Where We Eat

Rooms are starting to flow a whole lot better around here and I feel like it’s just added a greater sense of (superficial) peace when we’re constantly moving from room to room…which we do A LOT.  Of course that sounds ridiculous and you can’t really gleen peace from a house, right?  Or maybe you can?  Who knows.  Either way, I might be crazy but here’s the old view into the dining room from the “new” kitchen:

It’s like there was an invisible line at the doorway in which all the fun stopped and all the boring started.

But now, NOW it’s one continuous space where decor harmony flows in, out, and all around:

White walls did the dining room good.  I painted them the same Pure White (Sherwin Williams) as the walls in the kitchen which was key in getting this pretty choppy room layout to feel, well, not quite so choppy.  Maybe cohesive is the word I’m looking for…

Here’s a better view of the whole dining room taken before we moved in:

Old, heavy curtains, tan walls, and all.

And here’s what we’re currently working with:

Two-Toned Walls

I know I told you I was working on our dining room/multi-purpose room and really, I can’t wait to show you the progress but I’m still waiting on fabric for one more curtain panel to reach our doorstep and so I’m just going to slide in with a quick distraction!

Surprise!  I’ve already moved onto sprucing up another room – the play room!  This house is a three bedroom/two bath and right now, the kids are all sharing a room (it’s been awesome!) and so we’ve designated the third bedroom as a play room.  We’ve got a functioning office space (which we really needed) in our multi-purpose room so, since we didn’t need a space for that, one room to corral all the kids toy’s in seemed like a great idea!  And it has been!  The only place we keep toys is in this room vs. a little bit here and there like in our old house.  And as happens with kids around, messes get made, toys get strewn, but the great part about having a toy room is that the mess is usually contained to that one room…usually.  ;)

Here’s what the third bedroom now dubbed play room looked like right before we moved in: 

Just like the rest of the house, it was covered in tan.

Here’s what it looked like after we moved in:
And here’s what it looks like at this very moment:

Living Room Tour

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about why I really enjoy decorating our home.  I’ve always found a good bit of fun in decorating – my mom decorated my room when I was younger based off of one of my favorite characters, Minnie Mouse, but I didn’t really play a starring role in the whole process.  She bought everything and was really good at styling and so she did it all and I lived with it for several years.  I tweaked things here and there though, nothing major, but what I really loved is that feeling when it was spotless.  Don’t get me wrong, I was very good at leaving my clothes scattered on the floor for days/weeks and clutter on my dressers and desk but I thoroughly enjoyed decluttering and placing the 3957 pillows I had on my bed perfectly once in that blue moon.

Fast forward to college when I really got to take decorating my own dorm room by the reins and went all out.  I spent $70 of my own, hard-earned money on a comforter I had to have at Linen’s and Things (now defunct) and made sure any other accessories I bought for the room coordinated. 

That passion for decorating still stands but I’m finding that I’m enjoying the process a little less than I did before.  I don’t think it’s that it’s just not as fun anymore though.  I think it’s kids.  Haha!  I decorated my entire dorm room in two whole days, ceiling to floor, and now it takes me weeks to get one room done.  Kids.  The satisfaction of decorating for me is more in the end result than the process anyway so when that end result is akin to the tiniest light in the longest tunnel, it feels overwhelming at times.  BUT, I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I know that’s cliche but it’s truth.  These four chicklets have given me more satisfaction than the final reveal of a million decorated rooms.  :)

On the same note, my reasons for making our spaces pretty have changed a lot.  Whereas before I just wanted a pretty dorm room/first-home-before-kids to come home to, now changing up spaces breaks up the monotony that my life can sometimes be.  I’m a big routine kinda gal.  Growing up I would have said I leaned more towards the unplanned/spontaneous side of life but I think having twins pulled me full circle to the other side.  No routines/structure when you have newborn/toddler twins = lots of stress.  I can’t say that’s a fact but I can tell you that the days where we at least tried (even if we failed a little) to stick to our routine were a heck of a lot easier than days where we completely disregarded it.  And so, structured and rigid I’ve become and that I’m guessing I’ll stay until we’ve got four independent children running around vs. the current dependent ones.  The routine-based life is wonderful and I thrive in it but it can get boring day after day after day after day.  So, adding some new pillow covers here or slapping up a new paint color there, spending naptime making something to hang there or building this to fill this space brings a much-needed surprise visit to that routine and a happier mom makes me.

With all of that, we’re switching gears!  Strap yourselves in for a living room tour! 

I took this before we moved in and started tweaking things:

Covering up the one and only window in the room were some heavy, light-blocking curtains and it looked like there was an eruption of tan everywhere.

I couldn’t get those curtains down fast enough!  Let there be allll the light there can be, I say!  Here’s where painting the walls white and adding in our furniture has us so far:

Yarn Art

Last, but not the least tweak in the living room, and over in that back door corner is a little yarn art.  I’ve seen these made on Pinterest a hundred times but took a notes from Andrea at Harlow & Thistle to make my very own. 

For a little bit, I struggled with what to hang on that door.  Since it got painted white and kind of blends in with the wall, which is great, I still liked the idea of adding some sort of wreath or hanging decor.  It had to be fairly simple and I didn’t want anything floral.  I didn’t want to add any holes to the door so it also had to be something light enough to hang from one of these magnetic hooks*.

I know you can find this tutorial a thousand times over elsewhere, but hey, “Here I go again on my own...” 

Body Spray to Floating Vase

Within in the past several years, our family has become an avid recycling family.  Reading statistics relating to plastic waste plus facts on rates of decomposition plus knowing our kids will inherit our waste as a nation and world have made moved us to try our best to not contribute to the throw-away society we’ve created.  We recycle every single piece of plastic (paper and everything else…) we possibly can after we use them and, when I remember, I try to use reusable shopping bags.  Every little bit helps, right?  :)

So, when I came up with a solution to fill that little piece of empty wall space above our security system keypad and next to the new, framed picture of Christ that involved recycling something used and that was FREE (in that I didn’t have to go out and buy anything), I counted myself in.

Over the years, I’ve accumulated quite a few bottles of body spray from here and there. 

After I emptied one recently, I realized it had a ton of decor potential…more than it had just sitting in our recycling bin.

Drumroll please…

Happy Corner

Let me introduce you to my new favorite corner of this little house.
It doesn’t really look like much but it’s my favorite because it’s chock full of fun diy’s I’ve been knocking out over the past couple of weeks.  Still on the list is a hook system (just like this one) that I want to get up on that empty wall to the right of the door.  Hopefully that will happen before school rolls in this fall so we have a place to park backpacks.  :)

To jog your memory, here’s what that corner looked like just after we moved in:

We desperately needed a place to store shoes since this is the door we use most often and so we bought Ikea’s Mackapar, hacked it, and still love it.  I finally got around to painting the living room last month too.  Goodbye tan!  With all of the orangey-wood trim and lack of light during the majority of the day, white was the clear winner.  We went with Pure White by Sherwin-Williams.  The door was in a sad state; dinged and stained.  It was begging for a new coat of paint.

Quite a Distressing Situation

We’ve been storing all of Gianna’s clothes in two drawers of Anthony’s dresser and two fabric boxes in the kids closet and, the older she grows, the bigger her clothes are getting, and the more that that’s just not working.  We had room leftover galore when we were talking newborn clothes but lately I’ve been just digging and storing excess stuff in a large tupperware bin…in the kids room.  Not efficient and definitely not pretty.

So, for the past couple of months I’ve been keeping an eye out online for a tall dresser that could fit in the kids room to house her things and then some.  Mid-century dressers are some of my favorite things and so I’ve been looking with that aesthetic in mind and coming up short.  The few that I’ve found had either been sold right before I messaged the owner or the owner just never messaged me back.  Well last weekend, my luck changed and I found one.  It didn’t really fit into the mid-century category but I loved the thick molding detail on the doors and the drawers themselves were simple enough that I flew in with a $50 offer (down from the $75 asking price) and they were sold. 

Here’s the picture from the listing:
The listing noted that the piece was solid wood and that all of the drawers “worked properly”.  I could tell it had been painted from the listing and the paint job didn’t look that bad via pictures so, if anything, I figured it might need a touch-up or I could totally go a different color with it.  Either way, it was painted white and with the addition of some new hardware, I hoped we could as least live with it as-is until I get around to making over the kids’ room.

Well, when I showed up to pick up the dresser, the owner had all of the drawers extracted and set by the door (which I thought was great since I figured we’d have to do that anyway to make it easier to carry).  At first glance of it, I could tell the owner used a semi-gloss or gloss paint and so I knew at that moment that I’d be repainting.  I also noticed that the paint job was really poorly done – there were brush strokes everywhere and it looked like maybe some spray painting mishaps.  But, like I said, I had already prepped myself for a possible repainting so that didn’t scare me away.  When we went to lift the dresser, the owner said he’d carry the lower side (we carried it horizontally) since it was heavier.  At the time I was like “Dude, the top is clearly the heaviest part with these doors that weigh a ton…” but I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t really worried about not being able to carry it.  (Four babies over the years has given me quite the biceps.  Ha!)  We got it outside and slid it into the back of my van and I remember seeing that the underside of the dresser, the side he was closest to carrying the dresser, was pretty beat up.  Immediately after he saw me looking at the bottom, he distracted me by stepping in front of it and telling me it would be helpful if I got into the back seat and pulled.  And ok, this is me adding a little bit of assumption in saying he distracted me because maybe he was really in a hurry to get this thing gone (even though after he talked my ear off) but it all happened in the matter of a few seconds and dawned on me afterwards.  I thought about it the entire drive home (ten minutes) and really, I wasn’t too deterred by the state of the bottom of the dresser – I mean, it still stands perfectly and is sturdy and the bottom isn’t seen whatsoever.  But then I got home.  And we pulled the dresser out of the van and into the car port.  And I noticed a few things I hadn’t before because I didn’t take the time to really look it over.  First of all, it wasn’t “solid wood”.  Argh.  The sides of the dresser and drawers are all particle board…not the cheap kind but still, not wood.  There were a couple of screws – one in the top of the dresser and one on the bottom trim on the same side – that were definitely not meant to be there.  Also, one of the “properly working” drawers was missing an entire track so that it literally just falls out of the dresser if you pull it out more than six inches.  I was annoyed.  Annoyed with shady sellers and annoyed with myself for not taking the time to look over the dresser better before I pulled the trigger.

Either way, it was now ours, I was happy I didn’t pay the $75 asking price (I wished I would’ve offered more like $30), and something fun and unexpected happened after I cleaned it out (there was so much dirt and dust in the drawer slots!) and sanded it down.  It was somewhat of a redemption for the whole situation.

All You Need is…

L O V E…and a little bit of white paint.  Maybe and maybe not but with all of the orangey-wood trim in this casa, I don’t know what else to go for and I’m playing it safe! 

I do know, however, that it has been so great shaking up the living room to take it from the heavily curtained, brown, brown, brown before:

to an in-progress and better after:

10 Minute Ceiling Fan Upgrade

Upward and onward folks!  After we had the kitchen all spruced, both the surrounding living room and dining rooms really made it feel out of place.  It looked fantastic, they…well, not so much.  Things are changing though, starting with the living room.  I painted it a few weeks ago and started tweaking with decor and I’ll share all of the details soon but first, tilt your heads to the sky…ok, not really…just keep reading.

The ceiling fan in the living room of this little house is the saddest one in the whole place.  The metal parts are shiny gold and their days of gleam and glam are gone (lit and fig) as rust and rough spots have nestled right in.  We’re not going to replace the ceiling fan in a house we’re renting though so I made a couple of quick changes to it last week to make it way more appealing and it only took me about 10 minutes and five bucks.

Here’s the sad thing before:

You can’t really see the rust spots in the picture but you will be able to when we get a little closer later.  On top of those, the blades had some really awesome, gold, scrolly designs on them, typical of older fan blades and those glass shades…doozy’s.  The way they flared out at the ends really injected me with a dose of motivation to whip this thing into shape asap.

PRK Surgery: My Experience

Hey there!  Even though we’ve got a much-changed living room over here, I’m going to sideline home progress and DIYs for a hot second to discuss PRK – the eye surgery I had a couple of weeks ago.

I’ve read and heard several bad experiences with PRK in the past few months.  For one, an Instagrammer I follow had it done and wrote about her horrible experience.  Then I read a bunch of the comments on her post and a lot of them were similar experiences.  I also reached out to an aquaintance right after I found out I’d have to have PRK vs. Lasik and was told that “the first few days [after PRK] were excruciating pain”.  Eep.  That all made me a little nervous.  Just a little though.  I really have thee best doctor in the whole world and in him I placed all of my trust.  In the end, I was glad to read and hear how hard of a recovery it can be because I was fully prepped for the worst on the day of my surgery.  However, in saying that, I made sure not to go out seeking stories because I knew my horse might bolt if I did that and I’d be stuck with glasses forever thanks to that pesky little thing we all know as FEAR. 

If you were born with perfect vision like my lucky husband, good for you.  You have literally saved thousands of dollars.  I’m praying hard our kids got his good vision genes.

Then there’s me.  I’ve been in glasses/contacts since fourth grade.  At the time, I was dying and wishing and hoping for a pair of glasses.  I thought they were the COOLEST!  (WHAT WAS I THINKING?!)  My vision wasn’t horrible and I could see the wipe board at school but I remember telling my mom I really needed to get my vision checked because things were “kinda” blurry.  She took me to an optometrist and he told her my eyes weren’t really that bad and that I could probably get away without glasses but if it made me feel like I could see better, he’d give me that super low prescription I needed.  Did I ruin my vision forever by begging for them?  I don’t know.  Either way, fast forward lots and lots of year to when I ran out of contacts last December.  If you are a wearer, you know that they can be expensive.  I was blessed with an astigmatism on top of my poor vision so I have to wear special contacts that cost even more.  Yay!  It costs me about $200-250 a year to wear contacts.  I prefer them whole-heartedly over glasses because I hate feeling like I’m looking through glass at all you people like you’re an animal at the zoo.  I know it sounds dumb but I really just hate the barrier.  And I hate how they slide down my nose all day long and knock my kids in the face when I’m going in for a cuddle.  And on a superficial note, I hate when I get all dressed up for something and then I get to top off my rad outfit with…glasses.  Fantastic.  Anyway, I digress.  I ran out of contacts and luck had it that we had just paid off a bunch of loans.  So my next thought was, well, I could buy another years worth of contacts or I could put that money towards surgery.  That’s the great thing about getting your vision corrected btw, you’re going to spend the money either way whether it’s on doctors’ visits (mine were $150 a pop) or on glasses/contacts so why not just spend the money to fix your eyes, right? 

DIY Spice Rack

Let’s spice things up around here, huh?  Literally.  We’re diving into spice rack details today.  I keep calling our new spice rack a ‘rack’ but really, I should be calling them spice shelves.

My entire, home-owning existence, I’ve always stored our spices in an upper cabinet right next to the stove.  It was habit and because, usually, I was at the stove when I needed them so it just made sense.  In this little rental though, we only have one, quite narrow upper cabinet next to the stove and it’s stocked full of other things that I usually keep near the stove – large salt and pepper refill containers, corn starch, cocoa powder…basically all of our cooking and baking dry ingredients.  There’s zero room for spices.  So into a basket on top of the microwave on the opposite wall they went.  Not ideal.  Therefore, putting up this pair of spice shelves was gloriously satisfying.  For one, I can see all of our spices without having to move any around and two, they’re within arms reach when I need them.   

Another really great thing about these spice shelves is that you only need a handful of easily attainable and easy to use supplies to build them.  I still haven’t mastered using any of our big power tools so Anthony is always holding those reigns during any of our building projects, but this one I did all by myself.  It’s that easy.  Here’s what I used:

DIY Pendant Light from A Vase

Alrighty.  There are only two more things to write about in our “new” kitchen and then I’m done talking about it.  Promise!  I’m ready to move on to the next room too!  Today though?  Lighting.  Specifically, the ceiling fan and the new pendant over the sink.

Here’s a shot of the kitchen sink area with the header still up, hiding the simple, little light fixture behind:
Once we took that header down, even though I didn’t really mind the existing light, it wasn’t substantial enough to fill in that space.

So, we bought this pendant light kit* in antique brass and used a thrifted vase to make a new pendant.

How to “HIDE” A Dishwasher

This is a post all about a white elephant.  Not the Christmas party kind and not the circus kind.  It’s the kind in a room.  A kitchen actually.  And did I mention it wasn’t an elephant at all but a dishwasher?!  No?  Let me tell you all about it.

Our landlord so kindly installed a new dishwasher in this little house for us before we moved because we are first-world, spoiled peeps who can’t not have a machine that does the dirty work for us while we wrangle four kids post-dinner.  *eyeroll*

So awesome, right?  Right.  So, now we’ve got one and we’re SO thankful because, as you probably know, it really does make life just a little easier.  Well, I got a few comments on how great the dishwasher looks painted after the big kitchen reveal and those words were music to my ears because that’s what I wanted everyone to think.  But, listen.  I am not inconsiderate enough to think I should go and paint a dishwasher that isn’t technically mine.  But I really hated how it stuck out of our pretty green cabinets like a rowdy toddler at Mass.
  I sent the above picture to my sister right after I finished “tiling”.

The Big (Little) Kitchen Reveal!!!

Well, this has been FUN, hasn’t it?  Taking our little rental kitchen from what it was to what it is really had me going…for six whole weeks.  I’ve never gotten an entire room finished in six weeks!  It’s kind of a big deal.  And you know what else is kind of a big deal?

OUR KITCHEN!

Subway Tile Wallpaper

It’s week FOUR of the One Room Challenge and that means that I’ve been working solely on this kitchen for five whole weeks.  Maybe that doesn’t sound crazy to you but I’m a jumper – I jump from room to room with projects and never spend more than a week or two in one so this is kind of a big deal for me.  While it feels so good to have an entire room almost finished, I have to admit, I’ve been feeling a little antsy and am excited to move into other rooms.  One more week…

One more week for me and for all of the other featured designers and guest participants.  I’m really excited to see all of those final reveals!  I have a date with an ice cream bowl and a studying husband to sit and browse one night next week!  :D

This week in our kitchen, I brought the boring backplash to life.  When I say “backsplash” what I really mean was a four-inch countertop lip and a painted wall.

This was taken in the midst of painting upper cabinets a few weeks ago.

Here we are today:

Five Favorites

Workout edition…

Which is comical since this mom is NO workout guru…not even close.  For the first year of my kids’ lives while I’m breastfeeding, any semi-intense cardio makes my milk supply drop like it’s hot so I get my arms toned by lifting babies and my legs toned by walking to the toilet after I hear “ALLL DONE MAMA!!” a thousand times.  My grandma gave me a step-counter and it’s still buried in my nightstand which is still full of stuff I put in there to move BUT before we moved, I wore it during a few average, stay-at-home mornings and no joke, I was up to 3600 steps by noon…in my own, small house.  Who needs a gym?  ;)

Anyway, I thought it’d be fun to write about something other than our mini-kitchen reno that’s going on at the moment so why not a Five Faves post?  It’s been awhile and I’m due to share some stuff I’ve come across that I genuinely like.

So…

DIY Pot Rack from Towel Bars

You say pot, I say rack…

pot…

pot…

YES!  That’s it!  Let’s get excited over here!  We are the proud owners of a neeeewwww pot rack!

Having a pot rack hanging on our kitchen wall wasn’t something either of us has ever desired.  But then enter small kitchen, very little lower cabinet space and oh, looky here, a big empty wall.

One Room Challenge–Week 3

Hey hey!  It’s week T H R E E of the
and over here, things are looking UP!!  No really, they are.  I got all of the upper cabinets painted this week and, oh my, it is CRAZY how much more light bounces through what I already thought was a fairly bright kitchen!

Check this out:

And then take a look at the same area pre-move:
The Almighty said it best with “Let there be light!”  Have you ever gone white in the kitchen (or any room really) and experienced the added light?  It’s great, right? 

I’ve written a few posts on how I paint cabinets in the past and time around the paint can wasn’t much different in the way of technique but I did use a new-to-us paint than I have in the past and got a little smarter as far as set-up goes.

One Room Challenge!!!

You’ll never know how excited I was when I found out that the One Room Challenge just started on April 4th!  If you don’t know what that is, check it out here.  Basically, you take on a room (entirely redo, refresh, remodel, whatever have ya) and you get six weeks to do it.  I’ve always seen it come up on Instagram and other blogs but I’ve been always the spectator and never the participant.  Not this year though!  I’ll be linking up and following along with other guest participants here! 

I’ve got until May 10th to take our kitchen from old to gold-winning and ironically, I started ripping down the wallpaper in our kitchen a week before I found out the challenge was happening so I’m right on time.  But *gulp* I’ll need every single one of those six weeks since I’m on a serious budget and I don’t have the luxury to just go out and buy what I need.  I’ve got to find it secondhand, on clearance, or on mega-sale…you know how I do.  Oh yeah, and I have four little kids running around. 

You might be wondering why I’m tackling a kitchen in a rental house.  Why waste time, energy, and money on something you’ll be leaving in a year or two?  Valid question.  Answer?  Because I love doing this stuff.  As a stay-at-home mom, daily life can get a little monotonous.  It’s a beautiful life and I’d have none other, but getting out my paint brush and planning decor is the equivalent to going out and getting my hair or nails done for me.  It’s self-care – getting to expand my diaper-changing and feeding horizons to project beauty onto the space that I’m changing diapers and feeding in.  I think it’s important to love the space you’re living in too so spending a little bit of money to make that happen here is well worth it, in my opinion. 

With that, here are the plans for the kitchen:
-take down the wallpaper
-paint the walls
-paint the cabinets and replace the hardware
-make a pendant to replace the light over the sink
-redo the fan shade
-repaint the rug (maybe?)
-hang a pot rack
-hang a spice rack over the stove
-install some sort of backsplash

The budget:  $150
Total spent so far:  $18

Here’s the a picture of the kitchen I ran in and took one day before we moved in: Too bad I didn’t think to actually step farther into the kitchen to get a picture.

Ikea Mackapar Hack

I’m baaaaack!!  But still not unpacked.  Ack.  It’s ok though because we’ve done a hack and hung a rack.  So hopefully you’ll give me a little slack. 

Ok, ok, I’ll stop before you feel like you wanna whack me.  ;)  The girls and I have been doing rhyming in homeschool…

Ahem…

We have a situation.  Our back door is our most used door and therefore, where we keep all of our most-used shoes…haphazardly (usually) set on this little shelf (previously a bookshelf in Sebastian’s old room).

It looked a mess because it was kind of a mess.  Our closets are small and lack space for lots of shoes plus I like the idea of shoes being near a door for easy access so this was our situation.  I feel like entry ways should always be clean and uncluttered since they’re the first things you walk into when you come home.  They could make or break a mood, ya know?  When ours is cluttered and messy, it really makes me happy to be home.  So inviting.  Like, welcome home to your peaceful abode…ooh!  Watch out for that little shoe!  *trip and an ankle twist*  Ok, so maybe I’m being a little too dramatic but really, first impressions do count, right?  That can somehow apply here.

Anyway, the wall next to the door was begging to be a functional one so we had to come up with something.

Slow Moooovin’

Well hey there!  *she waves*

I wish I was popping in today to show you our latest and possibly greatest diy feat of all time but N O.  That idea is laughable at the moment.

What’s also laughable AND cryable is this moving-in thing we still have happening over here.  I never imagined it would take me this long to get us unpacked and settled but yet, here we are, still not settled and still not completely unpacked.  All of that is due to the fact that we moved from a bigger house to a smaller house and I’m still trying to figure out what actually has a place here and what we need to bid adieu.  It’s been quite the experience, one that’s perfect to go through during Lent, lemme tell ya.

Doors ‘O Color

Well, I guess the fact that this post is up is proof that we survived our move.  Hi.  Yep.  We’re alive and living in another house.  But what it’s not proof of is the fact that moving after you’re already moved with kids once is NOT easier.  We are still living amongst boxes (being almost a week into the actual move) and let me tell you, that is hard…for me.  I thrive in organized environments (even if they’re a little messy), where everything has a place.  Clutter drives me crazy (unless it’s out of sight…hello all those extra picture frames I stockpile in an extra closet…that drives Anthony crazy…hehe).  Anyway, while I’m busy doing the box + razor blade dance, let me divert your attention from our chaotic, unorganized casa to Crystal’s beautiful house:

Two Things We’re Glad We Didn’t Buy Full Price

*Sigh*  This is a sad tale about a rug and a table and also, let it be a cautionary one.

If you follow along with us on Instagram, you may have seen the story I posted a couple of weeks ago about the $20 mid-century modern table that I scored at my fave, Dirt Cheap.  Ever since I spotted this table:

…a Project 62 beauty only sold at Target, I craved it.  Those legs had me at first click.  We bought our current dining room table and chair set at a thrift store shortly after we were married 10 years ago for $100 and it was the price we loved, not so much the design.  But, it served us well and is still going strong but gosh, a girl can dream about better, right?  At $400, the Project 62 table wasn’t in our budget so I just said a prayer that one would trickle in to Dirt Cheap in the future and kept my eyes peeled there.  And guess what?  One did.  Actually, they got six.  (For those of you not fortunate enough to have a Dirt Cheap by you, they sell lots of things from lots of retailers and one of those retailers is Target.  The Target stuff they sell is new – clearanced stuff that never sold, damaged stuff, and customer returns.  In one word, it’s amazing.)  Anyway, they had six of these tables and they were all pretty beat up on top.  Scratched, stained, dented…usable but very imperfect.  They had them marked down to 50% off the original price.  So, $200.  Still too much for us, especially in the condition they were in.  Our plan was to scrap the top and make something better.  Anthony and I made a deal to ourselves that we’d watch them and grab one if they ever came down to $30-40.  Honestly, I figured they’d get gobbled up long before they ever got that low but once again, a girl can dream.

So the first time I spotted them at Dirt Cheap was about two months ago.  I go there almost once a week and you bet your bottom buck, I counted how many were left.  A month ago, one got away and there were five.  And there were five up until a couple of weeks ago.  The way that pricing works at Dirt Cheap is by percentage…things come in and they’re marked anywhere from 30-50% off the original price right off the bat.  Then, what doesn’t sell gets marked off by higher percentages every so often.  I’ve scored a few things there for 90% off so I was just waiting for that number to reach those tables.  Well it wasn’t, at least not fast enough, and so I casually asked one day how much they’d give me one for considering they were still there and had little interest.  Well apparently, a girl with four small kids and a husband looks like she needs more than one (slash they were really desperate to get rid of them and free the space) because they told me I could have one for $50 or all five for $100.  Ha!  What would you do? 

Home Sweet Next Home

I have a confession to make.  I’ve been withholding some info and updates on our next housing situation from you but, in my defense, I wanted to wait until everything was “official” before blabbing to the internet just in case things didn’t go the way we’d thought and planned and I’d then have to insert my seven-and-a-halfer.  It’s a little more than a story of having a contract on a house in which we could share the process as it progressed…or maybe didn’t progress since we’ve been there once already in our house hunting.  Settle in and I’ll tell you the whole, crazy story, seashell version.  Well, maybe ‘crazy’ isn’t the right word?  Ironic maybe?  Or, maybe a spinkle of both.  Yep, I think so.

A month or so before we put our house on the market and while we were in the midst of looking for the next place we could settle into, we came across a little house that was in the exact area we wanted to be.  P R I M E location, I believe is the saying.  The problem with the area that we longed to be was the price.  Most homes in that area were well over the budget we wanted to stick to.  But this little house we thought might just be within our reach a) because it looked pretty small in comparison to others around the area and b) because, as far as we could tell from the outside, it probably needed a good amount of updating.  Problem was, it wasn’t on the market.  *womp womp* 

I’ve heard of people writing letters to homeowners in hopes that they might consider selling their house and moving elsewhere but I really didn’t think we’d ever do it.  But then the interest in this little, what I’ll call from here on out, ‘prime locale’ house, gave us a wild hair and then we did.  We wrote a letter to the owners of this little house, asking if they might be interested in selling their home because we might be interested in buying.  I stuck a stamp on it and away it went, never heard about again. 

The end.

Kidding.

Ripped Off

Hey y’all!  I have been spending all of my allocated blogging time (which translates to post bedtime once in awhile) fixing all of the links on my Projects & Ideas page!  I haven’t changed anything…just fixed the links after a technological error and user agreement change on behalf of Photobucket (don’t ever use them ), but it has taken me hours and hours here and there to get them all up and running again.  Phew!  I still have a few to fix and they’ll eventually find their conclusion but I wanted to pop in quick with a tiny story and tutorial before I get back at the virtual housekeeping.  :)

I’ve been trying to up my collection of dresses recently, on a budget of course, and so you can imagine my delight when I found this shift at Dirt Cheap for $10: 
It adds a little pizzazz to my winter white skin and ashy knees, doesn’t it?  And the pink elastic around my wrist set for Phia’s noggin’ was the perfect accessory.  Clearly, I was made to be a fashion blogger.  A n y w a y, the dress hails originally from Target (the brand is A New Day) but it doesn’t look like they sell it there anymore.  If you likey too, you can find it here on Blinq (for $10!…though I’ve never shopped there before) and I found some ‘used’ on Poshmark but they’re almost retail price.  #dumb

Well, all was great until I slipped mine on for church one morning and noticed a big rip…right in front. 

The Tobin Family Trip

Anybody ever watched Daniel Tiger and the “Tiger Family Trip”?  Well, we have (about 197 times) and if you have too, that title up there goes pretty well with the theme song.  Hehe…  We sang it about a hundred times before and during our little Christmas road trip. 

Now, I know how exciting it is to read about other people’s vacations while sitting in the comfort of your own home…not on vacation, so let me spice up your present state and tell ya about ours.  ;)

Last summer, we got this fantastic idea to go to through Nebraska to Denver for Christmas…and by go to, I mean D R I V E.  With four little kids.  23.5 hours.  3300 miles.  Yep, like I said.  Fantastic.

Well, we were all gung ho and making plans when Thanksgiving rolled in and we drove to my sisters in Florida…a seven hour trip.  The drive was absolutely awful.  We’ve done it before and it’s never been the easiest thanks to some antsy pants in the backseat but this time was the worst.  Cecilia is a master road-tripper and will sit for hours on end with nary a complaint.  Seraphia always complains that her rear hurts about an hour into any drive and every hour after.  Sebastian asks the age-old question “Are we there yet?” about a thousand times an hour and Gianna just really doesn’t like to sit still for very long which leads to lots of strapped-in tantrums.  Fun, fun.

So as we tumbled, drive-worn, into our house at the end of the Thanksgiving trip to Florida, our feet got frostbite with the thought of doing a trip more than three times that long in a month.  Why would we put ourselves through that again?

Merry Christmas!

Happy 10th day of Christmas!!  Those Lords are sure a-leaping, eh?  And so is Santa me thinks… 


I’m sorry I didn’t get you a virtual Christmas card sooner but we took a holiday trip to Denver (3300 driven miles!) and I didn’t spend much time on social media nor did I bring my laptop.  It was awesome to be unplugged and able to be fully present.  More on the trip later.  For now, Merry Christmas to you, all of my dear readers!  I appreciate all of the commenting, reading, and support truly, truly, truly…and madly and deeply too.  ;)  I hope 2017 was good to you, all of the ups and even the lessons and beauty in the downs and I hope 2018 is even better!

God bless you!

Washi Tape House

Poor Gianna.  Her mother has never devoted her time and energy into making her space “her space”.  Her older three siblings all had those spaces though.  This was the twins’ room when they were just wee babes… 
and here it was when they moved into a “big girl” room after baby bro came along.
And that little bro?  Here was his space:

But all Gianna got were seconds in the decorating arena.  Her big bro moved in with her two older sisters and she got his room just as it was…a “boy” room.

I did have plans to feminize her room, I really did, but then we decided to work towards putting our house on the market and other things came first with that in mind. 

So then we sold our house and moved and in she went to the smallest room in the rental house. 


She was perfectly happy and I really had no plans to do anything to change her room since this is a really temporary rental situation but then…I found some cute stuff and things just kinda snowballed.  I mean, kids’ rooms are so fun to decorate, aren’t they?  How could I resist?!

Here’s what her space looks like now:

Christmas Cards on a Budget

‘Tis that time of year again, isn’t it?  Yeppity yep!  And who has it together enough to get Christmas cards out?  I mean, first you have to actually take pictures, burn an hour of time picking the one with the most eyeballs and smiles, spend another half hour second guessing yourself, stick a design with it, print it, buy stamps, get any addresses you might need, and finally, hand ‘em to the snail but HEY, it’s easy right?

HA HA HA

That’s why I have zero side-eyes for anyone who chooses to forgo sending out Christmas cards and the utmost respect for those who send theirs digitally…smart!!

I like sending out physical cards when I can, that is, when all of the stars align.  Even then, they might make it out before Christmas.  ;)  However, they can get pricey, right?  I hate to break it to anyone and everyone but as much as we love getting the cards in the mail, they get hung until the last day of Christmas and then they get tossed into the recycling bin.  I always feel so guilty for tossing them because I know the work and a lot of the times, the $$ that goes into them but I just can’t stand clutter so, whoop, they go.  Sorry! 

With that, I also get that ours will probably also get tossed BUT I don’t feel so bad because over the past couple of years, I’ve wised up and made our own cards.  The cards, envelopes, and stamps cost us around $70 for 75 cards.  I know that’s not a drop in the bucket but, considering that you’ll pay double, triple, and quadruple that at some online stores, it’s fantastic.  I mean, I won’t name the popular store, but their smallest (4.25” x 6” postcard) holiday cards start at $1.30 per card ($130 for 100 cards).  Yipe!  That’s not even including an envelope (since it’s a postcard) and stamps!  You’ve already eaten up our kids’ Christmas gift budget with that! 

Here’s how we do it so affordably.  Hold on tight…we take a picture, put some words on it, print 4 x 6 photos of it, stick them in envelopes, and send ‘em.  It’s still a good amount of work but with not a lot of money. 

DIY Fur Infinty Scarf

I have to give myself a reality climate check every fall down here in the South.  It’s something like - H E Y, I know everyone and their cousin is posting pixels filled with spiced lattes and covered toes but you live down where it’s still, not technically, but actually summer.  The humidity is still here to slap you in the face upon the exit of any a/c-filled abode and building and, your deoderant, yeah, it’s still working overtime.  You’d think I’d be used to it by now but no, no, no.  I actually grew up in the midwest where fall really feels like fall and summer stays back in summer.  But, I’m not complaining.  Sure, I miss the snow but I don’t miss the months on top of months of it and it’s great to not have to dress the kids up with 75 layers and then their Halloween costumes every year…you know, so they can actually go out as a little butterfly without looking like a stuffed butterfly. 

Anyway, the past couple of weeks have seen a little bit of chilly weather (chilly as in under 70) and so I jumped at the chance to finish a little project had started last fall…and by started I mean, I pulled out the fabric one day, threw up an Instastory about it and then never got around to moving it to my sewing machine.  But, with Gianna and Sebastian doing their synchronized napping thing, I was able to whip this up in a half hour and get the regularly scheduled homeschooling in with the twins one day last week.  #werkit 

Without further chatter, let me introduce my new, faux fur, infinity scarf:

jacket:  hand-me-down, altered // similar
button-down:  Target via Dirt Cheap // similar
jeans:  Old Navy (I heard great things about the Rockstar Built-In Sculpt jeans from ON last year and was so excited to try a pair but when I did, I was sadly disappointed.  I felt like they smashed my rear end down and were really uncomfortable.  Darn.  When I returned them, I tried their Rockstar Super Skinnies instead and LOVE them!)
wedge booties:  eBay // Amazon (I bought mine new off eBay three years ago and they are still going strong.  They’re really comfortable too!) 

Want to make a fur scarf of your very own?  You know you do!  And guess what?  You could hand sew one in under an hour, maybe even in under a half hour.

End Table to Planter–DIY

My last post dove into my most recent thrift store excursion, as you might’ve read, and I noted somewhere in there that I had walked out with only one thing that day.  This was that one thing:
Only it didn’t look like that as I walked out the doors of Goodwill that day.

Spotted: Goodwill

We’re trying to get on more of a weekly schedule over here.  We’ve got our daily schedules down pat pretty much but we’re trying to organize our weeks so that we know where certain things are going to fit in.  Things like me getting a little break from the kids for just a smidge of time.  I think they call that self care, right?  It sounds so whiny and poor-me-I’m-surrounded-by-littles-all-day-long and I hate that because, as you know if you’re a mama, one of the hardest things is to be away from your kids…yet getting a little breather once in awhile is good for the sanity aspect.  It’s one of those catch 22 things I suppose.  Mother bear can’t rip herself away from her babies she loves oh-so-much yet if mother bear is asked one more question about why the toilet paper is white or why a marker is called a marker or why we can’t stick things in our ears, mother bear might actually turn grizzly.  You know.  I bet that, if you’re not a mom, you might be able to relate in dealings with coworkers sometimes, yes?  Anyway, our budget doesn’t allow for a mothers’ helper or babysitter (nor does mama’s-girl Gianna) so we’re working with Anthony’s work schedule which makes things a little more difficult on the planning side but as you probably know, challenges are looked square in the eyes ‘round here.   

So far, we’ve pretty much figured out a morning when I can get a couple of hours to do whatever I want/need to do and last week, I spent that morning perusing a thrift store and it. was. awesome.  I feel like my most recent (of which there have been few) thrift store visits have left me feeling disappointed – I’ve found nothing of interest – and like thrifting as a spectator sport is dying out.  Around where we live, there are lots and lots of people trying to make money off of refurbishing furniture and things and so, if you’re not the early bird or the frequent peruser, you’re not the one getting the worm.  So basically, with the ability (or should I say the lack of ability) for me to get to thrift stores early and often, it takes some serious luck for me to bring in a thrift store win.

Anyway, I’m seriously rambling here when really I hopped on to share deets on that thrift store excursion from last week.  For this one, forget about all I said about the luck and stuff because I found SO MUCH GOOD STUFF! 

Look!

Marble Tray ~ DIY

It’s going to get real original over here today yo.  I’m not the first and I definitely won’t be the last to type about marble contact paper.  There are a myriad of pinned projects using just the stuff and mine will be just another to add to the collection.  There are a huge basketful of bloggers and DIYers who have written/talked about using the stuff and so I’ll just add my voice to the queue.  BUT, I betcha that of all the marbled contact paper projects you find out there, mine will roll in as the cheapest.  Not bragging…that’s just the fact.  You know how I do.  ;)

Internet, meet marble contact paper project…again.

‘Shrooms

Did you enter the TubShroom giveaway yet?  If you haven’t, go quick.  It ends tonight at midnight!  I’m back today though to tell you about some other ‘shrooms.  Gah, it’s still pains me a little to delve into this topic in order to write about it.  Do you remember when we laid brand new sod in the backyard of our ‘old’ house?

A Catchy Giveaway

I’ve been pregnant three times in four years and therefore, gone through that awful post-partum hair loss phase three dang times and lemme tell ya, I post-partum hair loss like a BOSS.  It’s amazing I don’t more closely resemble Gollum after I’m through. 

So then, you can imagine what our shower drain goes through…or should I say what goes through it.  After the twins’ and Sebastian’s pregnancies, and really since we’ve been adults and had our own shower to take care of, we’ve always bought those cheapo hair catcher things you find hanging halfway down random aisles in Walmart.  They’ve always caught hair good enough (or so we thought) though cleaning out our shower drain was always a necessary chore every few months as our drain drained slower and slower and suddenly we found ourselves standing in a foot of water in the tub five minutes into a shower.  You might be able to relate WHICH is why this blog post is being posted.