A Lack Thereof

So the twins conception has brought with it a lack of motivation for anything diy...or really anything of anything for that matter.  Hence why the loveseat still sits in the same, unfinished condition it was in a month ago, our master bath window is still naked, and my sewing machine (and the pile of must-do's I have waiting for it) are out of commission.  I blame this lethargy partly on the fact that, unconsciously, my mind is tantruming over the fact that paint of really any sort is out of the question right now.  Don't get me wrong, I'd choose our two little souls over a hundred cans of spray paint and projects any day, but I'll admit that I'm going through a little withdrawal.  I'm hoping trimester numero dos brings with it my former motivation to take on everything (but painting) and I'll be counting down the days - nine - until then.  :)

Lucky for you, I still have my will to write.  :) 

First things first - towel rings. 

I'm not sure if writing about this will slightly ease my withdrawal pain or just cause it to go into overdrive, but c'est la vie, right?  Here's what happened:  I had been on the hunt at my favorite discount store - Dirt Cheap - for some oil rubbed bronze towel rings to give our hand towels a home during our bathroom mini-makeover.  Well, I came up short time and time again until ReStore came to the rescue and I found these:

 As shiny as gaudy, shiny gold can be but ringing in at $4 a piece.  And you can probably guess where I'm going from here...

Yep, after one coat of primer:

And two thin, even coats of Krylon's oil rubbed bronze:

We have these (Anthony has one on his side too) - used for two months now and without a scratch or scribble to be seen.  I heart spray paint!

So that's that and this is this.  You'll probably think we're crazy...because we are...but we've scored some more free furniture.  This time from our parish priest's home.  Yes, we recently had a priest switcheroo in our parish and our new priest casually ridded his new home of some of the previous priest's furniture...of which two club chairs were a part.  So, we (Anthony) kindly asked if, since the chairs were in indecent condition and would probably be thrown out or given away, if we could take them off the hands of the parish, thereby releasing them of the dirty work.  We're so selfless, aren't we?  Well, a borrowed truckload (thanks Jess and Alan) later and two over-sized raspberries we've got:

 We didn't like the skirt and they had nice legs so with a little bit of pregnancy motivation one night while watchin' the tube, off they came.  What do you think?  Better with or without the skirt?  Thankfully, they were really simple to remove.  All I had to do was lay each chair on it's side, lift up the skirt to expose the staples,

and rip them out one-by-one, after which the skirt came right off and we were left with some slightly better looking club chairs.  The plan is, someday, to diy some slipcovers (for their washable advantage) and construct a home decor friendship between them and our sectional but for now they're just sitting in our office.  Since it'll be the future nursery, we wrapped up the twin bed that was in their place and stored it in the attic for now.  The chairs will eventually be moved out (after the twins take up residence circa six months after birth?) and placed elsewhere but for now, they give off a good home office/library vibe, even if they are still pretty sore to look at...raspberry, not my idea of a a good furniture hue.

Anyway, what else can I bore you with?  Oh yeah, we're officially going to take on a small kitchen makeover.  I wrote an itty-bitty post a while ago about my wish to do so and now the other half has officially signed on.  We just feel that in order to sell this house (we've had it on the market for a good while now in hopes to move closer to work), we need to give our semi-sad kitchen a freshening up.  We started pricing out countertops today, trying to get the best bang for our buck.  We don't want to spend loads because we know that we're probably not going to get much of any of this small investment back but we also don't want to skimp either.  That means that laminate is out and we're leaning towards a solid surface like Corian or an inexpensive, simple Quartz.  Of course, we'll let you know how that tops out.  Other than that, we're going to paint the cabinets white...let me rephrase that...Anthony is going to paint the cabinets.  I'm simply going to sit in a back room with a mask on sulking.  I'm really excited about it though...the project, not the sulking!  More to come later!  We've only just started researching countertops which could mean, with our tightwad ways, that it could be little bit before any actual progress is made.  :) 

Last but not least, I can't not give the twins their due.  Here's the three of us last week, at 10 weeks:

Not much of anything yet besides a little b-l-o-a-t and a messy bedroom.  :)

Before I sign off:

While we were perusing the addicting corridors of Pinterest for "white kitchens" Anthony said, "all these pictures are of huge, expensive kitchens!  Why don't they make a Pinterest for poor people?"  Agreed.  Pinterest, although incredibly inspirational and much-loved, is quite I-wish-we-could...except for the diy and crafts area of course.

It's so very refreshing to know that I'm not the only one who thinks that spending $20 for a shirt is outrageous.  Thank you for the ego boost Ana!

Sign this petition.  It's to protect the eyes and hearts of young people...and everyone for that matter...by making it a requirement for Cosmopolitan magazine to encase their ill-worded mags in a non-transparent casing.

You must read Grace's blog daily if you want to be at all in high spirits.  Laughs, doses of lovely reality, incredible sewing inspiration, and lots of simple wisdom abound...and her kids are about as cute (and sometimes mischievous) as they come.

Check out Mona Lisa in her earlier days.

Consumer Reports is the most incredible research engine for those of you, who like us, like to research to the death before we buy anything to make sure we're getting our pennies worth.  Seriously, we make every big purchase decision after we check it out.  They're so smart, non-profit, and totally worth the subscription fee!

Problem:  My blog header is blurry and no matter how many times I remove and reload the crisp image from my comp, it's still all fuzz!  Anyone know how to fix?

Adieu!

Tidings

Hey all! Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the well wishes and prayers for the twins! Pregnancy has amazed me and at the same time made me wonder where "I" have gone...I haven't felt like myself since week five but it's all good and great and completely worth it. We are just so blessed to have our 'two little souls' growing and changing, ready to take on the world together.

Also, sorry I haven't been good about my blogging. The buns in the oven have also taken away much of the motivation I once had and replaced it with lethargy, an immune system too busy to fight a bad, two month cold, and a working-overtime gag reflex. :) More than that though, we've been in Nebraska for the past two weeks visiting family for Christmas, and though it was incredible, my plans to blog from a distance were spoiled when I forgot to grab my camera cord...hence, the 'technical difficulties'. But we're back as of last night, in business, and playing a little catch-up this week.

This post is a dedication and showcase all in one. I owe all of my creativity and love for interior design and decor to my mom and my aunt. My mom could make the smallest room look huge and like it jumped straight out of a mag with a little imagination and sweat. My room growing up couldn't have been more than 10 by 10 feet but I had no less than 11 pieces of furniture in it that all fit perfectly and made it a room fit for a princess. I had a slight obsession with Minnie Mouse and my entire room was filled with her. I my early teens I decided I wanted a canopy over my bed but having a sloped ceiling, a traditional canopy wasn't a possibility. Mom came to the rescue though with some metal hooks and fishing string and gave me my canopy. I could go on and on but I'd bore you to death with good memories. My aunt, much like my mom, could be handed bobby pins and a vase and make an enviable centerpiece. She also taught me the importance and value of spray paint...a tip essential to my livelihood...well, not really but what would I do without it?

While we were in NE the past two weeks I stayed at my aunt's house for a week and got to revel in the eye candy otherwise known as her idea of decorating for Christmas.  That was what I was planning on sharing with you last week but obviously failed with so, since Christmas isn't yet over, here's the rain check back.

Aren't their stockings the cutest ever?  I have plans up my sleeve next year to make four of our own.  :)

Her centerpiece is different and so awesome every year.  The best part?  It's made with Christmas decor and other things she already has laying around the house.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Eve

Happy Christmas Eve! I'm just checking in this lovely Saturday without a usual lengthy essay. Let me tell ya, I fully intended on a full post this week but I'm having technical difficulties with the 'ole point and shoot so I'm going to have to take a rain check and get this week's holiday flavored post up next week. Sorry! I'm off to wrap the remaining few presents we've got to give and then family will be my top priority! Have an incredible Christmas everyone! Thank you Lord for this day of celebration, for sending your Son so that we might know what love is!

Introducing...

Rockin' Chair

Behold, a glider.  It's a glider my mother-in-law rescued from either a curb or someone ridding themselves of extra furniture...I forgot the real story.  Either way though, it was free and my sister-in-law took it in as her own with hopes of reupholstering it and making a new seat bottom.  And that's where I come in.  :)  Making a trip up to New York (where Anthony's fam is from) for a wedding, gave us a great weekend to recreate this glider together.  It was my first experience ever sewing upholstery and it actually turned out pretty darn good...although I had an incredible sister-in-law-sidekick who actually did most if not all of the actual sewing...her first time too!  I tried to take a bunch of pictures of the whole process but we were so hard at work I ended up limited in the pic department but I'll do my best to explain.

I might mention before I start too, that this was a very, very low budget project (the story of my life).  With that in mind, we first had to find a seat cushion.  In comes my wonderful mother-in-law.  She found an old couch cushion that we cut up just a little here and there, fit together like a puzzle, and glued back together.   

I know the picture looks a little rough but before making a fabric slipcover for it, we used some "improvised batting" to smooth it out.  You see, normally we would have just used regular, store-bought batting from the store, but we didn't think about buying it while we were there, went home without it, and then didn't want to make the trek back out to the fabric store.   Soooo, we used...one of Alicia's old fleece blankets! I had heard once before of someone using fleece as a substitution for batting but never had the chance to try it until now.  Basically we just wrapped the entire homemade cushion up and then glued the fleece together along the one and only seam. 

 Then we concocted our new fabric slipcover.  Unfortunately, I didn't take one picture of us making the slipcover but basically we sewed together six pieces of fabric - a top panel, a bottom panel, and four side panels.  Pinning the fabric together inside-out over the seat cushion, then removing it with the pins intact to the sewing machine helped us to get a perfect fit.

As for the seat back cushion, we decided to just sew a fabric slipcover right over the existing fabric to make life a little easier.  However, the existing fabric was a little too textured to remain completely smooth under the new fabric so first we covered it with...yep, the same fleece blanket!  First we wrapped the cushion in the fleece, glued it together along the seam in the back, and then pinned our way along the curved edge.  After sewing along our pinned edge, we had a perfect fit.   

To make the new fabric slipcover, we used the same pinning technique using two panels of fabric.  We pinned along the cushion while the fabric was on the cushion, removed the cushion (very carefully so none of the pins came out), and sewed along the pinned edge.  Here's the finished slipcover, ready to be put on:

Alicia then used her mad hand-sewing skills to sew both slipcover openings (top and bottom cushions) closed.

That was the extent of what I witnessed that weekend.  Alicia was left to recover the arm rests herself...and she did an incredible job!  Here's a picture she sent me a couple weeks ago of the finished product:

Doesn't it look incredible!  It's a whole new chair!  Seriously!  Add a cute, patterned throw pillow, Alicia, and her future babes and it'll be one rockin' chair, huh?  :)

The fabric Alicia bought was from JoAnn's.  It was a soft, faux, blue suede and cost around $30.  I can't remember how much we bought so I'll have to put in an update once I find out.  Everything else was F-R-E-E.  So, 30 beans for a brand new glider and a wealth of sewing experience for both of us...not too shabby! 

Anyone else taken on revamping a glider?  I'd love to see pictures!  Send 'em on over!

Have a great weekend everyone!  I'll be back next weekend to tell a couple of secrets we've been keeping from y'all!  :)