Easter Shrine

What do you get when you combine an old entry way table and...

a thrift store mirror...

and a can of black spray paint?

An Easter shrine of course! Well, er, not really a shrine...but it's a hall table decorated all Eastery and really doesn't serve any other purpose but to just let me get creative in a small amount of space. So, check it out because that's the only reason it's there.

(l-r) African violet in my Ikea lemon planter, crate found in the attic that says "to Charlotte via Charleston" and has something about pansies printed on the side, a stack of metal tart tins I picked up for $1.50 at Habitat ReStore, stuffed chick on Easter clearance last year at Target, old flashlight found in pansy crate in attic holding Dollar Store daisies, decorative sconce that I acquired last month at a home goods swap (have you been to one of those?! They're awesome!).

And let's get a good look at that flashlight. What else do you do with an old flashlight that looks to cool to throw away but serves no other purpose in it's current state? I was pretty proud of myself. :)

Happy Easter everyone!

Romans 6:5-11

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Wow. That was rude.

Man. I am so sorry about that. So, apparently when you don't have the internet for 2 weeks you aren't able to use the internet to tell people you don't have the internet. Well, at least you get things done around the house when you don't have a blog to keep up with. Here's a pictoral update of what we've been up to.

I'm also not to proud to post my "not so pretty" areas. There's a garage sale pile in the corner of the sitting room, the hallway in all it's glory and let's not even mention the dresser in the bedroom. Yes, I've heard of photoshop, but this is real life people! :)

In answering a few questions of some commenters:

1. Our living room color is Croissant by Sherwin Williams. Love it and we get a lot of compliments on it.

2. Lady in Arkansas renovating a house- we did in fact go over some existing flooring with the concrete, but we pulled up some vinyl parquet tiles before that and laid down some plywood and some metal screen before the concrete was poured. I'll be in touch. :)

Before and After Hallway Flooring

Before

After

*This hallway is now decked out with the shelving units and a hallway rug, but it's still messy and I want it to look nice before I post any true "after" pics.

Concrete Floors

When I tell people that we are having concrete floors poured in parts of our house, I have a feeling their first thought is this below. After all, it was my thought the first time I heard about it too. Not so, my friends. When I say concrete floors, I want you to think of this:


Ha! Sorry for the bite size pictures. Consider this a morsel of things to come. :) The last two pictures (if you can find your bifocals) show the color that we are going to use called Fawn. It's not the black with the K9, but the caramel with brown splotches around it.

We wanted to pour concrete in 3 different areas: hallway, dining room, and around the fireplace. You may be wondering how we came to decide to do concrete in the first place. Well, that began with the hallway. When we bought the house the hallway had some bumps and dips where the foundation had sagged. The foundation was the first thing we had fixed and although our contractor said, it was built back up to par, it would not be suitable for a game of marbles. :) It still had bumps and dips, but all in all was propped back up to normal. We had some parquet flooring in the hallway that we ripped up and found old linoleum underneath. Under the linoleum was the great possibility of discovering aspestos and so we decided to leave the linoleum because aspestos is dangerous when disturbed and it is advised to just leave it alone. SO, we were left with two options: 1- concrete flooring or 2- tile. We were discouraged by the thought of tiling as it is very hard to make an even surface and to keep the tiles from popping up as we experienced in our last house renovation. Adam had tiled a bathroom and after a couple months, a few tiles would just pop up in the corner and we ended up having to take them all up and put down linoleum tiles. So, having a friend in the concrete biz, we called up Joe and put him to work.

Adam and I did all the prep work (along with the help of a friend, Andy. Thanks!) and there were a few steps. First step was laying down plywood in all of the areas. This picture above is the laundry room and also the last area that needs sheetrock on the walls.

The hallway

Hard worker Adam. He is seriously over here every night. We are so ready to relax!


2nd and 3rd steps were to lay down tar paper and then diamond lathe on top. That stuff is brutal. The diamond lathe is rough cut metal and cut Adam's hands up pretty bad. I also don't recommend you transporting this in anything but the back of a truck as we learned the hard way after it snagged the ceiling of my mother-in-law's Ford Expedition. I know, I know.

Once the lathe is layed you have to staple it to the floor with a staple gun. That was my job.


The next day, I came over to find this! Wet concrete in the hallway.

You can see Joe at the end of the hallway pouring out the last little drips of the self-leveling concrete. He had ordered just enough of what we would need and so absolutely all had to be accounted for. He had to scrape and scrape with his giant squeegee thing to make the concrete stretch as far as possible.

Ta Da! Just makes you want to get your rollerskates and disco ball out. :)

Joe works with these spiky shoes so he can perform miracles and walk on water...er... concrete.

Man of the hour, Joe.

I was able to snap some better pics of the oak floor too. The dark spot is what they will look like when they're finished after they get a coat of poly on them.

Back to Joe working on the patches of floor on both sides of the fireplace.This is what the concrete looked like after drying overnight. We were able to walk on it, but Joe has to come back on Monday and fix some areas where the lathe was showing through.

This is what the bedroom looks like now that the floor is sanded. I'm going to move that chandelier into the dining room and spray paint it a kelly green to match my dishes.

Hardwoods in the sitting room.

Joe came back over the next day, this morning, to work on the fireplaces a little bit more.

He was working so hard and was trying to get out of there to be at another appointment on time.

Greta and I were admiring a red cardinal and I was having fun walking on our new dining room floor when Greta darted over the fireplace patch that Joe had just worked on.

It startled Adam and I so much that we both yelled, "Nooooooooooo!!!" and Greta ran back through the concrete and into her daddy's arms. Here you can see her shoes tell the story.

And so does the concrete. :) That was our cue to leave, but apparently Joe was able to fix it in minutes. Phew!