Growth Chart inspired by pinterest

Can I just tell you how much I LOVE pinterest?  Seriously, it makes me feel like I can do anything.  So, when I saw a picture of this growth chart, I knew that I had to make one.  I love that it looks like an old school ruler.  I also love that I can personalize it however I want.

After I made mine, my sister decided that she wanted one, so one day we just crafted up a bunch of them and some of our friends wanted some.  These are some pics of some that we made for others.

Aren't they fun? I love how mine looks hanging on my wall and J loves looking at how tall he is.
 

Painting the Hutch

After I painted my piano, the poorly matched Hutch really stood out.  I have been meaning to paint this to match the room for a good two years now.  Since I had the paint out, I thought, "what the heck?" So I busted out the sand paper, roughed up the wood and began.  I primed the natural wood looking part with Bullseye 1 2 3 primer and let it dry.  Then I painted two coats of the glossy black that I used on my piano.  After I switched out the drawer pulls, it was finished. 

I can't believe I waited so long.  It looks SOOOO much better.

Painting my Piano

So I lucked out and got this piano for FREE.  A lady in town was clearing out her house and pretty much everything was up for grabs.  I snatched this puppy up before anyone else could claim it.  The only problem?  It was not very appealing to the eye.  Soooooo . . . . . After scanning Pinterest for a while, I found some sites that talked about painting a piano.  Painting? A Piano?  Isn't that against the law or something?  I am one of those people who gets sad when they discover that wooden furniture has been painted rather than refinished; so this was a BIG step for me to even be considering.  However, I knew that there was no way I was going to be able to make this scratched and battered wood look good.  So I thought that I would go for it. 

A lot of the posts I read had them taking the piano apart and sanding the individual pieces, painting it and then putting it back together. What?  I am FAR too lazy for that.  So, I just taped off the keys and the pedals.  I took a piece of 50 grit sandpaper and roughed up the surface a bit.  Not a lot, just enough to make the primer stick.  I then primed the piano with Bullseye primer.  I had the hardware store tint the primer with grey so that I wouldn't have to put as many coats of paint on the piano as I would have had I used a white primer (Thanks Patty for the tip).  After the primer dried, I rolled the paint on where I could using a small foam roller, then brushed it on in the small areas.

The piano is in my dining room which has this gorgeous black and white wallpaper.  When I decorated the Dining room my plan was to do black and white with a touch of red.  I originally wanted to put a red Chaise against the wall, but I could never find one that I loved.  So I thought, why not add some red to the piano? 

This is the final product, and I must say, I LOVE IT!