Busy.

Hey! sorry for the prolonged absence. I have taken on probably too much work, and barely have any time for myself! I've been working hard, thus not blogging hard. Blogging takes a lot of time, and I just haven't had any.  Of course Photobucket isn't cooperating, so I am just going to share a couple of photos I have on my phone (I am working on a large kitchen project right now, so not much to show there)...


I'm helping a girl pick out colors (interior and exterior) for her new house, which is being built by the same guy that built our house. Check out her cool door!



yeah! cool, huh?  I was excited to see it. I wanted our house to have a brightly colored front door, but i ran out of time and just had it painted black. I still might paint it yellow one day.


we have been having a lot of rain, and my potted herbs and vegetable gardens are doing really well. I swear the tomatoes have tripled in size in the three weeks I got them. Craziness! The cilantro is going nuts, too:



I finally clipped some yesterday (which I am taking to my client today:))


have y'all ever picked out grays? I find that when clients or whoever are doing the samples on top of yellow walls, it makes ALL grays look blue. every time.

case in point:



the good news is that the one we picked turned out beautiful. Here is the yellow "before:"






and the gray afters:






we (I) wanted a putty gray, not a cool gray. I am tired of cool grays, and I think the putty-ish ones are much better. It took a few samples, but we found the right one. I'm helping my mom redecorate her living room, so hopefully I'll have more pictures to share with you guys in the future.


here are the cabinets I'm painting now - so many!



yowza! :) Finishing up today, and it's looking good. We did the main cabinets off white, and the island Revere Pewter by BM. She had new white subway tile installed, and its a wonderful kitchen update. i just love a white kitchen.


I'm also working on some dog sketches for another client (seriously, the projects are never ending. I feel like I can't keep my head above water. I know its a good problem to have, I am just swamped)... here's a photo I posted on instagram the other day (i'm @kristenfdavisdesigns if you want to follow me)




:)


my home remains my happy place, and i love coming back every night (after i sit in traffic for 1.5 hours. :) sorry - being a  complainer today)




also! mika is freeing his mind a little bit, and getting more used to maxie being around. he actually walks on the ground now, sometimes. amazing! haha.



alright -- off to finish my cabinet job, wish me luck!

This & That

Hi! Happy Friday...

Just a few snaps of life lately. 

this is an unedited, kind of boring photo I took of some work I did this week. Stay tuned for more pics from this project. :)

I painted these inside some built in bookshelves.

this is a picture I took at the studio. there is no less than 15 pieces of furniture being painted there. Actually, more than that. And, I noticed how much blue stuff is in there right now, and took a pic. These two pieces aren't even for the same client!

I took this after mixing the perfect blue for those flowers in the mural above, the other day. I love mixing colors, and generally have gotten pretty good at it, I thnk :)

and completely off topic, here is my tomato/herb container gardens I planted last week. Funny - they're already a lot bigger than this photo. I got some cages for the tomatoes yesterday because they were starting to go every which way!

I'm excited to watch them grow this summer, and hopefully reap some of my harvest :)

speaking of my plants, look at this cute little 60's planter I got at Scotts. I was planning to paint it, but I actually liked it all rusty, next to the new CB2 planters. I bought that turquoise pot at Home Depot, and I think it's perfect on top.

jordan and i have been enjoying a happy hour/cheese plate outside a good bit this spring (when it's not raining or really cold, argh!), and Max of course likes to join. He is the ultimate cheese and cracker sniper:

last but not least, is this picture i took in my kitchen. i got that mint green canister at an antique store a few months ago, and i love it! it stays out:

the end. happy friday, and happy easter! have a great weekend.

Artwork I Made For Our Bedroom

Initially, I had planned to put black and white photos in the frames above our bed. I still might. I couldn't find photos that I thought made sense to go there. Apparently our wedding album is lost, and Im not sure where the disc is to print photos out! Its around here somewhere. And all the other photos on my phone just seemed like weird ones to hang on a wall. haha.

So! I did what I always do - made some quick art. I really like the citron and coral colors in our bedroom. They were both accidents. Actually, the entire color scheme was not planned, but I'm very happy with how it unraveled. Really, the only color that I picked for this room was the peach walls, and then everything else has just made its way in there because I found it and liked it. It's been a fun process. 

It's still not done, but getting close! You'll see the headboard has also come in. I like it! I will post again about it one day with more detailed and up close photos.

Anyway... Here is the artwork, over the bed. The frames are from Michael's.

I got lucky and found the frames at Goodwill, but I have bought the exact same ones at Michael's before, so I know they're from there.

morning light! it's so pretty in there. 

here they were at the house, before i cut them down to the size i wanted them to be:

and at the studio, working on them!

I realized none of my photos show the entire group hanging on the wall... whoops! too late - gotta head to work.

have a great thursday.

Polka Dot Ceiling Playroom

I had a client contact me about painting the playroom for her grandkids at her house. She was very open to basically anything, and wanted help with the whole project. AKA, I helped her pick out all of the paint colors (I don't ever talk about it here, but I do paint color consultations for exterior and interior walls as well as painting work), for the mural and for the walls/closet, and am also helping with some design work for the room. We will be replacing that ceiling fan with a cool light fixture, and I am also painting all of the furniture that goes in this room. It will be transformed with bright colors (The colors used in the mural on the ceiling).

Here is  what the room looked like before:

'

The walls were brown stripes, and I suggested majorly lightening it up in there! You can see some of the furniture we're painting in this photo. It's a kids table/chairs, a bookshelf, a desk/seat, and a jewelry case (She has lots of granddaughters!) I had her paint the walls Sherwin Williams' "Swimming", which is a light turquoise, and the inside of the closet is "Daredevil" by SW, also. The trim and doors were getting a new fresh coat of white paint after I came in, and the ceiling had a fresh coat of ceiling white before I painted the mural! I was inspired by the cute vintage wooden characters she had hanging on the wall, that you can see over the crib in that photo above. For some reason, my immediate thought was to do a ceiling mural in there, versus a wall mural. I guess I knew that the walls would have those cute wooden figures on them again (obviously, since we were inspired by them), and then we also needed room for the furniture to remain, since the room also services as a nursery/playroom/gameroom. 

Anyway, onto the pics!

I painted dots of all sizes, using a homemade compass. :)

The yellow on the ceiling is SW "Daffodil" and the peach/coral is "Jovial" also by SW.

like I said, we had the inside of the closet painted tomato red, and the doors removed. it will be an arts and crafts closet for the kids. I am coming back to help make it cuter and functional, with cute baskets, boxes, etc.

The ceiling fan will be replaced. I'm thinking maybe something like this:

or this:

both from IKEA. We don't need it to be the main source of light, since there are lots of can lights in here, so it'll mostly be decorative.

I also painted the darker turquoise color on the metal slats on the door, just for fun. Remember, the doors and trim were being painted a brighter white after I left!

that's it for now. I will be back with more pictures of this room when we make some more progress!

Done For Now!

done! Well, with the projects that I had in mind. Of course, now I feel like I have a hundred more things I could do outside! 

Here's the before, again:

and, after:

so much better, right?! 

I did pine straw instead of mulch, because after calling around to a few mulch delivery places, it just seemed like it was going to be impossible to get a dump truck down the narrow private drive behind our house. I could just see them coming all the way here, me paying $400 for a bunch of mulch, and then it have to be dumped really far away from our back yard! That would be a major pain. So, I just loaded my car up with pine straw and spread it instead. I'm really happy with the outcome. It looks 100% better. I am itching to get some landscaping in, but I don't think it's going to happen this planting season. I'd like to have a good game plan going in, and not sure of that. I do want to get a little birdbath to sit next to this two skinny trees, though. There have been so many birds chillin in the backyard the past few days since we did all that work out there. Must've dug up some good worms for them. :)

Like I said yesterday, I did the weed and feed on the lawn, hoping it gets back to what it looked like last summer. 

I also added some concrete pavers on the side of the house, to the path to our trashcans! Exciting, I know. We get a lot of water there, and it stays mushy. So, the pavers are going to be really nice.

I used my string/stake technique to make them very straight.

I decided to plant some tomatoes and herbs, too. I bought two of these types of galvanized metal containers:

and put them along the back wall of the fence, in a spot that gets a lot of sunshine. 

I plan to create something kind of like this:

(from here)

those were clearly very successful! Cross your fingers for my little plants. I bought three types of tomatoes, some peppers, mint, cilantro and basil. Exciting! I love working in the yard. 

Alright, off to plant them! I drilled the holes in the containers last night, and added my drainage rocks and soil ,but haven't planted them yet. 

What I Accomplished So Far

... probably doesn't seem like much. But, I worked on it literally all day, and my back is aching and my arms are so sore! But I love getting stuff done. I spread Scott's Weed and Seed on the lawn, too, and we can't let Max out for a couple of days, which is PAINFUL. He keeps begging to go outside, and generally we just basically let him go out whenever. The nonstop scratching on the door is already getting old! Yikes.

Anyway... 

Here's my before:

like I said yesterday, there was no defined line of "grass" and "Beds." I decided not to do the liner, but the line I made definitely seals the deal in the question of which is the grass and which is the bed. I did the thing where you use stakes and string and made a straight line that way to follow. Pretty easy. The areas here were overgrown with weeds (they were never tended in the first place!)

We pulled weeds and dug up all kinds of stuff. We have found the strangest things in the ground here, including but not limited to:

car parts

beer bottles

a piece of '70's linoleum flooring

a really pretty piece of wooden trim

random metal pieces

and...

wait for it...

I found a string coming out of our driveway recently (our driveway is pebbles) and pulled it...

and pulled it...

and it was an old man's shoe, completely buried. Weird. And scary. 

did I mention that Max once found a rather large bone out there too? Hm.

Anyway, back to the yard.

We weeded and dug up stuff all day. I was really happy I never ran into any snakes, but I did run into lots of worms and ants and some mosquitoes. It took forever, and I was exhausted at the end of the day! Here is an in-progress shot:

i guess it's kind of hard to see, but you might be able to tell that I started at the top right, and was working my way down. That drop cloth is covered in weeds! I had two full drop cloths full of weeds yesterday. Lovely! Jordan collected stray sticks and did raking, and Max helped with carrying the sticks off. ;)

and after the day's work. I did as much leveling of the ground as I could. We had to dig up two small trees and left those two in the center. Like I said - no landscaping for now, but eventually we will. I am just going to put either pine straw or mulch out for this year. I think I will do some container gardens out there, though. I'm about to call around about mulch/pinestraw deliver. Fun stuff! I'm excited to have all that done, though, and to make it a little prettier out there. 

Outdoor Planning

hi!

So, I don't think I mentioned it this week yet, but Jordan and I are "Staycationing" this week. We'd planned to go out of town, but then decided to just stay at home. You know how sometimes you get so, SO busy that you aren't able to get things done around the house, and are just craving to be home? That's how we were feeling. So, here we are. And it's awesome.

 I have gotten so much done already (of course mixed in with some work, too. Oops). I have cleaned out lots of closets and the pantry, and did some outdoor work yesterday. I worked on the patio. I ended up sweeping the porch (the little pollen drops from the tree above our house are never ending, but I'm at least trying to stay on top of them!), planting new spring flowers and succulents, and bleaching/scrubbing the trim on our porch. The white trim had gotten really dingy, so it was in need of a cleaning. I Still have to do the same thing to the actual porch floor. Our porch is not wood, it's some sort of composite, so it takes a bleach cleaning pretty well. I don't do it often, obviously, but sometimes there is no cleaning like a bleaching! 

(my trusty assistant by my side of course. Verrrrry helpful)

Anyway, here are some fun pictures I took of my hard work...

The little patio area. We've actually already had dinner out here several times this year. It's a small patio, but very functional and I love it. 

I got those chairs at IKEA last year, and the table is from World Market. The table sat out through the winter, and unfortunately one of the wood slats is buckling. :( I hope it can be repaired! Otherwise, it still looks great. The chairs are awesome, because they're light weight and very comfy, plus they, too, can be bleached.

Opposite of the table and chairs is a little seating area with two of these orange chairs, which I also bought at IKEA. I put my little midcentury modern planter here. 

(see how the porch needs cleaning? Yikes.)

I finally bought these two planters from CB2 that I have wanted since before we moved into this house. I tried to buy them at end of the season last year, and they were taken off the CB2 catalog and there weren't any in stores! I was bummed, because I thought I missed out on them forever. But, this spring, they were back! I guess they were just seasonal items.  They're called the "Oscar" planter. So fitting, as they're aluminum :) I read the review online, and put rocks into the very bottom of the planter, and at the top, under my plants, for drainage. They're big planters, but very lightweight, so in the event of strong wind, they won't blow over. Or the event of a little dog jumping up on them, which has already happened.

 I got lots of succulents and some wildflowers at Home Depot and planted them yesterday. 

Home Depot has the best little succulent arrangements right now.

This one was as-is like this, for only $15. Perfect! I bought two, and disassembled one of them to distribute into my big planters, and one sits here on the table.

The boring/hard work part of the project comes today. Our back yard was not landscaped when we moved in, except for grass and some big bushes near the porch. We are not ready to professionally landscape yet, but I do plan to tackle some of the "ugly" today. I want to dig up some of the ugly plants and weeds that are in our side beds, cover it in weed killer and gardening fabric, and then cover that in mulch. Oh, and do some liner that will give it a clear line of "flower bed" and "grass". Like this stuff. That will at least be more attractive than our current situation, which I'm almost embarrassed to post:

ok, I am not almost embarrassed, I am embarrassed. Hah! Our grass is thankfully coming in green, but needs some filling in. We get a lot of water build up back there, which isn't great. The hoses need wrangling. (!!!) I also want to build a little paver patio for the grill to sit on, like a mini version of what John did here. Although it seems like a LOT of work. Yikes!! I think it'll help with the drainage issues though, since grass clearly isn't going to flourish in that area. 

yikes. 

wish me luck!!!