A little DIY to our mantle

We love our place – but a year and a bit in we’ve noticed the things we thought we were going to change in the first few months.  They are lingering.  Smiling at us as only crazy patterned wall paper can do.

There are so many things we’d love to do in our home – gut the bathrooms, pull a wall down in the kitchen, get new appliances, new couches, new counters.  But a few weekends ago we decided to start small.

We taped off and sanded the mantle.  Then we blew off the dust and revealed that our sanding efforts made nary a scratch in the deep dark brown paint job.  So we started painting.  4 coats later – we love the new mantle.  It was not hard or tricky.  It was not expensive (we used our existing baseboard paint).  And it feels like we’re still putting one foot in front of the other on the home improvement front – albeit tiny little steps