Trick or Treat: The Princess & The Pea

 In case anyone didn't know, I LOVE dressing up. Which means that naturally I'm going to love all the dressing up and Halloweenie fun there is to be had o n October 31. 

This has and will continue to manifest itself through family costumes. 

"Why?" You ask, because it's awesome.

Here's my tribute to last year's costumes

Batman, Cat Woman, Robin and even Chewie got in on the action as the Joker.

This year the dogs were not invited to Trick or Treat but I think Grayson and I kept the tradition alive as the Princess and the Pea.

G did awesome. He'd hold my hand and hobble his best up to doors.

Thankfully we were with friends so he had his buddy to show him how tick or treating is done. G was a very selective candy picker, he even put a few pieces back (LOL).

All in all I'd say it was a VERY productive Halloween.

Now I guess I just have to do what every good parent does, eat all of the candy!

A Bright Idea

Happy friday friends! 

We've been really busy being sickies around this place and I thought we were back on the horse but I think my boy may have picked up something grocery shopping yesterday. He's got a little fever and just isn't quite himself so I think we are going to have a few days of snuggles and staying in. 

I did want to kick off our weekend with a little over-due post about the lighting situation in our newly renovated hallway. I had explained that I wanted something lantern-y and nautical in my post on our hallway.

VIA

If you've received this season's Pottery Barn catalog you may have seen these beautiful lights dubbed "The Colton Marine Bath Sconce", which happen to be both nautical and lantern-y. However at $149-$249, they were definitely not the right price for me. 

I was able to find this similar light on Amazon for $19.99 (which is more my price style). There is a glass tube that sits inside the cage, I didn't get a good photo of it, so I just wanted to mention that.

I took the light fixture apart and painted it oil rubbed bronze with my favorite ORB spray paint- Krylon, Color Master-brushed metallics. This version of the ORB spray paint has a really pretty finish and it looks identical to a pre-fab ORB light fixture.

I assembled and installed the fixture, look how pretty! 

And here some other little things I've added to the hallway...

Linking up at: House of Rose, Craft Dictator, Lil' Luna, Design, Dining + Diapers, Suburbs Mama, Home Coming, Rain on a Tin Roof, Love Grows Wild, The Blissful Bee, City Farmhouse.

Hitting A Brick Wall

Meet Guest Room 1.

This is one of our two identical and LITTLE guest rooms.

This room is full of texture and not in an awesome way. This room has plaster walls and ceiling, and the plaster has been combed. The whole room has a liney, weird texture. Texture can be great but there needed to be something to break up the liney-ness, there also needed to be a big impact in the room.

I was watching P.S. I love You recently and I realized what impact I wanted to include. 

Painted brick wall! I picked up a few brick veneer tiles from Menards and began tiling the focal wall. 

Veneer set in thinset here.

Grouted and midway through clean-up.

And here we are, all cleaned up and painted.

The color is Valspar's Woodlawn Bedroom White.

This room still has a long way to go, i.e....

Paint the ceiling

Paint the trim

Accessorizing 

I've already added a lot more of different textures in the room (velveteen curtains, linen roll shades) that contrast nicely and work well together.

And lastly my little diy drum shade. 

I had an old drum shade laying around. I cut off the top, painted the inside gold and glued striped fabric onto the shade. I replaced the glass dome globe on the pre-existing flush mount fixture. BAM! Cute, brand new drum shade.

Linking Up at: Craft Dictator.

Our House is Infected........With Creepy Hallways!

Two moths ago I shared with y'all how I gave our downstairs hallway a makeover, here. The results were phenomenal and I love everything about that hallway now, there is not one thing I would change...err.. Except the floor which is on the list of things "to do" so I don't count that ;)

I then turned my attention to our stairwell that leads to our second floor. If you've been following along you know that I've been working in my bedroom/bathroom. Those projects are on hold for a bit until my Dad comes at Thanksgiving to help me with some more technical plumbing work. In the meantime I've been busying myself with other smaller projects around the house, I.E. basement organization, and our two upstairs guest bedrooms. The only problem with working upstairs is that I must climb the creepy stairs that belong on an episode of SVU. 

The floor is filthy, don't judge.

Okay, so the stairwell could be worse, but it's a far cry from awesome and certainly not inviting. 

If you follow me on Pinterest, which you can here, you may have seen me pin this cute stairwell pic from Lonny Magazine.

This photo totally inspired me. I immediately knew that this was something I wanted in my own home and I knew exactly where to put it! I think a lot of my decorative choices have been influenced by east coast beach houses. Growing up some of my best memories happened in those beach houses with my family and the friends that became my family. The easy comfortable style of a beach house  feels like home to me and even if I live in landlocked Kansas, I can have grasscloth in my house and I'm that much closer to the ocean. And that my friends, brings me to my next point.... grasscloth.

I love grasscloth and it's made a really big comeback lately. After some researching and a little bit of price checking I decided that I would go with a faux grasscloth instead of shelling out for real grasscloth. You are looking at a difference of $20 per roll vs. $70 per roll and for a space like a stairwell the faux would be perfect. I think if this was a living space like a bedroom or living room I would have opted for the real deal. I chose this wallpaper here, it's Allen + Roth from Lowes. I read a few blogs before I bought and both ladies used this exact grasscloth and it looked awesome- I was sold.

I figured out where I wanted my grasscloth to stop, marked a line and put up my wallpaper.

It was actually really easy and I went up pretty quickly. Although I didn't follow the directions which instruct you to submerge the paper in water to activate the glue, I used a spray bottle of water, waaaaaay less messy.

I then began putting up my board and batten, if you've been around the home decor section of Pinterest very long you know this has become the new "thing".

What I love about both the grasscloth and the board and batten is that they camoflauge how poor looking the plaster walls in the stairwell are. The walls are just really patchy and they are pretty uneven. The texture of the grasscloth does a really great job of covering imperfections in walls.

After all of my MDF trim for the board and batten was up on the wall I painted and painted and painted.

I then stripped, stained and sealed the wood floors and handrail, using the same method as I did here.

And of course added photos(which I haven't finished yet).

(The floor is dirty again, don't judge)

I think the longest part of this whole process was all the touch ups, I had to touch up paint, and then add caulk and then paint again over and over. It was a long precess but totally worth the time and money investment.

There are still a few things left to be adjusted, like these "lovely" light fixtures, I'm thinking something lantern-esque, in oil-rubbed bronze.

The ceiling also needs to be addressed, it too is patchy and uneven like the walls and right now it's a weird tan color which just makes the area look dark.

But before I start on those things I think I'm going to take a day or two and just enjoy my newly renovated, non-creepy stairwell.

Linking up at: Design, Dining + Diapers, House of Rose, Craft Dictator, Place of My Taste, Love Grows Wild, Commona-My House, City Farmhouse, Home Coming, The Blissful Bee.