How not to paint a room

This sucks, really, really, really, really sucks.

The hubs and I were so enthusiastic over the weekend and happy because we painted our first room. Saturday we painted the ceiling white, then waited the until the evening before applying any tape to the ceiling. We taped the room and did all the prep work.

Sunday, while I was out for a long run the hubs began to paint.



This sight instantly warmed my heart after a difficult 17 mile run.

We felt bold! We felt good. I even proudly proclaimed, "goodbye beige lifestyle!" I should have known that triumphant proclamation would come back to haunt me.

The first coat when on and then four hours later we were back upstairs adding the second coat.





The above picture was taken almost at 8pm with only one little lamp in the room. Needless to say, the paint is NOT that dark and there will be more light in the room.

Then, the hubs went out of town for two days. I didn't want to do anything to the room while he was gone so we could see it together when he got back in town.

With the hubs back in town I started to peel off the painters tape used on the trim and ceilings. That's when I noticed that the paint started to peel away from the top of the wall. This is also when I wanted to start to cry!

And curse. I really wanted to drop consecutive, multiple f-bombs in a row, but I didn't.




It's not the end of the world, but it's bugging the daylights out of me. I really don't know what to do. Clearly, the top and bottom sections of the walls are going to peel. Do I just ignore it for now and move on? How the heck do I fix it? Do I have to literally peel the entire two coats of paint off the wall?



We used the same brand of zero voc latex paint on both the ceiling and wall and the walls peeled, but the ceiling didn't. That's what's bugging me the most. The ceiling looks GREAT and the walls, not so much.

Thankfully, we started with our future guest bedroom with the intention that we never use the room. If something went bad, it'd be okay because we don't go in that room. I guess I need to do more research on paint and hopefully we never have this problem again.

However, this completely ruined my happy attitude towards the house. We went bold and ended up flat on our faces. Not fun!

Any suggestions on what we did wrong? Recommendations on how to fix it?

My guess is that our decision to skip a primer came back to bite us. From the limited reading I've done in a pathetic attempt to understand what we did wrong was that we used a latex paint on top of an oil-based paint. An oil-based primer would have worked for us and saved us this mess, but alas we skipped the primer step. We thought with such light walls we didn't need a primer. Looks like we learned a very valuable lesson in home renovations: don't skip steps, even if you think you don't need to do it.

EDITED: Turns out the error was ours and it was simple! We didn't take the tape off before the paint dried! Whoops!

Wordless Wendesday

Source

Announcement: We moved!

Well thank you Captain Obvious!

Turns out rather than hitting publish post way back when I actually just saved this post. Whoops!



Roughly 47 seconds after switching the front door locks on our house the hubs and I had to jump in the car because I was late for a ten hour road trip up to New Hampshire. However, the car ride back to our rental abode gave us a few minutes to bask in the happiness of being a blissfully married couple who now owned a big baby of a house. Besides the common sense first thought of, "we need a fridge ASAP!" I thought, "we need to send out moving announcements."

Enter the deafening sound of bewilderment coming from my husband.

"Seriously, we don't even have a fridge, washer, or dryer and you're worried about moving announcements."

Hey, I've got weird priorities man. I just knew that if we didn't jump on the moving announcements they'd get shuffled to the back burner and never happen.

Well, what do you know ... life happened. Massive amounts of unpacking, cleaning, and multiple work trips left both of us exhausted and the very last thing either one of us wanted to do was design a moving announcement.

Enter Etsy or Happiness on Crack as I like to think of it.

I showed the hubs a few designs and within an hour we had a proof back of our announcements. Just a few days later these showed, beautifully packaged, in the mail.


I love everything about thing: the recycled craft paper, the green color, the stencil. Nothing but love. And the price was awesome too!


They're from Etsy Seller Jack and Ella. I'm in no way getting anything by sharing the seller's name other than maybe some good karma if someone goes and orders something and loves their order.

Hello Lover!

I sent out a calendar appointment to my female co-workers in July asking if they wanted to accompany me to Target on Tuesday, September 13th. Why? Because that's when the limited run Missoni for Target line arrived in stores.

Confession: I went to Target on Monday night just in hopes that they would have some of the stuff out early. Verdict - NO!

Then, on Tuesday morning I hopped online at 6:35 am to check out what was available in my local stores. Yes, stores. I checked every store from my office outside of DC to my house just outside of Baltimore. The store closest to my office listed everything as "limited stock."

I almost thought about going to work late and hitting up Target early in the morning. However, I couldn't do that and leave my girls behind.

At 5:00pm sharp we piled in our cars and raced each other to Target. I've wanted the chunky heels since the moment the first look book was visible online! My girls knew this and as soon as we entered the store we bypassed the clothes section and ran right to the shoe section. I swear, we looked like a SWAT team because we immediately broke off from formation and went down separate aisles.

That's when I heard one of my comrades scream, "HEIDI! They're HERE!"

CRAP! I was four aisles over and a mass of 10 women were heading straight for my shoes. Without missing a beat my friend instinctly pulled the size 8.5 and 9 shoes off the rack and charged over to me.

That, my friends, is what a good shopping partner does! We giggled and laughed as I tried on the shoes, decided the 8.5s fit better, and happily danced in the aisle. Afterwards, we had a fun girls trip trying on everything imaginable in the store and running around to see what Missoni items were left. In a nutshell: all that remained with a decent selection were the tights.

It was hilarious, I was the one who wanted to go to Target and I was the one who ended up buying the least amount of stuff! I never knew that four women could have so much fun in a Target store.

And now, these lovely shoes are all mine.




I'll randomly check to see if any of the scarves are in stock the next time I'm on a Target run. I'm not an addict and I'm not paying above retail price for anything listed on Ebay.

How about you? Did you like any of the Missoni for Target pieces? Did you get anything on Tuesday? Are you ordering anything online now that the website is back up and running?

September 11, 2011

The wounds may have started to heel, but we will never forget. Today is not just about remembering a few buildings or one particular city. Rather, it's an American day of remembrance because every American has a 9/11 story. Stay strong, treat your fellow man with respect, and let's all try to do our small part to make this a better world for future generations.

Laboring at the State Fair

Summers are not quite complete without a trip to the fair! When I was a kid my family used to go to the Orange County fair every summer it seemed. Then, when I became a teenager the cool thing to do was to travel down to the Sussex County fair in NJ. As with all things driving related, you were cooler if you were able to either drive somewhere or had friends who could drive you somewhere.

Well, I'm old enough to drive now (yay!) and this is the first summer that the hubs and I actually made it up to the Maryland State Fair. That's hilarious because when we lived up in Towson we were only 10 minutes away from the fairgrounds and we never made it over for the fair. Oh well.

I was craving a funnel cake like woah, but unfortunately so were hundreds of other people because the line was ridiculously long. It's funny, but after walking around the fairgrounds for hours and seeing all of the greasy food the hubs and I wanted nothing but a salad for dinner! And we like to pig out on fattening food every now and then just like everyone else!


Crazy note, but I love to look at candy apples, but I'm terrified to eat one. I haven't had one in years and the last time I had one I took it home and cut it up in order to eat it. I don't know why, but I have it stuck in my head that my teeth will get ripped out if I try to eat one. Maybe that's just my body's way of trying to keep my sweet tooth under control.


Yuck! I've lost my appetite.

I used to be so good at that game!



Although, after petting all the cute animals I wanted to become a vegetarian. :( I think that's why I gravitated to the sheep and lambs because I don't eat those little guys!