On Painting Floors

I never got around to posting about this before, but I painted the faux saltillo tiles in our tiny kitchen in Brooklyn and it held up so well for the year that we were there. (You can see the checkerboard pattern I did peeking out here). As we started to demo the ceramic tile and the wood in the Valley house I was so tempted to take out all the brick at the same time and just live with raw concrete until we tackle the kitchens and the bathrooms over the next year or two.

But then I decided to paint the floors in the laundry room on a whim and I actually liked the look. The pavers take paint so well!

This time though I painted the grout lines so it would look like the tiles were enameled or something and not just like the brick tile floor got a coat of paint.

I used Benjamin Moore's Advanced line in the laundry room. It's a water-based alkyd paint that wears so much like oil-based does. I love it. In the brownstone kitchen, I used an oil-based porch and floor paint and decided to go that route again in our kitchen here at the Valley house. It's fumey and it takes forever to dry, but I know that it will wear the very best of all my paint options. My kids are up at my parents house for the week so I'm taking advantage of their absence to do the floors.

I think depending on your floor surface, it's always a good idea to sand and possibly to also prime, especially if you're drastically changing colors. I used a strong cleaner called TSP to sort of do a mini strip on the sealer on the brick. I did the same thing in the brownstone and it worked like a charm - no need to prime. If you clean the floors really well and use the right type of paint, it's hard to mess the rest of it up! Pretty simple.

I purchased this this little square brush by Zibra (I guess it's meant for painting mouldings?), thinking that the shape would help with getting the rectangles filled in accurately and quickly. I usually just buy those $5 stubby two-inch angled brushes, but woah, there's a new kid on the block! I am in love. This thing is amazingly easy to control and there's a hollow-ish center, so it holds an awesome amount of paint. It is making the floors an absolute pleasure to paint. Seriously! It's like coloring  - so relaxing. :) I haven't used it on furniture yet, but I have a feeling this brush will become a staple in my DIY arsenal.

I've got a first coat down on a good 3/4 of the brick pavers in the kitchen and mudroom. I'm hoping to finish up today and give everything a light touch up coat early tomorrow morning so the paint will be fully cured by the time our movers come on Saturday. Can I tell you how excited I am to have my stuff again!? Granted, a lot of it will be in the garage for another two weeks until the wood floors are getting installed, but at least our things will be somewhat accessible. So, so excited!

The Best Gold Spray Paint

I had meant to order some of my favorite brass hardware from Martha Stewart's line at The Home Depot for the laundry room redo. Most of her brass pieces are only available online and so I was up a creek a bit by the time I remembered to place an order. It was way too late in the game and I needed a Plan B.

So I went to a couple different hardware stores and rounded up my favorite knobs, bin pulls and ring pulls. I didn't really care what the finish was on these because I knew I wanted to spray paint them all gold... But I forgot to buy the spray paint while I was at the hardware store. #sleepdeprivation

I did remember about the spray paint while I was at Michaels though and in a moment of frustration I decided to buy a can of gold spray paint there and just make it work.

The spray paint I ended up buying is called Design Master and, let me tell you. It is amazing. Not too pink, not too sparkly, not too flat. It's definitely my favorite gold spray paint so far. Such a happy accident!

Have you guys tried Design Master? What's your go-to spray paint for metallics? I used to swear by only Rustoleum's Metallic line in brass, but I'm glad that I'm broadening my horizons with the Design Master gold. I think it's a little less sparkly than the Rustoleum, which I definitely prefer.

Lately on Fab: Kate Spade Saturday!

Great news!! Kate Spade's colorful and carefree (and wildly popular) Saturday line is on Fab right now. A lot of these great pieces are on sale (!) and are exclusive to Fab.  So hurry on over because the sale ends next week!

Kate Spade Saturday is the embodiment of that chic weekend look, but works perfectly for seven days a week! (I'd love to pull out that hot pink leather wallet from my bag at the design center. And those bright red heels? Killer.)

This line is perfect for those of us that love the color and prep of Kate Spade, but want something a little more modern. Here are my favorites:

1  //  2  //  3  //  4

5  //  6

7  //  8  //  9  //  10



11  //  12



13  //  14  //  15  //  16  //  17



18  //  19

One of each, please and thank you!

This post was brought to you by Fab.com. Thank you for supporting LGN sponsors! :)

DIY Concrete Countertops

The most-requested tutorial from last week's laundry room reveal was by far and away the concrete counters. Many of you asked if this treatment is durable enough for a kitchen. It definitely is! If you have laminate or formica counters and want something to get you by for a couple years until you can splurge on stone, this is a really great option. The best part is it costs about $15 and it's incredibly easy to tackle as a solo project!

Let's jump in...
There are a few of these concrete overlay tutorials floating around the web. I used this search on Pinterest to find the best ones (this one from Kara Paslay Designs was my favorite). You might want to look around yourself and find a tutorial that works with your existing countertops, though the concept is pretty much the same across the board.

The hardest part (which is not all that hard) might be hunting down the concrete. The stuff you need to find is called Ardex Feather Finish. You can look on the Ardex website for local distributors, but it's easiest to just call their toll-free line for the info. There were like six distributors in Phoenix, so I'm sure you'll be able to find some in your area. A 10-pound bag cost me only $15 and I needed about half a bag for my laundry room. So cheap, right!?

I was talking to a contractor friend about this product (which is a concrete-PVC mixture I guess) and he said he uses it all the time and that everyone he know has been raving about this stuff for the past couple years - it layers on top of and easily binds to just about any surface. He said that any time you see a concrete floor in a retail space it's more than likely this product, which made me feel good about it's durability.

Even though the Feather Finish binds to flat surfaces, it's a good idea to really rough up your old counters before layering on the concrete, just to be safe. I used a wallpaper scoring tool and that worked pretty well. I think even just a good sanding with course-grit sandpaper would work.

Once your surface is prepped, you just mix a small batch of concrete in a medium size bowl. There's not really a formula, so I just added water from a cup until I got a good consistency. I think like a thick gravy is about what you're shooting for.

You should follow the instructions on the back of the bag. You're supposed to mix the concrete, let it sit for about 10 minutes to do a quick set and then mix it again before troweling on. It's hard to mess this stuff up though, so don't be intimidated by the idea of mixing concrete.

We used a long drywall knife to spread on the concrete mix. It is exactly like frosting a cake. If you can make a peanut butter sandwich, you can have concrete counters.

Just like with painting, the secret is to work in multiple thin layers. Try to keep trowel marks to a minimum, but don't worry about each layer being perfect. You can sand off any imperfections later anyway.

This was when my first layer was about halfway dry. You can see I didn't cover up all the green in my first layer, which was no big deal at all. I think I ended up doing three or four layers, but you can do as many as you want.

The secret to getting this stuff really tough is to give each layer a good sanding. I hand sanded the first two layers and used my electric sander for the last two. The sanding removes a lot of the soft stuff from the mixture and leaves you with a really hard surface that continues to harden over a day or two of drying.

I used my little putty knife a lot too in the clean up process. I used it to sort of plane off bumps and wrinkles before sanding and to scrape down my walls.

I also used it to score in a seam line anywhere there should have been an edge if the counters had been made of solid concrete slabs. I think this little step helped the look so much!

As the final layers go on and get their sanding, it is so fun to see the natural patterns and bubbles in the concrete emerge. I wanted to preserve that raw concrete look as much as possible.

I purposefully left some of my trowel knife marks to give the concrete some character, but you can make these as smooth as you like.

So to keep the natural concrete look and to keep the concrete really light, I used a matte finish sealer from the Home Depot. I think this one is a little more on the light-duty side. If my concrete gets wet, it darkens until it dries again (sort of like soapstone). It's not soft when it's wet though, it's completely durable as far as I can tell. You might want to do some sealer experimenting if you're trying this in your kitchen. I think the heavier sealer will make your counters permanently darker, but they will definitely keep all the moisture out.

I basically fully saturated my concrete with the sealer at least twice to really let the sealer seep down into the concrete.

I'll probably reapply the sealer every year or so, but it's been a couple weeks now of use and I still love these concrete counters. They are wearing really well. I spilled some detergent by the sink last week and was relieved that there was no staining or discoloration. Not that I expected there to be, but I have been a little skeptical that these counters could be so good while being so easy to DIY and so affordable. I'll be sure to update you all if my opinion changes, but so far these are not at all too good to be true. Two thumbs way up for Ardex Feather Finish.

Update: Because I only recently made these counters for a limited-use space, it's not 100% fair for me to recommend this method in a kitchen application. I don't know how it would hold up with constant use. I think if I were you, I would buy a piece of plywood first and do a practice run. Maybe even cut the plywood to fit your countertop and live with it sitting on top of your old counters for a week or so to see how you like it. Kara Paslay Designs posted a similar tutorial here look like she and her husband know a lot about concrete (they teach a class on it) and they recommended this application for kitchens, so I know some people do it and like it. I think it's worth a practice run first though for such a huge commitment! xo

The Laundry Room Redo - and $5000++ Laundry Room Re-Design Give Away!!

I am so excited to start posting 'after' photos here again! The house tour was fun and all, but I could really use some pretty in my life again. :)

I teamed up with The Home Depot, Maytag and Tide to celebrate a summer promotion where if before August 2 you buy a select Maytag washer and a 150 oz bottle of Tide, you'll get a $100 Mastercard gift card. My part of the celebration is sharing my laundry room redo along with my best tips on renovating a laundry room on a budget. The extra exciting part is The Home Depot, Maytag and Tide are giving away a Maytag washer and dryer and year's supply of Tide HD that comes with a laundry room design plan courtesy of yours truly, AND, wait for it... $5,000 to do it with! So fun, right?

But first, I want to show you what Michael and I were able to do on a tight budget in our sad, green checkered laundry room.

Paint, to the rescue!

Much, much more after the jump...

I was tempted to start from scratch in here. But when it was time to figure out a budget for this room redo we were also picking out floor$ and front door$, so I was like, yeah... you know what, we're going to just paint everything in here and see what happens. :)

The walls were painted Benjamin Moore's Cashmere Gray (one of my favorites - it's a soft green-blue gray) and the floors were painted two and three shades darker on the same card. I think keeping the paint colors in the same color family helped the floors to not look so crazytown. I used water-based alkyd paint on the floors which holds up as well as oil-based paint, but dries lightyears faster and is a breeze to clean in comparison.

Kind of looks like a stripey ikat right? So much better than the before.

Other things that were painted in the room besides the walls and floors? The ceiling fan (just white spray paint!), the cabinets (Ben Moore's White Dove in semi gloss), the mis-matched new hardware (three cheers for gold spray paint!), the IKEA woven baskets (spray painted tomato red!) and the new light fixture above the window (made the green line on the globes with green nail polish!).

We purchased a few new things for the room to make it more functional. I found the pull-out spray faucet for a great price on eBay and let me tell you - it is changing my life to have a deep utility sink and a really amazing faucet in my laundry room! :)

The sad before:

I wasn't sure about keeping this sink (was really wanting to put in that IKEA apron front that I've been eyeing) until we had to pull it out to replace the faucet. This thing is quality. It weighs about a million pounds (cast iron) and it is extra, extra deep. It's perfect for projects and it cleaned up really well with a little Bar Keeper's Friend.

There wasn't really a space to add a hanging bar in here, and seriously who doesn't love a rolling laundry cart? So when I stumbled across this laundry butler online that was exactly counter depth, it was a no-brainer purchase.

You can see here above how we opted to take off the doors on part of the upper cabinets. Here's what the uppers looked like before:

My sweet and totally ripped sister, Ali, basically karate chopped her way through the bottom shelf so we could get it out of the cabinet frame. True sisterly love right there.

Once the doors were off and the bottom shelf was out, we could fill the holes and sand the imperfections and then touch up the paint. I discovered my new favorite putty/patching compound in the process, which was a sweet little reward. It's really good stuff:

We added a little furring strip to the bottom of the cabinet and to the fronts of the top shelf to finish off the edges. This helped the shelf look SO much better.

We also painted the backs of the shelf the color of the wall. I think between that and the addition of the furring strips, the cabinet started to look like a wall shelf instead of uppers without their doors.

We added a furring strip to the bottom of the upper cabinets on the other side of the room too, just to help finish those off as well. I wish we could have replace those doors so much, but I think the white paint helps clean them up a lot and they're not so, so country now. Compromises for the budget! :)

I also had a piece of MDF cut to fit the top of the new Maytag appliances for a make-shift folding station. Someday, I'd love to get a piece of remnant stone cut to fit, but the wood works well for now. No baby socks falling behind the dryer in this house!

In the upper cabinets above the appliances, I modpodged the backs with neon gift wrap from Homegoods (the best place to buy wrapping paper IMHO).

I also added cork tiles to the insides of the doors for pinning up little reminders and momentos that make me smile while I'm reaching for the detergent.

I needed some cheap wall art in the room so I did my $4 print trick using a quirky image I found online of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire.

I also made a sunburst-esque mirror out of laundry clips from IKEA that I thought turned out pretty cute. The arc lamp is from Homegoods. I found that little chair at Goodwill for $15 and reupholstered it in some Dwell Studio fabric from Home Fabrics in Mesa that was about $7/yd. Love that store so much.

I think my favorite project in the room has to be the new countertops though. We used a concrete product called Ardex Feather Finish to resurface the old laminate. I'm excited to share the tutorial!

The concrete made the room feel instantly more modern.

Feel free to check out all my tips here and to ask questions in the comments section, but I'll be posting some of the tutorials from this room soon. I wish I could have put more details here, but this post is already monster-sized. :) And now for the exciting part:

Maytag, Tide and The Home Depot are giving away a new washer/dryer set like the set I have below (which I am honestly LOVING, by the way), including a full year's supply of Tide's HE laundry detergent. They are also giving away a $5,000 Mastercard gift card for your laundry room redo, which I will help the winner design (and then feature the plan here on LGN)!

To enter, visit the contest site here. Ten additional winners will receive a year's supply of Tide HE detergent, so chances of winning something are looking good! :)

This post was brought to you by The Home Depot, Tide HE and Maytag. Thank you for supporting LGN sponsors!