Welcome Home!

Some of our friends recently bought their first home. We went over for a housewarming/birthday party on Saturday. I am so excited for them and their awesome house- we brought a few little things that every home owner needs (clearly inspired by Pinterest).

I included:
All purpose spray cleaner
Colorful washcloths
Automatic timer for a lamp
Duct tape
Gorilla glue
Magic Erasers
Cute pumpkin candles
Homemade vanilla extract
A recipe for cut sugar cookies

Congratulations Marie & Fred!!

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A Sidewalk- We have One!

Before:
The sidewalk to nowhere.


The car loaded up from Home Depot with 22 pavers and 10 bags of pebbles:


Step 1- Dig out the old concrete block "sidewalk":

(Okay, maybe you can see the actual step 1- marking out where the new sidewalk will be. We did this with some twine and stakes. And by "we" I fully mean "John.")

Step 2- Pull up the sod where you have marked out your new sidewalk!

Step 3- Dig down to whatever depth you need for the pavers and any underneath stuff (sand, gravel, etc.) In our case, we went down about 3" inches so that there was just enough room for the pavers. We didn't get all fancy with sand down first. We will probably go back at a later date and do that, but for now, this works.

Step 4- Dig a small trench around the perimeter of the sidewalk for some edging. The edging will hold the pebbles in and keep the grass/dirt out. Lay the edging and stake it down. At this point, I was bored, so I laid out approximate spacing for the pavers.

Step Last- Put the pavers in the sidewalk, making sure that they are stable and balanced. Unbalanced pavers will crack when stepped on (not that we know..). Get down and really make sure that they are all aligned correctly. Finally, spread the pebbles around the pavers.

And voila- a sidewalk!

We still need to back fill around the edging with some dirt and sod and
possibly get a few more bags of pebbles to bring them up to the top of the edging.

Obviously, this is not the most fancy sidewalk, but it serves its purpose of keeping my pants off of the wet grass and mud when it rains! This was all done quickly and cheaply.

How cheaply?
22 8x16 pavers @ 1.58 each = 34.76
1 16x16 paver @ 3.48 each = 3.48
60' of black plastic edging = 24.72
4 packs of stakes for the edging @ 3.47 each = 13.88
10 bags of pebbles @3.38 each = 33.80

Grand total: $110.64 and a Sunday afternoon.

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Making Wooden Bed Lifts

Our guest room bed is currently an extra long twin bed that John got for our college apartment. The plan is to eventually get a queen bed for our room and move our full/double bed into the guest room.

For now, we are storing a bunch of junk under that bed, the largest being a plastic "under bed" container with wrapping paper in it. The bed frame is juuuust low enough that we can't fit the container under the bed. After going through 2 sets of Ikea plastic bed lifts and having them break (and the bed collapse to the floor), I decided it was time for wooden lifts. Of course the ones at Bed Bath & Beyond cost $25 for a set of 4. No thank you.

To first start my bed lifts, I figured out how much extra space I would need under the bed. I didn't want to make the lifts too tall, so that we would need a ladder to get into it, but I wanted to make sure everything could fit.

Once I knew how much height I needed, I scrounged around in our cellar for the right wood and came up with this:

It is the remainder of the post our seller's agent had used for the sign in front of the house (that he never came back to get). The rest of the wood was used in another project (that I will have to wait until spring to show you).

I marked out on the wood my lengths and then used this guy:


to cut the wood.

Dun dun dun! 4 matching WOODEN chunks!

My next step was to make little holes/notches in the top of the wood so that the legs of the bed frame had somewhere to sit (and so the bed wouldn't slide off of the lifts). My bed frame has rectangular legs, but at the very bottom are little plastic circles. The circles are what rests in the lift and keeps the bed stable.

To make my little circles, I got the biggest drill bit that we have and measured out the depth that I wanted my hole to go.

Once I got the right depth, I marked it with a little flag of tape.

This flag will let me know when to stop drilling. When the bottom of the flag (my measured depth) touches the top of the wood, then STOP!

To make things easier for myself, I clamped the block to our workbench.

Then I got to drilling.

See how the bottom of the flag is touching the wood? That is the depth that I wanted.


And voila, I have a finished bed lift. Rinse & repeat 3 more times and then the whole bed will be at one level.

Of course to be all fancy, you could paint the lifts. I was too impatient.

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Kitchen Light!

So, I teased you awhile back and I apologize, but I had SO.MUCH.WORK. last week. I have TONS of extra hours (and extra money now!), and any extra time at night was spent either doing more work or baking.

There are several baking posts popping up this week, but this is not one of them... This is a post dedicated to my handi-man- John.

With my extra per diem money, I also bought a new light for over the dining room table. The bare bulb hanging from the ceiling (no where near the table) was getting old.

Saturday while we were snowed in and while I was doing what else? Work. John went up into the attic and moved some wiring around so that we could center the new light fixture over the table. He had to add some wires and all kinds of junk that I don't know about. He also fixed it so that the switch works correctly now- it used to be backwards.

After all was said and done, I had an awesome light over my table (with new chairs!).


I LOVE the light. It has such an awesome pattern. The black works awesome with the red and the new black shelves! We got the shelves at Lowe's and hung them up a couple of weeks ago. I haven't gotten the decor on them set yet, but I couldn't wait to show off the light!

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"New" Chairs

I got these Ikea chairs with the dining table as a set from Craigslist for $100 before I moved into my very first big girl apartment. The table is awesome because it is little, but slides out to seat 6 people pretty comfortably. It is clean lined and my style.

..Except the chairs. The upholstery is a worn out gray/blue color that just always looks dirty. Blah.

I had some money leftover from my per diem from the Africa trip, so I put that towards some home improvement projects. (The new lights included.)

My first purchase was some awesome fabric for the chairs. I got it on Etsy from seller SoFunFabrics. The seller was awesome!


Saturday while being stuck inside (after working of course), I set to re-upholstering the chairs.

Before:

And the after:

Eee! I love the color. The fabric just makes the chairs so much more happy! They just pop now!

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Let there Be Light!

For the past 3 months, we have been living with lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen/dining area, the hallway and the office. The dining area will get a pendant, but for the hall and office I wanted a flush mount fixture.



There are TONS of these things around and for relatively cheap, so you would think that it would be easy for me to just order some and get them up, right?



...Not so much. You see just about every model of this type of light looks like a boob. Really.. it is all I see when I look at those things! Literally every shape and color.. all boobs.

Nickel..

Bronze..

Nice and rounded, eh?



Long and pointy...

Finally I found one on Overstock that will work for me. It is not 100% my most favorite thing, but it

a) does not resemble a boob, as much

b) is clean lined and more modern

c) is brushed nickel, not old-school brass

and

d) only $40

The hallway (excuse the blurriness)

And the office (even more blurry than the hall)

So there you go.. we are one step closer to looking like we aren't in a construction zone. With all of the trim painting that John has done today we are even closer!

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Happening...

...but not this week (or next). I am (once again) overloaded at work. Yaaay.

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Weekend Recap

This weekend we hosted two get togethers at the house. Saturday we had some friends over to watch the football game (the outcome of which we will not discuss). Sunday we had John's family (12 people!) over for his brother & sister in law's birthday party. In both cases, the majority of the people coming had not seen the house a) at all or b) since we moved in. As you can imagine, we wanted to get a bunch done!

Saturday:
I cooked most of the day for the two gatherings, but John hung some artwork around the house. He also fixed the curtain rod over our bed and rehung those curtains. Of course we cleaned a bunch.

The menu-
Bacon Jalapeno Popper Dip w/tortilla chips (via Meredith)

Lasagna (two- I exploded my pyrex 9x13 on Saturday while cooking 10 things at once and the second lasagna was going into that, so I had to improvise. The second lasagna was round- cake pan!)
Bread
Salad
Pumpkin pie bars

Sunday:
I cooked all day again. John went shopping and the organized the guest room.

The menu-
Bacon Jalapeno Popper Dip w/tortilla chips (via Meredith)
Veggie Pizza Squares

Salad
Oven fried chicken
Homemade biscuits
Green beans w/bacon bits
Mashed Potatoes
Gravy

Pumpkin pie bars
Chocolate chip cookies
Birthday cake- Boston cream pie cake
Ice cream

The State of the House:
Last week I hung some bamboo shades in the office and the kitchen. I love them! The office will eventually get some sheers around the window in addition to the shades. Also, John hung the ceiling fans in the bedroom and guest room. The guest room one is mysteriously not working and we didn't have time to tinker with it anymore.

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Weekend Recap

Saturday
We woke up at 4:30 am (!) and got in the car to head down to Blacksburg. We arrived, had breakfast (chocolate chip pancakes and bacon) with my sister and her boyfriend, got on the drunk bus, and headed over to the stadium. The Hokies whupped up on BC. We headed back, changed, and went for supper with my sister and her boyfriend. And drove home. The 5 hours home.
Recap- Up at 4:30 am. Home at 11 pm. 10 hours in the car. 7.5 hours in Blacksburg. Hokies owned BC.

Sunday
We got up and headed over to Ikea! The plan was to get in on the free breakfast that they were offering over the weekend, but it ended at 10:30 and we were lazy. And Ikea is 45 minutes away. We had lunch instead- I got delicious noodles & marinara and John had a buffalo chicken wrap. Plus we shared the amazing chocolate cake.

What was on the list? A pantry, something for behind the sofa, lights for the office, hallway and dining room, sheers for the office, a front door mat- if there was anything else on the list, I haven't a clue what it is as I lost my list in the store.

The results:


A pantry!! It's red (more red than the picture- we still have the sticker thing on the door)! It is actually part of one of their entertainment centers- the Besta line. We chose this one because it is shorter than the actual pantry that I was looking at- making space to get the microwave off of the counter and there is still room for shelves above to hold my cookbooks. It was cheaper, worked better, and RED! Sold.

Of course we had to buy the shelves to go over the unit.

Oh snap.. look at all of that storage. All of the crap from the counters is now hidden!

Microwave-free counter!

We also got a thing for behind the sofa for my library books and eventually our shoes and work bags.

The Expedit unit. Its a mess now.

We had a big fail in lighting though. John and I couldn't agree on anything. I will keep stalking Overstock.

After we got home on Sunday, we built the pantry and shelf and I was still feeling ambitious, so I painted the second coat on the trim in the office. And the third coat. Whee!

WHITE trim! NOT Miami green! Oh! And notice the white switch plate. It used to be wood. John got me that present from Home Depot. He's a high roller.

I also painted the window! When the trim was white, the window looked gross and dingy. At least it will only take 2 coats, versus the 3 on the green trim.

Before-

Green trim! Green chair rail! Green window! (You can kind of see it behind the curtains)

After-

Yum.. litter boxes. (I should note that there are two for ONE cat because he is SO weird.. Jaq uses one for the specific purpose of peeing and one for pooping. Like he poops, climbs out of the box, climbs into the pee box and THEN pees.)

ALSO, on Sunday I spray painted all of the radiator/vent covers in the house. Well except for the kitchen one because I forgot it. They used to be a variety of colors, off white/dirt, rusted out brass, GREEN (see above). I bought a can of Rustoleum's white lacquer spray paint and after a good cleaning, sprayed those suckers.

For about $5 I had several like-new (matching!) radiator/vent covers.

I tried to find a before picture for this one, but apparently I strategically cropped it out of all pictures.

Anywho, here is the after!

Ta-daa!

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