Laundry Room

Our laundry room used to be lacking in about every aspect - color, function, storage and organization.

It was just a blank slate... but it's actually a decent sized blank slate.  It's fairly deep so once you get the washer and dryer in you still have lots of room to take advantage of.  But that shelving up there was no doing it.  Not only does it limit how much goes up, but everyone gets to see it, too.  Not going to work.  So I added the same color I put in the bathroom I painted already, slapped some organization to the walls and voila! - a room you'd actually want to spend some time in.  (Sorry the pictures are a bit blurry - I'm not sure why they are).

The organization pegboard that Matt and his Dad made for me one weekend.  It's actually pretty easy to do and makes things look a lot nicer.  Here's the post for instructions.  I basically did everything she did, but you can modify it to fit your space pretty easily.

Just some decorations on the shelf.  The yellow ceramic carton is actually useful - I put loose change and things I find in pockets in it.  The owl is also a vase, but he's just there to look pretty.

The hanging thing on the left is a drying rack.  We air-dry certain things fairly often so it's nice to have a place to do it instead of just draped on random chairs in the kitchen.  The sign on the right I found at Kirklands last night and it basically sums up my attitude about laundry - "Sort tomorrow, Wash later, Dry someday, Fold maybe, Iron never".  

And here is the whole she-bang.  This room is done.  

The Lou

Ding, ding, ding!  We have a completely finished room!  I always picked the least used rooms to redo first - the laundry room and the dining room were the only rooms to get painted at the old house.  Now it's the guest bathroom here.  Oh, well.

As you may recall, the guest bathroom looked like this before we moved in.  This was even pre-mirror, I believe.

Then, with a little decorating magic it turned into this:

Not too shabby, but the cream just wasn't doing it for me.  I don't mind the beige walls we have throughout the house.  It's essentially the same color that was in the other house.  It's fine, it's neutral.  But I really, REALLY like color and I'm getting bored with all the bland colors.  Insert: Silver Leaf.

In all honesty, it's bluer than I want it to be.  Story of my life with painting rooms grey.  When it's up next to the white it looks grey, but then other parts of the wall look like blue.  Anyways, it's staying for now - perhaps I'll do a different shade of grey and see if that helps, but it works.  For our sake - this room is done.  I think if maybe we stay here forever and have a pile of money fall into our lap I'd like to redo the countertop with white granite, but otherwise stick a fork in her - she be done!

Welcome Distraction

So Matt was in the hospital for a week.  Due to having an anal personality and not knowing when the doctors would be dropping by and not wanting to miss them I chose to stay at the hospital the entire time.  That's right... no fresh air for us. However, the night before we got out, Matt forced me to go to a long-standing girls night date.  He thought I needed to get away awhile.  I did.  It was so good doing something normal and having conversation that didn't revolve around pericardiums, medication, blood and vital signs.  While I did have my phone right on my easel the entire time just in case, it was nice to know that our friend Jason was hanging out with him so I could semi-relax.

So girls night was a painting class we'd set up about a month ago.  The place where we did it lets you pick a painting and then they teach step-by-step how to do it.  You can also paint whatever you want, but if you're not confident with your artistic abilities it's nice to be shown what to do.  Here are all of our creations!

 

I don't know what I would have done without these girls over the past week.  Amanda, the one on the far left, watched our sweet girls for us the entire week.  Heather (directly to the right of me) and Andrea (far right), came to sit with me at the hospital Saturday when we thought Matt would be having his surgery that day.  They also bought me lunch, brought me clothes from my house and let me borrow their pj's because I forgot to pack pajama pants.  Abbey, the girl in the middle, sat with me during surgery on Sunday and stayed until 4 that evening.  Abby, the awesome artist that did her own painting that night, came to visit us Saturday and brought me hair ties.  Sounds little, but I so desperately needed one.  And last, but not least Rebekah - she stopped at our house after work one day to bring me more clothes, underwear, shaving cream and brought us snacks when her sweet family came to visit.  It has to be a true friend who'll go through your underwear drawer and bring you some new ones :) Thank you girls.

P.S. Yes, I know I'm dressed for winter and everyone else looks like they're ready for the beach.  You try sitting in a hospital for days and we'll see how quickly you warm up.

Easter Weekend

Yup, I haven't posted in over a month.  I blame it on a few things.  1) We haven't done anything exciting lately.  2) We have had several people visiting.  3) I've been lazy.  4) It's my blog I can do whatever I want with it.

Moving right along...

Easter weekend proved to be a very productive weekend.  Josh came to visit the week leading up to it and Matt's parents came the weekend of.  Two big projects were accomplished: mulching and chainsaw massacre-ing the backyard and redoing the laundry room.  This post will cover the backyard.  The laundry room isn't completely done yet so that'll come later.  I wish I had more before/after shots, but sometimes I just want to get the project done I don't take the time to document the horrible-ness that we're starting with.  Such is life... here is what I have in terms of before and afters.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Basically the moral of those pictures is this:  overgrown and under mulched.  The house was left 2 years untouched before we bought it so we are playing catch up.  So we needed to cut things WAY back and/or get rid of them completely and mulch in the back to make it look more landscaped.  Done and done.  The after pictures are so much better than the before pictures (thank goodness!)  The mulching actually didn't take as long as I expected - less than a day - and it makes such a big impact.  Cutting everything back really helps, too.  Not only does it look better, but it's better for the plants, too.  Plus, look at those tulips.  They're huge and in full bloom right now.

Oh, and this is what I found when I came inside from taking these pictures:

Quickie

We had this plain trash can in our downstairs bathroom.  I'm not sure where it came from.  Probably Matt's since I don't recognize it.  Anyways, it started off this way:

 

I thought I could give it a face lift by adding some texture and camouflaging the greyness.  Is that a word?  Doesn't matter... I'm using it anyways.

Three dollars worth of twine and an episode of Ellen later:

 

It's a pretty subtle change, but it looks better.  Especially since I've seen similar trashcans at Bed, Bath and Beyond for $20+, I think I'll keep it.  I will probably do a soap dispenser and Kleenex cover, too, once I get some so it looks like they all match.  

But I was thinking, you could totally do this with anything.  Got an old vase?  Wrap it in twine!  Heck, an old pickle jar would work.  It would even look cute just going half-way up on some glass container.  You could use colored twine, too.  The cheap possibilities are endless!  Go get crafty!

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

I've turned into Paw Paw and Howard.  Between the painting and woodworking lately, I'm channeling the grandpas.  I didn't take a before picture of my latest woodworking adventure, but here's the blog I got the idea from and she shows it better than I ever would.  We had the same mirror leftover from college a million years ago leaning up against the wall in our bedroom.  I wanted a full-length mirror in our bedroom, but this just wasn't cutting it.  So I made an upgrade by framing it out.  Again, love!

We'll probably hang it on the wall, but I kinda like it propped, too.  We'll see.

Face Lift

We have this dresser we inherited from Matt's room from when he was a kid.  We put it in the guest bedroom because we didn't have anything else that matched the finish, but it didn't quite fit in there, either.  Since this wasn't a family heirloom I decided to give it a makeover in hopes of beautifying it and to coordinate it with the bedspread.  Mission: Accomplished.

Just a normal dresser.  The knobs blended in, but the dresser itself was in good condition and the size fits perfectly for the room.  So I just added a little Peacock Blue and voila!

We have a little cutie patootie on our hands.  It's more turquoise than what the picture suggests, but it turned out really well.  And it coordinates with the bedspread better than I anticipated.  I think this was a success!  Here it is in the bedroom.

And here's the bedspread.  I think you either love it or hate it, but I LOVE it.  And the new dresser matches the turquoise in the bedspread perfectly!

Top of the Mornin' to Ya, Lassie!

I say that every time I walk into the room.  Partly because it's the perfect shade of Ireland green.  Also, because the paint color is called Blarney Stone so I feel like I have the right to.  Check out this drab dining room we used to have.

It's the same color as all the rooms.  Contractor paint, boring beige.  I had enough of it and added some color to our life.  It's beautiful.

The color isn't EXACTLY accurate in the photo, but it's pretty close.  I have to say - I suck at painting.  It took me forever, the painter's tape bled and we had to redo a lot of the trim and I'm not good at trim.  Totally worth it, though.  Now I get to finish decorating and we'll officially have one room completely done!

Trash to Treasure

Much like my candlestick holders, I bought this sucker from Goodwill in an effort to give it a little makeover...

Nigel is always so willing to help out.  Let's try this again...

Dang, girl... you need some help.  I think I have an idea.  Let's spray paint your frame to match the kitchen and frame some burlap for a nice, neutral backing.

 I now have a dry erase board to put my grocery list.  Voila!  Better than those ugly white ones :)

There's a New Carpenter in Town

Since my recent withdrawal from the working world, I have become the new groundskeeper for Chateau Lawson.  On tap today...

...replacing a plank from where a chunky monkey broke the ramp.  Just kidding, he's not fat.  They'll probably all go soon since they're all rotting and I'm wanting to pour concrete in its place.  I have to get the other groundskeeper's approval before he lets me play with cement. 

One board, one hammer and five nails (should've only been four, but one went flying when I was hammering) later.... voila!

Look how handsome my helper/model is.  And look how much better that ramp looks... not to mention how much more safe!

Long Overdue

Months ago Matt's parents came for a visit and it was a whirlwind of a working weekend.  We got a lot done and then I never took pictures because I forgot, had snakes, was lazy or a combination of all of the above.  But I took them this past weekend!  And then I'm also including pictures of some other stuff we've done.

The retaining wall came down and a new one went up.  The pile still remains, but it looks a LOT better.  The old one was falling down.  Not doing much retaining.

Weeding and trimming was done!  This is also a picture of what is left to do.  See the bush/tree on the right?  That's the height they should all be at.  So we just need to go down the line and cut them back.

 Matt dug up the two ponds and filled them in with dirt.  Slow work, but it's gonna look awesome as a flower bed!

Matt also put a ring of stone around a few of the bushes along the fence line.  Makes it look more professionally landscaped.  And they were just rocks that were scattered around the yard so that means a FREE upgrade!

The lower deck is ready for some S'more roasting!

And here's our helper running to help out with the next project!

MIA

I haven't posted in FOREVER... not because of laziness (maybe a little), but because we've been doing a whole heck of a lot outside.  Let's review...

- Trimmed all the bushes
- Fixed irrigation system
- Rebuilt retaining wall
- Refurbished the path lights
- SHREDDED an entire forest worth of wood
- Trimmed trees
- Weeded the landscaping area
- Hung things in the house
- FINISHED getting those dag-gum faux stain glass stickers off the window
- I'm sure there's other things, but I'm forgetting

We finally feel like we aren't drowning in yardwork - even though there's still plenty to do.  Anyone who hasn't come to visit yet wanna come?  Because we put to work the people who have come and they probably don't want to come back ;-)

Storm Damage

Hurricane Kevin and Tropical Storm Josh came through our backyard last week.  Here's the damage that was done.

Josh tore that tree down.  He was pretty proud of himself.

Pile of yard waste Dad cut down.

Who knew there was a fence back there?!

Some more yard waste

Now who wants to haul it all away for us?

Trash to Treasure

I found these babies at Goodwill not too long ago for two dollars.

A grungy, old set of candlesticks that didn't have much life in them.  Here's a close-up of the ugliness:

They looked rusty, but it wasn't rust.  I'm not sure what kind of look they were going for.  P.S. Note that my fingernails are painted.  This is a once in a million years event.  It came off like a week later.  Possibly sooner.

I thought silver candlesticks would be nice, but I didn't want to pay for actual silver, but I didn't mind paying for this:

Put them together and what do you get?

Look at that sheen!  Look at that shine!  Beautiful, silver candlesticks!  Now I just need to figure out what else is going to go on the mantle with them.