It will come as no surprise that I love to help friends with their decorative challenges. So when Kate asked if I wanted to help decorate her studio apartment, I jumped at the chance.  She already had a great space with gorgeous light and lots of potential. She just needed a few suggestions to get her pad as fabulous as she is!




Her apartment is an alcove studio with 440 feet of space so layout was super important. I loved the white walls but knew it needed something on the far wall to add some visual interest without taking up any precious floor space.  Since it was a rental we ruled out wallpaper or molding treatments which left us with the great equalizer: paint. After batting around several different options, Kate decided a geometric stripe felt most like what she had in mind.  

Then came color selection. There were so many ways we could have gone but in the ened we opted for Valspar's Northern Juniper (a blueish green with just a tad of grey thrown in) and Blindfold (and almost but not quite black grey).



I headed over to her apartment armed with Vaslpar Signature paint, lots of frog tape, a laser level and a bit of patience. I knew this was going to take a lot of prep.  Kate and I got to work early in the morning and we spent the entire day on this.  It's definitely a 2 person job and you will be sore when you are done but it was so worth it.




I had drawn out a rough sketch of a plan to start and then using the laser level and the frog tape, we painstakingly taped out stripe.  Carefully marking the areas we didn't wan't to paint over with more frog tape (one slip up there and we would have ruined the whole look!).  Once we were happy with the stripes, it was time to get to painting.


I knew this was going to be a lot easier if we got that tape off while the paint was still dry so we did a bit of a mad dash to get it all on there as fast as possible.  Two coats per stripe worked well for great solid coverage.  It was time for a little prayer to the paint gods before pulling off the tape and seeing the end result.





Thankfully, only a few little touch ups were required! The result was the perfect bold, mod inspired pattern we were going for.  It set the perfect backdrop for the whole apartment layout that I'll share with you in my next post.  Stay tuned.

Materials Used:
Valspar Signature Flat Interior Paint in Northern Juniper
Valspar Sigature Flat Interior Paint in Blindfold
FrogTape 1.88-in Painter's Tape
Bosch 30-ft Red Beam Self-Leveling Cross-Line Laser Chalkline Laser Level with Plumb Points


Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Lowe's but all opinions expressed are my own. 

No More Spring Cleaning Madness [Sponsored Post]

Confession: I've been a die hard Swiffer loyalist since their products first hit the market 20 years ago! I am never without their products in my cleaning supplies. So when they reached out and asked if I'd share my experiences with their WetJet, I was more than happy to oblige. This post is sponsored by Swiffer but all opinions expressed are my own.

Now that I'm a mom of two kids who seem to live on the floor, keeping it clean is especially important around here. We take care not to track in extra dirt by taking our shoes off at the door and generally trying to keep food contained but there seems to be a never ending trail of dirt when it comes to little kids no matter how how we try.  Add that to the complexity of having an older home with especially delicate floors, finding the right solution can be tricky. We need something that gets the job done quickly and effectively but won't harm our sensitive 100+ year old parquet.  Enter Swiffer WetJet.  Using a similar design as their dry Swiffer, this model has added a new feature: it can spray a fine mist of their special floor solution ahead of push of the the Swiffer wand armed with an absorbent pad.

Setup is super fast.  Simply put the pad on the Swiffer WetJet and insert the cleaning solution bottle. This tool lets you clean an entire floor in a matter of minutes (perfect for naptime bursts of cleaning energy). The mist is quite fine and directed so it's easy avoid getting any overspray on nearby rugs, furniture or baseboards.  A little goes a long way - moistening but not saturating the floor (compared to how a mop would.) Keeping the moisture to a minimum is so important to prolonging the life of these floors so that's a huge plus.




The result is sparkling clean floors without any of the hassle of carrying around a mop and bucket.  The best part is the disposal. Just pull the pad off and drop in the trash.  No wringing or sloshing around dirty water buckets required. And because the moisture level is so low, the floors dry very quickly.

An added bonus is that my kids absolutely love to "swiff"!  It's a chore that never meets with any complaining - especially the WetJet that has that cool dispensing cleaning fluid button. In fact, I sometimes have to play referee so they can each have a turn. So this makes the perfect rainy day activity with them - they love to do it and I love the result. What more can I ask for than that? 

The Gift of Memories Saved: KODAK Digitizing Box (Sponsored post)

We all have that person in our lives who is tough to shop for around this time of year. There comes in a point in some lives where another pair of slippers or candle just isn't going to delight anymore. Those type of people tend to value experience and making memories over "stuff". If you have one of those, I have the perfect gift for you: Kodak Digitizing Box!



A super simple and easy service that allows you to dust off those old videotapes, film reels, photos and slides and bring them into the modern age. Aside from allowing you to organize and share online, it also helps you preserve them for future generations.



A few years ago, I gave this gift to myself and I love having these family treasures accessible online and saved in my photo archives. This year I decided I'd do the same for a loved one.





The process is as easy as ever. The Kodak Digitizing Box is the modern version of the yellow envelope that you might remember from way back when. It arrived a few days after the order was made and includes a welcome guide with step-by-step instructions, safety barcodes for every item, a pre-paid return shipping label, and access to a personal concierge to answer any questions.. You decide which memories you want digitized and then send it back. Within a week I received an email that the files were ready for download and my original items were on their way back. A few days after that I had the box back in my hands along with memory stick and CD of all of those memories.


Now we have these priceless memories saved and can be shared at Christmas with the whole family.

Ready to start preserving the past? KODAK Digitizing Box is offering you $10 off your first order with code LIMESTONE for a limited time.