Valentine's Day Banner

I love that our house has a fire place.  What I don't love is that it has no mantle.  We have plans to build one, someday.  So since I have no mantle to decorate I have been making banners with my Silhouette to string across the fireplace.

Here is the one I just made for Valentine's Day

(Sorry the pic is so crappy, on either side of the fireplace is the front door and a window which is why it is so bright (and not in a good way!) I should really get a good camera =p)


Can I just say how much I LOVE my Silhouette?  I bought it in November and I could not be happier with it.  I bought mine with a special promotion code which got me a sweet deal.  Right now House of Smith's is doing a Silhouette giveaway and also have a promo code to buy a Silhouette if you want!  So click here to check it out!

OK, so here are a few pics on how I made my banner =]

 

I just cut out the appropriate amount of slider pieces and the same number of top pieces.  I love the way this turned out because the slider part is hidden.  I added letters cut out of flocked vinyl, strung the slider parts on the ribbon, then glued on the front heart with the letters.  I have one of those 3m Command hook things hung on either side of the fireplace, so I just tied a loop in the ribbon and hung it up! This project was tons of fun and really easy. It took a bit of time because I had to cut out 36 hearts then put it all together.  I'm sure this project could be done using pre-cut hearts or even if you cut them out yourself!   I don't have kids (yet) but this would be a fun project for kids.

I've Got Swag...

...well, at least my chandelier does. Changing out the dining room light fixture was one of the very first things we did when we bought the house.  I don't think I even left it up long enough to snap a picture! It had glass pieces hanging from a single hole on each piece on a brass monstrosity.  I don't know how to describe it any better than that =].  It also had missing pieces.  I looove the new light.  We picked it out at Lowe's, I believe it cost somewhere around $230. I didn't take part in the installation of it, but I don't remember it being hard for them to replace.  So then we had this pretty new chandelier that we adjusted to the correct height above the table, but it hung almost directly above the left side! When we have the leaf in our table seats 8-10 people, so one side the lighting is nice and bright and on the other side it is not.  Little did I know you could just "swag" the light over with a $6 hook and then all is right in the world dining room.  Last month we picked up said hook, it was self tapping (I think that's the right term), we measured, Mat climbed the ladder to the very high ceiling and less than a few seconds later we had a perfectly centered chandelier!  I think the whole project took us under 10 minutes, which included moving the table out of the way and back.

(Again, sorry for the crappy cell pic, my camera is acting up)

Messy, messy garage

One of the big reasons we chose the house we did was because it had a two car garage.  We have now lived there 10 months (and 1 day =p) and we have yet to be able to park 2 cars in it! My car has made it in there 3 times I think, but yet again, there is no room for it.  Here is my problem, I refused to take anything into the house until that room was finish being painted.  So everything sat out there forever, we have mostly finished painting, but yet we have not gone through the boxes! I think this is something we will try to tackle in the very near future! I am tired of my car being covered in snow and ice, and it is only January, so there is MUCH more snow and ice to come.

This is just a glimpse at part of the mess! (sorry for the crappy phone pic!)

Random House Projects

Over the past few months we have accomplished a few house projects that don't quite deserve their own post so I am going to lump them all together in this one!

Project 1: Change out ugly front porch light
I have hated the front porch light since we moved in.  It was old, ugly and brass.  We finally bought a new light, waited a few months (because that's how we roll), then finally installed it.

Before:

After:

So much better! The color of it matches the house better also.  It makes me smile every time I see it =]

Project 2: Make (well, have my mother make) curtains for the kitchen window

I went shopping for fabric for kitchen curtains knowing I wanted something black/gray/white color scheme.  I ended up buying $40/yard outdoor fabric on sale for $5/yard!  Outdoor fabric is the same weight/texture as a lot of home decor fabrics (or so I was told), the pattern was awesome and the price was amazing!  So a yard or two of fabric, a tiny tension rod from Big Lots and I had a pretty kitchen window!

Lovely!

Project 3: Kitchen decor
One of my favorite things to do is "treasure hunt" aka Goodwill/thrift shop.  I usually go on Sunday mornings with my mother so I can get the senior 50% off sale.  We found these awesome mini plates for just $1.50! And they were brand new in the box! I think they looks super fantastic =]

Please excuse the ugliness that is my cabinets with the see through cabinet doors.  That shall be fixed soon (I hope).

Well, that is all for now!

2011 Home Improvemt Projects

We have sooo many projects that we would like to do around our new home, but I have to keep reminding myself we have only lived here a few months, we are young and we have the rest of our lives to work on our home.  I always want things right now.

Here is my 2011 list of projects I want to accomplish around our home:

1. Turn coat closet into a pantry
2. Repaint kitchen
3. Paint living room
4. Tile kitchen back splash
5. Install new mailbox and post
6. Fix floodlights on the garage
7. Have a yardsale to get rid of unnecessary junk
8. Get guest bathroom shower functioning
9. Repair the shed
10. Hang the mantle
11. Paint the fireplace
12. Install chair rail in dinging room
13. Repaint master bedroom
14. Install crown molding in masterbedroom
15. Have family room walls repaired (I'll tell that awesome story sometime)
16. Possibly have family room reinsulated-it is insanely cold in the winter
17. Have outlets in kitchen rewired (we can't use both without blowing the fuse)
18. Fix 3-way switches (we have 4 sets of them in our house and NONE of them work properly, talk about annoying)
19. Refinish table from Salvation Army
20. Refinish table given to me from my Grandmother

There are a few things that we want/need done but may or may not happen this year (probably not)
1. New fence
2. New windows throughout the whole house (all 14 of them)
3. New french doors in family room

I know there are plenty of other things we will work on this coming year, but those are the ones I could think of right now!

Wish us luck!

Coat closet turned pantry!

As far back as I can remember I have dreamed of having a pantry.  I love our kitchen, it has a pantry-ish cabinet with slide out drawers, but it is definitely too small.  We have a coat closet right outside the kitchen that was rarely used and was turning into a junk collector.  One day when I was pouting that I had no pantry and no place to store extra stuff and it hit me! Turn the coat closet into a pantry! I have no idea why it took me 6 months to realize what a brilliant idea that was.  It only took me another 3 months to make it actually happen. But alas- it is done, and it is glorious.  Just imagine, a place to store extra food and supplies.  No more running to the store for tp because we ran out? No more eating out every night because there is nothing to eat in the house?  What a great concept.

I do not have a before picture because I just started ripping it apart without thinking. So here we have the during and after shots:

During:

See the two stripes going around there? That would have driven me insane.

So I sanded, primered and painted again!

After!:

Isn't it amazing?  I would like to think so.  It still needs one more shelf so that's why the spacing of the shelves is wonky. We thought painting it a bright fun color would be exciting.  The door will be shut 99% of the time and every time I open it, it will make me smile =].

Instead of buying the expensive shelves made to go on the brackets, we just had wood cut to size and covered it ourselves with checkered contact paper.  Had we bought the shelves it would have cost somewhere around $80 instead of the $25 we spent on wood.

Let me tell you something about myself, I am a bit of a perfectionist, yet I am extremely impatient.  Oxymoron much?  I think so.  So after my rampage tearing out the shelves and rod, I patched the holes and almost immediately painted.  Bad idea.  I didn't wait long enough for the spackle to dry, and I didn't prime the areas where the shelves had been.  So I got to re-spackle the holes, prime those areas, and paint again! In the end it was worth it (though I should have taken the time to do the proper steps in the first place).  I LOVE my pantry.  I have grand plans for awesome containers for my dry goods (flour, sugar and whatnot) but I sadly do not have unlimited cash, so they will have to wait.

Cost breakdown:

Paint (I had to buy a second quart because my impatientness)-
Tracks-
Brackets (12)-
Wood for shelves-
Contact paper-Free! (leftover from when we covered our nasty apartment shelves)

Lets try this again.

Alright, I am going to give this whole blogging things another go. I think I have read enough blogs to maybe be able to attempt one myself, so here we go.

Lets play a bit of catch up. I will post new pictures of how everything is now, but for now I will post a few of the in between photos.

I finished painting the red in the dining room:

That picture was taken before all the coats of paint were done and before all the furniture was moved back in (obviously). There is still no chair rail installed but we did hang up curtains that look really nice. (if only they didn't have to be tied up thanks to the very sharp baby kitten claws-only one more week till they are gone (the claws, not the kittens))

I am severely lacking pictures of things that have been going on around here, but I am working on it. Last week I painted the kitchen, well, I painted most of the kitchen. It is about 3/4 the way done, I just need to do above and below the cabinets. The guy at Lowe's sold me paint made for kitchens/baths and said it would match the rest of my satin finish paint I have in the house. LIES. It is shiny and I dislike it. A lot. I guess I will just have to learn to deal with it. I also attempted to make a magnetic wall using the magnetic paint, but so far I am not loving it. I put on three coats just like the instructions said to, but most magnets will not stay on it. Very disappointing.

Our family room walls have decided to crack horribly. It started on just one wall, but now it has spread from floor to ceiling on the one wall, across the ceiling and has come down the other wall. It is awful. We had someone come look at it and he thinks it is not too serious. He gave us a good quote to repair it, so that will probably be happing in January.

The office/craft room finally got painted and it is fabulous. I cannot find a decent picture of it so imagine it as an awesome teal/blue color. I will post a picture of the awesomeness soon.

I will update soon about all the new things and projects going on around here!