ivy comes a creapin’ a-round

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Katie

Now that I’ve gotten the ball rolling on our latest garage-end curb appeal project by planting a climbing plant to grow up and over the garage pergola we added last fall, I noticed how badly I need to trim the ivy on the left side of the garage.

Garage Big Picture

We planted the ivy about a year after we moved in to have something planted there, but we have ignored it for a while. About nine years, to be exact. Until we started the other projects out there, I didn’t even notice how out of control it had gotten. But now it is time to deal with it.

I should mention that I’m not much of a gardener. At all. I was a tomboy growing up and loved to play in the dirt and definitely wasn’t scared of bugs back then. And no one would accuse me of being prissy even now. But I do not like to touch plants. Or have bugs crawling on me. So, in order to take on this task, I suited up with heavy-duty work gloves. No plant touching for me. O, and I had some clippers (technically bypass pruners), too.

Ivy Cutting Gloves and Clippers

I cut down everything I could reach from the sides because I didn’t want that plant in the front touching me.

Ivy After First Pass

And then I waited for Michael to get home so he could help me.

Michael Cutting Ivy

While he was hacking away at the ivy, J and I were busying drawing trucks and cars in the driveway a few feet away.

Trucks with J in the Driveway

After Michael was done with the sections he could reach and somewhat-easily get down, here is what we were left with. In a week or so (once the remaining pieces have started to die), we’ll revisit the parts still on the house.

Garage Side after Ivy Cut

Garage Big Picture

We left the ivy spilling out of the built-in planter for now, but I think we may have to remove that at some point, too.

Ivy in Built-In Planter

Have you had to cut down any ivy? Have any good tips for removing the remnants of the ivy from the brick? Drawn any great driveway trucks lately?

hey trellis-y

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Katie

After we planted the evergreen clematis and hung the trellis last week, there were still a few tasks on my latest curb appeal project. I still needed to stain the little spacer pieces to blend in a little more and to begin training the clematis up onto the trellis.

Trellis, Before Staining Spacers

So, I dug out the leftover stain we have from our deck. It’s Sherwin-Williams Deckscapes in Cedar.

Trellis, Stain for Spacers

Admittedly, the color isn’t exactly right to match the brick or the trellis, but it is close enough for me. Especially since 1) it will be covered up enough by the clematis soon enough and 2) it was free since we already had it!

Trellis, Spacers Stained

Then, it was time to start training the clematis up onto the trellis and to remove the stick that was shipped with it. I picked the Velcro plant ties since they can easily be adjusted as it grows.

Trellis, Plant Ties

They were easy to use by just overlapping the pieces to attach them to each other. That really long loop on the right is to secure a really short piece, and I’ll just have to keep adjusting it as it grows. Yay for adjustable plant ties.

Trellis, Clematis Tied to Trellis

Next on the list, I need to start cutting the ivy off the wall on the left side of the garage so I can plant something to grow over the pergola from that side.

trellis trellis bo bellis

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Katie

Last fall when we added the pergola over our garage doors, we knew we would need to circle back and plant something to grow over it. But it took us a while to decide what to plant, and then the weather wasn’t right for planting… Finally, we were able to get it planted. We went with an evergreen clematis (Snowdrift Clematis Armandii) and had a little trouble finding one since they are pretty popular. I finally found one online at a nursery not too far away in South Carolina and had them ship it to me.

Once it arrived, we got it planted. Yay. Finally something to grow over our pergola! But, I was told to add a trellis on the brick wall to keep it from trying to find its way into cracks in the bricks and into the house. So, I found a nice already-stained (the same color as our brick) 6-foot cedar trellis at our local garden center (Pike) for $25, and it fit the bill. I was planning to just stab it into the ground with the little pointed ends when I got it home, but the tag had a note not to do that and to attach it to the wall above the ground instead. Wow – this was getting more complicated by the minute. I originally thought I’d be done as soon as the plant was in the ground…

Evergreen Clematis

So, I went to Home Depot to get some masonry screws. At this point, I was planning to screw it flat up against the wall to the right of our garage. Luckily, one of the guys at Home Depot told me I’d need to add some spacers behind it to allow the plant to grow better and showed me a 2×2 that would work. So, I had them cut the 8-foot 2×2 in half so I could fit it in my car. I was planning on using a 4-foot strip down each side of the back of the trellis and driving the screws through the trellis and the spacers and into the brick mortar (all with pilot holes drilled) all in one fell swoop.

Enter my father-in-law. Thank goodness he came over to help. Not sure if my husband asked him to come by after I told him I was going to get that task done after work and before I met him for dinner, or if my mother-in-law sent him once Michael told her. Either way, I am very glad they did. And that I didn’t have to be the one to ask for help :)

And he came with more tools. Bonus. And he had a better plan on how to hang the thing. Instead of 4-foot sections of spacers, he cut down the 2×2 to 4-ish-inch spacers. To give the plant room to grow more. I wasn’t going to think of that. At least not until it was caged in…

Trellis Spacers

After he cut the spacers down to size, he pre-drilled them, countersinking and all. Then, he drilled pilot holes into the mortar with a masonry drill bit.

Drilling into Brick Mortar

And attached the spacers to the wall with the masonry screws.

Trellis Spacers Installed

And pre-drilled the trellis holes.

Drilling through Trellis

And attached the trellis to the spacers with deck screws.

Trellis Installed

Did I mention I was glad he came over to help???

I still need to go back and stain the little spacer pieces to blend in a little more and to begin training the clematis up onto the trellis. Once I get that done, I’m going to have to start cutting that crazy ivy on the left side off of the house in preparation for planting another clematis on that side at some point.

Garage Big Picture

Can you even see the trellis in the wider shot above? Here is a little closer view. Blends in really nicely. It’s just there to support the evergreen clematis which will become the star of the show soon.

Invisible Trellis

Have you added a trellis lately? Or almost screwed a trellis flat against the wall?

it takes two to make a thing go right

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Katie

As in, it took me two attempts to get the silhouettes I made for the YHL/BP Pinterest Challenge worthy of hanging in our hallway and not the dumpster. If you remember from Wednesday, the first attempt left us all with bubbly faces. Boo.

So, yesterday I purchased some black poster board and prepared myself for my second attempt. Big bucks, no whammies.

I taped the extra copies I had onto the poster board and traced around the edges. (I didn’t press down hard enough on the first one and it made the next step much more difficult, but I learned my lesson and pressed down really hard for the next 3.)

Then, I cut out each of the silhouettes along the trace impression line in the poster board. Added bonus: the new poster board silhouettes aren’t as shiny as the printed silhouettes so they reflect less light.

Then, Michael helped me spray adhesive on them and stick them on top of the others. He was much better at lining them up than I was. So glad he helped or you might be reading about silhouette debacle number two right now.

Then, I slapped them each back up on their Command Strips on the wall and started snapping pics :)

I must admit, I think we all look a heck of a lot better without all those bubbles on our faces. And bonus points for less glare. I still may end up framing them (without the glass), but we’ll see. For now, I like them just as they are. Movie reference anyone?? :)

pinterest inspired: modern silhouettes

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Katie

As part of the Pinterest Challenge Young House Love and Bower Power do every season, I decided to make some modern silhouettes to hang at the end of our newly repainted hallway.

I had been planning to create some more personal art for the hall for a while and was totally inspired by all the silhouettes popping up out on Pinterest.

I love these adorable dog silhouettes from The Space Between.

And I like the idea from Apartment Therapy to have the silhouettes face each other instead of all in the same direction.

And I like the way The Domesticated Princess added a pattern behind the silhouettes to update them up a little.

I may still end up making silhouettes of our two dogs, but for now, I made silhouettes of Michael, J, and I. And, to make it an even number, J got two.

To make the silhouettes, I opened each up in a blank tabloid size document (11″ x 17″) in Photoshop and Placed the photo on top. First, I streched the photo to be big enough for my giant canvas. Then, I made the photo layer about 90% opaque and then started tracing the outline onto the blank layer. Once, I had it all traced, I just filled it in and cleaned up the edges.

Then, I saved them as PDF files so I could run up to FedEx Office (I will always want to call it Kinko’s!) and print them in black/white on the self-service machines for 0.20 each, plus tax. So, 0.85 for all four. Woohoo. (I may have splurged and got doubles of each in case I messed up the next step…)

Next, I took them home and cut them out. Easy enough.

Then, it was time to add the backgrounds. I debated using digital scrapbook paper (or making my own digital design) and just overlaying the layers and having the whole thing printed so I could just adhere it to the board, but I waited too late to get started for that option. Then, I thought about using wrapping paper to paper the backs, but I couldn’t find any that I loved the pattern and the colors. So, I took four of the six 16″ x 20″ foam boards I bought (from Michael’s in packs of 3 – for 3.81 per pack with a 40% off coupon) and started taping stripes onto them with painters tape. I made two with horizontal stripes and two with vertical stripes. I know, I’m wild. Then, I painted them all with the green I had left-over from the family room number paintings (Home Decorators Zesty Apple).

Once they were all dry, I glued the silhouettes onto them with my Scotch wrinkle-free glue stick (except for that first one that I wasn’t thinking and used regular old Elmer’s glue and was reminded to use the wrinkle-free kind…).

Then, I hung up the bottom two with Command Strips (and ran out of Command Strips). I was thinking of framing them (without the glass) using some old frames I had, but the frames made them too big for the space – I may still end up framing them, but I’ll live with them for a bit and see…

Then, after a quick run to get some more hanging strips this morning, I got them all hung up. And noticed that the paint must not have been totally dry before I glued the silhouettes on last night because they all have wrinkles now – even the wrinkle free glue ones. Big fail. Need. more. patience.

So, I’m planning to take the extra copies I have and trace them onto black poster board in the next couple of days and glue the thicker versions over these once I’m certain the paint is totally dry. Update: I fixed them by adding new silhouettes made of black poster board – you can check them out here.

O, and the black in the silhouettes makes me kinda want to leave the demilune table black. But if I do that, I will have to definitely get a fun rug!

Check out the projects the hosts of the Pinterest Challenge have posted on each of their sites:
Sherry from Young House Love
Katie from Bower Power Blog
Emily from Sparkle Meets Pop
Renee from Red Bird Blue

Do you love the classic look of silhouettes? I am loving the classic look with the modern twist! And not having glass on the art at the end of the hall so it doesn’t always just show a reflection of the overhead lights :)

Here’s what’s left on hall makeover to-do list:
- Repaint/touch-up the moulding
- Rearrange the “gallery” and include a more interesting, less matchy-matchy arrangement
- Change out the light fixtures
- Update the rug
- Fix the bubbly silhouettes

Feel like you missed a previous post on the hallway? Catch up here, here, here, and here.

the beauty of gray

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Katie

That is what started playing in my head as I was finishing up the second coat of paint in the hall. (Any one else a Live fan back in the 90′s?) Anyway, two coats did the job. Woohoo. Yay. Heck yeah. I am loving my new gray, er, Silverplate hall walls.

I was so excited as the second coat started to dry and I could no longer see pale yellow peeking through it.

And, well, my skills at the edge painting didn’t improve at all. In fact, they declined over time. As I saw the dried paint from the first coat a little out of the lines, I got a little less, well, diligent and a little more, um, sloppy. Hallway Paint Outside the Lines

So, now I’m definitely in need of a clean-up man. And, I think after Michael got a good look at my cutting in skills, he knows he’s going to have to step in to handle the clean-up. So much for being a one-man painting crew. At least I tried. Edges are not my friends…

O, and I was hoping to make a fancy return vent like the one Tricia made over at Simplicity in the South, but in the interest of time, I just painted the previously squash-colored return vent to match the wall for now.

And so, the snowball of repainting this house is getting even bigger. There are five rooms off of this hallway, and they are painted shades of tan or green: Behr Fossil Stone, Behr Caraway, Behr Toasted Wheat, Behr Arabian Sands, Sherwin-Williams Great Green. Wonder who will get a few fresh coats of paint next…

Here’s the hall makeover to-do list:
- Repaint/touch-up the moulding
- Rearrange the “gallery” and include a more interesting, less matchy-matchy arrangement
- Change out the light fixtures
- Update the rug
- Paint the console table
- Add some more personal art over the table

Have you ever been so proud of finishing a project all by yourself only to have to admit someone else is going to have to come in and bat clean-up?

Feel like you missed a previous post on the hallway? Catch up here, here, and here.

can’t stop this paint we started

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Katie

At least that’s how it feels, anyway. Every room we repaint ends up having an adjacent room that then needs to be repainted… After we painted the entry hall gray (SW Silverplate, to be exact), we needed to address the rooms around it. So, we first painted the family room the same gray. And, now I’m finally painting the hallway gray, too. Woohoo. Only, it’s not done yet. I wish. It’s only got one coat so far, and the old pale yellow is showing through. A lot. So, I’m afraid I may end up having to go for three coats. Eek. Here’s to hoping the second coat will do the job…

On Monday, I had spackled the nail holes and a bunch of other random pits in the walls in preparation for all this painting.

But before I could start, I had to sand the spackle down, tack off all the dust, and vacuum up the remainder of my mess. Ugh. Prep work is no fun. There is no glory in prep work. But we failed to do the tacking step when we tried to paint our kitchen cabinets a while back, and I definitely appreciate the value of it now.

So, once all the no-glory work was done, it was time to get out the paint. Yay. But, Michael made it pretty clear that he ~~liked~~ was fine with the pale yellow hallway and that I’d be painting it all on my own if I didn’t drop it. In fact, I think he said something about me always starting a million things at a time. And then MJ started singing ‘gotta be starting something’ and I didn’t hear the rest of his dissertation on why I should not paint the hall.

I digress, the point there was that I am not just the paint roller on this project, but also the cut-in ~~man~~ woman. Ugh. I hate cutting in the edges. Again, not much bang for my elbow grease buck. And mistakes are pretty obvious.

I survived as a singleton painting team. At least for this first coat. Here she is in her all of her splotchy, one-coat wonder.

I really hope two coats does the trick. Big bucks, no whammies.

Here’s the hall makeover to-do list:
- Finish painting the hall (SW Silverplate, like the entry and family room)
- Rearrange the “gallery” and include a more interesting, less matchy-matchy arrangement
- Change out the light fixtures
- Update the rug
- Paint the console table
- Add some more personal art over the table

Have you repainted a room and had it turn into a house repainting snowball?

Feel like you missed a previous post on the hallway? Catch up here and here.

the spackle between

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Katie

I was hoping to get the hallway painted this weekend, but well, I didn’t quite make it that far… Here is what the hallway looked like when we left off with it a month ago up until a few days ago.

Then, I took down all the pictures on the side walls and started spackling the nail holes from the pictures. (I left the table and picture at the end for now since I know I’ll be painting the walls over several days and didn’t want to seem any more bare yet. And I left the rug for now to help cut down on the noise while my son is sleeping, but I’ll roll it up when I start sanding and painting.)

And realized there were a ton of other spots that needed to be filled.

Especially this one corner. There were a ton of what almost looked like pock marks in the wall around the corner there. Kinda crazy. So I loaded it up with some spackle.

Now, I just need to sand down the spackle and start painting :)

And here’s the hall makeover to-do list:
- Sand down the spackle.
- Repaint the walls Sherwin Williams Silverplate, like the entry and living room.
- Rearrange the “gallery” and include a more interesting, less matchy-matchy arrangement.
- Change out the light fixtures.
- Update the rug.
- Paint the console table.
- Add some more personal art over the table.

Do you hate the prep work as much as I do? I wish I could just break out the paint already!

9 of a kind

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Katie

I have finally finished my Jasper Johns inspired paintings for our family room. Woohoo. Yeehaw. Getty up.

When I left off in my progress post last Friday, here is what we had.

But it was too dark, so I needed to lighten it up a bit and paint the sides (I went with the dark blue) to clean them up.

Then, it was time to hang them. Yay. I used 3M Command Strips to hang them and started with the center one (#5). Once I got #5 where I wanted it, I hung 2 and 8. Then 4 and 6. Then 7 and 9. And finally, 1 and 3. I hung them 1″ apart and used a roll of painters tape as a spacer so that I didn’t have to do any measurements after I got #5 in place. After that, I just verified everything was level.

Here you can see the entry way and the rug I pulled a lot of the colors for these paintings from.

Here you can see the blue edges. And the stupid subwoofer that goes with that speaker bar I don’t love. If only speakers were ok with being hidden inside of cabinets… Boo.

Admittedly, these paintings are much brighter on the wall than I originally anticipated. I think I’m liking that. But I’m not quite sure yet.

Here’s what is still left on the family room to-do list:
- find/make curtains
- find/make art for other walls
- decide whether or not to use a different (bigger) rug
- determine plan to protect the couch from stains
- make/get smaller kids’ table

Have you made any art for your house lately? Did it turn out exactly like you planned? Do you like decorating with numbers or letters?

Feel like you missed some of the posts about the living room to family room conversion? Catch up here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

easy as 1, 2, 3…

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Katie

Well, not exactly. Especially considering I’ve been working on this little family room art project for a week now and it’s still not done… It all started when I was trying to figure out what to hang on the wall that backs up to the entry way and decided 9 12″ square canvases would be perfect. Now, what to paint on them…

I knew that I wanted to bring in all the bright colors from the entry way rug and any that I knew I might want to use as accents in the family room. So, I was looking at turquoise, green, tomato red, yellow, and orange from the entry, and a couple of different shades of blue from my someday plans for the family room. And, I threw in a brownish color that is similar to the brown in the gray-brown ottomans to serve as a neutral and to further tie them in if when we don’t end up recovering them.

So, I started gathering my supplies. I hit JoAnn for the 9 canvases – they were on a 50% off sale, and I had another 15% off my whole purchase coupon, so with tax they came to just over $4 each - woohoo!

Then, I headed to Home Depot to get some sample paint to use – I bought 8 samples at around 2.50 each. Top to Bottom: Home Decorator’s Luscious Lemon, Home Decorator’s Cherry Red, Behr Orange Spice, Home Decorator’s Zesty Apple, Home Decorator’s Island Oasis, Sherwin-Williams Tiki Hut, Home Decorator’s Champlain Blue, and Home Decorator’s Nocturne Blue.

Now, what was I going to paint…?

I still wasn’t exactly sure. I searched for ideas on Pinterest and elsewhere on the internet and never found anything that seemed perfect. Then, as I was going to bed last Friday night, it came to me. I have been a huge fan of Jasper Johns’s work since I first saw it in high school art class. In fact, I did a project back then inspired by his work. (Must try to dig it out of our basement…) I ended up painting another couple of pieces inspired by his work over the next 5 years. And now, it was time again.

So, now I knew what I wanted to do. Yay. Each of the 9 canvases would contain a number like the rectangles in Johns’s Numbers in Color piece. Only I wanted to use slightly different colors. And mine would be individual canvases. And squares instead of rectangles. So, there were a few liberties…

Jasper Johns. Numbers in Color. Source

I started with the brown and just randomly painted it on all 9 canvases.

Then, I added the green.

Then, both of the darker blues.

Then, it was time to start adding the numbers. My Silhouette wasn’t going to be able to cut numbers big enough to use as stencils, and I couldn’t find anything that large at Home Depot. So, I printed some giant numbers out on legal sized paper and cut them out. Then, I just used painters tape to secure them while I filled in each number.

I did that process for each of the 9 numbers.

Then, I went back and added more color to each of them.

I’m still not done. I was hoping to have them all completed and hanging in the family room for ~~Wednesday’s~~ today’s post, but it just doesn’t feel done yet. So, I’m waiting and standing back to see what it needs next…

Any other Jasper Johns fans out there? Have you every tried to make Jasper Johns-inspired art?

deranchification

turning our old drab ranch house into a fun updated home

Category Archives: DIY

ivy comes a creapin’ a-round

hey trellis-y

trellis trellis bo bellis

it takes two to make a thing go right

pinterest inspired: modern silhouettes

the beauty of gray

can’t stop this paint we started

the spackle between

easy as 1, 2, 3…

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