DIY Paint Chip Project

We've lived in our house for 10 months now and we have two mirrors hanging on our walls and that's it.  We haven't put up one single picture, artwork, frame, nothing.  I'm feeling like it's time to remedy that so, here's my first go at new artwork for our house - which comes in the form of free.  I shared with you Wednesday that I was loving all of the paint chip artwork and projects I had seen and wanted to do something using all of the paint chips we have collected since starting on this remodeling process.  One of my favorite rooms in the house, which happens to be the smallest is our little half bath that sits next to our master bedroom.  I love the painted floor, the diy-ed mirror frame, the new bright wall color - there is just a lot of character going on in there and I'm loving it.  So in thinking of the paint chip colors I had on hand and in going with the same color theme as the teal floor I came up with and idea to make a peacock out of paint chips.

Here's what I did:

First, I just cut out my feather shapes from the paint chips - these are totally free hand cutting, they are all different shapes and sizes and they are definitely not perfect but I kind of liked it that way.

Next I cut out a little bird shape from one of the slate colors I had - this time I did trace my bird shape on the back before cutting.  But, once again it's nothing perfect.  There was a white outline around the edge of the bird after it was cut out - so I just ran a black marker along the edge to make it look more uniform.

I drew some legs and cut out a little wing and then began arranging and gluing down my feathers.

Until I had my finished peacock...

And, I finally had something to use in my frame of old (remember this post).

So this -

Is now this - 

I really like the finished product, it's by no means perfect and took very little skill but I love the colorful statement it makes.

It's actually not hanging up yet, but I love the way it connects everything in the bathroom (and you can see that I have not begun painting the rest of the area back there - (I'm hoping that will be a weekend project).

This was really a super easy project - anyone can do this - and it was free - win/win/win.  Have a wonderful weekend! 

Linking Up Here!

Updating a Boring Bathroom Mirror

When it comes to bathroom mirrors, none is worse than an old, cheap rusty medicine cabinet mirror.  And that is precisely what we have had in our little half bathroom.  I really wanted to update this mirror but didn't want to shell out the money for an upgrade - so I started thinking.  What in the world could I do to change the look of this mirror and update it a bit without spending a lot of money.

This was before we did anything to the bathroom-

Washers - this was my idea.  I'm not sure why this came to mind and I wasn't sure if it would even work but I went with it.  

I decided to take normal cheap washers - the kind you get at any hardware store and "glue" them to the mirror frame using liquid nails bonding adhesive - another common cheap product found at any local hardware store.  So here was my method -

Using my caulking gun I applied a small amount of liquid nails to the back of a washer and then smoothed it around with a cotton swab to cover the part of the washer that would stick to the mirror edge.  Don't let me fool you, this was a messy job and took a lot of cotton swabs and paper towels.  -Messy but effective.

Then I just went to town gluing my washers down.

I had to check about every 5 or 6 washers to make sure they were laying straight and level - checking at every angle.  This actually went pretty easily and quickly.  I was done in less than an hour with this part.  

After I had finished gluing all of my washers down I decided I wanted to paint it white.  I let the mirror dry for 2 days before I even touched it - I did check every now and again during the first few hours to make sure none of my washers had moved or were uneven looking.  After a good two days of drying it was ready to be primed and painted.

I just used spray primer - 2 coats and then 2 coats of white spray paint.

A quick re-install and I was done.  I have to say I love it.  The liquid nails dried really well and it's totally easy to open and close for cabinet storage just like before.  This mirror is now a focal point in the bathroom instead of an eye sore.  

For less than $20 I have a new cute mirror that still has all of the function we had before - score.  

Thanks so much for joining us today, have a wonderful weekend and don't forget to enter our giveaway - just a couple more days before the winner is announced!

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Updating the Bathroom Faucet

When we moved into our house there wasn't anything to get excited about in the bathrooms.  Pretty standard, inexpensive fixtures and finishes made up both of them.  They are small bathrooms so upgrading some of these things really helps to bring them into this century and feel polished.  Doing things a little at a time has allowed us to save some cash because we do not buy anything unless we have the money for it.  We never use credit cards so it might be a slower process but it's a financially responsible process. (If you are interested in our budget process you can read about it here).  So little by little we are pulling our bathrooms out of 1961.

Our next upgrade comes in the form of a new pretty stainless steel faucet.  We actually caught a great sale and scored this faucet at a great price so we were thrilled.  It's a delta faucet and we got it for $42 - which is a steal, you would know if you have been stainless steel faucet shopping lately.  Now, I have to admit for most of the installation process of this faucet I was not present.  My job was to keep Silas occupied and away from the project.  He was really wanting to help his Dad but unfortunately the only help he could provide was climbing in the bathroom cabinet and throwing tools into the toilet so he had to sit this one out with me.  So I'm going to give you the steps, although they probably won't be the best to go by.  You can at least enjoy the before and after pics of the process anyway.

So here's a before shot of our previous faucet, all boring and plain.

First crucial step - turn off the water supply.  Simple yet very important.  We have been on many a youth mission trip when this has not been done and water goes a flying.  Comical, yes.  Frustrating, possibly. Next, is just removing the old faucet and drain, ours came out pretty easily.  Bye, bye ugly faucet.

Then you need to secure the new faucet to the sink, ours included a rubber gasket so it did not need caulk at this step.  The rubber gasket is installed on the base of the faucet before you connect the water supply tubes to the faucet base.  Then just a little tightening to secure everything in place.

The drain comes next, which was the most difficult part, it needs to be sealed with silicon to prevent leaking.  The silicone needed a good 24 hours to dry so just make sure if you are installing a new sink that you won't need to use it for a day.  

And, we're done!  The great thing about this faucet is that it came with great instructions so any issues that might have come up was easy to figure out.  

Here's the Side by Side:

This new faucet takes 40 years off of this room.  We love our little clearance faucet upgrade.

So there it is, our not so useful faucet upgrade project.  Now that we have most of the fixtures upgrading and other finishes in place I think it will be a good time for a full bathroom reveal this week.  Stay tuned!

As I was writing this I couldn't help but notice God reminding me of how He works in our lives.  Working with students something we are used to hearing over and over is the question, How do I know when God is speaking to me?  First off, knowing the way God speaks is important.  God speaks by the Holy Spirit through scripture, prayer, other believers or the church and circumstances.  A lot of the time we just aren't listening.  Also, I think when God speaks we want the whole revelation in one giant answer.  I've found a lot of times in my life God reveals Himself to me step by step, answer by answer.  Sometimes we won't be able to understand every detail of how our situation will go, instead we have to trust God and exercise faith.  The details are in God's hand.  He holds the universe in place (one way our faith is established), he can work out our steps.  The more faith we have, the more we listen to Him when He is speaking and the more details He will begin to reveal.  It's a beautiful relationship we can share with Him.  We just have to listen.

But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. Galatians 5:5

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

We worked a little switcheroo in our bathroom over the weekend in the form of vanity mirrors.  Originally we had a boring, small medicine cabinet type mirror hanging out on our wall - nothing necessarily bad about it, we just wanted to change it out for something with a little more style.  We realized at some point that we already had a mirror that just might work so we thought we would give it a try and see how it looks - nothing wrong with a free upgrade, especially when you are remodeling on a tight budget (plus we are cheap, but you know that already).  So Justin went to work removing the old mirror and replacing it.  Here's our before mirror:

First thing, removing our old mirror -

Oh, don't forget to close up the sink drain (this should actually be the first thing you do).

And our removed mirror and new hole in the wall...

We wanted to cover the hole with Sheetrock so we have a nice smooth and finished wall underneath our new mirror so Justin had to carefully remove the uneven edges with a utility knife.

Another great reason for a closed drain (ignore the razor I'm not sure why that was still sitting there).  Also note the screwdriver in the new hole in the wall.

Just a little close up so you can see the removal process.

So after Justin was satisfied with the evenness factor we had planned on going to the store and picking up a piece of Sheetrock to finish up the project...problem was, we never found time to go.  So, we just decided to throw up the new mirror and have it just be for a while.  We do however have several issues though.  For one, this mirror is larger and you can see from the other pictures we have this awesome electrical outlet right next to where the mirror hangs, so we are having some over-hang issues.  We also didn't have any real support to hang the new mirror on so we had to be a little creative.  Here's what the new mirror looks like (and, it's actually not new - we've had it since we got married in our first apartment so it's just about 10 years old now).  I actually think it goes pretty well with all of the other bathroom items and decor that's going on in there now - you can check that out here and here.

So to create more support to hang this mirror on (it's really quite heavy) Justin used a scrap piece of wood nailed into the wall.  Here's what lies beneath our mirror - shhhh, don't tell anyone and if you come over, just act like that's not there.  I guess this mirror is covering a multitude of sins right now.  And, my favorite part - the screwdriver and yes it's still living behind the mirror.  So, you might have to remind us where we left it for out next project.

We are still having some evenness issues and issues with fit but I like the look of the mirror and that it now has a new place to live in our house.  It might not last forever but for now it's all good.  Oh, and our new hole will hopefully soon be closed and nice and even and flat and will no longer be a storage place for forgotten tools.

So we are wondering, anyone else have a mirror or artwork that is covering up something unsightly on your wall?  We can't be the only ones.  Comment and share!