Cucumbers & Vinegar: 2011

First of all, I want to apologize for the lack of posts lately!

I promise we will be better with this blog.

I promise!

Sooo, I have been quite obsessed with chalkboard paint lately.

I have found so many cute projects online that I decided to buy a can and
go crazy in my own home.

I thought it would be fun to paint my ugly range hood that I despise!

I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, but I just went for it...

There is a TON of overspray when you use spray paint so I used pages from a catalog to cover a large area.

Make sure you tape everything off REALLY well.

I just taped off the little switches for the light and fan.

Ta da! I loooove how it looks!

And there just-so-happened to be five divided spaces so I wrote the days of the week for a menu!

Cute, right?!

Before you write on it with chalk, you have to "season" it by rubbing the WHOLE thing with the side of a piece of chalk, then erasing it

(I just use a spare rag because I don't have a real eraser).

It looks sooo much better than the ugly old white!

Linking to:

Hi everyone! Welcome to my DIY Home Stairs Project!
I have been wanting to do something with my stairs forever! But I was never sure what to do. I only knew that I did NOT want carpet! LOL! Carpet and I don't work well together :) So I decided to rip up my old disgusting rotten carpet and get to work...

Here is what my stairs looked like after pulling up the carpet. They have a million staples and nails all over them. They also had some tack boards that I already pulled up on them.

As you can see after pulling up all the nails, staples and tack boards these stairs are in some need of tender loving care. I thought about how to do that and I almost bought new wood to replace them all. When it it me!

WOOD FILLER!
Oh WOW how I LOVE this stuff!!!! It really works!!!

So I began my long long project of filling in a million holes with this stuff..

After it dried I got out my trusty sander and started to fill my house with dust LOL!
I sanded and filled and sanded some more..until it was smooth and perfect!

After that step was over..I went down to Wal Mart and bought some KILZ - High Gloss Bright White Paint.
And started to paint..
I think I did three coats.

Here they are with the finished bright white paint.

I love the high gloss bright white paint because it cleans up so good! If dirt, liquid or any other object gets on it it just wipes right off.

After the white was done drying I started on to the black paint. I used Glidden Porch and Floor Paint from the Home Depot. I just asked them for black and they mixed it up for me. This stuff is AWESOME! It has a primer and a finish right in it! So all you have to do is paint on two coats and your done! I also love this paint because it wipes clean. If someone walks on them with their shoes and leaves a mess for you, you just get a wet rag and it wipes clean!!!

Now because all of our bedrooms and two bathrooms are upstairs I obviously could not paint all my stairs at once. Oh I wish how I wish I could. But no.. So I painted three at a time. That left enough room for us to still use the stairs. This was probably the hardest part of the whole project.. Keeping my husband, three kids and FOUR dogs off them! (You see why I don't have carpet!)

What I did was paint my three stairs right after everyone went to bed. Then in the morning after everyone went to school I painted the second coat. (you are supposed to wait eight hours before applying the second coat.) After the second coat you have to wait twenty-four hours before walking on them. So by the next morning they were safe to walk on. And then I would do the next three stairs the night after they were safe to walk on. Make sense? So there were always stairs to walk on. I would remove the tape when the stair was safe to walk on.. so I told my kids if there is tape on them DO NOT STEP ON IT! It kinda got confusing but it only took a week so everyone just had to really watch what they were doing on the stairs.