Happy Birthday… to Me!

That’s right, yesterday was my birthday.  Now, you definitely don’t know this about me yet, but I LOOOOVE birthdays, both mine and everyone else’s.  I love to celebrate them and count down to them.  This year was no exception, one of our favorite bands, Zac Brown Band, was playing in Kansas City ON MY BIRTHDAY.  It was perfect, so we decided to make a KC weekend the official plan for my birthday.  We also invited my friend Mandy and her hub to meet up with us…though we weren’t really organized so we bought our tickets before extending the invite, so they didn’t end up joining in the concert.  It worked out though and we were ready for a random weekend adventure.

Steve surprised me on Thursday night with a pre-pre birthday celebration.  He gave me my card, told me that my birthday gift was a purse and sunglasses and then took me out to dinner and an evening a shopping to find my present.  I must say, it was an excellent gift.  Why?  Because as part of the present, we got to go wherever I wanted and he didn’t complain even once.  I even had him holding a handful of purses while I made up my mind.  It was an excellent birthday gift.  Thanks hunny

I ended up picking this navy purse at TJ Maxx.  It was $40.00, which I know is not bad for a purse, but since I don’t know the last time I bought one for more than $10, it was an extra treat!  I love my new bag and think of my hub every time I grab it and head out the door.

We headed to Scheel’s for new sunglasses.  Scheel’s is a sporting goods store if you aren’t from the midwest…
      

I couldn’t pick, so since they were 50% off, I decided I could get two pairs.

We headed off after work on Friday to Kansas City, we had to drive about 4.5 hours to get around the flooding and we arrived around 10.  Mandy and I headed out to some birthday ice cream and the guys stayed behind to play chess…drinking chess.  As we’ve been combining our households, I discovered that Steve owned drinking chess.  Steve and CJ are infamous for a 90 minute chess match that took place in St. Louis after we finished watching a movie (and yes, we were at an ice cream place and the rest of us were not playing chess).  They decided to pull out the drinking chess for an evening activity.  We enjoyed how tiny the shot glasses were…seriously.

As far as a review, they were not impressed with the quality of the stickers…apparently they were falling off throughout the game.  As far as fun, it was apparently awesome.  It was agreed by all, excellent for a one time use.

Saturday we headed out to the Hallmark factory to start the day.

I love giant birthday cards.

We spent the rest of the day running around town and taking in the sights.  We stopped by the farmers market to enjoy the weather and purchase some delicious cherries (okay, that wasn’t why we went there, but we happened upon them anyway).

I love anything that you can stick your face in…so does Steve.  He beat me to the watermelon.

Following our adventures, we headed to Arrowhead to the stadium.  As you can see, we got really close seats…  Yes, 2nd to last row in the entire stadium.

We were grateful we were in the shade and NOT on the sunny side of the stadium.  We would have baked.

Us waiting for the concert to start.

All in all, it was a really great birthday!!  Thanks Mandy and CJ for spending it with me!

 

 

 

 

 

Deal Alert!

If you love bargains, Pier 1 has $10 off a $10 purchase as their daily deal today. Hit up their facebook page (Pier 1 Imports) and “like” them to get the deal. (No, not perked by Pier 1, just love coupons and discounts on awesome home things!)

So what did I get with my $10 off?  Well, I went there to get some bright colored fun summer accessories for our house.  As I was taking a lap around the store to make sure I checked out all the awesome clearance, I stumbled on a giant basket.  Now, some back story into my basket hunt…We’ve had a problem with with laundry since we moved.  Every basket I’ve picked up hasn’t worked.  Steve’s clothes take up a surprising amount of space (I guess that makes logical sense, but it was still weird to me), so after a few days, the clothes basket was full.  Now you might be thinking that I should do laundry more often, but my general philosophy is that if we’re not out of undies or socks, laundry does not need to be done.

The laundry baskets I have found that were big enough were in the 3 digit range, which is ridiculous for a basket in my opinion…so back to the basket at hand.  It about came up to my waist and was marked down from $125.00 to $45.00.  With my $10.00 off coupon, it was only $35.00.  This was extremely affordable and I went to snatch it up.  I discovered quickly it was FULL of blankets.  After a quick blanket removal, my new basket and I headed to the check out.

Woo hoo!  Not the fun summer accessories I was expecting to find, but a complete victory nonetheless!

Check out this mega basket (said in my best Dwight Schrute voice…I love The Office)!

How about you?  Did you get in on the Pier1 deal?  Find anything awesome (including a mega basket of your own)?

A little hankie pankie

This weekend is exciting, my parents and sister came to visit me and celebrate my early birthday.  After dinner last night, we were discussing what to do and my mom told me she had something for me to look through.  One of my aunts was getting rid of some vintage hankies and my mom brought them in case I wanted to do anything with them.  I love vintagey things.  I started digging in and there was a LOT of them (over 85).  I started pulling some out and got really excited to start making…something.  What?  TBD.

My sister decided she wanted to join in the fun.  She is not usually interested in anything related to crafts, so I was excited to have her on one of my crazy projects.  I had seen a photo of a scarf made from hankies on pinterest, so we decided to make some scarves.

We laid out an existing scarf to get a sense of how long it needed to be.  We’re laying out Kimberly’s scarf first.

I started the sewing.  The conversation that ensued before the sewing started:
Me:  Do you want to sew your own?  You took home ec and learned to sew, right?
Kim:  Um…yeah, I’m more of a pinner.

So with that settled, I took the sewing machine.  It was super easy, just put the right sides together, have the designated pinner pin one side, sew, iron the seam and repeat.

Mom got in on the fun too.   Mostly to help me as I broke my sewing machine repeatedly.  I wish I was kidding.  The worst one?  I broke the needle, then when I went to remove it, I dropped it.  If fell down and jammed in the bobbin case so I couldn’t get the bobbin out or the needle out.  After a lot of tools, prying, and frustrated words at my sewing machine, we got it out and could continue sewing.  Moral of the story- I need to use my sewing machine more so I remember how to use it.

Kimberly modelling her new scarf (with Lucy’s help)

Modelling my scarf.

This project was super easy and they turned out so cute!  Best of all, the project was completely free and gives us a way to keep a family heirloom of sorts in the family.  Hope you’re all enjoying your weekend!

Linked up with A Bowl Full of Lemons and Joey and Lana.

Underwater-ers Anonymous

Hi, I’m Elizabeth and I’m a plant killer.

Man, that feels good to have off my chest.  I love potted plants and flowers.  I think they are beautiful and add easy color to any room/porch.  I have a CHRONIC problem of forgetting to water them.  I plant them, start off with grand intentions of keeping them alive and then wind up forgetting all about it.  The particular victims this time are my 2 pots on the front porch that my mom helped me plant over Easter.  I love how pretty the flowers are and it’s fun pulling up to our house and seeing them on the porch, but once I go in the back door, I seem to have plant watering amnesia.

I have tried post-its on the inside of the front door so I see it when I walk by.  I’ve tried to set the water can in my path so I trip over it (generally the dogs beat me to it and send it flying across the floor well out of my path.  The other times, I wonder why the watering can isn’t in the garage, and take it out there to put away).  I’ve set calendar reminders on my phone, alarms, told Steve to remind me, you name it, I’ve tried it and my poor plants get water once a week if they are lucky.

Topic switch, but I promise these things tie together.

It’s quite humid up here and we need to run a dehumidifier in our basement at all times to keep it from getting damp and musty.  We had a hose hooked up to the dehumidifier so it automatically drains into the floor drain.  When we were redoing our bathroom, we needed to bring it upstairs to help keep the room as humid-free as possible.  In lieu of using the hose, we unhooked it and used the reserve tank.  Not having an operational drain in the bathroom, I opened the front door to dump the water on the lawn and out of pity for the flowers, I decided to dump it on the plants instead.

As we moved the dehumidifier back to the basement, we never hooked the hose back up.  Now, when I get off work and let the dogs out, I also bring up the dehumidifier tank, dump it on the plants and put it back to continue it’s work.  In the event I forget, it beeps at me until I dump the water and reset it.  Perfect!

Tada!  Okay…that’s not my arm, but I couldn’t demonstrate the pouring AND take a picture, so I got Steve to come help model for me.  Maybe I’ll graduate from underwater-ers anonymous after all….

How about you?  Are you an underwater-er?  If you aren’t, how do you remind yourself to water your green friends?

Dreaming of my winter projects

I don’t know about you, but here in Omaha, it’s H-O-T-T hot!.  We are going on almost of week of heat advisory every day.  The heat index today was 115!  As a born and raised northern midwest girl, I would take frigid temperatures any day over heat.  I HATE being hot. ICK.

To take my mind off my sweaty misery, I have been doing some garage sale-ing and Craigslist trolling and found some awesome things.  I am waiting on tackling most of these until we get to the long winter (we have a lot of outside projects left to check off this the list this summer/fall still), and since I’m doing winter weather dreaming anyway, I thought I’d share some of my recent treasures with you (and my plans for their “second” life).

First up, I went to our church garage sale this weekend.  Unbeknownst to me, Saturday was half price day!  The first thing I found was this silver plated bowl.  I have a matching one (in matching condition) from my grandma, it’s just a different shape.  I picked it up for a lovely 25 cents.  If the silver plating doesn’t polish clean, I’m planning to paint it a fun color and use it as a centerpiece.

As I continued through the church garage sale, I came up on this jewelry box for $2.50.  It’s well made — real wood — and I am in need of something to put my jewelry in (instead of the giant tupperware it’s in now…no joke).  I have never really refinished wood before (well, other than my start at the trim in our house), so I can use this as my practice piece to hone my furniture refinishing skills.

I can’t wait to breathe some new life into this guy!

We also scored 2 shovels and a rake for $2.00. All in all, I spent under $5.00 and got some awesome stuff!

Next up, we were out running some errands and happened upon a Boy Scout rummage sale where we picked up this basket for $1.00.  It’s a great size (albeit non-great color) and I’m thinking it would look nice on the fireplace hearth.

We also picked up a sled for $1.50 (I told you we were winter dreaming) for the sledding we’re going to do soon!

To cap off the bargains, I found a dresser on craigslist.  I have wanted a long short dresser to go in the “nook” of our bedroom and I think they look better in the room than the tall dressers that cut off the room.  After some casual craigslist pursuit, I found this gorgeous dresser for $10.00.  That’s right, ten buckaroos.

The lady I picked it up from helpfully labelled all the drawers for me to make it easier to put it all back together when I moved it.  It’s really sturdy and structurally sound, plus it has some cute lines (I love that there are no pulls on the drawers) and I think it will be perfect with a little paintin’.  The dresser also came with a mirror.  I can’t decide if I like it with the dresser or not, but if I decide I don’t like it, I’m planning to take the mirror out and repurpose it as a wall hanging…  I’m so excited about my thrifty finds, something about taking something old and out dated and making it current for my home gives me quite the rush!

How about you?  Found anything thrifty lately?  Painted any furniture projects that I should see?

That’s a wrap folks

We only had a few of what I would consider as “DIY” projects in the bathroom – first up for the recap file, vanity fixing (I’m still working on figuring out how to make time to blog WHILE home remodelling is in progress.  Hopefully next project I’ll be better at updating you as I go). So how did we fix our wobbley bargain vanity?  Some guessing and sound theories…

Step 1- Before we could get started with anything we had to remove the old caulk…I remember reading somewhere that if you heat it up with a hair dryer, it’s easier to peel off.  I tried it and wahtta ya know, super easy to get it off.  I heated it up and used my trusty putty knife to peel it off like buttah.

Step 2- With caulk removed, we we ready to get to work.  Our biggest problem was the left side.  The original nails had pulled away, causing the wobble.  We thought if we reinforced the corner and used the finish nailer (thanks dad) that we could solve the problem.

Step 3- We started this project at 10:30 at night and realized we didn’t have big enough clamps to hold the vanity together while we nailed it. We racheted it all up and then got to work.

Step 4- Reinforce all of the corners.  We cut 2×4′s and made the corner SUPER strong.  It took us maybe a half hour, saved us hundreds on our bathroom vanity expense.

Once we installed the vanity, we got some anchors to secure it to the drywall to make sure it won’t go anywhere.  Wobble solved!

Want to mix and mingle?  Head to the Mustard Ceiling for a link party.

Everybody can paint…right?

If you haven’t heard of pinterest, it’s my latest addiction.  It’s so easy to find ideas for projects and inspiration and the best part is that it keeps it all in the same spot, so you don’t have to wonder where you saved a bookmark.  As a side note, if you want to check it out, let me know and I can send you an invite rather than have to be on the waiting list!  Okay, that said, this post is getting off track.

About 3 weeks ago, I found a painting on pinterest that caught my eye.

Source

I was in LOVE with it and since the tutorial said, “Wall Art for Non-Artists”, I thought it might be something I could give a whirl.  My BFF since 8th grade (and fellow blogger) Melissa also fell in love with the painting.  We decided to have a craft night and give it a whirl.  So last night, armed with Papa Murphy’s pizza, wine, and DELICIOUS cheesecake dip (not to mention canvases, paints, and brushes) we tried our hand at the non-artist artwork.

Here’s my work station in progress (and Melissa’s awesome dip on graham crackers on the left side of the photo).  I made my trees a lot more branches than the prototype, I probably should have given it another look before I started (but then what fun would that be…hahaha)

We talked Steve into taking a picture of us with our supplies (and yes, Melissa’s painting is under wraps since she hasn’t unveiled it on her blog yet, I don’t want to spoil the surprise).

My completed work of art!  I was originally hoping to hang it in my new bathroom, but it sadly clashes with my hand towels.  Stay tuned for where it ends up living.

It was definitely easy and fun to do.  We settled in for the night at the dining room table so we could spread out (and not worry if we got paint on the table) and I think we’re going to make craft night a monthly tradition!

My tip if you are going to create your own, follow the tutorial and don’t be afraid to go dot crazy.  I was nervous to mess it up, but once I stopped worrying about it and started dotting it turned out a lot better.  Be sure to pick a LOT of colors (or be ready to mix a lot of colors), because too few colors looks a bit weird.  Anybody else lovin’ pinterest?  DIY canvas art?  Wine and Girls Night?  :-)

Linked up with Saved by Suzy, Young House Love, and Bower Power.

I’m so excited I just can’t hide it!

We’re done!  Woo hoo!  Yes, that’s right, the seemingly never ending bathroom project has ended.  I’ll be back to give you more details on some of our “how to’s” from the room soon, but for now, lets look at some pictures!

To refresh you…here’s what we were working with before:

Brown trim, builder standard towel bar, toilet with faulty seals …not to mention no mirror, a really awkward light, and a blah greeney browney color (trust me, it doesn’t look bad in this photo, but it was ick).

We also had a stained and dingy sink, no storage space, a too short for the sink faucet, not to mention the brown handles.

All light by a too small, too ugly light fixture.  The whole thing felt like a dark box.

I’m 100% biased, but I think it looks AWESOME.  I’m so happy with how it turned out.

Bargain vanity came with some awesome, curved, brushed nickel handles.

Unintentionally, I managed to mirror the curve of the cabinet pulls in the faucet.  I guess our taste just coordinates together!

I have take about 25 pictures of the new vanity light.  It’s next to impossible since the only light in the room comes from the vanity light…however, we picked up the subtle curves in the light fixture as well (I seriously couldn’t have coordinated this better if I had tried…haha).  The light is from Lowe’s and it’s one that you can pick your own shades.  I found some linen look shades in the lighting aisle and fell in LOVE with them.

The toilet paper looks lonely there…I’m trying to decide if I want to stencil the wall to give it some color or leave it clean and simple.  Also, words can not express how happy the newly painted trim, silver door hinges, silver door knob, and glossy white door make me.  I squeal every time I walk by it.  Mostly because I was so scared to screw it up (especially the door frame, those babies aren’t easy to replace), but it turned out just lovely.  I think our wood floor really pops now, which gives me some motivation to get going on the rest of the house’s trim.

Again, trying to get that elusive light fixture.  The towel holder was an easy selection.  I am anti-towel ring, I don’t like that it makes the towel bunchy and hard to hold on.  This was the only towel holder in the aisle at Menards that was flat on the bottom side, so it was the winner.  The towel hangs so nice and straight and I like that.  Also, if I can direct your attention to the top of the picture, check out that crown!  Steve did a GREAT job on it (future how-to will be coming) and I think it puts the perfect little cap on our room.

To finish it off, we hunted to find a perfect coordinating soap dispenser and Steve switched out the light switches.  We had the normal, builder standard, and they were sort of broken…sometimes they turned the lights on, and sometimes they didn’t.  We swapped them out for the classy decorator switches.

The new super soft rug.  I’m a fan of the texture contrast between all the smooth bits in the room.

So what was our budget for our bathroom?  We didn’t really set a budget for our project (we’re not very good at strict budgets – setting them or sticking to them), we do much better with the goal of not too expensive.  Mentally, my goal was under $500.  How did we come out?

Wallpaper removal supplies (2 types of chemicals, a scorer, goggles, sponges, rags) – $40.00
Toilet kit (wax ring, new valves, etc.) – $15.00
New water shut off valve for the sink- $12.00
Vanity, Sink, and Mirror- $40.00
Light Fixture and shades- $55.00
1 gal of paint- $33.00
Door knob & hinges- $27.00
Faucet- $65.00
Toilet Paper Holder- $29.00
Towel Holder- $19.00
Misc. Sink parts- $23.00
Crown Modeling- $24.00
Rug- $6.00
Total $350.00 ish dollars

The even better news?  We had $300.00 in gift cards from our built up credit cards points for Home Depot and Lowes, and $50.00 in wedding gift cards, so our out of pocket cost on this was $0.00.  SWEET!  As our first “major” project in our new house, this really gave us a taste of what to expect and gave us some practice with our skills.  I’m excited it’s done (and excited to have a bathroom back on the first floor again) and I can’t wait to get to our next project!

Want to catch up on the bathroom?  Check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 and Part 7.

Linked up with the Shabby Nest and A Bowl Full of Lemons.

Bubbles, bubbles everywhere

Sorry to leave you hanging, I anticipated we’d have this wrapped up by now…but we hit another snag.  What’s that you ask?  A giant paint bubble.

After we painted the walls, let them dry for a day and a half, we were ready to start getting things back up in the bathroom.  We put in the discount vanity set, which included hanging up the mirror.  Since the mirror had no hanging hardware or any discrete way to hang it, we went the “liquid nails” route.  We coated the back of the mirror with liquid nails (it’s a really strong adhesive that looks like caulk when it comes out), and stuck it to the wall.  We held it in place for 10 MINUTES (yes minutes, they were long ones, that mirror is heavy) to set and then left it propped up with books for the night so it wouldn’t slide down while it set up the rest of the way.  When I checked in on it after work, I discovered this:

Yep, that’s right, a GIANT bubble near where a bit of the liquid nails had squished out.  I popped it with a utility knife and then cut it out.  I was really disappointed because as I was cutting the paint away, more kept peeling up.  So not only did I prime the entire room with oil based primer, guaranteed to stick, but then painted 3 coats with a paint + primer paint, the paint was still not sticking to the wall for whatever reason.  As I inspected closer around the mirror, there were several other similarly sized bubbles.  I’m baffled, and assume it must be some reaction to the liquid nails, since the rest of the bathroom still looks okay.  I cut all the bubbles lightly sanded the edged and then recoated with a few more layers of paint.  Since we had wet paint in the room, we didn’t want to do any of the things we needed to do to finish it (sand the door frame, and hang crown molding) since we were afraid to mess the paint up.  So while we were watching paint dry, we did other necessary things like caulking the trim.

We took the trim off, I painted it white, and then Steve reattached it.  He sealed the top of the trim with paintable caulk to give it a more seamless and finished look.

Here’s a look at the caulked top seam.  It made an incredible amount of difference in how finished the trim looks, I couldn’t believe it!  As for the process of painting the trim, it was pretty easy, just took a lot of waiting.  We removed it, sanded it all down, and then I applied 4 coats of Behr paint and primer using a 2″ high-density foam roller.  They sell these at Lowe’s in the paint aisle.  They are awesome become they leave a really smooth finish and don’t show any roller marks/brush strokes.  Easy peasy and incredibly worth it.  It brightens up the whole room!

Now, on to a paint review.  For our living room/kitchen we used Behr Paint & Primer for the first 1.5 coats.  We ran out just short of finishing the kitchen.  I opted to get Behr latex paint (no primer) to finish up.  It covered fine, but it was pretty runny and a little splattery.  I decided if I’m buying a paint at Home Depot, Behr Paint + Primer is the way to go.  As I mentioned in the blue selection post, when I decided on blue I opted to head to Sherwin Williams and save the 25 minute round trip drive to Home Depot, especially since their paint was on sale.  I purchased their “super paint”, latex paint + primer in Satin finish (it doesn’t come in eggshell).

I was unimpressed all around.  The Behr Paint +Primer is low VOC, which I didn’t think made a huge difference, but painting with the Sherwin Williams paint I got a HORRIBLE headache and had to stop half way through and get my mask to finish.  No mask needed with the Behr.  It’s been a week since I painted (except for the bubble fixing touch ups) and the house STILL smells of paint.  On top of that, it was extremely splattery.  I was covered in blue paint, which has never really happened to me while painting before.  Top that off with the bubbling/peeling situation, and I’m a Behr Paint + Primer fan for good.  The crazy thing is the Super Paint was similarly priced when it was 30% off to the Behr, but regular price is $45.00!  Makes the $31.00 paint look like a bargain.

We’re back on track today, Steve is hanging some crown and I am painting the door frame.  Hopefully a full reveal coming to a computer near you…dare I say…tomorrow??  Stay tuned!

Want to catch up on the bathroom?  Check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 and Part 7.

I’m such a tease

We’re putting the finishing touches on the bathroom and, if I do say so myself, it looks AWESOME!  I’ll give you the full breakdown very soon, but for now, I leave with you this peek (the multitude of Engineering Textbooks are responsible for holding up the newly attached mirror)…