Hold Please...

This will most likely be one of the dullest posts you'll find on the web BUT here's the news: I'm working on a large improvement project and need tonight to devote some hours to that. Hopefully I can give you a great update in a few weeks so keep your fingers and toes crossed for me!

The Death Penalty

Thats is what I've regulated anything in our yard to. Death. Our poor flower boxes, deadish, I forgot to water them for about a week during the hottest part of the year. Whoops! The Creeping Jenny (yes its really called that) is doing great besides the fact that it is creeping into everyone else's space as well and killing it all off. Those Jennys, always trouble.

I don't know what happened to these guys but one is dead and the other is almost there

This guy, he died, then he came back to life, looks like he might be back to his death cycle.

The bright spot in all of this is that we have on spot in our yard that is nice and green...

Why yes those are weeds everywhere under the porch and you would be correct in the fact that we have a tree growing up through our stairs. The joys of homeownership continue...

Bats in the Attic

Not really, well unless you are referring to me that is. I told you we'd get to the attic and here we are, not too much to see!

All we really have up here (for now) are a few sparse Christmas decorations. I've got big plans for lots more though, yay shopping!

Things we have left to do here:

1. Shelving, lots and lots of shelving - As you can kind of see by the 2nd picture, we have 2 little nooks which would have easy shelf installation but I'd LOVE to add some shelves along the wall to the right in the top picture. This way I can put everything into clear labeled boxes and line the shelves with them so I can find objects easily, oh joy! I love labeled and processed things, they make me so happy!

1 Flush, 2 Flush, Red Flush, Blue Flush

Ok so this post will be a to be continued....here is the deal. I wanted to "go green" and install a dual-flush system on our master bathroom toilet. Supposedly it saves you some money and with how high our water bills have been recently I'll take what I can get!

I went to our trusty Home Depot and got the Hydro-Right Dual Flush Converter for the bargain price of $20 awhile ago and finally got up the guts and ambition to install it on Saturday morning. I got up and was eager to go to work. Took my "before" picture...

...removed the lid and got ready to got to work.

Ok, everything looks pretty normal until I'm reading the directions and realize that the flapper thingy that covers the hole is supposed to be a separate piece from the tube thing according to their directions so that their big piece can attach (right under the silver button)...and we don't have one. Dang.

A good bit of googling later (let me tell you how easy that is when you don't know the name of the parts...) and I discover that we have a "Mansfield Valve." Sounds like something from the 20s right? In order to install the dual-flush I need a Douglas Valve. So far from everything I've read it looks as though you have to remove the tank...ummm no thanks.

I'm going to confer with the dad and will get back to you on the validity of this experiment. So far the DIY gods are just laughing down upon me. Oh well, another day, another project...

Skeletons in the Closets

One of the incredibly awesome things about our house is that we have TONS of closet space.

You've already seen the closets in the bedrooms but in case you forgot, here are some references:

Master Bedroom - King of the Throne
Bedroom #2 - Be Our Guest: Part 1
Bedroom #3 - Be Our Guest: Part 2

You've also seen the "closet" aka my mini-office under the stairs: Micro-Management 

We also have a closet (aka pantry) in the kitchen:

A coat closet in one hallway of doors (Behind Door Number....):

Two closets in the other hallway of doors (How about another hallway? Some more doors?):

And on top of all of that we have a walk-in attic (that is for another day), what lucky ducks are we?

I don't have too many edits to the closets but I do have a few!

 Things we have left to do here:

 1. Get the pantry more organized - I just want it to become more accessible. Right now you have to remove so much to get to anything  and I'd love to have the pantry not be something I grimace everytime its opened. I'll be honest, it will never look like this but something in-between would be great!

 2. Add some shelving to the bottom of the coat closet - Although right now this holds our vacuum and the pup's food container I can find a new place for those if I could just get some good storage for hats, gloves, scarves and the like. All of their floating around drives me batty!

3. Put in wood shelving in the smaller of the upstairs closet - Typically I love the wire shelving but its killing me with how it shreds our towels so out with the old and in with the new. I may even add a few baskets for washcloths and the like.

4. Put in something in the larger upstairs closet - We've got piles of suitcases and blankets and we really do actually use all of them. Honest! This closet would be perfect for them if everything wasn't spilling all over everything else all the time.

These are a few of my favorite things....

or stores... These are my go-to for shopping, whether it is brick and mortar, outlet or internet, these are my friends and at times (aka when funds are low and there are so many tempting items) my worst enemies.

Ballard Designs - 

Company C -

Crate & Barrel -

Garnet Hill - 

Home Decorators - 

Horchow -

Ikea - 

Meijer - 

Pier 1 - 

Pottery Barn - 

Restoration Hardware - 

Two's Company - 

West Elm -

Z Gallerie -

Are there any stores out there that you guys like that I should be aware of?

It's a Man Thing.

When we planned out the house we knew that we eventually would have kids and we'd want a playroom for them and that Tim would need a playroom of his own at some point as well. We went ahead and got the room ready for electricity and plumbing and it was even sheet-rocked so all we have to do is tape, mud, prime and paint and the walls will be finished. We need to add some flooring, I haven't decided if I want to do carpet or something else that might hold up a little better with a husband and future kiddos. Don't really know what the something would be though....and finally we will need to decorate it which shouldn't be too hard with all of the baseball, golf and other sports paraphernalia that Tim's got.

Here's a look at what it looks like right now. Please excuse the disaster of junk everywhere.

In this corner we plan to have a roll-down movie screen and an projector aiming onto it (long-term goals here people).

Over in this corner we are planning to put our current dining table, refresher here at Eat, Drink and Be Merry and convert it into a poker table. I originally thought we'd leave it as is but I'm thinking we could change out the tabletop for a customized poker top. Here come the paintbrushes, felt and staple gun, well after we get a replacement dining table of course.

I would love, repeat LOVE, to fill this back wall with bookshelves, you see I'm quite the little bookworm and love the look of rows and rows of books. Tim even did a little math and figured out that I read about 1.78 pages per minute. We laughed for quite a while after he told me that one around midnight one night. My parents are talking of redoing their den and getting rid of the beautiful solid wood bookshelves in there. I may just have to see if I could talk Tim into letting me take those over and putting them up in here.

Although right now its full of boxes, this corner is slated to hold Tim's pride & joy, a wet bar. We have some plans to get that built up once we get the bookshelves, see Self-Control of the Remote Control. I have to admit that it will be pretty neat and convenient to hold a mini-fridge and microwave for some drinks and popcorn and of course my Junior Mints without having to run back downstairs.

Ok so technically I've already done this throughout this entire post but just to keep it all going succinctly...

Things we have left to do here:

1. Paint the room - I'm thinking of a perhaps putting in a pewter/gunmetal color. It would help all of Tim's college baseball stuff really pop of the walls.

2. Blackout the windows - I want to put some long velvet drapes, maybe in a garnet color, to either side of the double window and to one side of the single window with some blackout fabric on the reverse to make this room as dark as possible in order to watch movies easily even in the middle of the day. I'd love to find one of those tracks that you can hide in the ceiling but if not we can just put some pretty molding in front so the track can't be seen. Regardless they have to pool up at the bottom like an old movie theatre's would.

3. Get some furniture - Ok technically we need to get furniture downstairs in order to get furniture up here as we are going to move the couches up here once we get our sweet new sectional (again see Self-Control of the Remote Control for a refresher)