It's electric... and about 5 other projects

(boogie woogie woogie...)

Earlier this week, Dustin, Ellie, and purple Wubba added an electrical outlet in the hallway. Now, we can get solid internet all through the house and don't have to frantically run around looking for the cordless.

Of course, the cordless isn't on the charger anyway..... We also bumped our Netflix package up $2 a month so we could watch unlimited Instants. We feel like we have cable now! We watched one episode of Hoarders; Dustin said he was getting hives from seeing it :). Adding this outlet helps the Xbox pick up a better signal so it doesn't get all pixelated.

We also finished organizing the kitchen, and pantry, and spice cabinet.

And threw things away that expired in 2005. Yes. 2005. We moved here in 2006. How that happened, I'm not sure, but I'm guessing it was me who did it!

We made some carrot and spinach pasta to ship to California to our nephew...

And we rearranged the entire living room.

The piano used to be here.

But, it is now across the room.

Dustin wants to get rid of the couch and love seat and buy some smaller chairs. The thought of buying new furniture gives me hives though! I hate spending money :)

And, I broke my phone. 

 Luckily, Megan had a spare hanging around so I'm the owner of a new used Palm that I can barely figure out!

I also finished a class and started a new one. I'm officially starting the research classes for my dissertation!

Up next: the bathroom that's been ripped apart for 2 years because of a foundation leak DISASTER that is, knock on wood, officially fixed. One year ago, we bought the things we needed to finish the project. It is finally making the cut!

If walls could talk

what would they say?

Today, mine are saying things like fiasco, beautiful, barracks, exquisite.... and have pictures of a basilica, a beagle, a brig, a buffalo, and gothic architecture just to name a few.

'Why?', you ask.

I have a bit of a slow day today, so I finally decided to transform this hallway...

If you look to the left of the pocket door, you see the "temporary" fix we did a year and a half ago. We had to move the door over a little so the pocket door would have enough room to open. And... my arch nemesis, paneling, is all through this hallway. Painting it wasn't going to get the job done.

So, I stole an idea off my sister in law and wallpapered this hallway with the dictionary from above. I had originally purchased the paste in that pic on sale for around $3. I was pumped. At 8 this morning, I realized that paste on a foam roller/dispenser wasn't the best bet. So... Ellie and I trekked out in the 10 degree cold and bought this for less than $20 instead...

Note the "goes on pink" and the neon pink coming off the roller.

I think they were a bit excited about this when they packaged it. I was excited too. I thought "PERFECT, I'll be able to see where I have glue". I was tickled almost pink when I got home and started. It is tinted pink, I'll give them that. But, I am putting it on an off white wall and can't see any pink at all. But, so far, it seems to be great stuff! Good thing... I have at least a gallon of the 1.3 gallons left! It is also pretty thick stuff... another good thing. When I dumped the paint pan off the ladder, it landed face down. Luckily, the stuff was too think and I was too fast-- nothing got on the carpet!

I should add that this is my ONLY experience with "wallpaper". Before today, the only time I had dealt with it was watching my mom remove a border for us because I was 5 months pregnant and we needed to get the nursery together. So, my experience is a teensy bit nonexistent.

I used a paint roller and rolled glue on as I went. Then, if the edges looked rough, I put glue on my finger and rubbed it over the edge. It seemed like I was wallpapering, but also decoupaging at the same time. I didn't cut any pieces, I left the edges that came out of the book a bit rough. I like the character it added. The book lover, English major, English teacher in me cringed a little as I was ripping the cover off this book and ripped out the first 200+ pages. But, as a lover of words, I LOVE the direction the hallway is headed...

I LOVE the final product. I'm not sure how much more I'll do. I can't decide. Is the whole hall too much? Do I do parts of it? Which parts? I am disappointed in the pictures though. It looks SOOOO much cooler and better in person.

This pic makes the white space stand out more and makes it look more like a "grid" than it does in person.

Check out the place I was wanting to cover.....

Now, we just need to rip up the carpet (hardwood floors underneath!!), figure out how much more to 'wallpaper', and paint the rest. I know, I did this in the exact wrong order, but ah well. And, no, my bathroom rug isn't that gross. It is the lighting. ((I went and checked after I saw these pics, haha))

I also have a REALLY cool idea that will tie the dictionary in across the steps too. It will go on one of these two walls....

This was taken before the wallpaper/book was done. You can still barely see the place I covered up on the right :)

PS~Regarding the words that my walls are saying now.... I realized too late that b@stard also made the cut.... oops.. I'm sure our future children will enjoy that. Once I saw it, I felt like a jr. high kid looking through the dictionary for bad words. I THINK this one is the only one that made it so far. :)

AN UPDATE from January 7, 2010---
In case you are wondering... this is not kitten proof :) I'll fix it by wiping it down with the paste, no big deal... yet. When I showed it to Sophie and asked her if she did it, she smacked it and wanted to bite it. I took that as an admission of guilt....

She's lucky she's so stinkin' cute!

I linked this post with Thrifty Home's Penny Pinching Party. 
And with Shabby Chic Cottage's Transformation Thursday.
And.... Thrifty Thursday @ Bloggeritaville.
And....at Fireflies and Jellybeans.
and.... Decor Mamma's Frugalicious Friday.
And..... Show and Tell Friday
And..... I made it without my hubby.
And....Poppies at Play 
And.... Funky Junk's Saturday Nite Special.... check out the button on the right to get there
And.... Room A Month
What can I say, my mom taught me to share :)

Caulk it up to a neater bathroom!

(I know, I know.. thinking of titles for posts isn't as easy as one would think though...)

I know this blog has a touch of ADD, but that is for a few reasons. 1) I have a lot of projects going on, projects awaiting, projects completed, and ideas just floating around :)-- this blog was originally started so I could keep track of all the things we do, have done, and want to do. I'm awful at journaling. But, I take a lot of photos. I thought this was a great place to organize. I considered scrapbooking, but this takes up way less time with way less mess! And, I plan to print my blog every now and then so we have a journal of our projects. (When I discovered you could do that, I started this blog immediately.)    2) I'm still in the first few months of blogging so I'm trying to find my niche and focus. Until then, welcome to my world... :)

This is what I have been up to randomly throughout the week......... The pic below is the "before" of one corner of our bathroom.

All this time, we just thought Dustin was bad at trimming... which, maybe he is. BUT, we hadn't realized the power of paintable caulk! So, yesterday I caulked. The day before, I used some of the drywall compound that we had left and I texturized the walls. (See previous posts regarding this being our first and last drywalling experience... I had some "oops"es to cover up)

The same corner, only caulked and texturized.

I caulked in the corners and also between the trim and ceiling. It looks SO much better in person. I am very, very, very happy with how neat and tidy it looks now!

I'm not sure if you can tell, but the trim needed another coat of paint too. When we installed it, we had only "whitewashed" it. (Rubbed paint on it with a rag and just let it soak in). It looked really cool. But when we hung it up in here, it just wasn't the clean, crisp look we wanted. I was pregnant, so Dustin had to paint it.. after it was already hung.. and he hates to paint. Eventually that coat soaked in too (it had never been primed). And, the nails that he used that weren't supposed to rust, rusted. (I think my extra hot showers are getting the blame for that).  So, today, I primed the trim.

Hopefully this weekend I will get the trim painted and since I'm doing the trim, I might as well do the ceiling too. I'd also like to get a coat of paint on the walls. We still have paint left from when we originally did this room. Actually, the only thing I have purchased is a tube of caulk for about $2.00. I love projects that don't cost me (any more) money (than they already have)!


~PS... I have had a lot of questions on Facebook about the detergents. I'll try to put together a post tomorrow clarifying some things and answering some questions. I've had to research a few of them.
The color of the bathroom walls? Filibuster. Who names these things?!?! :)

the B-mazing Bathroom finishing touches

This week is an "easy" work week for me. I had 2 classes end Sunday night, 2 in Week 5 and 2 starting Monday. I'm pretty much caught up so I decided to finish up some projects around here.

A month ago, I started painting the back splash in the kitchen. That got put on hold (if you read my other blog, you'll know why). But, since that didn't work out and I have a lighter week, I decided to get some work done. I just painted the (hopefully) last coat of green on the back splash. Now, it just needs to dry and I'm going to attempt to trace the grout lines with a paint pen. That is 'to be continued...' with photos when it gets done.

I also decided to FINALLY finish up our bathroom. Over a year ago, Dustin and I completely gutted our main bathroom. I mean GUTTED-- down to studs, got new insulation, etc.

The toilet pic is standing by the shower looking ahead and the sink/show pic was taken from the doorway.

The bathroom wasn't awful. But, it didn't have a tub. There was no tub in this entire house. We will (hopefully) be the first people to have babies in the house. So, we needed a tub. My brother always said he felt like he was at the sauna when he was at our house and used this bathroom. It also had carpet that I assumed (correctly) was moldy underneath. So we gutted it....

This photo shows what we discovered under the wood paneling and then what we discovered under the wallboard that was wallpapered over. The bottom layer- plastic "tile" that was probably asbestos. Dustin is taking out the shower stall here too. When we had all the extra layers removed, we actually gained FOUR inches all the way around the room and in height also. Good thing, because the tub wouldn't have fit otherwise.. a detail we apparently had overlooked, ha!

When we started ripping off the yellow, I said "Dustin, I would LOVE to put a window in here.. right here"

Major score!

If you look, you can see the window that we uncovered once we stripped it all down. It was EXACTLY where I said we needed one. This pic was taken after we had pulled down the last layer and then were covered in like 9 trash bags full of blown in insulation. (If memory serves correctly, we were scooping up insulation starting at 2 am one night). Also note that we laid new plywood on the flooring to replace the moldy plywood that was there. You can also see the shell of the pocket door that we put in. Our hallway is funky shaped just outside this room, so the pocket door was a great idea (Go, Dustin!).

We put in the tub, then surrounded it with special drywall that can get wet, installed drywall all over the room and the ceiling, put in a new heater/light/fan (LOVE IT!) and Dustin put an outlet on the opposite wall (by the sink) for me. We also put a light in the ceiling over the shower.. another great Dustin idea. Then, we tiled. This was our first tile project. (Why start small?!) It was actually easy-- other than me being too short :). We tiled the tub surround and the floor, put in a pedestal sink, called a window guy, put the toilet back in, painted, trimmed, and called it quits.

BUT... our motto when we drywalled (which was the first and last time we will drywall according to Dustin) was "Oh, the trim will cover that". We apparently thought we were trimming the entire room. So, I just got done texturizing the walls. They were already painted, but the paint just made all our rough sport show up more. So, I am letting that dry. I am going to caulk the trim to finish it-- to be honest, I didn't even know you did this until I saw them do it at The Lettered Cottage! And then I'll repaint the trim and walls. It has been done for over a year, but it wasn't DONE. We don't leave projects unfinished, but we didn't realize that this project really just needed about a day's work to really truly look awesome.  (or as Dustin's friend's niece says "B-Mazing")

I hope to post the B-Mazing, finished bathroom pics by the end of the week.. and the kitchen within a week.