Truly Madly Deeply Archives - The Weekend Country Girl

home decorating, moving, The bedroom, The City House, Truly Madly Deeply, yellow and gray bedroom

Moving Update and BIG NEWS

May 10, 2013May 16, 2013 Karen

I started this post Monday and By George, I want to post it. Just read to the bottom where the big news is located, pretty please.

Well we have bee making steady progress on the City House as we prepare to move. We have lived in the same house for 14 years and it is amazing to me the things that we just ignored since moving in or put on the back burner when we were doing projects. I told my husband we should call this our 85% house because it seems we finish every project about 85% of the way before we lose interest or move on to another project. It has caught up with us now because all those “mostly finished” or “gonna get to one day” projects have to be done before we can start showing the home for sale. With my drive to the new job most of the work has fallen onto Hubby. So far he has replaced some Sheetrock that was damaged before we ever moved in, he has painted the garage, which had literally not been done since the home was built, and replaced leaking faucets outside. (z

He re-caulked the bathtub in one bath, fixed works in one of the toilets, cleaned up the back yard, painted some trim that had never been painted, and fixed a light switch. We have trimmed and weeded the flower beds, installed granite counter tops in all three bathrooms and spruced up the side yard. This week Baby Boy helped to move excess furniture and boxes to storage. I thought we would get the house on the market by Memorial Day… But I have big news. Giant news.

A friend came over to look at our home a few weeks ago. It was not a good fit for her family because she wants a big back yard, but she did like the house and told some of her friends at book club. One of them was interested and came over to look at the house.

They loved our house as much as we have. They want to buy our house! Yay. Double yay. No realtors’ comission, no keeping the house show ready for months, no worrying about the pets when the house is being shown. The couple have their house currently on the market so keep your fingers and toes crossed that this will all work out. If their home has not sold by end of July they are planning to lease their home and purchase ours anyway. Amazing right? I SURE THINK SO. Now back to my brag about how nice the city house looks in preparation for getting it on the market. Here are the photos of the clean house that should have followed the work pictures. Hooray for storage buildings. You can jam a lot of stuff in a 10 X 10 storage unit when Mr. Master Packer (aka Hubby) is packing it.

Oh! My friend who visited the house gets the pink chair I rescued from the trash as her commission. When she finds another home I have something else in store for her… she will just have to wait.

And this is how the house looked the day before the housekeeper comes! Yippee!

Decorating, DIY Art, DIY Monochromatic Art, home decorating, Redecorating, Style, The City House, Truly Madly Deeply

Updating the Master Bedroom on the Cheap

December 27, 2012December 27, 2012 Karen

I made an monochromatic art piece a while back that I did not show in the place where it was going to hang because, well, um… I was a little embarrassed about the state of my master bedroom. Right now I do not have the time or energy for a major overhaul, but a little redo will help it.
Here is the before picture:

There are several things I like about the room. I love that we have new carpet, I like the accent wall where the two windows are. I like the size.

I cannot tell you what I was thinking when I bought brown bedding. It is wrong for many reasons. I never liked the bedding with the wall color, it is dark and we have a light colored cat and while I love the art piece above the bed, a family piece, it was too small above the bed.

For Christmas Hubby bought me a camera. I am learning to use the camera so hopefully you will notice an improvement in the photo quality soon. Today the pictures are all ipad because Hubby is ready to leave for Star Hill.
The camera was a deal and came with a rewards program. There were enough points to get me a suit, my mom a coat, and a bedding set. I am not the bedding set kind of person generally, but I really liked this set and I can finally show you the artwork up in the room. I am by no means finished with the room but I wanted you to see what a big difference changing the bedding makes.

The next projects in the room will be the addition of accessories, I need more storage and I want to add a little more art.
The family piece did get to stay.

Right now the dresser is filled with my shell angel collection for Christmas, but it needs to be beautified. It is normally empty. I need help with what to do here…HELP!

This coming year will be a year of projects. The city house needs a back yard redo, bathroom updating, and the family room will be finished. Star Hill is getting a porch redo and deck work. Oh, and there will be a wedding this summer! The Southern Belle is getting hitched.

DIY Monochromatic Art, The bedroom, Truly Madly Deeply

DIY Monochromatic 3 Dimensional Art

November 17, 2012June 6, 2015 Karen

I do love finding treasures in the trash. Two weeks ago on my way to work there it was. A giant framed art piece leaning against a trash can waiting for the truck to whisk it off to the landfill. If you know me at all, you know that I stopped and jammed it into the back seat of my car. I did not have an idea what I wanted to do with this piece. I already have a huge chalkboard and recently made a paint chip piece from another large framed print. I knew something would come to me if I would just be patient. While looking through Pinterest, ran across this artwork for sale.

Truly Madly Deeply
I loved it. Our master bedroom is a little lacking in artwork. Something like this piece would be amazing, but $515.00 plus shipping is way out of my comfort zone. I thought the idea of a monochromatic piece above our bed would be restful. I have been happily married to my best friend for over thirty years. I think that the words from the Savage Garden song just fits in our room. I knew that I had found inspiration for the rescued art piece.
I developed a plan. Use the frame and hopefully the print, look for letters that are the correct size, map it out, glue it down, paint it then ta-dah. Oh how I wish things went this well for me…

The plan worked perfectly until I priced out the letters. It cost $40.00 for the letters and spray paint- and that was with a coupon! I was thrilled to find that the print in the frame was glued to hardboard and was stapled into place. I really thought this would go quickly until I discovered the frame was not painted, it was covered with a sort of wallpaper like stuff that had to come off. After I determined that the frame was solid wood and worth the effort, I peeled off the paper that came off easily then got busy with a wire brush on the parts that did not come off easily. Two hours later the frame was clean.

As I got ready to put the letters down I recruited the math teacher that lives at my house to help. No way did I want to mess up a $40.00 project. I have whole pieces of furniture that didn’t cost that much! He mapped it out for me with a ruler. I carefully drew a pencil outline around each letter before I started gluing the letters down one by one with E6000 I already had on hand.

After the glue down process, I applied weight to the whole thing in order to make sure they were stuck to the board completly.
Next I had to fill in the holes in the bottom of some of the letters with painter’s putty. It had the nerve to turn coolish this week so I did not get the chance to spray paint the picture for a few days. It was torture to see it sitting there not painted, but I have been feeling a little under the weather so being in the unheated garage was out.
Finally, Friday after work the stars and planets aligned. Low humidity, no wind and warm enough to paint. I chose Krylon Ivory in a satin finish.