Fan Fail

So I’m all about unique light fixtures.  Classic, elegant, funky, chandeliers in non-dining areas and such.  What I’m not all about are ho-hum fans like this one in our guest bedroom: 

I’d much rather swap her out for a colorful chandelier or a cool semi-flush mount but when you live down in the deep, deep south, not having a fan in your bedroom is pretty much a free ticket to an all night sweat-fest paired with an angry, over-worked air conditioner.  Accepting this sad fact I actually hunted down these awhile ago.  However, they cost money this mama don’t have.   So, I make due by making up stuff.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, like in this little case.

Pushing our monster stroller through Tarjay the other day, I scoped out this super-clearanced light kit on an end rack – my go-to areas in the red circle store. 

Well, I took her home, took her out, and started to put her together…backwards because I preferred the white over the faux wood – unscrewed the light bulb of the above boring fan, and screwed it back on with a new undercarriage:

At first thought it looked a little too big but after a peeking in on it a few times it sorta grew on me. 

But then I turned on the light…pretty in the picture below, not so pretty in person.  The plastic pieces were too thick in that they shielded most of the light and on top of that, the faux wood gave the minute amount of light that did come through an icky tinge of orange that would make any 70’s shag carpet jealous.

Head hung in defeat, I took her down, packed her back up, and got my six bucks back from Target.

Maybe next time…

Anyone else fix up their plain-jane fans with a new light kit?  Did it work?  Even though this fan rejected my idea, I did score in the nursery.  I’ll be sure to share in the next couple of weeks! 

Happy, happy weekend!

Baby Einstein

Well, my sanity is tops today thanks to the likes of Baby Einstein and YouTube.  I figured out a couple of weeks ago that Baby Einstein debuted on the famed video website while in a tizzy amongst two crying babes and desperate for anything that might calm the madness.  I just thought I’d experiment, thinking they were probably still too young to be interested in bright colors flashing across the television screen but how wrong I was…and how grateful to be wrong.  Even though they’re interest is only piqued for about 20 glorious, fuss-free minutes, that’s really all I need a couple times a day to recoup.  :) 

Clearly they’re enamored…

Bringin’ the 80’s Back

I’m not sure, actually I’m pretty positive, that I wouldn’t want to dig up all the fashion trends of the 80’s and insert them into 2012 but there’s one aspect of those glory days of which I spent part of my life in that’s perfect for the twins…

Well, my sister first got me obsessed with baby legwarmers before the twins even existed by adorning my niece’s legs with them and then she took it a step further after the twins were born and made some for my girls out of women’s tube socks.  So, me being me and wanting these uber cute accessories but not wanting to pay upwards of $10 a pair, I took a page out of her book and made my own.

Walking through Target one day with the twins in tow got the ball rollin’ when what did I spy but a tube sock extravaganza in the form of a clearance rack.  I almost went tube sock crazy…there were loads of different styles for 75 cents a pair!  And, they were super long (and my girls legs super skinny still) which meant that I could get two pairs out of each sock.  I hastily snatched up a few pairs, some for now and some for later, chunkier legs and scrambled home to my beloved sewing machine.

To make the legwarmers, all I did was cut off the foot part of the sock and then I cut the tube part in half to give me four larger tubes.  Since my girls are/were so little still, I cut each of those pieces in half lengthwise, which basically gave me four rectangles, and then sewed the ends of the rectangles together to give me eight little legwarmers which I promptly tried on the girls and loved!  I know my future is sure to be filled with lots more legwarmer production!  Here are the legwarmers I made, the ones my sis made, and then socks still waiting to be made into them:

The great thing about them is that diapering is simpler because you don’t have to take off pants yet baby’s legs are still toasty – form and function!  Also a plus, Target’s original price for their tube socks is only $2.50, still an incredible price for some DIY legwarmers!  Even if you don’t have a sewing machine, they’d be super easy to make by hand-stitching or even gluing the one side together.  If you’ve ever made your baby’s legs even cuter with legwarmers or do in the future, put a link in the comments section below so we can all share in the cuteness!

Have a great weekend!

Dreamin’ of a White Kitchen

Day dreamin’ that is because it’s finally d-o-n-e!  AND it cost us just under $1150 (not including the appliances we bought a couple of years ago)…dirt cheap when you talk kitchen remodels!

Let’s see, where’d we leave off twenty million weeks ago…oh yeah, the tile backsplash.  Had we gotten it done sooner than the week right before the double troubles came, I woulda coulda shoulda written up a detailed tutorial but you’ll have to settle for the nutshell version and seek out more wiser sources if you’d like a splash too.  So, first we washed down the wall real good like and then took some sandpaper to it to get it nice and rough for good adhesion.  To protect our nice, new countertops, we simply taped some garbage bags all around.  Then, it was spread mastic on a small section of wall and place tile, repeat, and repeat again…over and over until… 

…there was full coverage of the most modest kind.  

The ends were a source of much deliberation.  We could either have ended the tile aligned with the top cabinets or the bottom, the latter sticking out a couple inches more.  We chose the top cabinet line-up.  Also, we chose to have a bull-nosed look on each visible end  by grabbing some larger bull-nosed tile (we couldn’t find bull-nosed tile in the 3 x 6 variety in stores) and cutting it down with a tile saw.

Then it was in with white grout and a strip of caulk between the bottom row of tiles and the countertop and wala, a shiny new surface had we.

But anyway, back to the bigger picture.  Look how far we’ve come since I took leftover brown paint to the cabinets a few years ago.

Using my highest status of wifey quite efficiently, I finally persuaded Anthony to rip out the ugg wooden overhang and mini florescent light over our sink (but  not before I tried to rip them out myself) and replace them with a new pendant and seven more necessary inches of light.  Hello 2012.

And here’s the other side, taken from a mixed metal mess to sleek stainless with the addition of the microwave.

Read about how we went from cabinet to shelf and microwave here.  Any day now I’ll fill up that shelf with some more colorful cookbooks, probably of the dessert kind just to stay with my craving trend.  Much better than before, don’t cha think?

Then, just for a 360 feel, here’s the before-new-appliances/present view from the laundry room:

And now for the whole shebang: (right before we moved in)

I still have plans to add some much needed color with a painted runner and a couple of other nick knacks and maybe someday we’ll replace the florescent light and Anthony will let me repaint the laundry room with leftover guest bathroom paint but for now we’re loving the new, lighter and brighter look!

Here’s what it cost us:

Countertops:  $850 (Staron solid surface - Home Depot on sale, with a 10% off coupon, and 5% off matching Lowe’s credit card offer)

Sink: $120 (found clearanced from $420 because of an unseen-once-installed tiny-ish dent)

Faucet:  $80 (Southeastern Salvage)

Pendant light kit:  $15 (Home Depot)

Pendant light glass cover:  $15 (Lowe’s)

Wood and supplies for shelf above microwave:  $20

Primer:  free (already had)

Paint (Valspar’s Promenade):  2 quarts at $13 each

Sander:  free (borrowed)

Sandpaper for said sander:  $5 (Lowe’s)

Deglosser:  $5 (Crown Liquid Deglosser NEXT from Lowe's)

Labor and sick skills of one pregnant lady and her adoring husband:  free

Support and safety enforcement of two buns in the oven:  priceless

Total spent:  $1136 ($3350 if you include the appliances)

.           .           .

And now I must go love on our little bobble-headed babes…happy weekend everyone!

P.S.  I, Miss Pretty D. Proud, typed this entire post with one hand.

P.S.S. Tag Camille, you’re it…get your kitchen reveal up pronto!  :)

Insta-Hijacked

I don’t have a smart phone and I’ve been especially jealous of all you Instagramers out there.  How my one free arm would love to snap pics of the sprouts and have them instantly available for everyone’s viewing pleasure.  This conundrum has caused me to hijack Anthony’s smartie, download Instagram, and snap away when he’s not looking…okay, so maybe I got his permission first and maybe he’s eternally grateful for all the moments I’m freezing in time like this little gem:

Have a great Tuesday!