Lindsay Ballard, Author at Makely

Over the Memorial Day Weekend, I had big plans of adapting this adorable All You magazine outdoor canopy tutorial for use over our completely unshaded backyard patio.

It has such an effortless and breezy charm about it, don’t you agree? The instructions were simple, the supplies relatively inexpensive, and I thought it could buy us some time while we save the money for a permanent structure and an extended patio. Because we live in a very windy area, I knew I’d have to use heavier stakes and we’d have to attach it to our house.

Well, to make a long story short, it was a huge DIY fail. Tom and I worked on it for almost two days before it all fell down on top of us – literally. We tried a few different variations and realized that this particular idea was just not going to work. I didn’t even bother to take any photos, because it was such a big fat fail.

This is the time when you have know when to hold ’em and know when to fold ’em. Sometimes, it’s just better to BUY (or hire out) than DIY, and knowing that fine line is one of the most valuable skills a DIY’er can have. Big things that we know we will never do as weekend warriors is any electrical work past the breaker box, anything regarding our home’s foundation, garage door springs, and pretty much anything that requires a permit. We ended up spending the money to buy a semi-permanent shade solution for our backyard, and we wish we would have gone that route for the get go. Live and learn! {I’ll share photos once I finish the space.}

Have you ever tried to DIY and just ended up buying something or hiring out instead? Share your story!

Sometimes you start a project that you think you are going to finish in a weekend. And that weekend comes and goes and you decide it will be finished the next weekend. And then that weekend comes and goes and you decide it will be finished the next weekend. And then that weekend…okay, you get my point.

I’m a big believer that paint can do wonders for a room. It’s fairly cheap and fairly easy to create big changes, although depending on your particular level of insanity, it can take a fairly long while to finish. About a month ago, we started with this:

And almost a month later, we have this:

The two gray walls (Dark Granite by Behr) and the white ceiling (Powered Snow by Behr) were easy. The chevrons (or zig-zags, as Tom insists we call them) took lasers. And trigonometry. And the use of the word hypotenuse. It probably wouldn’t have taken *you* quite as long to do this as it did us, but that’s what happens when you marry an engineer.

At least I can say that the paint lines are, in a word, perfection (tutorial coming soon). You can’t really tell from the wide shots, but each gray stripe has a small silver metallic stripe underneath. It shines so beautifully in the sunlight, and is a great update to the basic chevron design.

The morning after we finished painting, I honestly felt like I had woken up in the pages of a magazine. I commended myself for my vision and Tom for his ability to follow my instructions, even when he thought that just two stripes on one wall would have been sufficient. 🙂

Obviously, we still have a ton left to do to our master bedroom. The only thing pictured that’s staying is the yellow dresser and the walls. 🙂 I’m trying to take it slowly and make sure that everything is exactly the way we want it to be. Next up – redoing the other dresser that’s been living in my garage for two months.

What do you think? How have you used paint to completely alter the look of a room?

UPDATE: I put together a tutorial for painting perfect stripes on textured walls. You can find that tutorial here.

When DIY Becomes BUY

Mastering the Master Bedroom {Chevron Walls}