into a more functional space for us. I shared the progress on this DIY built in project early last year and the final result here. The “book” part of the library is done…but we still need a cozy place to sit.

I love the built ins for so many different reasons, but one of the BIGGIES is all of the glorious storage they provide:

I chose to use upper kitchen cabinets as the bases, which I’ve done a couple times elsewhere in the house. They aren’t nearly as deep as a regular cabinet base (12 inches instead of 24), but I knew they would still provide plenty of storage.

I use this area for most of our serving stuff – the items we don’t use every day or even every week, but I like to have it all for special occasions/holidays/parties. You know – all that pretty stuff you hardly use but still need (want)?

When I finished the built ins I was so excited I just shoved everything back into the cabinets and called it done. For a long time now I’ve been wanting to clean them out, purge some of the stuff and pretty it up just a tad.

I started by pulling every single item out of the cabinets. You know, the whole it gets worse before it gets better thing? Yeah:

Well the dog wasn’t in the cabinets, of course. He just has to be in front of the camera every. single. time.

And this is another reason the room is still in limbo – the table and chairs from the kitchen were moved in here temporarily and have stayed. Hubby sits here to work most days lately instead of the basement so we’ve kept it for now. I’m itching to get those comfy chairs in here though. :)

So I cleaned them out and then cleaned them out – vacuumed all the leftover sawdust (nice) and wiped them down:

Side note – no I don’t paint the insides of the doors. SOMEONE (me) doesn’t have the patience for that.

I pulled out the top shelf in each one to cover them with some cute contact paper I had picked up for this project a year ago:

But I ran out of it before I could do the bottom shelves. I was just going to leave them as is but it looked wonky. Sooooo I quickly taped them off and did one coat of the color I used on the backs of the built ins – Storm Cloud (I think it’s Sherwin Williams?):

Do you see that little piece of Frogtape on the back of the door? That’s been there all this time – I used those to number the doors when I took them off to paint them. I highly recommend doing that because otherwise you’ll have to do a lot of adjusting to get the doors just right again.

Anyhoo, did I need to paint the inside the cabinets no one but me will ever see? (I mean, obviously I have no life.) No. But there’s something to be said for having an organized space look pretty too. It only took me five minutes for each one, so it wasn’t too bad.

I only had to do one coat each too – which totally surprised me. The paint is the SW Duration kind and it covered great.

After it was dry I did a super quick purge and then loaded everything back in. I have a cabinet for holiday stuff:

One for vases/pitchers/birthday party supplies (there’s no rhyme or reason to this as you can see):

One for random serving stuff, with room to spare:

I have more in the kitchen that will fill that space, don’t you worry. ;)

And finally, one dedicated to dishes. My vintage glass plates (from Goodwill) for showers and small get togethers, our white dishes for big meals and some serving plates and linens as well:

And, I gotta say, it doesn’t ever get any less weird that I share the insides of our drawers and cabinets with you, even after five years. ;)

It is SO GREAT to have a spot for all of this stuff! Most of it was in the basement before – now I like having it close by in a pretty spot:

I still LOVE how this all came together. So very much.

We’ve lived here for nine years and I feel like I am on the cusp of having a good spot for everything – it’s taken that long. If you’ve been around for awhile you know I have to live with things for some time before making them right for us – the same goes for how I (try to) organize the STUFF in our house.

How do you organize all the dining stuff you rarely use but want to keep? :) Or do you use them often? I think I need to throw a party.