In Progress

This week's projects:
1) Finish railings (almost done!)

2) Recover dining chairs.  One finished, 3 to go.  Originally the plan was just to replace the fabric on the seats.  A couple of years ago I covered them with plastic, because my children are the planet's messiest eaters.  However, they also have the planet's sharpest fingernails and have ripped the plastic to shreds.  I found an outdoor fabric called Sunbrella that is supposed to repel stains, mold, water, etc. so I am using this to cover the chairs.  Hopefully they tested this stuff with 8-year old boys. 
When I was wiping down the first chair before reattaching the seat, I started noticing many paint chips, dings, cracks, etc. in the wood and decided they were actually in pretty rough shape.  So, out comes my trusty "heirloom white" spray paint and I am giving each chair a couple of fresh coats of paint.  The color is actually much nicer, the original color of the chairs is almost yellow in comparison.  After that, Kevin suggested a top coat of wipe-on polyurethane which was a great idea.  Thus my one-step project turned into multiple steps for each chair, but in the end they look much better and will be more durable too.
Here's a before and after.  The plastic on this chair is actually not too bad, the rest are really bad.  You can tell the subtle difference from yellow-ish to white.  I like it.

3) Front porch.  The good news: I am blowing all the money I earned at the One Week Boutique on stuff for our front porch.  The bad news: it is about $250 which in furniture dollars is not that much.  I have a grand vision and managed to snag two great Pier 1 wicker chairs off of Craigslist last week for $75 total.  They are in really great condition.  One is even a rocker.  Our front porch is a concrete wasteland and really needs some color, so although the espresso color of the chairs is very pretty, I am changing it to this springy green.  Don't worry it all makes sense in the end.  My next purchase: a striped navy blue and white outdoor rug.  I might have to bite the bullet and pay full price for that one.

Black Railings

I am on a mission to rid my home of anything "honey oak" colored.  I would like to have re-painted our kitchen cabinets first, as their honey-oakness is the most overwhelming in the house, but a project of that scale will definitely have to wait until the basement is finished.  Stair railings, however, is a "Isaac is napping" project that I can do by myself in several short steps, when I have an hour here or there.
Here is how they have looked for the past 7 years:

I found a fabulous product called "Polyshades" which is polyurethane and color in one.  It is much thinner than paint and allows wood grain to show through, but still gives a very rich color.  I am planning to use a dark walnut colored Polyshade on our basement stair treads.  Here I went with black.  The prep for this project involved a lot of taping and plastic:

But all the prep work was really worth it.  I love the final product:

Again my photography skills are hindering me, the shadows and light make the hallway look very dark in this photo.  In person it looks beautiful, no longer like a hastily installed builder-grade railing set (which it is) but a custom made piece.  I would love, love, love to rip that carpeting off the stairs and replace them with stained wood too!!
Here's a shot from the upstairs, of our front entryway with new black railings:

All that I needed for this project was painter's tape, a brush made for oil-based paints, paint thinner (for cleaning afterwards), plastic sheeting and a can of black Polyshades.  The Polyshades was $7 and we had all of the other items already.  Plus there's still 1/3 of a can of Polyshades left, for the upstairs railing!  I did also buy a special paint-prep cleaner called TSP and scrubbed down the railings before I painted.  This was $4.50.  
My next project is not nearly as glamorous.  I need to fill all the nail holes in the basement ceiling boards with wood filler.  Hopefully I will be able to finish this by the weekend.

Front Door Wreath

I have not spent much time on decorating projects in the last few weeks - we have had many other things going on, and have been spending our "home improvement" time working in the basement.  I did do this quick, easy and inexpensive project to dress up our front door.  This spring and summer I want to work on our front porch.  Ultimately I would like the front porch to feel like an outside room of the home, fitting in with what's inside.  I would love for the kids - and our friends and family - to use the space on nice days.  Right now it is just a big empty slab of concrete.  It is a nice, big place do to all kinds of things and is just waiting for my attention.  I have been cutting photos out of magazines and thinking about what I'd like to do out there.  I have a pretty concrete plan in my mind but want to go hunting around for pieces to use.
Anyway, here is the first thing I did.  Our shutters (which need to be painted badly) are dark/navy blue.  So I am going with a navy blue/apple green/robin's egg blue/white color scheme out there.  I tried to tie all the colors together in this simple wreath.
Materials:
24" twig wreath $4.99 at Hobby Lobby (was 50% off so actually $2.50)
can of apple green spray paint, $5 at Hobby Lobby
spool of ribbon $8 (but I had a 40% off coupon so it was more like $5)
"M" wooden letter $1.99 (also 50% off so $1)
The robin's egg blue paint on the M was from a sample I already had
Total cost of project: about $15 with tax
Total time: 2 hours start to finish, including drying time

Hope you like it! 

The trick with wreaths on the door is 1) don't hang them too high and 2) measure your door first to make sure you buy a wreath that is large enough.  Here, I think my ribbon could stand to be another inch wider (although I bought the largest they had that day).

Quick Update: Spring Mantle

I changed our mantle again.  I know, you are all shocked.  But really, it was for a good and completely necessary reason!  It's spring now and everything is coming alive including indoor home decor.  So took down the bare branches, filled my vases with some blooming branches (faux) and potted a few beautiful succulents (real).  I love succulents but don't have a lot of small plants around, because Isaac would definitely stick his fingers in them and dump them out.  So this was a great way to add some living greens to this room without the kids getting into them.  Yes the little dishes are French White Corningware - use what you have right?  I also changed out my colored candles for white.  I like this version even more than the winter/painted red branches version - it is better proportioned.  I have enjoyed scaling back all the color in this room and I think the all white decor brings out the chocolate brown mantle.  Enjoy!