Living Room Switch Ups and Fall Angels

Happy Friday Everyone.  

You know how one thing leads to another!!! Right?

 I took down the headboard off the wall in my living room and it started a whole switch a roo!

This was the iron headboard hanging on the wall.  I liked it but it just was not really what I wanted on that wall.  Plus there were some other changes happening with that couch.
So.....

This is now on that wall. 

I had these old corbels and I asked Terry if he could make them into lights for the wall in the living room. 
We do not have a lot of lamp space so these worked out beautifully.

My little house sign and corbel lamps now hang where the door and shutters use to be.

Sorry but another cloudy gloomy day with no sunshine for a good picture.

I really like how these came out.

This is how the corner of my living room looked.  I hated that bay window and corner being blocked by Terry's recliner.

This corner is now open again. 
No recliner blocking that corner. 

I will show you in my next post how I solved keeping a recliner for Terry and opening up this space. 

The bay window allows a lot of sunshine and light into my living room.
  Today not so much with the cloudy day!

My little bird cage sitting on the bay window shelf.

I started some fall pumpkins around the house.
  We are finally getting fall weather here in Illinois.

If you look closely in this picture you might see what some of my solution is for opening up the corner bay window!!

I will have that in the next post.  

This is my fall angel Gertie. 

I have had her for a number of years.  Going back to my primitive decor years actually. 

Every year I embellish her with new fall flowers and hang her on my front door. 
She has held up so well. 

She is over 15 years old and you can see how she has held up beautifully to the outdoor elements.

I bought this Gertie on line to make pretty to gift to a friend. 
I had looked for another angel like mine for a long time and could never find one. 
This popped up in a pinterest search one afternoon.

After she arrived.   I embellished her with some flowers and pumpkins.

Their dresses have heavy poly applied to them so they can hang outdoors or in.

My friend loved her new Gertie that is similar to mine.

I will be back with my new living room
switch a roo soon.
Have a great weekend.
Hugs,
Kris

Parties:  Love Your Creativity Link Party

Faux Granite Counter Tops

Hello Friends.

I am excited to show you a fabulous transformation of my counter tops.

It was easy to do and inexpensive and looks like a Million Bucks when you are done!

This is my counter top before we did the new treatment.  They look black from a distance but really they are black with lots of brown in them.

As you can see in these next two up close shots of my counter tops they have a lot of brown and copper running through them.

Just not my colors.
 I have to be honest these counter tops are awful to keep clean. 
Even with using the right cleaning products they always were streaking and they never felt clean to me.

This is the counter top paint kit I bought on Amazon. 
I watched the video on line and it did not seem to be too hard of a process. 
This kit is about $80 and comes with everything you need.

I chose the White Diamond because I wanted to lighten up my counter tops.

They do make other colors and styles.

By the way I am not getting any compensation from this company or Amazon for this post.
Just showing you what I purchased to use.

Step 1
 Clean the counters really well. 
They suggest a brillo pad.
 I just used a sponge and good cleaner.

You then want to tape off the kitchen tiles and all the drawers below the counter top with painters tape.

Step 1
 Roll on the Primer. 
Seemed weird to me that the primer is black when I want white diamond lighter counters! 
In the end you will see how this all works out.

We have a crappy sink that was really scratched and needs replacing.
To save a little money we decided to paint the sink black with the primer. 
I will be getting a new faucet.
With the counters going light,  I thought the black sink would work for now.
Eventually we would like to replace the sink with a nice farmhouse sink.

This is the end of Step 1. 
The primer rolled on easily and now it has to dry for 8 hours.
We did this at night as you can see with the pics so it could dry all night and the next day to really cure.

Next Step 2

Next step is to sponge on the first coat of Greystone over the black primer.

They tell you to do light random sponge prints over the primer.  No particular order. 
The more random the better. 
Looks like a mess here but keep the faith!

This is Gray Stone sponged onto the black primer and this coat is finished.  

The next color is Quartzite or 2b.  You dab that on with the sponge over the Gray Stone.

This is how it will look after you have sponged on Quartzite over the Graystone. 
Still looking scary keep the faith this will turn out beautiful in the end. 
Keep positive that this work of art that looks like a 4 year old did it will look beautiful in the end.

The last part of Step 2 is to apply the White Limestone paint with the sponge.

This is one coat of Limestone sponged on top of the Graystone and Quartzize. 

It is starting to look like a granite counter top right?!!!

Now you can stop here or do one more coat of the Limestone to make it brighter. 

We chose to brighten it with one more sponge coat of the Limestone.

The last and final coat of the Limestone in Step 2 is done.

This is the up close of the last coat.  It is hard to really see how bright it is since we are doing this at night with the lights on.
You will see in the final reveal pics.

After we let this final coat dry for about 2 to 3 hours we then were ready for the final Step 3.

Step 3 

Adding the final topcoat to seal and protect the surface.
 It was rolled on with the roller provided in the kit. 
We waited about 2 hours and then put on a second coat of the topcoat.

We let it dry well over night.

Since it is night time and raining I had all the lights on in the kitchen.
It is prettier in person than the pictures show.

The black sink did not work.  We could not get the paint to adhere.  We removed all the black primer and for now will work with the white sink.
I will be getting a new faucet too when I find one I will like.

I got my sweet little witch out for some decor on my counter for Halloween.  I do not do too much for Halloween more Fall.
My friend Cil gifted me this sweet witch last year and I absolutely love her.

If you would like to watch this video about the process of using this product I have posted it below.

 This took us a couple of nights only because of the drying times.  

Otherwise the process of putting on the primer and colors and sealer were fairy easy and fast to accomplish.

Have a great Friday and wonderful weekend.

Hugs,

Kris

Parties:  Create, Bake and Grow
Love Your Creativity Link Party
All About Home
Talk of the Town Link Party

Salvage Archway

Happy Monday Sweet Blogging Friends.

Wow the weekends go way too quickly!

I wanted to show you a little switch up that I did with some old salvage pieces to make a cool arch entry from the living room to the kitchen.

 I took the salvage pieces and had Terry hang them around the tv armoire originally.  

It was ok but it bugged me that you could not really see all the chippy lovely of this archway.

We (meaning Terry lol) took the arch way apart and also took off the molding around the door entry into the kitchen from the living room.

Terry made all the pieces fit around this entry way.

The archway needs just a little something on the arch.  I will know it when I see it. 

 Maybe a small sign for some kind of flowers in the arch.

I think it looks pretty awesome now and makes a focal point going from the living room into the kitchen.

Book Signing

Hello Sweet Friends.

Hope your weekend has been fabulous.

We took a drive to Michigan and The Found Cottage.  

Liz Marie Galvan from the Cozy White Cottage and part owner of The Found Cottage wrote a book. 

Liz is here with her sweet hubby Jose and sweet little son sharing a look at her new book.

 Today was her book signing and I excited to get  a copy signed.  

Liz and I at her book signing.  Liz remembered me and my blog. 
She could not be more gracious, warm and kind. 
Loved having some time with her today at this special event.

This is her new book.  You can find it on Amazon, Target, Walmart and Barnes and Noble just to name a few places.

This is a picture of her beautiful farmhouse.

Her book is loaded with pics of her swoon worthy farmhouse and great tips on decorating in white cottage style.

Ahhhh her dreamy kitchen!

This is one of the pictures in her book.  Notice the sign above her bed.  This is the sign I recently bought from her in the shop. 
 

Now that sweet sign hangs over my bed.

Liz just recently signed on with Walmart to have curated items to buy.

If you have not gotten a copy of Liz's new book you might want to visit the many places you can purchase this book on line.  

Amazon, Target, Walmart and Barnes and Noble just to name a few.

I loved being at the book signing today and visiting all the cute shops in that area.

Have a great start to the new week.

Hugs,

Kris