diy window muntins

i've been researching the best way to add some sort of grille design to our front windows, and stumbled on a few sites that suggested using pvc screen trim from home depot as it is cheap, durable, easy to cut and only 1/4 inch thick (so it won't interfere with the operation of the windows.)

the other day i suddenly decided i'd pondered enough. it was time to get some trim and silicone adhesive and see what happened. 

here was some of my inspiration from the Internet:

as you can see i wanted something different than the standard colonial style:

standard colonial muntins

here is our house before, with no window trim - just big dark windows.

first i tried doing only one piece of trim, but i didn't love this for our size/shape of window:

 so i went with two vertical pieces of trim, and here's the result!

this was one of my easiest projects - 10 minutes and a few bucks worth of trim. i love how the white trim balances the brick side of the house with the white screen porch. and unless you get your magnifying glass out, it's pretty hard to tell they aren't 'real' muntins.

freshly painted kitchen

what a week. i hate hate hated this project, but all that hate was worth it when i saw the result. i feel like we have a new kitchen. and including foam rollers, primer and some cabinet-specific paint called 'advance' i only gave benjamin moore eighty of my hard-earned dollars. not bad!

our petite kitchen was once filled with cherry cabinets - beautiful, solid 'plain & fancy' brand cabinets in a simple, modern style - just not our fav color.

pinterest and houzz.com had me craving a glossy white kitchen, and we figured that could only make the room look larger. so i read all the blogs and took myself to benjamin moore for what is supposedly the best cabinet paint ever - advance. i chose a white called 'chantilly lace' - bright enough to really pop off the wall color ('big bend beige' by benjamin moore.)

a lot of other blogs outline the process in detail, my favorite being young house love. but what surprised me was the 16 hour dry time between coats with this paint. it turns out that 16 hours is a really awkward amount of time, because it's hard to paint more than one coat per day without totally disrupting one's sleep schedule. but i'm hoping that all that extra drying time is just the price i paid for a rock-hard enamel surface that will stand the test of time....

here's the during....

the chaos of cabinet painting

progress

and here's the AFTER!

cabinets 'chantilly lace' by benjamin moore - view from dark gray mudroom

the white cabinets are so much more welcoming than the dark cherry wood - now the kitchen pulls you in from the darker rooms on either side. and i love the ceiling paint - same color as in the screen porch, 'hazel' by sherwin williams.

glossy white cabinets - check.

white cabinets looking spiffy from main room in 'sticks & stones' by sherwin williams

view into mudroom with chartreuse door. bright bright bright!

love how the white cabinetry sets off the granite. we didn't love it before, favoring white countertops as we do...now it looks pretty snazzy!

and since i was excited about phil's new kitchen (b/c even though i'm protective of the paint through its curing period, it is truly his kitchen) i went to home goods for an assortment of cheap drawer organizers and reorganized EVERYTHING...por ejemplo:

utensil drawer - no more mish mash

baking drawer

tupperware - neat and tidy, lids separate

and then that freshly painted bathroom got some love too...i tend to make a mess of my toiletries every morning so i'm hoping that the home goods organizers will be cute enough to make me slow down and put things in their places.

how long do you think this will last? fresh bathroom organization  - tomorrow's gonna be a good day

boom. organized.

next post will either concern the installment of 3 54-gallon rain barrels or the guest room, which is getting fresh wall paint (got a half gallon of  'big bend beige' still to burn after painting the kitchen and master bath) and the dresser is almost done becoming yellow - 'arles' by annie sloan....but for now, delicious scents are wafting out of that beautiful kitchen.  time to see what phil's up to.

bouquets this week

chartreuse!

i have a crush on a color. that color is chartreuse.

the color is named after the yellow-green french liquor,

but i see it everywhere in my garden - it's often the color of new growth in spring.

chartreuse foliage left to right from top:
gold lace juniper, euonymus, euphorbia, fir tree (?),  chardonnay pearls
deutzia, coral bells snow angel, red twig dogwood, abelia bronze anniversary

it also happens to go with a surprising variety of other colors, and it was the answer to a tough problem in our new screen porch. what would pop with pine, white, haint blue, dark gray, medium gray and coral, the colors both inside and around the porch? i tried a few colors and finally got up the nerve to paint both doors to the screen porch in sherwin williams chartreuse.

doors are sherwin williams chartreuse

chartreuse in 'urbane bronze' mudroom

sherwin williams 'chartreuse' against 'sticks and stones' walls 

how can such a bright color be so calming? the sherwin williams shade is somehow too mellow to be neon. the feel is modern, but the color is in the company's historic collection. it's perfection in a color.

master bath makeover

here was our tiny master bath when we bought the house:

and here it is today:

master bath - view from bedroom

master bath, looking through hall bath (that's right, they're connected...)

new floor to ceiling toile shower curtain

shower curtain goes all the way up to the ceiling, and i painted the ceiling the same color as the walls to add to the height of the tiny room

cabinets painted annie sloan chalk paint 'old white', walls are 'big bend beige' by benjamin moore

close up of my shower curtain made out of spray-painted metal conduit and plumbing straps to connect it to the ceiling...cost about $10! couldn't find a ceiling mounted rod and didn't want to bother drilling through the tile. problem solved!

so pretty!

raising the shower curtain really opens up the room!

i am so glad i raised that shower curtain! the hard part was finding an extra long curtain and liner. so i gave up and made one just the right size and pattern for our little bathroom. just hope the pretty toile decorator fabric holds up to daily use without needing frequent cleaning...

to celebrate, phil invented a new drink.

new drink by phil called the toile - orange bitters, angostura bitters, dry and sweet vermouths and cognac. mmmmmm!

happy may day!