Holiday Spirit

Guys, I have to be honest, I'm pretty excited about the holidays this year.  Maybe it's because I have been surrounded by holiday stuff at Kirkland's for months.  Perhaps it's because 2014 had a rough ending beginning with Thanksgiving, and I'm optimistic 2015 will end on a happier note.  

So far, Andrew hasn't been called out of the state for work and Maya has remained healthy for the most part.  We are still dealing with her crazy stomach sensitivities, but I think we might have finally figured that out as well.  Now, if we can just keep the rabbits out of our yard this winter, I think we might be able to avoid another midnight trip to the emergency vet.  We did put lattice up under the deck to keep the rabbits from creating a home under there this winter.  We also picked up all the stick piles in the yard so they couldn't make their home in those either.  Once we were done cleaning up outside, I turned my attention inside.  One of the downsides of working from home is when your house is a mess, it is really hard to ignore.   

Christmas came early in our house in the form of a new "toy"!  I wanted to get the carpets cleaned in the house for a while.  Between Maya's vomiting issues, and Buddy's scooting on the floor, there was no telling how many germs were in the carpets.  Many times when we spot treated, I could tell the carpet was disgusting.  I debated hiring the floors cleaned, renting a carpet cleaner, or buying one.  I ruled out paying to have the carpets cleaned because I didn't want to move all the furniture out of every room. After reading reviews of several carpet cleaners, I settled on buying one as it seemed the rented ones weren't that great.  I figured we have dogs, they make messes, it would be nice to have one on hand so I can clean the carpets on a regular basis.  My hope is that we don't always have carpets; laminate floor is much easier to clean! 

I went with the Bissell ProHeat 2x Premier Pet carpet cleaner, which I bought at Lowe's.  Luckily, I caught it on sale.  It was pretty easy to put together, so with a little help from Andrew, I was up and running in no time.  The cleaner came with a small bottle of cleaning solution, but I opted to purchase a bottle of Bissell Deep Clean +Antibacterial Formula.  I started out cleaning our living room carpet, which I knew was pretty dirty.

 All set up and ready to go

 I'm not normally a germaphobe, but this was seriously grossing me out.  

This was the dirty water I was pouring out of the machine.  

  A few hours later, I was able to put the room back together.  

The carpets look and feel so much better. 

I also cleaned our dining room, the second floor hallway, and our bedroom.  I was able to get up several set in stains.  The house smells so much better, and I felt better knowing the carpets are sanitized.  I was pleased with the overall performance of the cleaner.  I was slightly annoyed that I had to stop so often to empty the dirty water and add in clean water, but I realize having a larger tank on the cleaner would have weighted the machine done.  I don't think I could have tolerated a heavier machine.  This one is 25 lbs, and my shoulders were sore by the time I was done for the day.  

In addition to cleaning the carpets, we are also getting the vents and ductwork cleaned out in a couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to getting rid of some allergens floating around in the house; I'm guessing the ductwork hasn't been cleaned out since the house was built!       

Crazy October

I can't believe we are about to turn the page on the calendar into November next week.  I don't know where October went.  In late September, after coming back from Chicago, we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary.  It's hard to believe it has been four years already.  We have done so much in those few years!  We celebrated the way we usually do with a cake!  The first couple of years after we were married, we got our anniversary cake from the baker who did our wedding cake.  However, last year, we found out that he moved out of the state.  For the last two years, we have been trying to find a new favorite baker for our anniversary cake.  We haven't quite hit the mark yet. 

A couple of weekends ago, we celebrated another wedding with some friends of ours.  I was honored to be part of their wedding, and stand up with the wedding party.  I also got the chance to do their wedding flowers.  It was great to have the opportunity again.  I have to say, I miss being able to do wedding flowers on a regular basis.  The weddings colors were yellow and blue with sunflowers as the theme.  I think the flowers turned out awesome, and we had beautiful weather the day of the wedding. 

 I used medium sunflowers, viking mums, blue delphinium and variegated pit. 

Attendants Bouquet

 Attendants Bouquet 

 

Bridal Bouquet

 

 

 A couple boutonnieres

It was an outdoor wedding, and the sun was not cooperating during this photo. 

The rest of October has been filled with work, work, and more work.  Andrew took off for a week for work, and I seem to be filling my weeks with my regular full time job as well as my part time gig at Kirkland's.  With the holidays right around the corner, and the likelihood Andrew will get pulled to another state to help with peak season, I will be spending my spare hours at Kirkland's. 

Weekend In The Windy City

A few days ago, we returned from a long weekend in Chicago.  We went to Chicago to attend the wedding of our friends, but decided to extend the weekend by a few days and make it into a mini vacation.  This is the first trip we have taken together since our first anniversary trip to Green Bay.  It was nerve-racking leaving the dogs, but we found a family friend to hang out with them at our house while we were gone. 

We made a stop off in Rock Island to check out the outdoor exhibits there.  Andrew got to tell me all about some of the equipment he operated when he was in the military.  I also love military history, so it was a good pit stop.  The rest of the drive to Chicago was filled with rain; lots and lots of rain.  The weather alternated between total downpour and light rain.  We couldn't go to Chicago without making a stop at Portillo's, so we stopped there for dinner.

Saturday, we ventured out into the city.  When we travel, we try to eat local and travel local.  We started our morning with breakfast at a pancake house and then jumped on the train into town.  We caught the water taxi and walked to Navy Pier.  We caught another water taxi to the museum campus, and enjoyed the sunshine! 

By the time we got to the museums, it was later in the afternoon and they were closing in less than an hour, so we couldn't really justify the expense of paying the entrance fee.  I had been to a couple of the museums on a prior trip to Chicago, and Andrew also visited a few of them when he was in Chicago for work a few years ago. 

Since we didn't tour the museums, we decided to spend our money on awesome food!  It wouldn't be Chicago without a deep dish pizza, so we stopped off for a bite to eat at Lou Malnati's.  We had the best classic pizza.  We rode the train back out to our hotel and relaxed for the rest of the night.  Sunday morning, we ate brunch at another local pancake house.  We enjoyed a beautiful outdoor wedding on Sunday and spent the evening meeting some awesome people!  I even convinced Andrew that it was time for an updated picture of us dressed up!  It was a good first try, but I hope to get a better one in a couple of weeks when we have another wedding to attend!

Monday morning, we stopped off at a local donut shop before heading out of town.  We stopped off for lunch with one of Andrew's friends and made our way back home.  We were happy to be back at home with our pups and in our own bed!  Now, let the laundry marathon begin.    

While The Cat Is Away, The Mouse Will.... Craft!

Andrew was away this past week for work.  Rather than binge on Netflix, which I was quite tempted to do, I decided I would use the time to complete a few projects.  I didn't get as far as I had wanted, but I did get several things done that have been on my list for a while.  On Tuesday, I ran out to Michaels and Hancock Fabrics over lunch.  Here is the stash I came home with.  My goal was to finish the gallery wall we started a couple of weeks ago.  We finished hanging the photos at the top of the stairs, but needed to wrap it around going down the stairs.    

Several months ago, I bought five 12x12 canvas prints at Lowe's for dirt cheap.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them at the time, and they have been sitting in the corner of our living room since.  But, 5 12x12 canvas prints for less than $9.00 was hard to pass up.  This week, I finally found a use for them.  I went to Hancock Fabrics and used a coupon they had for 15% off my purchase.  I bought some dark gray fabric I found on a sale table. I ended up buying 2 1/2 yards of fabric and now have 1 1/2 yards left over.  Clearly, my estimations of how much I would use were way off. 

I started by laying out the photos I wanted on the canvas. 

Once I laid all the photos out, I set to work covering the canvas with the fabric I purchased.  I wrapped the corners like you would when wrapping a present, and secured everything with staples using a staple gun.  I didn't think hot glue would hold the fabric tight enough.  Once that was finished, I attached the photos to the canvas using adhesive photo mounting squares and silver tacks.

 The "W" is hot glued on the canvas so it wont fall off. 

Luckily, these canvas prints already had the bracket attached for hanging, so it made life easy.  

Next up was the canvas I had previously printed the lyrics to our first dance song on.  I used a Living Social deal to have a 20x30 canvas printed with the lyrics and a photo of us during out first dance, so I no longer needed the canvas.  

 I couldn't let a 16x20 canvas go to waste, so I decided I would use it as my "family" sign.   

Before

 After

I bought the letters to spell out family as Michaels, and painted them black. I bought the fabric in a roll from Hancock Fabrics.  I says things like, "play, live, love, laugh, adventure, family", etc.  I covered it the same way I covered the square canvas prints.  It was a little harder because if I stretched it too much, the words on the fabric looks slanted or stretched out.  I hot glued the letters to the fabric and attached a hanger to the back frame so I could hang it up on the wall. 

Finally, I completed a couple of other projects I came up with while I was walking around Michaels.  I always go in with intentions of only getting certain things, but then I see other stuff while I'm in there and start coming up with projects on the fly. 

 

I finished hanging everything up about an hour before Andrew got home on Friday night ! 

Hanging photos going down stairs isn't as easy as one might think.  I finally busted out some painters tape to put on the wall following the railing down the stairs so I had a bit of a guide to go off of.  I hung the family canvas three different times.  I wanted it far enough above the railing that people wouldn't run into it when they were using the stairs, but I also didn't want it too close to the ceiling.  I think I struck a happy medium.  This is a good base, and I plan to add over the years as we accumulate more memories!  The nice thing about the photos on the canvas blocks is that they aren't stuck on there permanently, so I will be able to remove them and swap them out as we get updated photos.  

One project I didn't get completed this last week was the tie backs I plan to make for our bedroom curtains.  Once I have those done, maybe we can finally call the room done after the swap out for new furniture and the fresh coat of paint it got a couple of weeks ago. 

Artwork On The Walls

After living in our house for over two years and talking about how we need to get some artwork on the walls, we finally got around to it this past weekend.  We bought a canvas several months ago at At Home that we intended to hang in the living room.  I recently started working at Kirkland's part time, and I find myself eye balling all the awesome home decor.  Last weekend, I bought a set of wall sconces to hang next to the canvas in the living room.  I saw sconces on Kirkland's Instagram page a couple of weeks ago and have been looking at them in the store ever since. 

Sconces from Kirkland's

I also started hanging our photo wall at the top of the stairs.  The frames came from Goodwill.  Most of them I purchased for $1.00, a few of them were $2.00, but in total I didn't pay more than $40.00 for all of them.  I set all the frames out on some cardboard and primed them all.  I split the group of frames up and painted some of them flat black, glossy black and silver.  The photos are a collection of our wedding photos, engagement photos, photos from various events since we have been together, and a few photos of Buddy and Maya!  The plan is to wrap the photos around down the stairs.  The photos going down the stairs will be more photos of our family.  

This weekend I will be starting the next project... painting our bedroom!

Why Doesn't My House Look Like the Ones In Magazines?

Many times when I'm cleaning, I lament that our house doesn't look like one of the picture perfect ones in the magazine, or that I see on Pinterest.  Yes, we are surrounded by things we love.  Probably a few more things that I love than Andrew loves; I think some of it is just clutter to him.  I walk into some houses and wish I had an eye like they do to put things together; you know who you are people!  I look for pictures on Pinterest and try to mimic what I see.  However, it always ends up looking like a semi hot mess, I think.

Recently, I have taken to figuring out our master bedroom.  I feel like the bathroom looks all lovely a new, and the bedroom just doesn't match the same vibe.  We recently received my grandparents set of bedroom furniture.  Classic mid century modern furniture.  Solid walnut, and in great shape.  It has really motivated me to try and think about actually getting some cohesiveness in the bedroom.  When we moved into this house, we bought our lovely king bed.  I can't lie, going from a full sized bed to a king has been awesome!

   Our Bed 

And then we got our bedspread, which we purchased at Target.

For over a year, we kept the same curtains that were hanging in our bedroom when we moved in.  The trim on our bedspread is grey, the curtains were brown and I didn't really care.  

A couple of months after we moved in, we decided we needed some artwork in our bedroom, so we purchased a poster at Michaels and bought a frame.

For the longest time, this was the only artwork in our room.  Then, I completed my "always kiss me goodnight" sign this last winter and hung that up.  

Notice, the accent wall in our bedroom is dark brown.  Again, doesn't go with our bedspread, but I have let that go.  By "let it go" I mean I have cans of paint to re paint sitting in the guest bedroom.  The accent wall will be a darker gray and the other walls a much lighter gray.  Someone, at some point before we bought the house, did a terrible job matching paint colors.  We have several spots that were patched and painted over with differing shades of ivory paint.  

Around the same time I hung this sign, I decided to also swap out the curtains.  I'm still not 100% sold on what I ended up with.  The wall with the window in our bedroom is part of the vaulted ceiling, so it makes it hard to hang curtains.  I was going for a "draw the eye up" type of look, but feel like that failed miserably.  The windows have so much potential, but they are failing miserably at the moment.

 

Earlier this year, when Andrew was out of the state for work, I decided to work on another Pinterest project for the bedroom.  The lyrics to our first dance song on canvas.  I couldn't figure out how to print them on nicely and I wasn't about to stencil them all on.  So, I wrote them on by hand with the neatest handwriting I could.  It ended up a lot smaller than I would have liked.  The initial idea was to hang this next to a picture from our first dance, but I haven't gotten around to that yet...  

When the At Home store opened here in town, I was able to twist Andrew's arm into going with me one day to look at artwork.  You have to understand, shopping for artwork for us is painful.  I like modern art and he likes more traditional art.  I really makes it difficult.  Typically, if we find something we agree on, we buy it.  That day, we purchased a piece for our living room, which still isn't hanging up.  We also were able to find an old map of Boston, which was printed on burlap.  Boston was where we went on our honeymoon, so it had meaning for us.  Needless to say neither the Boston map nor the lyrics are up on our wall yet.

As you can tell, there is quite the mish mash of stuff here.  I know it all goes together some how, I just haven't figured out how.  Rather than trying to figure it all out, I find myself just looking at pictures on Pinterest and dreaming our bedroom looked as put together. Here are a few of my favorites.

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A Few Small Projects

We haven't been up to anything quite as exciting as the bathroom project lately, but we have been getting some things accomplished.

I got the garage painted a few weeks back. It took a couple of days, and thankfully it wasn't as hot as it has been the last few weeks.  We decided to go with a dark gray color to hopefully hide some of the dirt.

The garage before; all cleaned out and all our junk moved to the middle. 

  Painted and things being moved back to their spot!  

Andrew took my desk that I replaced from the basement, so hopefully this will keep his stuff a little more contained and organized in the garage... 

After the garage was painted, we had to put it back together to get ready for a garage sale.  This past weekend, we had a very successful two day garage sale.  Several of our neighbors turned out for the sale, so it was nice to finally meet a few of them after living here for two years!  We actually do have a very friendly neighborhood!  

On Saturday, the final bulb in our kitchen light went out.  The light has been cracked since we moved in, and we have talked about replacing it multiple times.  So, we went out and bought a new light to put in the kitchen.  It provides a little more light in the kitchen and updates the look of the room.  

 I know the before photo is hard to see, but it is a standard white plastic light with fluorescent bulbs. 

Proof that we have been getting a few things accomplished since finishing the bathroom!

Bathroom Reveal Part 2

So, finally the post has come.  Time to show you all the final photos of the bathroom!  Once all the shower tile was up and the floor tile was put down, it was time to put the bathroom back together.

Shower door in

Final Reveal! 

Before
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After
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Details of the Renovation:

1. Shower Tile - The Tile Shop/Meram Blanc Polished 12x18" tile
2. Shower Glass Tile - The Tile Shop/Woodlawn Stria 12x12" tile
3. Floor Tile - The Tile Shop/ Yale Mica  12x24" tile
4. Wall Tile - The Tile Shop/ Yale Cenzia 6x24" tile
5. Toilet - Lowes/ American Standard Champion 4
6. Vanity - Menards/ Pace Charleston Series 36" vanity
7. Mirror - pulled from our half bathroom on the mail floor 
8. Over the toilet cabinet - Lowes/Style Selections
9. Picture - Lowes
10. Shower Fixtures - Delta fixtures purchased from Amazon: Shower Head, Diverter, Valve
11.  Sink Faucet - Menards/Pfister Solita faucet
12. Counter - Home Depot/Home Decorators Collection Carrara
13. Light -Lowes/Portfolio
14. Towel Rack - Amazon
15. Towels - HomeGoods
16. Shower Base - Home Depot
17. Shower Door - Menards/Maax Halo 60 inch shower door  
18. Shower Shelf - Lowes/Delta Providence

This list doesn't include the extra items that we purchased as part of the renovation.  There was the cement board for the shower walls and the floor, waterproofing for the shower, caulking, grout, thinset, tile saw, paint, etc. 

We learned a few money saving tips along the way.  Lowes credit card holders save 5% off purchases all the time.  Occasionally, they will also mail out coupons for $25 off a purchase of $250 or more.  Menards runs their 11% off rebate offer about once per month.  If you purchase something from Menards on a Saturday and see the next day they are running the 11% off sale, ask about getting the rebate offer.  This is how we ended up getting 11% off of our garage door.  Watch sales; they generally rotate and if you miss a sale on an item, it will probably go on sale again in a couple of weeks.  Plan ahead and shop online.  We were able to purchase our fixtures from Amazon, which saved us a ton of money.    

I know by doing the project ourselves, our timeline for completing the project was expanded.  However, the money we saved in the end by doing it ourselves, with a little help from some family and friends, was worth it.  Luckily, we had a second full bathroom we were able to use while ours was under construction.  It is nice to have a functioning master bathroom again and not worry about water pouring through our kitchen ceiling from the shower above.  We have learned a lot during this renovation and are already planning the renovation for the guest bathroom.  We have a few years to plan that one out though!