Decorating Once Upon a Time

For some reason tonight, no, not sure why, I started thinking about random rooms I’ve decorated over the course of time…

My first real bargain decorating adventure?  My sophomores dorm room.  I had a single room my sophomore year and I took pride in getting it exactly how I wanted it.  Man, I loved that room…

I got the lanterns at Target on clearance for $1.00 a piece.  I got the blue fabric that I covered the ceiling with for $1.00 a yard.  If I remember correctly, I had about 10 yards, so $10.00 ish. I hot glued blue ribbon over the seams so you wouldn’t see the staples.  I loved that it kept the popcorn ceiling from flaking on to my bed.  It’s a good quality to have in a ceiling…no flaking.  :-)  The blue striped clock– also Target $5.00.

I made some pillows out of bandanas, a valance out of some more clearance fabric, another $1.00 lamp, and my favorite comforter that I got for $15.00.

And finally, I got an awesome orange striped rug for only $4.50.  It was a good day at Target….looking back there is a LOT going on in this room, but it made me happy every time I walked in, so I’m still calling it a success 6 years later.  :-)

Anybody have any “back in the day” decorating they’ve thought about lately?  Got any college dorm pics to share??  Or are you spending your Friday night thinking of ridiculously random stuff like I am?!?!

New hair

I did something crazy last week…what you ask?  Got my haircut!  :-)  I haven’t had a haircut since January, mostly because I don’t like the whole process of getting a haircut and I never know what to tell them I want, etc. etc.

I’m bein’ sassy and giving you my best Zoolander.  It’s a little darker, a little straighter and a ton more sassy!  I feel like a new lady

Done and DONE

Our painters are coming on Wednesday to paint our house and we finished our exterior to do list in the nick of time!  Forgotten all about the to-do list (it’s only been since August 16th, so I don’t blame you if you have), you can click here or I’ll just recap it for you below.
1)  Piece together our discontinued siding substitute Done
After some handy work with the router, we have siding that looks like a perfect match.  Don’t just take our word for it…we had a resident of the subdivision stop by our house and ask where we were able to buy the siding.  We gave him a quick debrief of how to do it and he was on his way.  It did wonders for our self-confidence in how it looked.  I’ll give you a sneak peek (I’ll do a full debrief once I get Steve to help me write it…)

Rotten siding and crusty window edge

New siding, new window and new trim.

2) Fix the back of house window sills- Almost done
This one we didn’t finish yet, but it’s almost done!

3)  Select and Order New Windows- Done
We ordered Anderson 100 windows.  We got the same size windows (6′x6′) but they are vinyl (will not rot) and in our old windows only the middle pane of the 3 opened.  These the outside 2 panes open which allow us to get much better airflow through the house.

Gorge huh?  I never would have thought that I’d be so in love with windows.  Seriously, they are awesome.
4)  Install New Windows –  Well…obviously done.  
We had some awesome friends to come help us install our windows.  We definitely wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without the extra muscle!

My dad was inside supervision the window installation to make sure it also went a-okay.  All was a success!

5)  Pick a paint color- done
We are going with Benjamin Moore Eagle Rock!  It was color #2 on our swatch list.

It was a close race, but the more we looked at it, the more the grayish brown of the Eagle Rock won us over.

Large swatches so we could test it out by the brick.  Whatta ya think??  I think it looks compliments well and I”m excited to see it on the whole house!

6) Finish painting the exterior lights - 5/6 done!  It was too windy today to do #6.

They look SO good.  I can’t even wait to get them done an up on the house once it’s done getting painted.

Want to see it all together now???

(Took the lights off though so we don’t have to worry about them getting broken when they power wash the house this week)

And just for super fun, the house the day we bought it.

Time to relax and watch some Monday night TV!

Anybody else doing some backbreaking manual labor lately?  What do you think of the new Two and a Half Men?  Do you find Broke Girls as hilarious as I do?

An owl, bowls, and a candle

Remember a long long time ago when I won a $25.00 HomeGoods gift card in a giveaway from My So Called Home?

Well, I’m finally here to tell you what I got!  To back track a bit, I have been to Home Goods no less than 6 times since I won and I haven’t been able to decide on what I wanted to get.  My bestest bud Melissa and I headed to Minneapolis this weekend for a girls shopping trip.  One of our preplanned stops was at Home Goods.  She had never been, so it was a must stop.  I must say it didn’t disappoint!  I found some great stuff.

First up — I have been searching, since we moved, for a fire scented candle.  We don’t have a wood burning fireplace so we were hoping for a scented substitute this winter while we have our gas fireplace on.  Having worked at Yankee Candle in college, Melissa has all the ins for me on candles.  Sadly, the fireside candle for Yankee Candle was discontinued a few years back.  Well, walking through the aisle of Home Goods what did she spot for me?

That’s right!  The fire candle.  After determining it was the right scent, it headed straight into the cart….for only $7.99.  Cheaper than Yankee and I can’t even purchase it there, so it’s a double bonus.

Next up, we headed to the fall section where I found some owl tea lights.  After some deliberation, we decided that I wanted only 2 of them and Melissa only wanted 1, so the pack of 3 was perfect for us.  Grown up friendship bracelets if you will

Sorry for the bad picture, we’re having a lighting situation in our kitchen.  I think they are adorable for fall and I’m so excited about them.  All 3 were also $7.99.

Finally, not this trip but a prior Home Goods trip, I picked up some blue ramekins.   I’ve been loving the individual sized desserts and dishes and for $8.99, these were an excellent addition to our kitchen.

I can’t wait to show you where the owls end up and what fabulous things I make in my new ramekins.  Successful Home Goods trip.  Hurray!

Don’t worry, we didn’t just get a few things at Home Goods, you’ll hear about the rest of our trip very soon!

It’s here!!!

Guess what appeared in our yard Saturday morning??

Give up??

Our brand new lovely tree!

It’s already hard at work blocking views.  I can’t wait to watch our favorite new yard addition grow!

Time for a quickie

These lights had been driving me NUTS in our main bathroom.  They are way to small for the GIANT mirror and the don’t really provide enough light for the whole room.  They took great care to match all of our light fixtures since they all have this octopus thing going on that I can’t stand.

Good bye ugly lights…and THANK YOU former owners for only painting this bathroom it’s strange pink beige color and NOT painting over wall paper.  So much relief on this one, I can pick some new paint and be on my merry way in here.

Time to go to the restore!!!  (ugh and how about that awful linoleum.  Someday we’ll wake up and decide to ceramic tile this bathroom.  It will be a good day indeed)

As for the new lights, I purchased them at Lowe’s on a particularly good clearance day and they were $11.00 each.  I figured going with 4 lights each would give the whole room a brighter feel and the straight bar would take away some of the shadows that resulted from concentrated light in the middle of the room.

And voila, zee finished product!

For not even an hour’s worth of time, this was well worth it, so now I notice the horrible paint color instead of the horrible light fixtures.  That’s progress people!

Paver Prospects

The house next to ours is a mess…I know you’re probably wondering how that could even be possible knowing how much of a mess our house is, but the house next door has been vacant for 2 years.  It was never winterized.  Mold abounds over there.  We had hoped from the day we moved in that someone would buy that house to remodel and live in and therefore have way more DIY knowledge than we do that we could be friends with.

As luck would have it, that’s exactly what happened.  Our new neighbors bought their house a few months ago.  They are using it for their “kids have left the nest house” and they have built several houses by themselves over the years.  They didn’t want to start from scratch this time, so they took on the challenge.  One of the first things they tackled was a drainage problem in the back yard.  In the process, they removed all of their landscaping bricks.  As time went on, we became friends and last week we asked what he was planning for all of the bricks.  Turns out, he had plans to crush them up and use them as fill and offered them to us if we wanted them.

Notice a large pile of bricks on the left…I can’t see over our fence, so I just stuck my hand up and took a photo.  I didn’t review it until just now and realized I centered on a giant pile of deck wood, which is not part of this story.  Anyway, a lot of bricks.

The prospect of not having to go to the store, make multiple trips, purchase and haul landscaping bricks had us excited, so we got out the wheelbarrow and moved about 300 landscaping bricks into our yard.  What are we planning to do with them?

1)       Landscape the back of the house – we have some grading/fill issues on the back of our house and the landscaping bricks will help it look finished

This looks a bit of a disaster, eh?  We just plopped ‘em down to see how they might look.  We don’t want to actually do any landscaping until after the house gets painted.  Our goal is to make this all slope away from the house how it should and level it off.

2)      Build a paver fire pit-  I’m in love with these and after reading several tutorials, have determined they are not hard at all to make.  We’ve gone on long enough without one and we’re dying for a fire pit for the fall months.

It’s a work in progress.  Long term we’re planning on putting up a deck, so we don’t want to have to move the firepit if at all possible.

3)      Landscape the garden – the garden is a former shrub cemetery, I am not sure what they planted their originally, but it’s weird and full of weeds so next year I’m ready to till it up and actually plant a garden.  I wanted some fresh dirt to mix in, so an excuse to add some more will be great!

I can’t wait until this time next year when I’m harvesting some lovely garden veggies and not staring at a pit o’ weeds.   Don’t mind Steve, he’s digging a drainage trench.

4)      Paver sidewalk – the side of our house by the garage is really uneven and unattractive.  Our neighbor had several large pavers that used to be part of a deck patio that we are going to use for our new sidewalk/walk way.

I love the slate look of these and think they’ll be excellent by the garage.

It’s going to be a LOT of work and neither of us is great with landscaping, but it’s amazing how just laying the bricks out makes everything look so much more organized and breaks up the visual nothingness…plus, it takes attention a way from the sad state of our grass…

Has anyone built a paver fireplace that I should see?  How about a paver sidewalk?  Any good plants you love in your landscaping??  We need all the help we can get on this one!

Gettin’ Twiggy With It

I’m constantly surprised by the weird things that excite me now that we are homeowners.  For example, this evening we purchased a tree…not a free tree, but an actual, from the nursery tree.

Our back yard has been in need of something a bit tree-y since we moved in.  We had 3 small trees in our yard, but one of them was not fairing well.   We decided to get rid of it in lieu of something bigger and more privacy inducing.

The tree in the left of this picture is the one that is no more.

In it’s place, (in a week or so) we’re going to have this guy.

We liked how full it was at the top and 3 of the bottom trunks are very straight (since it will be in the vicinity of the fence, we don’t want to run into issues later on) and one curves out a bit more.  We are going to have this one planted towards the house to provide extra shade and a little somethin’ to look at.  I have never been so excited about a tree before!

They do the planting and everything, so all we have to do is stake our little flag in the yard and then they come plant.  After the amount of work we’ve been doing on the front of the house, this was music to our tired ears.

Why did we pick a river birch you ask?  Excellent question, see our backyard is pretty damp, basically all the time, so a lot of trees don’t do well with that much moisture in the soil.  They are also known for growing quick (6-12 inches the first 2 years and 12 inches a year after) and look nice year round.  Since the house behind us sits up a bit higher, this gives us just a bit of a shielding from everyone and I think it’ll finally make our back yard look finished.  On top of that, I love the peeling bark, it’s one of my favorite things!

Me and the new tree!  (Sorry for the cellphone photo, my camera died in the middle of the tree photo shoot)

After this month is over, it won’t even be the same house over here  Anyone else taking advantage of fall nursery sales?  Get excited over a random house purchase?  Who is starting bets on if I kill this?  (Good news, it comes with a 2 year replacement guarantee…)

I love lamp(s)

I took advantage of this LOOOONG weekend to do a little Goodwilling.  I have been on a dry spell lately and I haven’t found much I really wanted when I’ve been out.  Finally, the curse has been broken.  I have found 2 brushed nickel lamps for our master bedroom!  The best part?  They all but match.  Suh weet!  They were $4.00 each and then I stopped by Menards and picked up 2 lampshades for $15.00 each (I know I could find one to re-purpose, but if I can’t wash it or disinfect it somehow, I don’t  buy it.  Used lampshades are a no go from me).  I’m happy with my find and happier that for the first time in my 26 years of life, I have a full sized lamp to read by before bed!

Isn’t our master bedroom gorgeous?  It’s going to have to be on the update list soon…and yes, we don’t have matching night stands so they are different heights.  And yes Erin, that is still your dresser and night stand.  :-)  On the list, select some paint, window treatments, a new king size bed, and finally hanging up some stuff on the wall.  This winter maybe…

A little closer now.  I love the sleek lines and the fun subtle ruffles on the shade, it’s something pretty to focus on while we hatch our plan for this horribly bland room.

Hope you aren’t laboring too hard this gorgeous day!

Happy Earth Day….

Remember Earth Day…ya know, like last April?  Well, you may not have heard, but last April, Lowe’s gave away trees in honor of Earth Day.  As luck would have it, Earth Day weekend fell in line with Easter weekend and my whole family was in town.  Saturday morning we loaded up the van and headed to Lowe’s where we secured 6 free trees (one for each of us).The trees were really small, and sadly I didn’t get any good pictures of them in their newborn tree state.   You’ll have to believe me, they are the kind you got in 2^nd grade on Arbor Day, a small stick with some pine needles attached.

Now, you know my history of plant neglect (here), so I wanted to be really sure I knew my tree strategy before I stuck my free saplings into the ground. I read the package and it said that the trees should really grow in a pot for their first year.  Wanting to break my streak of plant neglect, I went to Target and bought 6 pots, one for each tree. Now it may come as a surprise to you (I know it did to me), that once I got them potted, these trees GREW fast.  I couldn’t believe the rate at which they sprouted limbs in their safe pots.

I noticed a few weeks back that my trees had seemed to stop growing and I really was at a loss for why (ya know, since I was so studiously keeping them alive).  A quick glance and I discovered they were outgrowing their pots!  Not wanting to go buy 6 new larger pots for my trees to grow in, I decided it was time to plant those puppies in the ground and see who takes flight.

With my mom in town to help us fix the Hole In the House of 2011, I decided to take advantage of her green thumb to help me transplant the trees and hopefully start them off on the right foot.  We also had some leftover chicken wire and stakes that we had pulled out of the old garden, so we reused that to prevent the trees from getting ran over by the dogs.  We don’t really have a wildlife problem in our yard because of Kirby and Lucy, but they have a running problem, so to avoid being trampled, fence was in order.

Some day, you know, like in 20 years, some one is really going to thank us for the view blocking properties of these trees.  Until then, I’m going to do my darndest not to kill ‘em (and yes, that is still a hole from the former playset’s sandbox, baby steps).

The biggest of my baby trees.  Did anyone else take Lowe’s up on their free tree offer?  Am I the only one who gets really excited at no cost (and therefore low risk) plant projects?  Does your dog insist on being in any picture you ever try to take?

Happy Saturday, hope it’s less rainy near you than it is here!