Decorating Ideas

Decorating Ideas To Decorate My Bedroom

I have found several decorating ideas and want to share them!  I am excited to redecorate our bedroom.   I have known the headboard I have wanted to put up since last year when I found it on a blog.   My husband actually has started this portion of the project already.

This is the picture that the gal above found her inspiration for her headboard.  The one thing I love on both headboards is the white creamy color. It has such great contrast with the walls.

Here is another picture, I think it is actually the inspiration that the woman above found to do her daughter’s bedroom headboard.  This one is so beautiful, but the wall is not acting like the headboard in this case.  My wall will be my headboard, since we don’t have one.  We also have two windows positioned on either side of our bed, just like these two pictures do.  I guess that must be a popular configuration for a bedroom? lol

Dave has the wood slats up, not painting is the next question.  I really didn’t know what color to go with. So I searched pinterest for color inspiration and this is what I came up with.  I love the deep dark brown against the white.  I’m going to go with it.

I bought a couple of the little sample paints at Home Depot for Behr paint to test colors.   We still need to buy the paint and get the paining done.  I really need to also refinish the dressers.  Time is the main factor here.  Don’t look for the finished product in the next week, not sure when it will be completed.  But as soon as I get it finished, I’ll certainly share it with you all.

Organizing and DIY Link party Week 9

I’m sharing a couple of DIY Ideas I found this week

How many DIY projects do you generally do each year?  Some can be as easy as the first one I’m sharing with you, and others can of course be much more complex.  I found a couple that I thought were really cool to share with you all.

Have you ever seen anything easier?  Just use a large rubber band across your paint can to avoid all that mess dripping all down the side of the can or filling up the rim of your paint can.

Look at this idea! It is a baby crib that they have turned into a desk area for children. Love the chalkboard “desk” surface.

1) Link to your specific post – not your blog
2) Please Link back to my blog with my button or link
3) Blog post related to Organizing or Cleaning or DIY or crafts or decorating are WONDERFUL!
4) No sales pitches or web sites.
5) Feel free to link up more than 1 post.

I also have a Pinterest Favorite Pin Friday Linky Party! Be sure to watch for that!

Looking for other link parties? I have a whole list of them. Thumbnail via day above and keep scrolling down to find a more extensive text lists by day on my link party list. If you aren’t sure how to link up… see my link party tutorial here. It is simple. If You Are On A Reader and Want to View
This party will be open until March 4, 2012 at 11:59pm
If you haven’t signed up for Linky Followers you should! You can make a list of all the linky parties you like and it’s easy to find them next week! I’d love for you to follow mine. Thanks!

Paintstick Review

HomeRight EZ-Twist Paintstick

I was very excited to review this EZ-Twist Paintstick by Homeright.  I have several areas I am going to be painting in my house.  I was starting with my dining room.

I was being daring with colors. I remember a friend who had a room that was periwinkle and I loved it.  Trying to find the right color was the hard part. Bright enough, and that combination of blue and purple that isn’t too strong one way or the other. I ended up going with the color on the left.  The lighting really effects it.

I watched the videos that I was sent of the paintstick being used and I was psyched! This looked awesome! It was so easy and fast!

When the box came from HomeRight I had a few other things to review also!  There was a Quick Painter and Quick Mask and a Paint Sprayer (which is not part of the package being given away today -  I will review later once we can try it)

The Quick mask is a combo tape and drop cloth for edging.

It is set up like a roll of packing tape with a sharp edge to cut.

This was nice. You can tape along the edge and then pull out the drop cloth. It isn’t a full room drop cloth.. just edging.  You just have to be careful that you don’t pull it on the sharp edge side.. (just sayin’.. not that I might have done it or anything, but if you were to do that I bet you would tear the drop cloth.  LOL)

I also used it on the edge of the windows.

It worked well although I had to be careful around the corners. It didn’t always stick as well there and I had to fix it on most corners before I painted them.  But I don’t know that it was much different than most other tapes I’ve used in the corners.  I would use it again.  It was nice to have the drop cloth along the edges.

They also included the Quick Painter.  I have used a tool similar (the red handle one) and really liked it.  But this had a tube to load, so it seemed really convenient.  There was not a roller edge, so it didn’t work for the ceiling edges, but it was nice especially around the window edges.

There was no problem loading it up.Just fill it up like a squirt gun.

Once the paint was loaded it was very easy to manage.

I did learn that you have to be careful when you push the little pump handle to get the paint flowing.  I first tried it when the brush was not on the wall and it came flying out.  Thank goodness for my Quick mask drop cloth! Really!!   The trigger seemed a little touchy.  Not hard enough and I had to paint over things a couple of times because I wasn’t getting enough paint. Just a little too hard and I had too much with several big drips down my drop cloth to prove it.

But when I had the right amount, it worked great.  I think it just takes a little getting used to the “feel” of the trigger for it to be a fantastic tool.

Now for the EZ-Twist Paintstick!  Please be sure to watch the whole thing through. I did have some trouble with it… but for my husband it worked with ease.

I also think a big factor may have been that the paint I used was very thick. I got the Behr ultra paint with primer all in one. I think next time I will use a thinner paint and I bet I would have better results.

I want to point out that the splash guard around the roller is very nice. You don’t get the splatters that you get with a traditional roller. If you noticed, my husband walked in wearing his coat and didn’t take it off while he tried the paintstick. He didn’t have any paint on him.

The paint in the handle goes pretty far.  That was one of the things I wanted to see.  How far one “handles worth” goes. It holds 18 oz of paint and will paint a 8′x8′ wall according to HomeRight.  I do agree that it did seem to go a long way on the 2nd coat.

You don’t have any paint trays to worry about sitting around which is really nice.

I would advise you to follow the directions and white down the roller first and let it dry. There is a bit of lint on it if you don’t, but it is explained in the directions that wetting it down first and letting it dry will help solve this issue.

I can recommend this after watching my husband use it.  I think there is a bit of a learning curve, and I would advise you not to use a really thick paint with it.  I think that was the main problem for me.

You might want to go to the HomeRight FB page. There are many people who have taken their EZ-Twist paint challenge and did not have the difficulties I did. I just watched some more myself and keep wondering why I had such troubles.

To Enter to Win one of TEN Ultimate Home Painting Kits!

These kits will include the EZ-Twist Paintstick, the Quick Painter and the Quick Mask like I showed you above.

Tell me: Why you need painting done around your house? **Be sure to come back here and leave me your answer in your comment. Your e-mail has to either in your comment or on your profile.

FOR EXTRA CHANCES TO WIN:

**Each of these HAS to have a separate comment to win. The winner is picked using Random.org. It just goes the number of comments….not by what you say.

1) Post a picture of the room you would like to paint on my FB page saying “This it the room I want to paint with the EZ-Twist Paintstick.“  (5 chances to win, be sure to leave the link and make 5 separate comments below)

2) Subscribe to my Organize with Sandy blog This is for 1 chance to win!

3) Follow me on Twitter @OrganizerSandy (Leave me your twitter name) 1 chance

4) Stumble one of my posts for 5 extra chances to win. (tell me which post. Post 5 comment entries)

5) Tweet this out up to 3 times a day. You can use the tweet button at the top to make it easy.  ( Pls leave your url link) 1 chance for each tweet.

See lots of way to enter!!

This contest will run until 11:59pm est on Thursday , May 12, 2011 **THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED**

Any comment that comes in after the above time will be deleted. This is open to US mailing addresses only. One person per mailing address only. Winner will be chosen by Random.org

If you are chosen as one of the 10 winners, I will ask you if you would mind if the rep from HomeRight contacted you. They would love it if you wanted to post a video for their FB page on your experience. But this will not be a requirement and I would not release your information without your permission.

You will have 48 hours to reply to my e-mail if you are picked as the winner, or else I will go on to the next winning number.

I was given the above paint system to review. The pictures and videos and opinions are my own.

Also be sure to enter my other Painting supply giveaway going on until May 2, 2011

Green Toad Pivoting Paint Brush Review

An Eco-Friendly Pivoting Paintbrush!

Congrats to Karen @Karenmed409 for winning the giveaway! Random.org picked #54!

Painting walls of your home, is not a chore very many people enjoy. I know I sure don’t.  I get sore, my hand cramps up from the paintbrushes or rollers and I actually broke my ankle painting one time – although that had nothing to do with the paintbrush.  Hint: Don’t use a chair to stand on… it may tip. Just sayin….

I got the chance to review the Green Toad Pivoting Paint Brush last weekend when I painted my dining room. I used it for the trim and corners.  I told them I didn’t want to review the roller because I was reviewing a different paint roller system, but I wish I had offered to try that too – just to see what it was like.

As you can see, the handle is bent! The  ergonomic pivoting paint brush was designed with the help of physical therapists. Which I think is cool. So many people have issues like carpel tunnel or arthritis and something like painting can be really hard to do.  I will tell you that as I was using my old traditional paint roller to do my dining room walls, my hand was cramping up like crazy. That is the reason I said I would have liked to have tried their paint roller with this handle – to see if it had the same effect. But I bet I wouldn’t have had the cramping.

Now… the other cool part about this brush. The pivoting part.  The brush head turns  360-degrees and locks into eight different positions! You don’t have to do any fancy stuff, it just turns and kind of clicks and then you can tell when it is locked in place.

So…. let’s say you are painting around a light socket. (Ok… so I forgot to get more than picture of when I was actually painting, so I took most of these this morning and yes… I know the electrical socket cover comes off when you paint. But I do have video down a little further from when I painted)

Turn the brush head this direction to do a space like this.

Then to do underneath it, you can turn your brush head this way.

The rubber grips make it easy to hold and the built in finger grooves help to make it comfortable to hold. It is also very light and that makes a difference.

Yes.. this is the picture of when I was actually painting. Notice light socket off the wall, paint on the brush and on my hand! lol! You can see the natural finger grooves and a  rubber place where your thumb naturally sits.  There is a small black button underneath that you push to release the brush head. Then the black oval grips on the actual paint head help make it easy to turn the brush head when changing positions (especially if you have paint on your hands) Look at the flat edge of the brush – the black right by the bristles – that is a drip guard that helps any dripping you may have.  I didn’t have any problems with any bristles coming out. I hate that when you get a paint brush and you have to pick the bristles off the wall that have fallen out of the brush. ewww…

(Update:  I used these again this last week to paint my bedroom March 2012) and I had a terrible problem with bristles falling out. The one brush I was opened, but I do not think I had used it with any paint. The other brush I opened and it wasn’t as bad, but I still lost a few bristles out of that one.)

Now you can see it in action:

Now for the “green” part.  It really is green! I mean it is environmentally friendly! All the plastic parts which include the handle, the brush, the brush heads, the bristles and most of the internal parts are treated with Earthgreen polymers.  Evidently this makes them biodegradable. They can be recycled and they are even compostable! So how can you argue with that? I think that is great that the company went to the effort and extra step to make them “green”.

There are different size brush heads. The 1.5 and 2.5 inch tapered brushes, the 2 and 3 inch straight brushes and the 4, 6 and 9 inch rollers.

They are also have roller extension poles, paint pad attachments (I love those!) and earth-friendly paint trays in development! So this is only getting better.

I am extremely happy with the Green Toad pivoting paintbrush.  I actually hid them from my husband and kids!  They are going to be painting the shed out back, and I want to keep these nice to work on some other painting projects I am going to undertake soon.

What I liked:

1) Comfortable to hold
2) Easy to turn angle & change paint brush heads
3) Bristles didn’t fall out
4) Nice edge on the tapered brush. I could paint my ceiling edge without taping off.
5) The rubber grips were in the perfect place
6) Easy to clean up
7) Environmentally friendly
8) Priced right!

What I didn’t like:

1) I didn’t also ask for the paint roller
2) It would be fun in pink
3) I don’t know if there would be a time that I would want the handle to be able to be all the way straight like a traditional paintbrush or not.

To Enter to Win a Green Toad Pivoting Paint Brush system!

Go to the The Green Toad.net and look at the paintbrush on the main page. There are 8 highlighted green dots. Tell me what 2 features of the paintbrush are, according to those dots.  You will be entering to win a system like in the last picture on this post. **Be sure to come back here and leave me your answer in your comment. Your e-mail has to either in your comment or on your profile.

FOR EXTRA CHANCES TO WIN:

**Each of these HAS to have a separate comment to win. The winner is picked using Random.org. It just goes the number of comments….not by what you say.

1) Stumble this post with a brief review – The button is the first one at very bottom of this post under where it says “Sharing is Caring” (For 5 extra chances to win! I have to see the review – leave separate posts)

2) Subscribe to my Organize with Sandy blog This is for 1 chance to win!

3) Follow me on Twitter @OrganizerSandy (Leave me your twitter name) 1 chance

4) Follow @GreenToadBrush on Twitter.(Leave me your twitter name) 1 chance

5) Tweet this out up to 3 times a day. You can use the tweet button at the top to make it easy.  ( Pls leave your url link) 1 chance for each tweet.

See lots of way to enter!!

This contest will run until 11:59pm est on Monday, May 2, 2011  *THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED*

Any comment that comes in after the above time will be deleted. This is open to US mailing addresses only. One person per mailing address only. Winner will be chosen by Random.org

You will have 48 hours to reply to my e-mail if you are picked as the winner, or else I will go on to the next winning number.

I was given the above paint system to review. The pictures and videos and opinions are my own.

Be Sure to check out my other painting supply giveaway here that ends May 12, 2011

Dining Room Paint

The Periwinkle Adventure Begins

I am going to give you a sneak peak into the beginning of my dining room decorating.  I started off with the paint.

Here’s the deal.  I would have loved a dark taupe.  My husband does not want any shade of what he calls “masking tape”.  Our entire house is that blah light tan neutral color now. Thinking we were going to sell it, we didn’t want to venture into “colors”.

When I thought of a fun color, I remember back about 15 years ago to a friend who had a periwinkle kitchen. It was gorgeous!  I knew the problem would be getting the color right.

I don’t like blues, I love purple, but didn’t want it to be “purple” either.  I wanted periwinkle.

Here is what happened.  I painted it and was really upset… because this is what it looked like.

Purple! ugh! I kept thinking when I was painting it that it would darken up. It did a little.

Looks Purple

My husband was saying, “Well hun, it is appropriate for Easter, should we decorate with chicks and bunnies?”  Of course he was teasing, but I wasn’t in the mood for teasing.

I went and got the paint color chart I used to see if Behr paint messed up when the color matched the Gliddon paint sample.

It is the 2nd one in from the left…. top.  It looks like it matches. But look.. this is the blue page of paints, not purple!

Periwinkle – No light

But then…..

I turned off the dining room light…. and it was periwinkle.  I couldn’t believe the difference just from the light!

Periwinkle – No Light

Look again….  Light on.. (scroll back and forth between these two).  See the difference?

Light on – Purple

So now I am happy. I know I just have to find the right light bulb to take away the “rose” color in the light so that it will take that purple look out.

Does anyone know what kind of light bulb I need to buy so that the light will be more natural and not bring in that rose color?

I am going to be bringing you a couple reviews and giveaways real soon on items I used to help paint this room… so be watching!!

Hint…. Green Toad Pivoting Paint Brush and the Home Right EZ Twist Paint Stick

Walmart Room Reveal

I finally am able to share my Walmart room reveal with you.  I have had a few issues along the way, but we finally got the room complete and just love it!!

Our journey was so fun to do Tim’s room.  Tim, 16 years old and Drew, 15 years old shared a room.  They made the decision together who would keep the Walmart room and who would have a room in the presently unfinished basement.  Drew decided he wanted the basement room. He calls it his “Man Cave” and loves it.

We used the Walmart Your Zone website to do our decision making.  There were things on the site that we couldn’t find in the stores, and seeing it all in one place and being able to use the virtual room make over feature on the Walmart site made it easier.

Over all we have been thrilled with the Your Zone line. Yes…we really did do the “Happy Dance”. The colors are fun, the products are very reasonable and you can create so many different looks for your teen.  I would have no  problem recommending Walmart and the Your Zone line to any of you.

We got the bed in the store and actually my 16 year old was able to assemble it himself. I was impressed by that.  We ordered the Your Zone desk, comforter and a gadget holder that he can use to keep his cell phone and Ipod in to charge off the site.  There was a problem with the area and a tax change (somehow there was a glitch in the system)  so I could not  order the products  for a couple of weeks.  But  Walmart had several people working on it and I was contacted personally by phone by them letting me know what was going on and that it would be resolved on August 20th.  It was and I was able to order them.  They came within a few days. You can also order “Site To Store” and they will ship the product to the store for you to pick up and that way there are no shipping cost for you to incur.

I do have a couple of concerns with two of the products that I want to share with you.  I pride myself on being honest on my reviews…so all of the good stuff you can believe!! And 99% of it is good..but here is the 1% I feel I need to tell you.

Tim got to work putting the desk together as soon as it came and while he was doing it the shelf broke…he was turning it on an angle to screw in another piece and it snapped. Walmart again was wonderful and told me they would send me a new desk.  When it arrived my husband put it together.    It is a great desk for a student and is a wonderful price, but he said that he had to be very careful putting it together.  The screws were stripping very easily and he couldn’t screw them in as tight as he felt he needed to.  It isn’t wobbly at all though.  He also was very careful when he came to the part where it broke for Tim, it had to be flat instead of the angle you might want to put it at that point (it does tell you to have it flat in the directions). Now that it is up and in the room, he loves it…and I don’t see any problems with it. It does seem very solid.  If it seemed real “cheapy” I would let you know…but it doesn’t at all and I do not see any future problems with it.

The other problem we had was when the gadget holder came (online only) it was damaged.  I had thought I would order another one, but was concerned after seeing this one, that it might not be the quality that I had hoped it to be, so I just returned the one and did not order another one.  If it had not been damaged it would have worked out fine I am sure, but it was not as solid as I had thought it would be.

But with both of those negatives being said…I have to say I would do it all again. I would order the desk and I would order the bed and everything else that is in the room.  My son is absolutely thrilled with his room. He has taken pictures on his phone and sent them to friends to “show off” his room.

I have been so impressed by the selection, products and the great prices.  It makes it possible for most any of us to remodel a teenagers bedroom for very little money.  Who doesn’t like that?

Thank you Walmart, Your Zone for making this possible.  Thank you also for offering my readers the chance to make over a room themselves.  I can’t wait to see the make over room of my winner!!

Bedroom Remodel

Room Remodel

We have begun! We are completely redoing my 16 year old son’s bedroom thanks to Walmart. Today is painting! (No..my son hasn’t been sleeping on the floor without any bedding. LOL) We already carted out the the bunk beds that were previously in there. He did share a room with my step son. We have moved Drew down to the basement. {He chose it and is calling it his “man cave”}
We have already planned out the room on paper. We have purchased most of what we are going to use in the bedroom. I have a couple of things on order that Walmart does not have in the stores.

Now for the paint. My sister is an artist. She has such an eye for what looks right. So I consulted with her. We have decided to go with a very dark gray on 2 of the walls. I know it sounds really strange…but you will just have to follow along over the next couple of weeks to see how it is going to look.

See the follow up on this Room Remodel

The Big Room Reveal