Change of Pace

Ok so major kudos go out to all that have the time, energy and money to be able to do home improvement projects on a regular basis. I am both amazed and jealous of their abilities and resources.

Due to budget and time constraints I'm going to have to change the pace on the blog a bit and include a few random other pieces, such as recipes I'm cooking. Otherwise this is just going to be dead in the water for quite awhile.

Hopefully I can get back to the decorating/home improvement soon enough and I'm sure there will be a few smaller projects in the interim as well (for some reason I've been getting the urge to use a saw lately). Anyways stick with me and hopefully the new additions will make everything even sweeter.

Organization Station

I'm constantly looking for a new way to keep Tim & I on the same page as far as what we have to do each week, what dinner will be and what he needs to contribute to assist with keeping the house. I'm also crazy OCD (apparently I developed that as a coping mechanism for my ADHD, spectacular!) so I have lists EVERYWHERE. I saw the organizer below at one of the blogs I follow but genius as I am I didn't write down what blog that was, so if anyone runs across this somewhere & knows where it came from please let me know so I can give credit where its due!

There were a couple of changes I needed to make:

1. We work on a weekly basis so a monthly calendar does nothing for us.
2. Our To-Do list is always long & continually growing (we both procrastinate) so that needed to be extended. I actually separated it into 2 columns so we each have our own responsibilities.
3. I wanted that title box to be personalized for us. (OCD comes back to haunt everyone)

Here a more generic version, feel free to copy & use as it fits your life! I'll put it as large as I can on here because I have no clue how to upload a file that is able to be downloaded (although if someone shares that knowledge I'll be happy to do that as well!). You can also leave a comment with your email address and I'll shoot it over to you that way!

Finally....A Gallery

I'm sure that if you've been following my blog then you've seen me post about having a gallery wall. I have a slight obsession with them as you can see here: Hallway...well because its easy and here: Movin' on Up. Well I finally made one and not in either place I previously mentioned.

The wall beside my sink in our master bathroom always bugs me, I stare at it a good bit as I'm getting ready and it is visible from my side of the bed at night. For some reason I have a fear of blank walls but I also like art to mean something (whether its a feeling it evokes from me or is something personal). I finally just decided to suck it up and get a gallery wall going.

First I gathered some random frames from my house, my parent's house and Hobby Lobby's half-off sale. To be honest I had no idea what I was going to put in any of them just knew that I wanted to get a few different sizes and shapes up there and bought a can of Rustoleum Heirloom White spray paint. I've used this stuff previously and love it because of the coverage it gives me. Two coats and I'm done! Plus it dries really fast which means that people with short attention spans such as myself are satisfied.

If there was glass that couldn't be removed I just taped over it, btw the oval was a slight pain.

I covered the driveway with newspaper and got to spraying. Two quick coats and these babies were ready to be hung within an hour (note: this picture was after coat #1)

Next I went inside and measured my space and roughly taped it out on the floor.

I played around and got the frames arranged in a general pattern that I liked before I decided to just roll with it and start hanging them up.

Next I started from the bottom and worked my way towards the top arranging & rearranging as I went using what I had previously laid out as a guide.

Notice that its a little different and became even more different after I rummaged through my house to find pieces and artifacts to fill each frame.

Ta-Da! The end result. I'm pretty happy with it if I do say so myself. I know it could use a little finessing but for a first-timer I think I did a decent job!

Here are some individual shots of each frame in the order they were hung:

This picture is from our wedding although I wanted the main focus to be our hands so I put a soft focus filter on it and made the rest of the image around it fuzzy.

I believe these roses were worn by one of our grandparents although to be perfectly honest I have absolutely no clue. I found them in all of our wedding stuff perfectly preserved after and have saved them for the right display piece. I just added some brown kraft paper and it was good to go.

I actually made this with the premise based upon a co-workers tattoo (roman numerals of her favorite bible verse). These are the roman numerals of our wedding date with the bible verses that were read during the ceremony written out in the background.

This was actually crocheted by my great-grandmother (Gigi) and I've had it in a conspicuous spot where I can see it each day since she passed away. I love that its now framed (with the brown kraft paper again) and is still visible to me every time I pass by.

 This was another of of wedding pictures but of Tim. I wanted the focus to be on his boutonniere so I did the soft-focus effect again and got this.

My mom actually crocheted this belltower from her college campus and I found it in a drawer. I loved the colors and the stitches are super-tiny which was also impressive to me.

Ok I confess this is a random piece of artwork I found somewhere on the internet awhile ago and I plan to replace it but don't know what I will replace it with just yet.

My premise was to feature a picture of each of us separately from the wedding as well as a couple so here is my solo shot with the soft-focus on my bouquet.

No gallery wall would be complete without a shot of the pup. She is so beautiful and pensive!

Another one of my dad's old drawings, he was pretty good!

Ok granted you can't see this really but it was a beautifully addressed invitation and the first we received as a married couple. It was def a framer!

I'm not an advocate of stealing but in my younger and dumber years I did take these from a hotel I stayed in while I was in Rome. I still think they are beautiful and they always remind me of one of the best trips I've ever been on.

A Quick Fix

Finding the leash for the little pup isn't incredibly difficult but can be frustrating to dig through a pile of rags while having an anxious puppy ready to go for a walk hopping on you. We also had the need for a new storage space for her electric fence collar as previously it hung on the sink faucet (nightmares of it getting inadvertently soaked and short-circuiting danced in my head) so when I came across this handy-dandy solution for half-off at Hobby Lobby I couldn't resist.

As the title suggests this was a super quick fix and was done really easily in about 5 minutes. I had an empty space on the garage wall right as you enter/exit the house that would be a perfect fit.

I lined up the hooks where I wanted them and added in the first screw not really worrying about whether or not it was straight.

I lined up the piece so it looked straight and put in the second screw, voila! Done and another project checked off the list.

Oh, Yes He Did

In all of the celebration of Tim being cancer-free plus it being his birthday weekend he got, shall we say, a little loopy. His loopiness brought on a bout of instability causing him to run into to wall of the laundry room which provided a domino affect of knocking the ironing board down and breaking off a chunk of the molding on the door casing which I discovered the next day and luckily found the missing piece.

Tim being the not-so-handy-man just chuckled at it and left it to watch ESPN. I've tried coercing, threatening and even pleading but I keep getting the brush-off from him about getting this fix. So I decided to do it myself (he in return will be doing my laundry the next two times).

First I went out and bought some Elmer's wood glue. I don't know if its the best but it was pretty darn cheap and I remember my dad using it growing up so I went with it.

Next I put the piece back into place to see which way it needs to face, luckily it fit in there pretty well still.

Next I put down a towel and put glue on the piece (note to self: next time put the glue in the hole so you don't get it all over your fingers and have your finger stick to the piece).

I put the piece on the wall and held it for about a minute. As I was removing my hand I realized the piece was stuck to it when it came with it so I did the previous 2 steps again...awesome. Finally it was stuck up there.

You can still tell something happened but at least I don't have to worry about losing the piece now. We need to caulk it, sand it and repaint it but for now I'm just glad there isn't a gaping hole.

You Can Paint with all the Colors of the Rainbow

But what's your color personality?

I saw a quiz on Real Simple's website about Color Personalities and thought it would be fun to try. Lets see if soft blue/green really is my favorite. I typically think these types of things are kind of hokey, I mean really, you can predict my personality/favorites in ten questions or less?

Well, they got pretty close, I mean I do like yellow and have incorporated it in bits and pieces in the house. Not to mention that yellow is an undertone (I think) to brown and browns & neutrals are everywhere...

In closing, I'd say its a fun 3 minute waste of your time but here is my result :)

RESULTS
You Are an Air Personality

Grant Cornett

Warmhearted, lively, and cheerful air personalities have a positive approach to life, says Gillian Rose, a New York City–based interior-color specialist (colorourworld.com). Air people are most attracted to yellow, "a very warm color," says Debbie Zimmer, the director of communications of Coating Materials for Dow. "Yellow, translated into human personality, conveys attention and warmth." Carol Tuttle, author of Dressing Your Truth: Discover Your Personal Beauty Profile ($20, amazon.com), says that this personality type is "animated," outgoing and gregarious. People with air natures, she says, "like a lot of sparkle, a lot of movement. They like to catch your eye." However, air personalities can be impulsive, and they can be perceived as a bit flighty, unserious—literally "airheaded." According to Rose, the study of color and personality is age-old, based on the theories of the ancient Greek physician Galen, who designated four personalities he linked to bodily fluids: choleric (yellow bile), phlegmatic (phlegm), melancholic (black bile), and sanguine (blood). Early physicians and philosophers came to assign colors and characteristics of the natural world to these four temperaments; they linked sanguines to air and yellow. (Note that the category that you fall into according to the quiz might not reflect you 100 percent: Many people are a combination of categories.) In the home, yellow can stir up positive memories, says Toby Israel, Ph.D., the author of Some Place Like Home: Using Design Psychology to Create Ideal Places ($60, amazon.com). “Perhaps your grandmother had a yellow kitchen—if you paint one of your rooms in this color, it can bring back memories of being loved and cared for,” she says. Rooms with “sunny yellow undertones suggest an environment of warmth or excitement,” says Sandy Dumont, a stylist and the author of the Image Architect blog. Bright colors can give you an energy boost.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

It's already been an excellent week this week. Some great friends got married in a beautiful and incredibly sweet ceremony on Saturday, the new neighbors are working with us to get the issues resolved (I think attempting to get a face-to-face meeting was what swung the pendulum in the right direction, more on that later), work is working itself out (for right now anyways), the fundraiser for local cancer research (a lot of the money goes directly to Tim's oncologist) we attended Monday night looked to be a huge success (YAY!), Tim's grandparents surprised everyone by driving down from Pennsylvania to attend the fundraiser (LOVE them!) and meet their new great-granddaughter (my niece - not my child), its ALREADY Wednesday AND I just won my first blog giveaway! I haven't had a week this excellent in some time!

So about that giveaway, I read a lot of different blogs every day to get ideas, be inspired and entertained. I've seen various blogs posting things like this for some time now but just recently started to enter them. Aubrey & Lindsay's Little House Blog is one that I've been following since I started this little adventure and they put up a great post about having curtains made by Tonic Living who has some really neat fabrics at really reasonable prices. I won a $50 gift card to Tonic Living, now what to do with it....

Here are the 2 ideas I'm working with:

1. Put it towards getting some curtains made for the master bedroom. If I go this route I want the thick wooden curtain rods with some round finials and this gorgeous Adorn fabric in Olive.

2. Get the Tiny Dots in Kiwi fabric to make a bench for the end of our bed. I found an AWESOME tutorial at the blog Oeil Prive for a tufted bench that I think this could look great with some pretty wood legs and fun buttons in the tufting.

I think I'm going to order samples of both (and well maybe a few more I think are great as well) since their fabric samples are only $1!

Make sure to pop over to Aubrey & Lindsay's blog to check out all of their awesome ideas, here are a few of my favorites:

1. I LOVE these headers above the door and may have to incorporate that above our 3 doors leading to the great outdoors: New Backdoor Trim

2. I have a new organization system to keep Tim & I on the same page and putting it on a bulletin board rather than the fridge would be a much better home for it. Here is an idea for a prettified bulletin board: Bulletin Board Project

3. Privacy is an issue (as I'm sure you could infer from Who Do They Think They Are?) so adding some of these screens to the side of our porch could be a great way to keep everything pretty but remove the feeling of being on display: DIY - Privacy Screens, How to by Aubrey

4. I've been sketching out ideas for our built-ins and have every intention (as of right now) to build them myself (well with my dad's help) but the company Aubrey & Lindsay found to build theirs looks as though it could have some great inspiration for me. And if you aren't as lucky to have a dad who you can con into building things for you (albeit you have to wait 5 years for him to get to you) then they look like a great company to build your pieces for you!: Adding Bookcases

Also, Tonic Living is providing a discount by following the directions below, check them out!
 
Get 10% off your order enter AUBREYANDLINDSAY when checking out. Also....get FREE SHIPPING for all orders over $50.00 (CAD) before taxes if your postal code starts with an "L", "M", or "N"!

Thanks again to Aubrey & Lindsay for this great give-away! Thanks to you I've added Toronto to my "places I need to visit" list. :)

Quick Shoutout to Pops

Here's a pretty little bad-a cabinet my dad made for my mom's kitchen. Keep in mind that this is his first furniture building experiment and my mom has been quite the saint for the three months (possibly more) it has taken him to build this. In my humble opinion its pretty amazing and I'm glad he has the practice in so he will be good to go by the time he gets to our built-ins! Now he just has to reface every other kitchen cabinet and build new doors & drawers for all. Best of luck to my mom's sanity!

The Depths Below

We're lucky enough to have a walk-in crawlspace underneath our house. Its been awesome for storing lawn equipment, random piece of construction stuff such as extra siding and for housing our water heater. One of these days we will install a little sink and some storage shelving for gardening tools & the like but for now it does its duty well.

Deck the Halls!

Last year we moved into the house right before Thanksgiving so we skipped the Christmas decor. Tim was not happy with me about it.

This year I plan to do the basics, stockings and tree. We can bump it up each year after. I like crafty looking ornaments so I've been on the lookout for those kinds of things lately and here is what I've found.

Pottery Barn Selections:

I can't remember where I found these (maybe etsy) but I like them:

A little button garland to go along with the quilted tree skirt (except in green) we already have:

Although I really love this one a little more:

We've got this wreath and hopefully it can make it through another year with us and we can get a mat to match:

Now we just need to collect more than just the farm animals for this set, find stockings and holders and a tree-topper.

One last and very important thing, we have to get our annual Willow Tree ornament. We started getting these the year we started dating (2007) and have collected them each year since. Its fun to have a reminder of each Christmas we've spent together.