I spent spring break trying to spruce up the second floor of our home. I don’t spend a lot of time up there, it’s the kids bedrooms, bathroom, and playroom. I go up each night at bedtime, and sporadically during the day to break up fights or encourage a cleaning party, but hang out, not so much.
I’ve noticed though that lately they seem to be avoiding spending time in their spaces and really just want to hang out in the main living room. At first I though they wanted to spend more time with me (haha), but then I realized that our living room is just a comfortable, well put together space. It encourages hanging out.
So, in an attempt to regain control of my special chair (doesn’t everyone have their own special spot to sit?!) I decided to invest a little time and energy into making their spaces better.
This started with a complete redo of their bathroom, and while I promise to share that with you soon, today is not the day. The bathroom project however spawned a follow-up project, which involved completely repainting the stairs, landing and hallway of our upstairs. Here’s a sneak peek I shared on Instagram though.
This was a serious undertaking, but I managed to get it knocked out in about 4 1/2 hours, including the time it took to set up and take down the adjustable ladder to paint the super high walls over the stairs. EEEK
Once the painting was over it was time to deal with the fun stuff! I had this awesome frame I made from crown molding years ago, and I knew it was going to be the perfect thing in this space. But it was pink, and that just wasn’t going to work!
So off to the garage it went to get a nice coat of midnight blue paint by Rustoleum. One of the things I love most about Rustoleum (and no they aren’t sponsoring this post) is this handy gadget they make that you snap on to the top of ANY spray paint can and then, rather than pressing the nozzle down, you pull a giant trigger. It is seriously life changing if you ever spray paint.
I let it dry for what seemed like forever, and while it was drying I picked out some fun candids of my kids and sent them to our local Walmart to be print insta sized (aka 4″x4″ prints). After running to get those, and they were ready in like 10 minutes, and then waiting some more, the paint was finally dry enough to work with! I took some regular string I had lying around and stapled it to the top corner of the frame. I tied the string on nice and tight and then rolled it over to the other side about 6-8 inches down. I stapled it on again and then repeated the process on the other side. Once I got to the bottom I tied another knot around the last staple and patted myself on the back!
I used these teeny, tiny clothespins that I have had so long I forgot where they came from and clipped those insta prints onto the string and then popped that bad boy onto the wall with nothing more than two push pins to support it.
Then there was more patting on the back, and admiring, and oohing and ahhing and the like. Then I snapped as many photos as I could so I could show it off to you! Then I stood back and admired it some more. 😉
I also added a couple of fake plants and photos of my kids as babies to the top of our upstairs linen storage basket shelves, so here is that too! I love those Ikea fake plants and pots!
