Our House Projects: 5/22/11

Our Living Room!!!!!

Here is the new light brown color in the living room!!

What do you think?!?

It is an amazing tool to use if you have access to one or even have a small one!

I am amazed at how clean our patio, sidewalks and gutters became!

But, before I show you the awesomeness of pressure washing...

Take a look at what we have been working around...

Yes. TONS of Cicadas!!!

This is our side of the house tree..

Yep. That is too many cicadas..

And they are SO LOUD! Literally, your ears when you come inside feel like you've been at a hard rock/metal show all night. No lie. Just ask Joe... :P

Now that I have shared the yucky-ness of the outdoors ~~lately~~ the past few weeks with you...

Before

Complete!

So amazing right!?

A few of my favorite pictures that show how well it worked...

Looks soooo good!!

The Patio

Oh! I can't forget to show off the gutters!

Here you go...

See the white in the middle right? We pressured wash that to show the
difference in a picture :)
And then of course, we finished all the gutters :P

Ah, cleanliness is good :)

Hope you enjoyed seeing how you can transform your patios, gutter and

sidewalks super cheap and super easy! :)

---L---

p.s. this is some serious spring cleaning! ;)

Not a "house project" but a healthy blog post tonight :)

Healthy Cooking

Making a balanced, healthy meal is so important for you and your family. With your family’s schedule I know it can be hard to provide 3 healthy meals a day. But usually, you can at least get 1 out of 3!

Our time to eat a meal together is dinner. (5 out of 7 nights!) I usually get home before he does, so I like to begin making dinner before he gets home.

I try my best to eat completely organic. For some things I just make sure it is completely natural with no artificial colors, flavorings or preservatives. Buying strictly Organic can become expensive. Since we are on a budget, I stick to at least buying my fruits, vegetables and eggs all organic. Keep in mind that everything else I buy is free of artificial ingredients, they are just not organic.

Tonight I am sautéing veggies for dinner. (We don’t typically eat a lot of meat. The meats we usually would eat would be chicken or salmon.)

Sautéed Veggies with Potatoes

What you will need for the Sautéed Veggies:

1 Organic Zucchini (sliced)
1 Organic Yellow Squash (sliced)
1 Organic White Onion (chopped)
2 Organic Whole Carrots (sliced)
3 T Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3 T Filtered Water
1 tsp Garlic Powder or Minced Garlic
½ tsp Black Pepper

What you will need for the Sautéed Potatoes:

4 Organic Whole Potatoes (Peeled)
½ tsp Garlic Powder
2 T Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 T Filtered Water

Potatoes: Using a peeler, peel your potatoes. Then slice them up and throw them in your second sauté pan. Cover with lid and every couple minutes use a spatula to move them around to keep from burning or becoming too crispy. Do this until they are soft and ready. When they are soft, sprinkle the garlic powder on the potatoes and cover with lid. Turn down the heat to warm until ready to serve.

Veggies: Using your large sauté pan, pour the olive oil and water into the pan. Swirl it around to coat the entire pan. Throw in your sliced carrots first on about medium heat. (Your carrots will take the longest to sauté) Once your carrots begin to soften, throw in the sliced zucchini, squash, onion and your spices. Sauté until the zucchini and squash become soft on the inside and still a little firm around the edges. You don’t want to overcook them because then you will end up with really soft, almost slimy textured veggies. Plus, you will cook out all the vitamins and nutrients!
Remove from pan and place your veggies either on top of your potatoes or beside.

Perfect dinner for two!

What am I getting from this meal?

I’m glad you asked!

·     Garlic and Onions-Rich in antioxidants. Promotes healing from colds and helps prevent from infections.

Protects against cancers and tumor growth. Great help for asthma sufferers. Helps protect against cardiovascular disease, respiratory concerns, diabetes and a variety of cancers.

·     Garlic-lowers blood pressure and it decreases the risk of blood clots developing. (Blood clots are the reason for many strokes and heart attacks)
·     Onions-increase the good cholesterol especially when eaten raw. They also lower the bad cholesterol and help to dissolve blood clots.
·     Zucchini-A good source of dietary fiber, Vitamin C, Vitamin A and Folate. It also helps to lower cholesterol and is an effective anti-inflammatory. Heart attack and stroke prevention. Lowers blood pressure. High in Manganese that helps several different ways in physiological functions, also promotes healthy skin and proper healing in cuts and wounds.
·     Summer Squash-Summer squash is going to be less nutrient-dense then winter squash. This is due to the high water content. Summer squash is still good for a summer food because it protects against dehydration and has carotenes that help protect against the damaging effects of the sun. They also provide a decent amount of Vitamin C, Potassium and Carotenes. (Diets that are rich in Carotenes offer protection against cancer, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
·     Potatoes-Great source of Vitamins B6 and C, fiber and pantothenic acid. Potatoes provide the highest amount of Potassium then any other vegetable and they also contain a decent amount of protein. They are rich in complex carbohydrates that supply energy.

Why use Olive Oil instead of Butter?

Lets lay out the facts:

Butter-a concentrated source of milkfat (80%) with little water and non-fat milk solids. It is made from milk, cream or both.
7 grams of saturated fats
3 grams of healthy fats
31 mg cholesterol
82 mg of sodium

Olive Oil-High in monounsaturated fats and antioxidants. Studies show that Extra Virgin Olive Oil helps in raising your good cholesterol levels and lowering your bad. Olive oil has other benefits too such as: healing ulcers and gastritis. Source of Vitamin E and phenols.
2 grams of saturated fats
12 grams of healthy fats
0 mg cholesterol
0 mg sodium

Extra Virgin Olive Oil Beats Butter in the Healthy Factor :)

Our landscape appearance is a downer. There's ~~grass~~ bermuda grass growing all in our flower beds and if you know anything about bermuda grass it grows with a root system like trees. Well maybe not that extent. But it has quite the intertwined root system that makes it very difficult to dig up. Last night we decided to take the leap into the first section of the flower beds and see what happened. Here is what we came up with on a whim!

Before

Progress

Whew. Lots of grass. We dug up the hosta plants and are gonna plant
them in different spots. We wanted to thin these beds out.

We pulled out this old, plastic landscape border.
And the beds had overgrown onto the driveway so Joe
is digging it off the driveway and pushing the edge back to
where it should be.

All of this came out of the corner bed we mulched. Thats a lot.

Before laying down your mulch, make sure you spray on a weed/grass killer
to keep all those weeds and grass from coming up into your freshly laid
mulch and destroying a couple hours of work ;)

This our first step to getting the landscape looking good :)

This section is next... (hopefully tonight if it doesn't rain!)

And then this section will be oh so fun :P
We went ahead and started the prep work by spraying all of the poison ivy
that is in this particular forest of a bed.
Can't wait to see the progress in this! :)

That's all I got for this morning..but hey, it's still not even noon!
Can't wait to see what today brings!

---L---

Yep. You guessed it. We took the door off and re-painted it! Now, looking at it you can see rust and oxidation so we just needed to do something about this to make it look new again :)

First we used sandpaper and lightly sanded the rust.

Here are some other angles of the door before..

So we used Rust-Oleum High Gloss Black Spray Paint and painted it!

Used about 2 1/4 cans of spray paint. About $9-$10.

Dad is finishing up the first coat of spray paint

While the paint was drying, we took the glass and gave it
a good cleaning!

We waited several hours before trying to hang
the door. If you don't, then you will have fingerprints
from where the paint is still sticky.

Putting the door back up..

and done!

Super love the glossy black door and chandelier!
Looks so clean! (Cause it is!)
Oh and see how clean our patio is? Yep that blog is coming soon!
Oh and also...I'm picturing a cute little bistro set there...;)

Can't wait to show you even more of what we did this past weekend!! :)

Thats what we like to do...take old things and make them new with a little cleaning, a little paint or something small that makes it new again :)

This project was something I couldn't wait to see finished! My Dad was in town from the DC area and was helping me with some projects while Joe was at work this weekend! [Best.Dad.Ever. :) ]

Here she is before...

and here she is after!

Here is what we did:

1. First took off the bottom part of the chandelier,
took out the glass pieces and wiped it down with a damp rag.

2. I took the white cylinders that make it look like candlesticks
and washed them up with soap n water to make them white again!

3. While I was inside washing the cylinders, Dad
taped over the area where the bulb screws in to
keep from paint getting on the inside.

4. Tape off around the base of your light fixture to keep
from spray paint getting everywhere and giving it an unclean look.

We used masking tape and then taped newspapers
around the area to make sure the overspray didn't get on the vinyl.
Then we started spray painting!
We are using Rust-Oleum High Gloss Black Spray Paint.
(best.spray.paint.for.exterior.)

Looking good so far!

Here is the bottom of the chandelier.
We used two thin coats.

Then after a couple hours of drying time, you are ready to hang it back up!
(I couldn't take pictures of this part. I was holding up the bottom part of the chandelier as Dad use the screwdriver to put the screws back in) ;)

Yes! It worked perfectly!!!!

Yet another project I am in love with!

It's so nice to work on projects with family :)

It's a great way to spend time together!

More of this weekends "family house projects" to post soon!

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