Reader Ravamp: Turquoise Treat

My wonderful email pen-pal Kelsey over at Fabulously Flawed has just revamped the cutest dresser. She has a little baby girl named Layla on the way, so she wanted to create something unique and fun for her soon to be nursery. Kelsey scored this amazing dresser on craigslist for FREE... yes FREE! She got to work and did an amazing paint technique to make this dresser look FAB! I love it, and want it in my own house. I might just steal her idea. She watered down a deep torquoise paint and applied it to the dresser so that the wood still showed through a bit. Then with a "dry" brush applied a lighter shade to give it some dimension. She updated the drawer pulls with Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint for a brand new look. Great job Kelsey.To read exactly how she did it, colors and all check out her post here.

BEFORE

AFTER

Chair Rails, its Happening!

While I was diligently scraping the popcorn off the ceiling I decided our bedroom definitely needed a white chair rail, with white paint below, or maybe just a different hue of the color that will be on top. I've been reading about chair rails on the web, and many people say to NEVER paint the lower portion white or even a lighter shade then what is on top. Well I must disagree, I think these images from a house tour on Young House Love show that a lighter shade on bottom looks fresh, clean, and elegant... so there! That was mature of me, wasn't it? 

 younghouselove.com

 younghouselove.com

This is almost exactly the color scheme for my bedroom (or will be). The blue ceiling, white below the new chair rail, and a beige wall. I want to paint my walls a bit more gray beige though.. much less tan.

remodelingguy.net

Here is a good example of a darker color on bottom. It is suppose to make the room look larger rather than "cut it up visually" like white is suppose to. But I really like the white below, I can't lie. Cut that room up!

designwithchristine.com

Don't forget to enter to win $40 towards CNS online stores... Enter  here...  you have til tomorrow night! 

Get rid of that cottage cheese!

No, unfortunately I don't mean the cottage cheese on my thighs... I mean the nasty stuff on my ceiling. It's GONE! All GONE! Yay, yay, yay...I am now performing the happy dance! For some odd reason our bedroom and only our bedroom had a popcorn ceiling. Well after over a year of waking up to look at that nasty texture I decided it was time to take care of it! With some email encouragement from Vanessa over at This & That (who I LOVE!) I realized I could do this MYSELF! So I headed to Lowes to pick up all the supplies I needed. Most importantly this...

My first mistake was thinking I could complete this project with a hand bottle sprayer! DO NOT attempt that at home. After 5 mad hand cramps, I decided to head to Wal Mart and splurge a whole $9 on a pump sprayer. Way worth it! It made this job %100 easier.

That with the best invention in the world.... the ceiling scraper pictured above that you can attach a bag to. It catches all the nasty stuff that falls on the floor. The bad thing about this is it gets pretty heavy after a while and you have to constantly empty the bag.

I decided to give the entire ceiling a good "one over" with the bagged scraper and then use a smaller metal scraper (about 3") to go over the ceiling a second time. This really helped with the mess. With that said I must apply a WARNING: it is still a very messy job! SOOO worth it though. Why didn't I do this a year ago?!?!

Here is a shot of where I began scraping. It is a BEFORE and AFTER picture all in itself. 

 Our bedroom ceiling was horrendous! Not only did it have popcorn texture, but there were major cracks and this lovely enclave....

 I laid down plastic over EVERYTHING.... except the chair which got super dirty. I should have purchased a step stool or something.

 

 After the entire ceiling was scraped, it was time to spackle the cracks...

 Once spackled (the worst part!) I painted it a very pale blue, almost white. It was Valspar's "Hotspring Green (its blue, I swear! I don't know why its called "green"). Although it really looks taupe in this picture, but keep in mind my walls are currently a bright but light turquoise. I think the lighting is messing up all the colors in this room. I am soon painting the walls with Sherwin Williams Perfect Greige.

 This is a bit more accurate to the color of the ceiling... (Look at the ceiling and ONLY the ceiling, because the rest of the room is... well... lovely can't you tell?!?!?)

 Beware: Attempting this project is comparable to the chip song "Once you Pop, You can't Stop!" After I finished the ceiling I felt that the room definitely needed a chair rail, new fan, new window treatments, etc, etc, etc...

More to come =)

Addition: This project took about 8 hours including painting. My room is pretty small, about 12 feet by 14 feet maybe..? 

Win $40 Shopping Spree!!!

CSN Stores has graciously offered one of my readers a $40 gift certificate to any one of their 200+ online stores. That’s a lot of options folks! I was thrilled when they contacted me for this give-a-way and one lucky reader will be even more thrilled when they win it. CSN has everything you can imagine for you and your home from TV stands to shoes. You can shop for hours and not even view a tenth of their products!

 Some of my favorite finds have been...

Cute pistachio desk fan (comes in 5 colors)....

Alfresco Zebra Indoor/Outdoor Rug

 

They have some of the cutest pet items I have ever seen, like this adorable dog bed...

And speaking of dogs... I LOVE this little doxie lamp that comes in lots of colors. I might be biased since I have two little dachshund's running around my house. I want this...

 

If you get these classic strappy sandals for $36 with free shipping, you'll still have $4 left over! 

Okay, so you want to know how to enter to win the $40 CSN Shopping Spree?

Here's how it works. You have up to THREE ENTRIES.

For your FIRST entry just leave me a comment telling me what you want to buy, or just say HI if you can't think of anything yet.

For a SECOND entry, become a follower or let me know you already are a follower of Rocky Bella. Either way, let me know so I count you twice.

And for the THIRD entry, just place a link on your blog directing people back to this Rocky Bella give-a-way.

Also, make sure you let me know you linked back here, so I can count you for a third time.

That gives you up to 3 chances to win the $40!

This give-a-way ends Friday night 12:00 PST.

Pack it Up... Vintage Style

When we moved into our new yet old (1947) house about a year ago, we found a few treasures laying around in the garage. One of those treasures was this great vintage luggage trunk.

It was love at first sight. Do you ever see something that makes you think "This is SO me!"? That is how I felt about my newly inherited trunk. So in honor of my wonderful free trunk I decided to bring you a day of Vintage Luggage put to good use...

Apartment Therapy

TheBeddingSnob.com

countryliving.com

FCH magazine

Oakland's Waterfront Hotel

Eric Piasecki for Elle Decor

The Pand Hotel

 Apartment Therapy

Velvet & Linen

Kelly Rae Roberts House Tour via Decor8

Okay, So THIS is my idea... I want to take my trunk and put in on to of a vintage looking luggage rack. Like this one for 29.99 from Bed Bath and Beyond...

Or like this Potter barn Luggage Rack...

And set my old trunk on it to use as a flat screen TV stand. Is that a stupid idea? I searched for "vintage trunk tv stand" under google images and did not find anything like what I am imagining. Now I'm thinking this is weird idea. But at the same time I can't help but think I would love it. The problem would be where to put the DVD player and the Wii, and all those cords...! Ahh. I hate cords, they are all over my house. I dont how to hide them. I should work on that one day.

These are the closest images I found, but imagine a trunk instead of a suitcases with a TV sitting on top. Would that be weird? Help!

Country Living

HGTV.com

Sampler.com

CountryLiving.com

Check back early next week to win a $40 gift card to some great online stores! I'll post more about that soon. 

A new Niece for Me!

Earth Day was a great day... I have a brand new niece named Evie Aurora Hearron. She was born at 3:45 (ish) and is 7lbs 8oz. and 19" long. She is so tiny and so cute. It was great holding such a brand new human in my arms. She kept making all of these little squeaking noises that were adorable, like a little kitten noise.
Here she is with Ryan... he is a great uncle.

And here she is with her Daddy (my bro. in law Brandon) and new big brother Mavrick. He was not excited about having someone else to share the attention with, UNTIL he saw her. Then he was in love. It was the cutest thing... he whispered to her, "I love you, awwww so cute." We all about died right there.

On Set with Accidentally on Purpose

Have you ever watched Accidentally on Purpose. I don't watch much TV since we don't have cable, but whenever I happen to see Jenna Elfman I must stop the channel surfing. Ever since Dharma & Greg, I have loved Jenna Elfman and her awesome hair. Recently I have fallen in love with the awesome set of Accidentally on Purpose. SO COOL! Do you remember loving the set of Friends? I definitely do, well this set reminds me of a modern day friends set. Plus, Jenna Elfman's character always has the cutest outfits. I wish I could live on that show.

I just had to add this photo... purely because I love the large vintage movie posters in the hall... Why else would I add it? (cough cough). ;)