Doormat makeover

UPDATE: I did this makeover with spray paint and it wore off in no time. I posted an updated ‘Doormat Makeover’ HERE.

I’ve had the same doormat for over a year now. Normally I wouldn’t care, except it said ‘JOY’…all year! Yes, we need joy every day of the year, I’m sure, but that’s beside the point. I needed a new doormat. Rather than buy one (that’s too easy), I decided to give our ‘JOY’ mat a makeover!

BEFORE

I did my best to clean it – by smacking it and blowing out the dirt and such.

Then I painted it with a base layer of Rust-Oleum dark gray 2x spray paint.

 

I made a stencil with my Silhouette. This was kind of a fail, in that it didn’t work the way I intended it to, but it did still work (for the most part). I cut it from vinyl, thinking the vinyl would stick to the mat. But it didn’t. At all. So I just laid it on top, and tried to spray paint straight above so it didn’t shoot under the stencil (using Rust-Oleum seaside double coverage spray paint).

And she’s done.

Any Mad Gab fans out there?!! I really like that game and also like coming up with Mad Gab phrases, like this one!

What do you think? Our front door looks much better than it did with the ‘JOY’, and it only took a couple coats of paint (and some wasted vinyl!). Any guesses as to what it actually says, not in Mad Gab language?!

{answer: families are forever}

Four-Wheeler, before & after

Grant likes to buy used things and fix them up, especially tools and equipment type things. Here is one of his latest projects that he purchased from craigslist.

It was a steal of a deal and actually I didn’t even know he was getting it. I took a nap one day and woke up to find him unloading it from our truck.

It wasn’t in the best shape, definitely not what I would have brought home. It is a 1991 model and the seat was falling apart, the paint faded and chipped, it was rusty and had carburetor problems, as in it didn’t run.

But Grant knows what he’s doing and can turn junk into treasures! After he fixed the mechanical stuff that needed to be fixed (for about $40) and got it running again, we started the makeover. I painted the green parts (fenders and gas cover), he painted the black stuff (bars and rails). It took a can and a half of Rustoleum 2x coverage Hunter Green spray paint, and about a can of Black spray paint.

 

The seat was next. Grant tried to purchase a brand new seat off of ebay but the sale fell through. Instead, he bought a water proof cover/tarp for about $20 and we made our own seat cover from it. Just a little bit of trimming and a lot of stapling!

 

And WA-LA! Looks as good as new, aside from the tires. It needs new tires BAD! One wobbles and a couple others leak around the rims. Other than that, it looks pretty sweet and not nearly as old, rusty and junk-like! Plus, it runs!

 

Total cost for the fixing and makeover = about $65. Job well done!

 

 

FEATURED ON:

My perfect picture wall

When we move into our house, we couldn’t put anything up on the walls. We had plenty of pictures, I just couldn’t decide how I wanted everything to go up. We lived in our house without anything on the walls for quite a while until I begged my family for some help. This is the wall we started with

I gave my family some options to choose from an I did the popular vote. I rearrange a ton of different possibilities that seemed okay, these are just a few

This ended up the winner.

But I still wasn’t happy with it. I’m not a huge fan of organized and boring, so I changed it up a bit lot. My new layout might seem very chaotic and unorganized to some, but for me, it’s perfect an I absolutely love it.

My first change was the color of the frames – from black to white. My original plan was to use white frames with different color mattes, but in the end I just went with all white – white frames, white mattes. We added the mirror to the wall – got it at a garage sale (without the frame) for $1!! Grant made the frame and I painted it white to match.

We started our layout with the console table (made by Grant), centered the mirror above it, then added the pictures randomly around it. This is much more my style – random and sporadic! There are no tips or tricks to this layout. The only thing I can say about it is I didn’t want the pictures to line up or seem organized much at all. There are a few that are lined up and even with each other, but for the most part, they are all randomly set.

We added a lot more pictures than what we had up previously, and I love the addition of the shelf (made by Grant) under the thermostat. It’s a lot easier to cover it up or make it blend it when I put décor on the shelf.

This wall is part of a vaulted ceiling, so it goes up a lot higher than this and I’m tempted to keep going up with the pictures, but Grant thinks this is plenty. He might be right, but I may try to add one or two more! That picture in the middle of the console table was actually suppose to be on the wall, Grant won that battle.

And, because I love before-and-after’s, here you go

Fireplace transformation

One weekend, the boys and I went to visit my sister and her family, leaving Grant behind to get some of his work done. When we came back, we found this:

And just to make this seem even more impressive (like it was) you can watch the transformation.

 

I love surprises and this was an awesome one. I think the boys and I need to leave more often