Our House Projects: 4/3/11

A great way to stay organized in your project and to stay away from buying items you don't need is to make a wanted list. For instance, here is part of my wanted list:

Whenever I am out and about I make sure I look for what is on my list instead of trying to see what will fit. When you are first starting to plan your project it's great to look around and get ideas but since I already have gotten all my ideas together, I need to make sure I stay within budget and find what I know I really want! (Always know what the maximum price is you want to pay for an item too!)

I always start with Craigslist, yard sales and goodwill because most of the time that is where you will find your wanted items the cheapest.

I also have lists online for stores (like a registry!). For example, I have a Target list that I check every day to see if one of my items has gone on sale!

This set of Corelle dishes were on sale for $19.99 when they were
originally $29.99 and I saw that they were on sale on my Target
list and immediately went and snatched a set up!

There are good ways of saving whether it be coupons or just waiting for something to go on sale or even better, clearance!

Why we chose Corelle: After some research, we found that glass is one of the safest type of dinnerware. They are dishwasher and oven safe. Corelle is lightweight and won't chip. Stone is great too, but we found with our last set that they chip more and they are just plain heavy for every day use.

Why not use plastic? Plastic is usually made with melamine and has formaldehyde and urea in it, both of which are toxic to our bodies. Also, when throwing plastic away that contains melamine you should take good care to make sure it's recycled properly because when it breaks down, the formaldehyde and urea are both exposed.

Joe and I are all about healthy and organic living,

we try to use all environmental friendly products!

Tonight has been a good night...even though I am currently under-the-weather as they say. Yep, can't breathe without my mouth open and so on :(

But on the UP side...I sat outside for a couple hours and drew my other 8x10 picture for our house!

A couple months ago (wow, it has been a while!) I drew Batman just because I couldn't sleep one night and then I saw it and liked it... a lot :0)

So, I've been wanting a set of 8x10's because one hanging just doesn't seem right...it needs something to balance it out...

So that brings us to tonight! I grabbed my new box of colored pencils that Joe bought me a few weeks ago, (one of those surprise bring home gifts! Love it!) and I wanted to put them to good use and attempt drawing Robin...

Now the only problem is...my new colored pencils are way brighter and awesomer (thanks crayola) compared to my cheap off brand ones I had before that I drew Batman with...

So I need to go back over Batman with my new pencils and brighten up the color a bit!

Do you think they would look good in black frames in our master bedroom?

Do you think they would look good in white frames in our living room?

Let me know where YOU think they should go!

Another project that I'm working on (that goes along with these drawings) is the idea of putting comic strips into frames and making a collage of my favorite comics, etc. Maybe even put some odds and end thing like movie ticket stubs and memory stuff in the frames with cute paper backgrounds...or comic paper backgrounds :)
Lots of projects and ideas going on here!

We have two Jack Russell Terriers and Rolie just loves water..he loves taking a bath and drinking so much water while in the tub that we have to take him outside every 10 minutes after a bath! He decided that he wanted a bath (I'm guessing!) so he jumped in the tub and I couldn't get him to get out!

I even tried shutting the curtain on him and this is
the look he gave me : ) He is one happy boy!

Now, that I've shown you our little man...You have got to see our little lady!

(she'd be jealous!)

Meet Roxy..She's our "firstborn" :)
She was younger here but I couldn't resist this picture! It shows her
personality perfectly!

Welcome to the life of our young family! :)

p.s. we have nicknames for our "kids"

Rox and Rolls

So if you read an unfamiliar name of a little four legged kid....

Real Name: Nicknames:

Roxy The Roo, Roo-Roo and Rox

Rolie Fatty, Rolls, Rolie-Polie and Roland

Can't promise that other nicknames won't evolve :P

Yes, I swear our cabinets were screaming at me today...

First step today was taking off all the cabinets..

Manually, without a power drill I might add..

Next step was taking off all the hardware from the cabinet doors and drawers...

This is what the cabinet doors looked like after the primer..

Not too bad (besides the edges)

But here they are after 3 coats of paint!

Ah! There are looking so pretty : )

Now, the roses eh they alright but I'm a little eccentric when it comes to putting my utensils/glasses on other peoples cabinet paper..So, I went to Ace Hardware and picked up a couple rolls of basic tan contact paper...

Before

When using contact paper, make sure to peel the back off as you go and smooth it with your hand while pulling the paper. Otherwise you will end up with lots of bubbles and creases. I like to line it up in the front corner and then work my way to the back of the cabinet, so if any bubbling occurs it will be at the back where you can't see and it's easier to push the air out. If you do get a bubble, just use something sharp like a needle, and poke the bubble and smooth it out!

The new, but cheap tan contact paper made it clean and modern!

Done! Just need to get the hardware cleaned up so we can attach them !

This is just so you can get an idea of what it is going to look like in the end :)

Now, I know I said I was going to be moving some dining room furniture into the house today but sad to say it didn't happen..BUT it will be happening here soon! :) Once I finish painting the kitchen then we are going to let the other decorating begin! The kitchen is going to have a sort of cafe look to it. We have the cutest cafe latte clock that we got for our wedding a few years back that we love!

This is definitely getting attention in the kitchen!

And, of course, our famous in-front-of-the-kitchen-sink rug :)

Also, a wedding gift :)

Also, the weather today was gorgeous so I tried to do all my painting outside..

You can't really tell in this pictures..But, our front yard has tons of purple flowers in it!

So there's my day in a nut-shell :) Tomorrow after work I'm hoping to finish up painting everything in the kitchen! *crosses fingers!*

Now that Spring is here, are there any projects that you want to do? Maybe just deep clean, maybe paint a bedroom or a kitchen? Tell us what you want to tackle first this year! :)

---Laura---

We are just trying to keep you on your toes :P

The other blog will remain up to see archives, but this is our official blog. We were having trouble getting Google to let us make an account because of my cache needing to be reset (oops!) so I tried again tonight after almost a month of our other blog and it worked! Joe and I are big Google fans so we wanted to come over to Blogger :)

Yesterday there were big storms that came through Nashville and we lost some limbs...tree limbs that is! Here is the evidence of the storms that blew through..

So the process of picking up all these limbs starts tomorrow!

Today, I started on the kitchen (since I'm done with the dining room!) This color is one that Joe had liked on one of our many color swatches and then Joe's Gram saw it and thought it would look good in our kitchen! Don't you know that Grandma's Know Best?! Here is part of the kitchen with the color that Gram picked out and we are in love with!

That Dark Gray at the top is the color Gram thought
looked good and I couldn't agree more!

It looks great looking into the dining room from the kitchen!

Excuse the mess on the stove, we're in the process of moving! ;)

This morning, I stopped in at Fred's to see if they had another Plum Colored pillow like I had gotten before and sure enough they still had a few! (Don't know how because they are so cute!) But I am excited that I got another one! I also looked around at some prices of other things such as curtain rods and I found two of these...

These curtain rods are really cute and dark bronze colored! Perfect for our sheer curtains!

Target Pillow from Fred's - $7.99
Curtain Rods - $4.80 each (on sale!)

All of this is for our dining room!

A moment of my afternoon was taken up with this thought that Joe and I had been asking ourselves...Why is there a door to the kitchen? Why do we need a door to the kitchen?