Paint Sample Card Headboard

My son moved into an apartment last fall and I tried to give his hand me down furniture and accessories a new look.  I picked black, gray and yellow for his bedroom colors, and decided to make a headboard that looked like the paint sample cards from the home improvement stores.

First stop was the craft store to buy a few large canvases.  They had a great sale and I got 4 very large canvases for at total of $22. They had a buy one get one free sale, and I had a 50% off coupon. SCORE!!!

Actual paint sample cards

In the picture to the left of the actual paint sample cards, you can see where I tested pen colors for the paint names. The final choice was both yellow and gray.

Sample sizes of paint.  

Next stop was Home Depot.  I found the cards I wanted and then just had them give me the sample paints in each of the colors on the sample card plus one jar of white.

The sample sizes were perfect for the amount of paint I needed for this project

I painted two canvases all white.  Then I measured the canvas length wise and divided by 4. I marked off each section and used blue painters tape as the width of the white lines shown on the card. I taped the white lines off and was ready to paint. The trick to having clean lines is to paint the under color over each side of the tape first. This way if there is any bleed through the tape it will be white, and it seals the tape for the main section colors on top.
  
After the white paint had dried I painted each section following the colors on the paint cards. I painted over the edges of the blue tape so that when they were removed there would be a sharp straight line. I put several coats on each section. I really needed the extra coats on the gray and black canvas.                                                                                                                                                                                                      

 You can see in this picture that the tape marking the lines between the section colors has white paint on it and the yellow panted over top of it.

When everything was dry I removed the tape. The best part!

On the left side the tape has been removed and you can see no bleed through!

The final touch is to write the paint colors on the bottom left corner of each color section.  I used a yellow pen on the gray paint and a gray pen on the yellow paint.

Time to hang them!

 We loved the how they turned out. Looks great with our $25 Target comforter and gray and yellow sheets. As you can see, I also pained the dresser to match!

Why I Did Not Buy Your House

Last weekend was our first trip to Dallas to look at houses. We wanted to get an idea of location, size and style of house we might be interested in. My husband and I were able to see about 20 houses together and I saw 6 more without him. This blog could have easily been titled "What were they thinking?" So, here is a list of why we would never have bought some of these houses. This is also a bit of an advice blog to sellers and what to consider when showing their homes.

1. I just do not like the drive up to the front door homes. This may save space, but the curb appeal is horrible and it is pretty near impossible to get into the garage nearest to the house. At least for me!

2. Clean your home! Vacuum and clean your carpets. Hair in the bathrooms, stained or molded caulking, missing grout, dirt and finger prints on the light switches, cabinets and walls, animal scratches on the doors and baseboards, or chipped and peeling paint on the outside doors are not great first impressions. Also, mow your lawn and pull your weeds!

3. Women take showers too, and a master shower that is small and has no place for shampoo, soap, and shaving cream, or does not have a stool or ledge for me to shave my legs is a deal breaker. Am I right Ladies?

4. The kitchen's layout needs to make sense. I shouldn't be able to hit the dishwasher when I open the Frig or the oven. Why would you put the stove top in the island without any counter space around it?  All I could see was grease splattering on the floor, on the dog, on the baby, or on my feet. What were you thinking?

You can see in this picture that the gas stove is the same size as the island. It was not the only stove in the island that we saw on this trip, but is was the only one that had no counter top around it. Very strange and not for us!

5. Do not put a pool table in the living room. It should not be the first thing people see when they walk into your home.

6. No skylights in a state that has terrible hail storms.  And if you do have them, replace the glass when broken, do not use duct tape. It is safe to say that you should not use duct tape on any thing visible to a potential buyer.

7. No religious shrines in your bedroom and no shrines to deceased relatives anywhere.  I am sure they are very special places to you, but it just creeps out potential buyers.  We saw both on this trip.

8. Do not leave your pets in the house while I am there. Cage or crate your cats and dogs, or take them out of the house with you.  I do not want to be responsible for keeping your cat in the house. I also do not want to see them walking all over the counter tops. You may want to put their litter boxes out of sight too, and certainly out of the master bedroom. I also will not go outside to look at your property if there are dogs roaming in the yard. You just lost a sale!

9. Don't go overboard with the post it notes. Take our shoes off,  lock the door, don't let the cats out, turn off the lights, don't open the door to the castle bed, don't open the closet door..... In one house I also had to turn off the stove because the house smelled like gas because the burner was on with no flame. I didn't need a post it for that one. You are Welcome!
    We walked out of the house that had a post it telling us not to disturb the person sleeping in the bedroom. The absolute worst one said, "Please be quite. The baby is sleeping in the nursery, but you can still look upstairs." No thanks! Who leaves a sleeping baby in a house alone knowing that strangers are scheduled to come in and look at your house? YIKES!!!!

10. It is one thing to have a bad floor plan. We saw many Jack and Jill bathrooms that had a door to a sink room, then a door to a shower and toilet room, then a door to another sink room, and then another door to the other bedroom. There where doors running into doors. We saw smaller rooms off the master bathrooms that we were not sure what to use them for, and the only way to get to them was to go through the bathroom. The funniest thing we saw was the staircase railing in the picture to the left. Really? This railing was not functional, but it was hilarious!

Hope you learned a little from our house hunting experience, and we did see some beautiful homes in Dallas. We are looking forward to the trip where we get to actually buy our new home!              

Oven Door Window Cleaning

When we bought our current house it had a GE double oven in the kitchen. The top oven was fine, but the bottom oven had a drip of something that ran over half way down the window, on the the inside. It has driven me crazy for almost 2 years and now that we are selling the house I decided to try to clean it.

My first thought was to take the door apart and clean the glass. After doing some research online I found that it was not  an easy task, and most people had a hard time getting the door back together. During my research I read a note from a lady whose husband used a bottle brush with an extended handle and through the vent in the door he cleaned the glass.  Here is how I cleaned mine:

First I unlocked the hinges, closed the door most of the way, and then pulled the door off.

In the picture to the left the hinge lock is pulled half way down. You can use a flat head screwdriver to pull the hinge lock out of the oven by putting it in the little slots you see in the top of the lock. Once you get it started it is very easy to fold it down.

I removed the door and laid it on the counter with the handle side down hanging over the edge.

Next stop Target.  I went to Target and bought a baby bottle brush for $1.99.  You have to buy the brush with the metal holding the hard bristles and not the plastic holding the softer bristles. This one also had a sponge on the end which turned out to be awesome. I also bought  toaster forks from the camping section of the store. I know you are asking, really, camping toaster forks, why? Well, I walked through the store looking for something to extend the brush and there they were, perfect!

I removed the handle from the brush. By using a pair of pliers to hold the brush and unscrewing it from the handle it came right off. Every project needs some kind of demolition, right?

I took a toaster fork and squeezed the prongs on the end together a little and pushed it up through the bristles and into the sponge.

Now as with every project you need the duct tape. I put a piece of tape around the bottom of the brush head to secure it to the fork.

The sponge at the end was great for cleaning the drip.  I just ran a little water on it and wrung it out so it was not dripping wet.  I pushed the brush into the vent with a little scrubbing action I was able to clean the drip right off.

When I pulled the brush out of the door it left water on the inside that needed to be dried, and I also noticed that the spot was clean where the drip use to be, but the rest of the glass was dusty. Time for a sock.

 I wrung the sponge out and used a towel to get all the water out of it that I could. I took a fuzzy slipper sock and put it on the brush, pushed the "sock brush" into the vent and dried the window. I moved it to the vent on the other side of the door and just gave the whole window a good dusting. As you can see in the picture below, I held on to the sock so I did not lose it in the door. That would have been a bummer.

I put the door back in place, locked the hinges and it looks great! Why did I wait so long?

This whole project cost me about 8 dollars and took about 15 mins. I am sure my return when I sell this house, now because that drip is gone, will be HUGE!
                                                                                                                 

Crock Pot Mac and Cheese

There is nothing better than a hot dish of Mac and Cheese.  I have had this recipe for about 16 years and it is just the best!  Make sure you follow the recipe amounts for the macaroni and it will turn out great every time.

• 8 ozs of elbow macaroni, cooked and drained
• 4 cups (16 oz) shredded sharp cheddar cheese, divided
• 1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

Place the cooked macaroni in a 3 1/2 qt (or larger) crock pot ( I am showing my age. For you young folks "slow cooker") that has been coated with nonstick cooking spray. Reserve 1 cup of the cheese; add the remaining cheese and the other ingredients to the macaroni; mix well.

Sprinkle with the remaining 1 cup of cheese.

Cover and cook on the low setting for 5 to 6 hours or until the mixture is firm and golden around the edges.

Do not remove the cover or stir until the mixture has finished cooking. The dark spot on the next picture of the finished product is a shadow. Yeah, I know, Amateur Photographer.

 You can have it has a meal alone or with your favorite entree. This night it was with chicken. YUM!