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!

“New” desk, again.

This week, Dustin has been hard at work on my “new” desk.
He took the top off and sanded it all down.


Then, he painted it with a cap of OOOPs that Mom bought me and stained the top that we bought.  Those details are all here.

 

We also bought a keyboard tray. Last night while I was in class, he Gorilla Glued the whole thing together, screwed the top onto the bottom, and attached my tray.

Bright and early today, we moved me into my “new” office with my “new” desk.



If you look closely, you can see the paper that I’m supposed to be writing before The Good Wife comes on in an hour :)

We’re also going to do something about all those cords. Cords drive me crazy. And, Wall-E, our Roomba, sometimes gets tangled up on them. I’d hate to have to come in and free the vacuum while he’s supposed to be cleaning…. :)

Maybe tomorrow I’ll actually move the contents of the other desk into this one… All the drawers are still empty!

My “new” desk twice removed

 

While I was in a meeting all day today, Dustin was hard at work on my desk. (I think there was most likely some XBoxing happening as well)

The desk started as this:

Well, technically when I got it, it was wood. Then I primed it and painted it red and used it for a few years. Then tried to paint it hammered metal, then painted it orange that REALLY didn’t look this shade of orange.

I gave it to Mom after it didn’t sell at a yard sale (good thing!) and she just gave it back to me.

It isn’t wide enough where my legs go for my chair. It also isn’t wide enough for a keyboard try. I’ve been researching carpal tunnel and ways to avoid it. Apparently my current set up of leaning into my desk with my arms raised and laying on the desk from elbow to fingertips is a very inviting environment for carpal tunnel. oops.

So, thanks to Gail and her repurposedlife :), Dustin got to get to work! My plan was to cut the center out above the drawer. Good thing I have Gail in my email address book :) She suggested looking for screws.

Unscrewing the screws that held the top on is less glamorous than just cutting the desk in half, but way more practical. (THANKS GAIL! We probably would have seen the screws after we cut it all up)

 

So, whist I was gone today, Dustin got the sides apart and sanded them down. They aren’t painted at the top because that’s where the middle drawer was.

 

I said I thought they’d look cute as bedside tables, but Dustin told me to focus on the task at hand :) (note to self: start looking for an old desk to take apart for bedside tables…)

He also put a coat of stain on the pine panel that we bought for the new top.  I asked him about the pics when I got home and he answered with a “I got a lot done today….” Photographing, however, was not one of those things :). So, this is what we started with:

We got one that is 2 ft deep by 6 feet long. I wanted it to be a bit deeper, but this was the best we could do. The sides/drawers are 12 inches wide each, so this gives me plenty of wiggle room for my chair, new keyboard tray, and chair with arms. It also gives me plenty of space for all my stuff. I’m organized, but I take up a lot of room. We plan to let the sides “hang over” on each end by about 6 inches, so that also gives me room to stash a trash can too.

The new top isn’t very photogenic… at night… in our wood stove room. The close-up is more accurate for the shade of the stain.

 

I’m not sure if I should call the top done and poly it or dry brush it/whitewash it over the stain. The jury is still out on that. Much like the jury is still debating on what color to paint over the orange.

When the desk is done, my office will move to the spare bedroom. (the funky curtain that half covers was for the California guests we just had :)) The bed is gonna go, but I’m sure the cat will stay (found her yet? I canNOT take a picture without an animal showing up at just the perfect time).

I think the sewing table might stay too. who knows, I might actually get the sewing machine outta the box!

Hopefully, by next week, I’m blogging (oh yeah, and working) from my new desk in my new office…that was actually my office when I used the desk when it was red….

Easy table redo

My aunt recently found this little table for $10. Tables are one thing that we don’t need right now. This one is fairly short and pretty round. I couldn’t think of a use for it, so I redid it for her shop for some display space.


It had some rough places on it, so it first got a good sanding on its two shelves.
Then, I slapped on two coats of Gobi Desert (that I got for free) and finally tried my hands with distressing. Distressing things stresses me out! It can look good. It can also not look good. I used a 3M sanding block (that was also free!) and slowly went around this table.
  
Some of the areas where I sanded looked a little yellow. I had planned on wiping on and wiping off some stain, so this didn’t bother me too much. I did this the same way I did our coffee table… but apparently with a different can of stain.…
I also didn’t realize how much pink was in the stain that I used….
 
Although I’m still in a bit of shock from the pink, I think it looks pretty cute. Like Dustin said “It looks way better than it did”. I guess that’s a seal of approval! :) And, I’m a bit over my distressing distress. Maybe I can do it to some things around the house now too :)
 
Here’s a before/during/after shot

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(This is also my first post using Windows Live Writer… so please, bear with me while I figure it all out. I’m still not sure how to control all my pictures :))

Homemade carpet shampoo

About a month ago, I decided to shampoo the livingroom. It needed it. It's whitish carpet and we have a dog, a cat, and a kitten who runs around here like she's barely tame.

And, let's face it... we aren't total neat freaks. Our house is tidy- for the most part- but it is very lived in. Shoot, I painted and stained the coffee table in here a few days ago :). And, I had some mishaps in a room upstairs this week too. Enough of my faults and on to my disgusting shampoo water....

I shampooed it with some homemade solution that I'll advise you NOT to try. It was mostly water, but had a rather large helping of laundry detergent in it (like maybe a cup?) and a smidge of vinegar. It isn't the ingredients that were bad... but I didn't have the best proportions going.  After a month, this is what we had...

Tracking. And just dirty, dirty carpet. Can you see the lines that run through the middle? This is THE highest traffic area in the room. Those lines are from the carpet cleaner dispersing my solution. And the dark spots of nastiness? Apparently my mixture was too foamy for the carpet cleaner and just right for looking clean temporarily.

So, today, I gave it another attempt. This time, I used MOSTLY all water, about 1 TBS of Gain, 1/3 cup of vinegar and about a TBS of OxyClean. It worked GREAT. It was still a bit foamy, but ended up being ok. Then, I went over the entire carpet with plain water and sucked it all up. I did this twice. Overkill? You tell me...

This sink of nastiness is after one rinse with just plain water in the cleaner. (Please note the lack of the first round with soap photo. Nasty.)

I'm sure that I could have done this ALL day and still would have had dirty water results. It never fails. Every time I clean the carpet, I am bound and determined that we are getting hardwood in this room. We are... it's just a matter of when :).

If you are thinking "oh, our carpets aren't that bad.." I dare you. Clean them. You will want to rip out every square foot of the stuff. 

If you try out your own cleaner like this, let me know. And, if you ever stop by here and I say "oh, I just cleaned the carpets, don't take off your shoes" I mean it. I don't want your crisp white socks wet with this nasty brown/green/gross water from my "clean" living room :).

Does the living room smell like vinegar? YUP. Will it fade? I hope. :)

It doesn't seem to bother the girls. They have congregated to the corner where I didn't go ALL the way to the wall though.

I won't mention that immediately after this picture was taken, a certain cleaner/blogger/photographer let the beagle outside where she immediately started digging. The cleaner/blogger/photographer thought the beag was after a snake so the digging was allowed. Needless to say... no snake... it was an ant hill. And I wonder why the "clean" carpet water is still so nasty :)

I also did the couch, love seat, and rocker. I used a different method on them though. More on that soon.

Coffee Table is DONE (this time around anyway...)

What started as this...

Got a little bit of Behr Gobi Desert...

 ...and some wood stain because I'm cheap and didn't want to go buy glaze...

...and then a coat of Behr Black Suede...

...and, although it isn't very photogenic, the FREE coffee table finally has its ALL FREE new look!

(thanks to my sister in law and the great paint I got at the Shop and Hop!)

Tomorrow, we're moving the (free) dresser that I just redid with the Black Suede also! The wreck that is my side of the closet is about to get crossed off my list. (I hope....)  :)

Behr Black Suede dresser

Several moons ago, I went to Indy to a Shop and Hop. Not only did I meet some cool gals and get some great finds, but we also scored big with some free swag from a handful of companies. One of my favorites was the two Behr paint samples that were in it.

A few days ago, I started painting this unused dresser with the Behr Suede Black sample that was in the bag.

I loved it so much that when I needed THISMUCHMORE, I went out and bought a quart of it. I did this instead of finishing it right then with another brand of flat black that I had sitting right there with me.

It would have done it in one coat, but I was painting a shiny, smooth surface with a bad brush. So, I had to give it two coats. Now, I just need to figure out if I'm keeping the knobs or painting them before we drag this bad boy into the bedroom.

Not bad for a free dresser and (almost completely) free paint!

We're hot and painting

Gimme an M

Gimme an O

Gimme an E

What's that spell?

Well, technically, "moe" but I don't think that was intentional... their hearts just weren't in it. They were too hot and tired to really play along.

But, this was the kind of help I got today... and most days, actually.

Not only are the animals typically too tired to do much ALL day, but we're doing an experiment here right now. We've turned off our AC... in mid June... when it is 99 degrees and 300% humidity. 

Instead of running the central air, we've put a window unit from the wood shop in our bedroom. We're only running it from about 7pm-7am. There is another one at the other end of the house in the upstairs that stays on most of the time. The downstairs is build into the ground in the back and is all concrete under the carpet. So... we're a bit warm, but we'll see if it saves any $ and electricity in a few weeks! And, it hasn't bee HOT in here yet.

Well... minus the pics from above from today when the little 'uns and I were in a room upstairs painting an unused dresser.

I was using the Behr Black Suede paint that I got for free at the Shop and Hop I attended. But, it was about 1/18th of a cup shy of really giving it the coat it needed. When we go to the dr Friday morning, we plan to swing past HD and getting another little pot of it. Then, I'll show the disaster of a dresser and closet I have right now because I need more drawers!