Friday, October 22, 2010

A Bit of My Home.

This week over at Kelly's Korner, she is featuring kids' rooms and nurseries, so I conquered my son's room wanting to catch it clean.  Honestly, though, he does keep it pretty neat.  His sister's room is attached to his and is quite a bit bigger, so they always play in there or outside.  He usually only reads in his room.  Violet was trying to clean up her room for my blog as well, but her dad is sick, so we didn't want to bother him as our room is attached to hers and he was sleeping.

Lovely old houses.
 
 Such privacy.


 This is Levi's room from the stairway landing.  When we bought the house, this room had very old olive green carpet,
the kind that looked like it might have been meant for a mini-golf course.

When we pulled the carpet up,
there were old wooden floors,
except that there was black tar-type glue around the edges.
I read that this stuff was hazardous to breathe, so my husband wore a mask and chipped up the heavy stuff, and then I just painted a maroon edge all around to hide it.

I then set about painting the checkerboard on the wood,
which was one of the hardest things for me to figure out because I stink at math, and it takes some figuring to get the squares even on the edges/middle.  My brain was sore.
But I really like it.
It's my favorite of the floors that we did.





 This is the door into his sister's room.
The colors are a very deep maroon and a gray/black.

The quilt on the door was given to me by one of my best friends.  She makes amazing quilts.
The picture on the wall to the left was in my husband's room growing up.






This is the wall behind the door when you walk in.
I keep sheets in the farm cupboard that I painted for the same purpose in our first house.

There aren't many closets in old houses.





 This is an old picture given to me by my aunt.
I grew up as a child near the ocean and had an ocean theme in my room.

I love the ocean.




 Here is my husband's box of Johnny West toys he played with
and his cannon that really shot cannon balls.

It doesn't work anymore.

I can't say that I'm too saddened by that.








 My husband's toy tractor that he used to play with.





 This window holds the things I used to have in my room.

Levi loves the Popeye bank.






 I painted this picture of the ocean when I was in college.  It's a picture of my favorite beach from when I was a child.




 A school project that Levi helped me with.









 I love this picture that hangs over his bed.  I had it over my bed at college.



 He had a thing for ducks for a while, so I painted these for Levi's room.
I found them at an antique store, but one had been glued, so they were very reasonable.
The color was almost all worn off, so I repainted them.

Yes, I'm sure it's not the right thing to do to an antique, but I wanted them for my son, so I didn't care.




 The bedside table was my husband's, but I repainted it.  The bank was a gift from my dad to Levi.





 This looks out onto the stair landing.

Yes, I rocked my babies out there so my Farmer could get some sleep.
It's an old rocker my Grandpa re caned.



 My boy's room is not the typical, but he likes it
for now,

and I'm glad.


I would love for you to join my link party every Wednesday called
"Around the House".
Link up a post about what you are working on:
recipes, projects, crafts, etc.
Thanks for considerin'!

11 comments:

  1. I love the checkerboard floor! Did you just use regular black paint? What did you coat it with and how many coats. I have an old farmhouse too and a room I would like to do this in.

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  2. Loved seeing it all! You are a fabulous artist! That is one of those things I never knew about you in college but see what a Gift God has given you now. Amazing.

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  3. Awe you still have that quilt? I would probably tea-dye it now if it was in my hands;) I like the quilts not so bright now. I LOVE the floors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dan won't let me paint my attic floors. Grrr. I am still trying. I showed him yours, he still says no.
    So cozy! I love your house. Hope Shawn is feeling better soon.

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  4. What a charming room! You did an indredible job on the floors, they're just beautiful. I would love to see what you've done to the rest of your home. That would be a dream for me, to restore an older home.

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  5. You have a beautiful home and you're an amazing artist Tonya!

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  6. What a great room! I think it is so awesome that it is filled with memories from your youth. I wish I had held on to more of my "stuff" from when I was a child.

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  7. Thank you, everyone. It is a lot of working fixing up older homes, but definitely very rewarding. I'm glad when we did most of this, we only had 1 small child; I can't seem to get a smidgen done of what I did then. I'm working on the laundry room now and it's SLOW!
    Michaele, I can't remember all the details exactly, but I know the black and maroon were just normal house paint: I think they were satin. I know they were just "oops" paint that was cheaper b/c somebody had returned it not liking the color. (We did most of our house that way.) We sanded the floors first: if you have a lot of floors to do, I'd rent a floor sander. We did that in our first home and it worked GREAT. The floors in this home were very rough; the one in the living room, once we got up the tile and then the underlayment (oh the MILLIONS of nails we had to pull out: a lesson in patience! But it made for fun memories), reminded me of those saloons you see in the movies. (I'll have to post pictures of that: it was one of the rooms I was smart enough to take before/after pictures). I think we just used my palm sander because we worked on the rooms as we got to them. You HAVE to make sure you get off the main shine, if there is any on the floor. The floor in my daughter's room was wooden but had been painted chocolate brown; I was in a hurry to get it done before we moved in, so I didn't sand it and am super sorry now: it's chipping all over.
    I measured the floor and found the middle and I think I taped strings down b/c I was making too many pencil/eraser marks at first. Then I found the middle going the other way. Then measured halfway between those marks as well and put strings. Then put strings from corner to corner each way. Then marked so many inches down the sides and laid strings from the marks to their contrary marks on the opposite sides: top left to bottom right, and then top right to bottom left so I'd get diamond shapes. When it was all the way I wanted it, which I had to adjust a few times because I didn't like the sizes at first, then I had to go back with a yardstick; penciled the marks in; then painted them. We put 3 coats of polyerthane on, but the KEY is to let each coat thoroughly dry. We were able to work on our house and rent our old house until we were ready to move in, so we'd come up on weekends and paint and then come back the following weekend and ad another coat. We didn't do this in our first house and put the coats too thick, and it made puddles and then those puddles scratched up really easily and looked terrible.
    Also, we used satin polyerthane; we used gloss in our first house, and it was HARD to keep clean: showed every speck of dirt and dust and I don't like to clean every day.
    There's some kind of marine polyerthane for boats you can get that is supposed to be great and long lasting, but I've heard it's wicked expensive and we've had good results with poly, except it does need a few new coats a few years down the road. Our living room looks like it needs it again and we've been here 5 years b/c it gets alot of traffic. But it will have to wait. There might be something better to use: maybe a person who installs floors would know.
    Yes, Tammy, Shawn is feeling better. I think he was just over-tired. He went to bed as soon as he got home; had chills and upset stomach. But he feels fine this morning. Thanks!

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  8. THAT floor is THE coolest thing ever! LOVE IT!

    m ^..^

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  9. Yes, the floor is amazing! Such a cute room!

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  10. Thanks so much for all the info and tips. Sounds like a good winter project for us.

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  11. This is really REALLY neat! I absolutely LOVE the floors!

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