Painting: 3 Products I Regret Buying

I've done a lot of painting in the paste few months and I've spent quite a bit of money at Lowes; some money I regret wasting! So I thought it would be helpful if I posted what I wish someone warned me about! Let's dive in!

Save Your Money!

Number One: This is the Shur-Line Classic Paint Edger and we had read a lot of good reviews about this product. The first room we painted we were excited to use this and we thought we'd just roll through all the edges. We, sadly, were wrong. When you dip it in the paint you have to use very small amounts because once paint leaks to the little wheels you'll no longer have a clean edge. We were usually using it along the ceiling and because you could only use a small amount it was an awful lot of trips up and down the ladder. Finally we just gave up. 

We also bought it's sister product that allows you to paint corners quickly. After using the edger we didn't even open it and returned it. Corners aren't hard to paint anyway. It seems a lot of products are just trying to make the job go by faster but the reality is, if you would like to the room to look professionally painted, it's going to take some time. 

Number Two: After the Edger didn't work we decided to use the common tape method for the edges. I'm sure this product works wonderful for some people and this might work really well for you too, but we weren't too impressed. This is ScotchBlue Edge Lock Painters Tape. We actually used this product a lot throughout our paint job and finally gave up. Applying tape is a task in itself that takes almost as long as the whole painting job. And half the time it doesn't quite work. We tried using it the correct way but every time, no matter how clean and dry the wall, no matter how hard we pressed the edges down it still had paint leak through. Finally by the last room we decided to just use a brush and go over the edges slowly; that worked better than the tape. 

(Also, it's really frustrating to watch commercials of this product working perfectly.)

Now, I've never tried any other brands so who knows but tape is pretty expensive and I found that a steady, slow hand did the job better. But if you are going to use tape here's a few tips:

1. Press the tape down right before you go over it with a paint brush. 

2. Usually the top we'll be fine, it's the baseboards that gravity pulls the paint down so DO NOT use very much paint.

3. Take the paint off before the paint dries. Otherwise it will take some of the paint on the wall with it.

4. If you paint Wall A and then want to put tape on the corner of the wall to paint Wall B, make sure you wait a day for Wall A to completely dry. Otherwise your tape might rip off your paint.

5. Turn any fans/AC off. The movement of air will cause your tape to loosen. 

6. Paint right you tape. One time we tried to tape the night before and paint in the morning. Bad idea. Most of the tape had let go of the wall/ceiling. It doesn't stick for very long. 

Number Three: I'm not sure of the exact name or brand of this product but we'll just say any little roller with a foam head. This paints terribly. We bought this when we were painting our cabinets and thought it would come in handing. Wrong again. The foam rolling was kind of difficult to get on the holder and then it just kind of smeared the paint around. It never applied an even coat. We also bought a sister product to this so we could more easily paint the wall behind our water heater. That one hardly rolled. Brushes and actually paint rollers are much better than any foam product I've used. Maybe we just got unlucky with faulty ones, but I won't be spending money on these kinds of products again. 

So those are some products we'll definitely steer away from next time we have to paint. Again, some of these might work wonderfully for you, but for us they were a bit disappointing. If you have any tips on how to make these products worth money please share!

Next I'll probably do a post on some of the best products we've purchased! Hope this helps! :)

The Pigs and New York Room

Sam and I took a week off of work and our goal was to finish the living room (finally!!). Since we moved in back in August all of our living room furniture was located in the middle of the room and the walls were tan and brown. We also had large white spots on the walls from where the plumbers cut giant holes. So we finally buckled down and painted the largest room (and hallway) in the house! We're both really into a more modern, light, relaxing kind of style so we went with Icy Bay (the top color) and Flagstone (the bottom). We used Olympic paint that we got from Lowes and we did one coat of primer.

You'll probably notice this but I have two obsessions in this world: pigs and New York. But here's our finished look!

 Our furniture is a bit small of the space so we'll eventually get a larger couch and a better TV stand. But what we have will definitely work for now. And big thanks to the family for donating the hutch to us! I feel like the house is really coming together!

Our Laundry Room!

When Sam and I were searching for a house there were a few things we knew we wanted: a split floor plan, 3 bedrooms/2 baths, large backyard and a laundry room. As we saw house after house we quickly learned that a laundry room wasn't commonly found in houses that were the age we could afford (built around 1990s). The washer/dryer could be found in the garage or the kitchen. We'd given up hope until...

We found the perfect house! Everything on our wish list and things we didn't even know we wanted (like a wonderful air conditioned shed in the back yard that is perfect for an at home gym/Sam's brewing house!) And the best part was the laundry room. Right off the garage across from the spare bedrooms was a room that housed the water heater and washer/dryer. We decided to give the room a little visual interest by painting large horizontal stripes on the walls which took some time but was a lot of fun!

We knew we'd need to have the pipes re-done throughout the house so that was first. And it was a surprisingly quick process. The plumbers came and finished within three days and we were impressed by how well the holes were covered. (Now that we've painted I couldn't tell you where they had to replace the wall!) But we did need to prime. The 'new' spots would absorb paint differently than the pre-existing walls. After we primed we painted the entire wall a very light, almost white, color. And then the taping began.

We decided not to paint stripes behind the water heater.... that would have been a pain in the butt! Taping the walls was a long process. First we drew the lines with a pencil because we wanted to be sure we liked the size of the stripes (and tape isn't cheap!) With this job, our level was our best friend! Then we started placing the tape and pressed it on real hard. It's a good idea to smooth over the edges right before you run paint on it.

And here's the result:

We knew for a while that we wanted to go with a bright red washer and dryer. We love the color pop. Over time we're going to add a dark wood shelf above them, with easy access to the water supply. We also decided to take the door off. Originally there was a door that would have ended up continually hitting the washer and dryer. We weren't about to let that happen to these brand new babies. And we like what we did with the space so we don't mind having our laundry room open to the world (maybe it will keep us from letting messy clothes pile up!)

I'm definitely happy with the way it turned out!

Positive Things About Moving

Incase you didn't know, Sam and I recently purchased a house. It was a crazy, long process and it took the bank 9 months to accept our offer but we are finally in the house we love. Because it took so long we hit the end of our lease in our apartment and my parents were nice enough to let us move in with them instead of having to sign another lease.
Living with my parents worked out nicely. Sam and I did a few things for them around the house like install lights under their kitchen cabinets and completely cleaned out their freezers/pantry.

Just to give you an idea of how big of a deal that was... we found something from 1993. I was 2 years old when they bought that... I'm 23 now. Oh, my parents.

Anyways, it also helped my family really get to know Sam which was nice. My parents definitely approve! And it helped us save up some money since we didn't have to pay rent!

In mid July the bank finally responded to our offer and by the end of July we were signing all the paperwork (TONS of paperwork). In the meantime our stuff was sitting in a storage unit.
We're finally to the point where we're starting to unpack some of the "unnecessary" stuff like decor items and things like that --

Which is turning out to be tons of fun. We got through all the boring boxes first, dishes and cups, towels, office supplies, etc. But now were starting to see the items that really shows our personality and makes it feel like home! And almost every time we open a box we find something we forgot we had!

Like this guy:

I collect pigs and by the time we're done setting the house up you'll see them everywhere and in every room. It started when I was little and slowly throughout the years I'll continually get pigs for Christmas and birthdays. I'm sure it makes it easy on my friends. They always know what to get me. I love pigs that are out of the ordinary and Sam loves when the pigs are actually useful. 

Like this one:

This is one of my favorites! It's four pigs walking in a line and it's useful! This is also a sneak peak of our laundry room; we painted stripes to give it a little interest. More to come on what we did to each room later!

But don't worry, there's more to our house than pigs.

I got this one year for Christmas and I've never had anywhere to really display it. Now we have a hutch from my grandfather's house so once the living room walls are painted and the hutch is put into place, this will be the first thing up there! 

Who knew unpacking could be so much fun!

Bath and Body Works!

I recently had a coupon for B&BW and they were also having a candle sale so Sam and I picked up some awesome stuff! We got some holiday scented soaps and candles as well as some regular scents that we love! Although, looking through the holiday scents was a little disappointing. We felt like almost all the scents were trying to be to creative and new but sometimes just the classic scent of pumpkin spice is all you need. Also, we determined that B&BW should have coffee beans placed around the store so you can clear your nose every once in a while! Too many scents to handle!! But we're very pleased with the scents we have :)

Belle's castle