At Home: DIY Projects in Our First House

Since having our baby at the end of November I haven’t been doing as much sewing but I have been working away at projects around our new home. This is our first house and we moved in at the beginning of October so I did what I could while pregnant and then once our baby was born I spent a lot of time staring at the walls I desperately wanted to paint.

Browsing Pinterest and blogs inspired me by seeing what other people had done to transform their homes with simple updates that can make a big impact.

Using paint can go a long way. This was what I first started with since it is the focal point of our living room and this combination of oak, dark blue and beige just didn’t work for me.

I used Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Pure White to do the fireplace. It was so easy to use with no surface preparation needed.

 

 

Here it is after one coat of paint and in total I think it took about three coats to get even coverage.

 

This is a wood scroll that I glued on to add more detail to the woodwork.

Here is a close up of the finished fireplace which was sealed with the Annie Sloan clear wax. Using the wax was the worst part of doing this project because it has a really strong odour.

Once the fireplace was painted the dark blue suddenly looked much richer with the contrast against the bright white. I knew that I would paint the fireplace white but I didn’t expect to keep the dark blue wall but that ended up being my favourite accent colour and I have carried it throughout our home. 

 

There are other things that have changed in the before and after picture besides the fireplace but I’ll share that painting in another post.