waiting for baby

We've had quite a whirlwind of activity happening here the past couple weeks that has caused me to neglect sunlight & sparkle. Although I haven't been posting, I've been keeping up to date with my favorite design blogs and staying inspired. Hopefully soon I'll be able to share some of that inspiration here. Until then, I'm counting down the days until baby arrives! The arrival of the Royal Baby has me even more excited to welcome our own bundle of joy in a couple weeks.

Here is a glimpse at some of our favorite maternity photos from the lovely and talented Khala at DOX Photo. Check out her amazing work here!

DIY: Wood Fence Refinishing

With the baby coming in just a month, even the hubby has gotten the itch to complete some projects around the house. One of the things we've wanted to do since we moved in was refinish our privacy fence in the backyard. But the expense to have someone come out and do it forced us to put this project on the back burner. After finishing the beadboard paneling in the nursery, we were feeling confident in our DIY skills so the hubby started doing some research on how to refinish the fence ourselves. Here's a look at the before and after.

I knew it was awful before, but after comparing these pictures I really can't believe we lived with it as long as we did. We even put off landscaping until we could address this giant eyesore of a backdrop. And in the end, it turned out to be a much easier project than we anticipated, we should have tackled this sooner!

Supplies:

• Power washer (we rented one from Home Depot)
• Sherwin Williams Woodscapes Semi-Transparent Stain in Cedar Bark
• Wagner Power Painter Plus Sprayer
• Purdy 3 1/2" Glide Brush

here's what the fence looks like after power-washing

Step 1: Power wash the fence to get all the dirt and grime off and expose the original wood before you stain. We rented a power sprayer and it took a few hours to do the entire fence.

Step 2: Let the fence dry for at least 24 hours, preferably 48. If you live in a humid area, you may want to wait even longer. If the fence isn't completely dry, the moisture will crack the stain sealant and ruin all your hard work.

spraying the stain and finishing with a brush

Step 3: Stain the fence. We opted for 5 gallons of premium stain that's intended for home exteriors so we don't have to repeat this process for another 5 years. We bought a little hand pump sprayer to apply the stain but that didn't work. So we tried rolling the stain on with a paint roller but that was taking forever. We finally decided to invest in an electric paint sprayer and it was absolutely worth it! The sprayer we bought was only $99 and worked perfect. The key is to have one person spraying and the other person following behind with a brush to go over the surface and make sure the stain gets in all the cracks. Once we got the sprayer, the stain application was done in around an hour.

Can you believe the transformation? This is definitely a project that even an inexperienced DIY'er can tackle, just make sure you have the right tools or it can turn into a time consuming project!

Now we finally have the backdrop we need to start landscaping!