On My List: May 8

I'm for sure a list maker. There's a scene in some silly Lifetime or Hallmark movie that I don't even remember anything about except for the scene when she talks about how much she loves literally crossing off something on her to-do list. That's how I feel, and why I can never use my iPhone for anything like that. It's not as fun to scratch off.

But, I will share with you what is on my list of some tasks I want to accomplish before the month is over. Even if I can't literally cross it off my list on the blog, I can use my readers to hold me accountable for some projects I want to try.

1. Utilize homemade weed spray and other garden pins in our yard.
2. Finally finish the gallery wall on the stairs.
3. Meal plan binder to make my life significantly easier, because doing this every week is almost torture, even though I know it needs to be done.
4. Homemade cleaners, now that I finally have some empty spray bottles.
5. Spring cleaning and de-cluttering.

What's on your list to accomplish this month?

Think Spring!: Bulletin Board

Back in September, Nathan and I went to Nebraska City for Applejack, and one of our stops was a flea market where I picked up a frame that I planned to use for jewelry. Then I realized that I missed having something on my desk for photos, etc. so I decided to make it into a bulletin board for that.

As you can see, it needed a fresh coat of paint.

After the paint, which was silver, I cut the corkboard to fit inside the frame and hot glued it to the inside. It wasn't especially sturdy, so I then cut a piece of cardboard to fit and hot glued it to the back of the corkboard.

Here it is finished, though it still needs some momentos on it.

Think Spring!: Desk Storage

Now where were we? When we last left off in the story of the desk update, it had gotten a pretty new coat of stain. But there were some other updates that have been going on, including new fabric-covered boxes.

 

I am somewhat of a box hoarder, and with all of Nathan's Newegg shopping, we have a lot hanging around. I took three of them that were about the size I wanted and found some fabric to cover them with. A lot of the tutorials I found via Pinterest involved a sewing machine, and I was, well, kind of lazy. So instead I turned to my spray glue.

 

Here's Shelby checking out my materials, which include: two kind of fabric (I used a solid pink and a striped pink and green, and the amounts you will need will vary based on the size of your boxes. But you will need more of the one that you'll actually be covering the boxes with.), spray glue, ribbons, fleece, and scissors.

 

 

Step 1: Measure the box all the way around, then cut your fabric to fit.

 

Step 2: Spray the back of the box with the spray glue (probably outside) and then apply the fabric to the box. Continue until the entire box is covered. It doesn't have to look perfect.

Step 3: After I had finished, I realized that I wanted some fabric on the bottom so my desk wouldn't get scratched. So I got some white fleece and cut it to fit the bottom of the box and used the spray glue. As you can see, the white fleece wasn't cut perfectly, so I trimmed off the extra.

 

Step 4: I took the second fabric and cut it to fit the width of each individual side of the box and about half the height of the box. Then I used the spray glue to attach each panel over the top of the box so it was even on the outside with the other panels surrounding it.

 

Step 5: After everything was attached, I didn't love the way it looked when it was left unfinished, so I added a ribbon yesterday. I think it looks much more finished now.

 

 

There was another upgrade to the desk, and that is my jar of shards that I finally cleaned and put in a jar after almost a year. And, the bulletin board is also a new addition--check back tomorrow for a tutorial on that.

Think Spring!: My Desk Makeover

It was more than two years ago that Nathan and I (or just Nathan) took on my desk project. To refresh your memory, here it what it looked like when we finished.

 

 

And that above is what it has looked like for the past two years. (Except for the fact that I got some marker stain on it. And there's a ton of stuff in all of the shelves.) It wasn't that I didn't want to stain it, but more that I couldn't commit to what color exactly I wanted it.

 

But that decision was finally made (officially) back in September. Nathan got me a new chair as a surprise that matched the dark wood of these framed prints that I got for my birthday also a couple of years ago.

 

 

    

 

We had a very scientific way of finding stain. Because the frames matched the chair pretty well, we decided to take one off the wall and with us to the hardware store. We picked out stain and brought it home, but as I was applying it, it wasn't quite the color it needed to be. Luckily we still had some stain leftover from when I finished our Ikea nightstands. It ended up being the perfect match for the chair and the frames.

 

It seemed like it took forever for it to finally be finished and ready to put back inside. There were many coats of stain and poly. But it turned out just right and it looks much better than it did before. I'm really glad that we took the time to build something that works just right. Here's what it looks like today. Literally. I just took this picture.

 





Think Spring!: A Guest Bathroom Update

It feels like a huge accomplishment that we finally painted the last room in the house that needed to be painted. Surprisingly, the last one was the one that I think I hated the most, but it was the last to go.

Our laundry room/bathroom is in the basement and has a tiny window that is covered up, so why in the world it was painted dark gray/brown, I will never know, other than obviously different tastes. On top of that, the space behind the washer and dryer was still a completely different color, so that bothered me pretty much every time I did laundry.

 

Here you can see the color on the walls and how dark it is even though we have all of the lights on. I always felt bad about sending our guests down to the dungeon...

 

Here is the inspiration for what I wanted to do with the laundry room. This laundry hamper came back with us on one of our trips from Colorado. I like having a hamper down in the laundry room for all of the household laundry, like dish rags and towels and such. Before it just sat on the washing machine.

 

Here's what it looks like now. We painted the walls yellow to kind of match the top of the hamper. Also, we have tons of yellow paint left from painting our bedroom.

 

 

All of the trim got painted white instead of gray and it makes everything seem a little happier now. We also replaced the dark black rugs and striped shower curtain with white, and that bird rug is kind of my favorite thing. It took many a trip to Target to find just the right one. I laugh every time I look at it though because I think, "Put a bird on it!" from Portlandia. But I did. I put a bird on the bathroom.

 

 

Now my cute vintage hamper looks less out of place than before. I also found a place to hang up most of my Christmas card photos. I got this frame as a graduation present, and it's pretty cool because you just take the top part of (it's magnetic), lay everything out, and then put the top back on. At least that's how it's supposed to happen. I held it up and all of the photos came flying out, so I had to tape everything down to keep it in place.

 

I'm not going to say that doing laundry is really fun now that the room is cute, but it does make it a little more enjoyable to be in a room that's a lot less gloomy.

Garden Round-Up

Because it's October and the work on our garden seems to be winding down, I thought I'd document for you how the garden did this year. While Nathan has planted three-ish gardens, this one actually seemed to be the best. It was a little late the first year he lived here, but there were some tomatoes. The second year, we planted a bunch of veggies but couldn't get into the backyard for a lot of the summer. So this year's definitely gave us more bang for our buck.

Yesterday we dug up our peanuts, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, which I was very excited about. Unfortunately, we only had three little baby potatoes. But the rest of the garden still did OK. We had tons of tomatoes, herbs, and peppers, and not only were we able to enjoy them this summer, but I was also able to freeze them so we have them for chili this winter. Some of the tomatoes were used to make tomato sauce to use during the winter, too.

The herbs have also been frozen, some using this method, found via Pinterest. I was also able to make some pesto.

It took surprisingly little time to do all of these projects, since we did them all at once a couple of times. I'm sure it will be worth it this winter, too.

Bedroom Update: Nightstand Upgrade

In my recent end of summer summary posts, I talked about some indoor updates we had done that I hadn't blogged about. One of these is the new nightstands we got for our bedroom. Our old nightstands were free! from the closet downstairs, but weren't particularly nice looking or functional.

 

 

 

 

So we literally drove all over town looking for something else, because in case you couldn't tell by all of the random stuff on the rocking chair, there just wasn't enough space for all of my stuff. This is where my OCD/Nathan's cheapness comes in though. See, Nathan's dad built our awesome headboard, so it has a cool stain that, as it turns out, isn't necessarily easy to match. And anything that was remotely close to what we wanted was more than we wanted to spend. Enter Ikea. I made my mom go buy two unfinished three-drawer nightstands, and we brought them back with us in March. Then they sat in the garage in their tiny boxes until we finally decided to put them together a few months later (aka, Nathan was cleaning out the garage and told me that we needed to get them done). Here they are in their unfinished glory.

We figured out what color stain his parents used on the bed and got some at Menard's. However, whatever we got did not go very far and was gone by the time I finished the first nightstand. So I bought the gel kind, which smelled awful but did the job much more effectively.

Then I decided to upgrade to some nicer-looking knobs, since we only spent $60 total. And they look so pretty next the matching headboard. Even though they are now, once again, kind of covered in a lot of stuff.

Staycation

Hello, and here I am, back again. Over Labor Day weekend, my parents came to visit, and then my mom and I spent the next week together--she had a Lincoln vacation and I had a staycation.

We had a LOT of fun while my dad was here. We got to watch the first Huskers game, shop for a door, put up some handrails so I don't potentially hurt myself when I fall up or down the stairs, and spend some time exploring Lincoln. We took the dogs (Macie the Newfoundland and Shelby, of course) to Branched Oak Lake and James Arthur Vineyard, Bread and Cup in the Haymarket, the stadium, and Pioneers Park. Everyone had a lot of fun, especially the dogs. Here they are swimming. Macie is a very experienced swimmer, and Shelby is the kind of swimmer that likes being in the water, but doesn't like everyone being all over the place. It's the herder in her.

 

During the week, my mom and I worked on embroidering a set of dish towels for my cousin's bridal shower and watching Netflix. Oh yes, and drinking wine. We went garage sale-ing on Friday and she found lots of good stuff, plus some stuff for me. Over the weekend we had two bridal showers: one for my friend Leah and then one for my cousin. On Monday, we went and saw "The Words," which I highly recommend, not just because it is about writing. She and Macie left Tuesday though, so it was back to real life for all of us. 

Summer Loving: Indoor Improvements

I know that many of you have noticed I haven't been around all that much this summer, so this week, I thought I would share some of what we have been doing before the summer is over.

While the outside of the house has been the main focus for us, we have also done a few improvements to the inside of the house. Some of these include:

*New nightstands for our bedroom.
*A new chair fabric for my writing desk.
*A freshly-painted laundry room/guest bathroom.

I have lots of before and after photos and possibly-helpful tutorials for these projects, so I'll separate them out into more detailed posts next month. Who knows, there might be more indoor projects to add to that list, too.

Summer Loving: Outdoor Improvements

I know that many of you have noticed I haven't been around all that much this summer, so this week, I thought I would share some of what we have been doing before the summer is over.

Nathan especially has been spending a lot of time outside this summer working on the yard, and I've been known on occassion to help him out. One of the biggest projects he has taken on are the raised beds, which you've seen before here.

Now, the beds have not only filled in, but the path has been laid down.

I love the way this turned out, and Nathan put a lot of work into it. It's especially nice to sit on the back patio with a drink when it's cool and see how nice the beds and the path look. Speaking of sittting...

We also added a new seating area on the newly expanded back patio. We had some chairs that went with our patio table originally that started falling apart, because they used the vinyl webbing and it eventually started tearing.

The bases were still really awesome though, because they swiveled, so Nathan removed all of the broken webbing and ordered vinyl strap material off the internet as a replacement.

He first drilled holes on each side of the chair and cut the straps to the right length. Once the straps were cut, he drilled holes on either end and made a triangle shape on the ends so they would fit underneath the chair frame. The straps then must be stretched acrros the frame, and plastic pins fit in the holes in the frame. Here's a work in progress:

I had planned on making chair covers for them, but then we found these at Target on clearance for $8, which is cheaper than it would be if I made them.

So that's how we were able to repurpose chairs we already had to create a fun seating area. I also added a coffee table I found at Target, as well.

Backyard Happenings

About a month ago, we had a dirt party to do some work in the backyard. And the main result was this project: Nathan's raised beds.

The dirt area around them will eventually be a path with a trellis in the middle. And they are no longer empty. This weekend, we (me) designed and (Nathan) planted them. And because Shelby has been very clingly lately, she sneaks her way into the photos. 

This is the perennial bed, which, assuming all of the flowers live, will be the same every year.

However, we thought it would be fun to redesign them each year, too. So this ended up being the annual bed.

When we picked out flowers, we used the color wheel for inspiration. The bottom tier of both is yellow, orange, whites, and pinks. The middle tier is purples, reds, greens, and pinks. And the top tier has purple fountain grass and other tall plants. When we grouped them, we put complementary colors across from each other. It took a lot of effort, but the result is worth it. I'm already looking forward to summer when the bed get filled in.

The Kitchen

Finally, an update on our kitchen. It is probably the best thing ever, and it made our house feel instantly changed. But I will let the pictures do the talking.

This is entirely new storage. There used to be a large ovehead cabinet where the fridge is, with the bakers rack next to it. The rolling dishwasher hung out in the corner where the fridge is. This is my favorie new part because it's my little "baking area." The cabinet above has all of my baking ingredients.

See how pretty it is? Oh ya, my step stool (to reach the higher shelves) has a nice little space now, too.

The bottom right cabinet has some pots and pans, but we keep the ones we use almost daily hanging up on the wall. Our pot rack is simply a coat hook from Target.

This side of the kitchen was realtively smilar, only the corner cabinet was a weird cabinet that went all the way back, and the bottom cabinet used to be four drawers. I realized we didn't need drawer space, but cabinet space, so we adjusted. And if you can believe it, that is all of the counter space we had originally. 

This is another side that saw a lot of chance. The dishwasher is now built-in and next to the sink. Weird, right? The counter space above it is all new. It is the "prep" area, because all of the cutting boards hang out in the cabinet under the knife block.

Here is a close up of the countertop. It looks a little greener here than it is in real life, but it isn't plain black like we had planned on.

This is my other favorite part. This sink is giant and it is perfect for soaking pans effectively and holding lots of dishes. They thought I was kind of weird when I requested it, but it is perfect for what we want. 

And here is the dishwasher, pretty and built-in. It's still hard for me to get out of the habit of leaving while it's running.

Still to come in the kitchen makeover is the door to the backyard, but that is not as essential now that we have the garage. Which is Shelby's new favorite hang out.

A Dirt Party

This weekend, Nathan hosted a dirt party. Because I'm not especially capable of helping with things like moving, digging, or anything else that might require some arm strength and height I do not have, we bribed some truy awesome friends with beer and food.

Speaking of food, this was the first time I used our kitchen since it's been up and running (which yes, did happen the day before/day of the dirt party.) Because we essentially doubled (tripled?) our counter space, both my mother-in-law and I could chop vegetables/fruit AT THE SAME TIME. There was enough space to serve everything on the counters, too. Amazing.

On the Menu, in case you ever have a dirt party:

Chips/Salsa/Pretzels
Sloppy Joes (make sure you plug the crockpot in)
This pasta salad (for those of you were were asking for the recipe)
Fruit Salad
Grandma's chocolate cake (basically Texas Sheet cake)
Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting, from Elisabeth Hasselbeck's Deliciously G-Free Cookbook
Rice Krispie Treats

Shelby had a friend come over, too, and just saying: Best. Dog Exercising. Ever.

A Mouse In The House

This weekend, our peaceful movie night featuring Moneyball (which was really good), was interrupted by some rustling upstairs. However, it was not upstairs, but in the ceiling. Unfortunately, there had to be some kind of rodent living in our ductwork. It was way below freezing, after all, and the little guy was just trying to stay warm.

We set out some traps yesterday, but haven't heard another peep (aside from the squeak I heard yesterday while putting away the groceries). I'm hoping that said rodent decided to just leave now that it's warmed up and we won't have to use the traps, because they make me sad. But, we certainly don't want a mouse running around, either.

The whole incident reminded me of The Borrowers, by Mary Norton. After first reading the book when I was little, I really hoped the borrowers were real, and that maybe I would eventually find some. Unfortunately, I never did. Maybe the reason we haven't caught anything in our traps is because the intruder is not mice, but borrowers, and they were just extra loud on Saturday night because they were having a party.

Another movie version of The Borrowers comes out this Friday: The Secret World Of Arrietty, with voices by Will Arnett and Amy Poehler, among others. Maybe we'll have to check it out to learn some tips on living with them.

Kitchen Progress

I had planned on doing a book review for you all today, but my friend Kelley requested kitchen photos instead. So we will save the book review for another day and instead let my first post in a while be mostly pictures!

These are the new cabinets about the stove, and our awesome corner cabinet. Originally, if you remember, we planned on doing open shelving over there, but it wasn't as easy to build as we thought. In the end, I was very glad we ended up with it because it holds all of our small appliances easily, and I don't really like everyone seeing the chaos that is generally our cabinets.

This is the other side of the kitchen. Even just with the upper cabinets done, we have more storage, so I moved my cookbooks into the kitchen so they are more accessibly.

Here is the fun rug I found at crate and barrel while shopping with my mom. You can also see some work that we still have to do--baseboard over on the far wall, the tall cabinet will be emptied and taken out of the kitchen so we can put the door in, and the bottom cabinets still need to be painted or replaced so the dishwasher can be installed.

Jim is currently working on the cabinet for the other side of the room, next to the fridge, so I'll show you that when it's all done.

Prepping The Kitchen

Fourth of July weekend, we spent most of our time prepping the kitchen. We took down the orignial cabinets, which we planned to re-arrange. The first couple came down relatively easy; however, the last set was so wedged into the wall opening that Nathan had to take it apart to get it down. In the process, we actually tore up some of the wall, which we had to patch.

But that was not the biggest patch job. When the guys were working on the garage, they had to disconnect our hardly-used kitchen fan. So, before we could paint or eventually put up new cabints, we had to take that out. And by we, I mean Nathan. It was also wedged into its original space, so it took a while to get it out. We then had to cover the hole with drywall. Once everything was sanded and ready, we used two coats of primer to try and cover up all of the gray and blue. It was about two-plus coats of purple, too.

While everything was drying, we started priming and painting the cabinets. Even after we decided to have Nathan's dad build us new ones, we still finished painting them because we could use them in the garage. And it's a good thing, too, because they don't look as pretty as I thought they would. Here are the lessons I've learned about painting cabinets since: sand the old gloss off and clean them. Watch out for paint globs. Use small foam brushes for the doors.

Back To The Kitchen

This weekend was very exciting for me--we finally have our new cabinets up! Our kitchen looks like a kitchen again, only new and improved. And for those of you who thought I couldn't talk any more about my kitchen, we'll have a week's worth of posts about my kitchen.

The whole reason for starting the kitchen project was my obsession with HGTV. I was watching an episode of Dear Genevive, and someone said something that I completely related to: I hate this room so much, I don't even want to be in here.

That is NOT how you should feel about a room in your house, but especially the kitchen (particularly if you don't really love cooking, doing the dishes, etc. to begin with). To me, our kitchen never felt like it made sense. I could not get the current cabinet arrangement to work with the way I felt things should be. It was dark and gloomy and I would glare at the cabinets because they were so ugly. The layout did not work with my chaotic style of cooking. And we didn't have enough counterspace.

So, armed with confidence from HGTV, I convinced Nathan to spend the weekend working on the kitchen. It would be so easy, we'd be done that weekend or at least that week. Or so I thought...

Kitchen Dreaming

I know, I'm a day late, but thanks for the comments on the kitchen! I'm glad people like the purple. I realized after I painted it that I thought it looked really good, but not everyone is crazy about purple like I am. But, it brings the living/dining room and the kitchen togehter, which I think is important since they occupy most of the first floor and it makes the purple in the living room more logical.

Currently, Nathan's dad is building us some cabinets, and here is my inspiration for the layout of our kitchen, found here via pinterest.

I pinned this photo right away because thats how much space we have to work with, essentially. Minus the corner/island part that's sticking out on the right side. So we'll be using essentially the same layout for the top cabinets as this photo, only the microwave will go over the stove so we can have one bigger cabinet rather than two smaller ones. And in our house, the stove and drawers are reversed.

We are unable to have a "u-shaped" kitchen because there is a small wall-thing that cuts into the kitchen that we can't take out. Also, there are windows on the wall, and rather than taking out the windows and drywalling, we're going to add a door. So currently, the fridge is blocking part of the window on that wall, but eventually it will work better. This is also where we'll add some counterspace. Because of the floor vent we can't build out too much on the floor, so instead we'll have a longer counter top with a large drawer. I thought I had pictures of this wall, but apparently not, so you will have to wait until it's updated.

After two days of having everything at least temporarily functioning, I'm loving it. I had forgotten how awesome it is to have a dishwasher next to the sink! We still have a while for temporary living--Jim isn't quite done with our cabinets yet, and we will have to take a couple of weeks to paint them once they are, but I'm looking forward to the mostly-finished project and I know it is worth the chaos!

Kitchen Nightmare

I have to start off with an apology to my fellow Lincoln residents: It is I who wanted crazy 100+ temperatures this weekend so our driveway (aka MUD PIT) could dry out and maybe we can get this driveway show on the road.

Crazy hot temperatures meant we couldn't do too many fun outside activities, so a lot of our weekend was spent working on the kitchen. However, we did make it out to Noodles Friday night with Shelby (so dog-friendly, they even gave her a big ol' bowl of water) and went out for drinks and to Barnes and Noble Saturay night. (That's how I can tell I married the right man. Also, pro of the nook eReader: I got to read a book for free for an hour, which is generally all I need to finish.) Even with the limitied "fun," it was so worth it to finally have a functioning kitchen and living room again. And in theory, an even more functioning one.

We are also appreciating the "do-it-together" aspect of this project, because there is a lot of pride and accomplishment that comes with demolition, painting, and installing ice makers. So, maybe we are having a little fun, too, especially when we add in the "Whitney Deliciousness," as we call it: Crystal Lite Fruit punch with vodka. Yum.

Here is a before shot of our kitchen. Because it's so small, it's hard to show the whole thing without a wide-angle lens, but this gives you a taste of the color and also explains why it took two+ coats of primer to cover up.

And here's a during shot of the angle I'm going to show the "after" shot from. You'll see the silver cabinets and the gray wall we were working with in the other parts of the room.

And here is the current after, after primer and paint on the walls and cabinet and the rearranging of our appliances.

Obviously there is still a lot of work to be done. Especially the sink full of dishes, yikes! You would think we actually cooked and ate during the week, but really, we went out way mor than we should have. And, oh ya, we need to install some cabinets. Maybe.

We had originally planned on just using our existing cabinets and painting them white, until Nathan's dad offered to build us new ones. So we decided to wait it out a little longer to get cabinets just as we want them. And I'll be back tomorrow to explain what our plans for the cabinets is

Thanks, HGTV

I am not a spontaneous person. I am also not handy with a drill. And I HATE getting dirty. Which is why it is a surprise that I decided to force Nathan into finally doing something about our kitchen.

Our house is a nice house, and works great for the two of us and Shelby. But I have hated the kitchen with a passion from probably day 1. There is practically no counterspace, I hate the portable dishwasher, and the colors, which might have been pretty with the other owner's stuff, are just awful: a bright tealish blue with dark gray on the walls, a metallic silver finish on the walls beneath the cabinets, a different color silver cabinet base, and dark-stained wood doors. It really got to the point that I hated being in there. So, my HGTV kick prompted me to decide that it would be totally easy to just start the project ourselves, paint the walls and the cabinets, and rearrange a little to have a better space arrangement.

As it turns out, it is not easy. We uncovered a huge, nasty hole when we took the now-not-working exhaust fan down, with cooking gunk from probably every other previous owner embedded inside. We moved a cabinet and discovered that the floor wasn't finished, and the baseboard didn't go to the end of the wall either. The plaster behind the cabinets is crumbling. And on and on.

We made some good progress, taking out two-thirds of the cabinets, filling in the hole in the wall, and getting a coat of paint on the cabinets and the wall. But we have a ton more to do, and as I kept admitting to Nathan, "this is going to take longer than I thought." But even though the house is truly a disaster and we have a half-functioning kitchen, I'm glad we started.

That was our Fourth of July weekend--how was yours?