Bathroom Update, Part Deux

I don't have much time because I'm squeezing this blog entry in before heading over to the in-laws' place to go swimming. I took some photos and just wanted to share! Sorry the photos are pretty crappy... lighting was bad!

Brushed Nickel finish

I'm a medicine cabinet in disguise (and it only cost me $14 plus tax!) Sure beats these prices

Once again, bad lighting... the brown is actually quite a bit darker than the photo shows. It doesn't look all that great in the photo, but in real life it looks nicer. I like the handles!


This isn't installed yet. This is a photo of the box :)

If My Blog was a College Student...

... then she'd be able to drink adult beverages now! She has reached the almighty 21 followers! Wow. When I started this blog, I didn't really think anyone would give a hoot about what I have to say. It blows my mind that there's people out there who aren't my relatives who actually come to my blog and read it. (Actually, not even my family reads it except occasionally my husband, and even then I have to beat him with a club and threaten to serve liver and onions for supper before he begrudgingly visits my site).

Okay, I'm kidding about the liver and onions part

In other news, I got back from vacation last weekend. We took a trip down to Chattanooga, Tennessee and visited Rock City, Ruby Falls, the Incline Railway, the Chattanooga Choo Choo, took a train ride, swam in the hotel pool, and experienced country's longest yard sale. I was very disappointed in the Rte 127 yard sale as I thought prices were too high. If I wanted to pay antique store prices, then I would head on down to the local antique mall. I didn't buy a single thing *gasp* You know it's bad when I walk away empty handed!

Since I've been home, I've actually had to do some work. I was glad to get all my school stuff out of the house and shed and back to school where it belongs. We actually had to take two carloads over to the school. I'm all moved in now but still have a lot of work to do in the next week. The fun part about getting ready for the upcoming school year is going clothes shopping. I got a $10 off card from Kohls, so I headed on over today. I spent $13 out of pocket (and used up about ten dollars from a gift card), but I saved $141 by shopping on clearance! For my thirteen dollars, I got four short sleeved shirts and one mid-sleeve shirt for work, and a toddler t-shirt and two baby outfits to give as Christmas gifts. Not bad for $13, eh?

But what's been taking up the majority of my time would have to be the bathroom. Before we left for vacation, I made the mistake of excitedly ripped off the wallpaper border in the upstairs bathroom. I then took down all the pictures hanging on the wall and patched the holes. I bought a gallon of tan "oops" paint at the Home Depot and have plans to repaint the walls. But was this good enough? Noooooooo. I wanted a new light fixture and faucet. So we bought those for $50 and $92 and had my father-in-law over for the install. I also hated the el cheapo medicine cabinet door, so I took it off its hinges and replaced it with a $14 picture frame. (Photos will come later, I promise).

But do you think those changes were enough satisfy me? No, of course not. I also bought a new mirror from Walmart for $35 and painted the vanity a dark brown color. But what about the knobs, you ask? I bought some new, sleek contemporary ones for $5 each at Lowes. They look sharp if I do say so myself!

Jason pointed out that I had brown kitchen cabinets, and I painted them white. I had a white vanity in the bathroom and just painted it brown...

At this point, I decided what the hell. We might as well rip out the tile flooring and tub surround and put in some tile that I actually like. I found some 12x12 tiles at Lowes for 40-some cents apiece but they actually rung up for eight cents apiece! The guy in the flooring department practically called every store in Ohio to see if he could find me any more of those tiles. I ended up with 29. That is not enough to cover the whole floor, so I found a 6x6 tile that looks good with it, and we'll have a cool pattern laid. We're also planning on having our bathtub refinished for less than $300, and we bought a new tub faucet for $118.

We have five different handymen coming to the house for free estimates over the next several days. Keep your fingers crossed that the tile work won't be too expensive!!

Now if you'll excuse me, my blog and I are going to go have a glass of wine and retire for the evening :)

Spot-the-Dollar-Store-Item Quiz

I didn't do so hot. I only got three right. Take the quiz and try to beat my score!

In other news, we leave for Chattanooga tomorrow! Seven-and-a-half-hour-car-ride-with-an-infant here we come!

I didn't go to BlogHer

I think I'm the only blogger in the US that didn't make the trek to the Windy City last weekend. Instead of mingling with blog-stars and battling what sounds like fierce, greedy crowds, I stayed home this weekend. Here's ten things I did that I could not have done if I went to Chicago.

10. Cleaned out the basement closet and the pantry. I was inspired by a fellow blogger (can't remember who, so if it was you who just blogged about it the other day, let me know so I can give credit where credit is due).
9. Discovered I have five jars of pickles in the pantry. I can't even blame it on the pregnancy. I never craved pickles.
8. Took craploads of stuff out to the shed for a future garage sale. (And in the future, I'll probably go through it again, decide that I really do need this stuff, and bring it back into the house).
7. Sewed Joel a bean bag chair, filled with my stuffed animals rather than normal bean bag stuffing.
6. Tore off a piece of wallpaper border in the nursery, which led to a full-scale redo.
5. Sewed window treatments, painted stripes on the nursery walls, repainted a toy box, and painted a book shelf for the nursery. (I just painted that toy box green a couple months ago and now decided that it really should be brown).
4. Continued with my de-wallpaper-borderizing in the upstairs bathroom. Now I'll have to paint that room too. While I'm at it, I will go ahead and repaint our bedroom as well. Pfew.
3. Make tons and tons of Beef Vegetable Soup, froze it, and will bring it with us to Tennessee for free meals in the hotel. Also made and froze baby food green beans, carrots, and sweet peas for the little one.
2. Went to visit my mom's dad and stepmom because they were having a ginormous garage sale. Came home with lots of free stuff, including a blue and white platter, plastic fruit for Joel's toy kitchen, tons of vintage trims, rick rack, seam binding, and bias tape, some children's books, and "Cottage Style" for my reading pleasure. Will blog about that later.
1. Spent time with my family and got spit up on by my baby boy a million times.

What did you do last weekend?

The Fruits (er, Vegetables) of my Labor

Menu Planning Madness is brought to you today by the letters E, P, T, and Z. (No, not a pregnancy test, Thank goodness!!!) Eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, and zucchini. As in, those are the veges growing in my garden :)

I harvested my first three vegetables yesterday: three zukes were just the right size! I have one tomato turning red (which means gadzooks of them will probably ripen while we're away on vacation...), and even though my green peppers are small, I think they're done growing. They're turning brown which I read was a sign of ripening. My little eggplants are chugging along as well.

I went on a rampage last night looking up recipes to use up all these vegetables as they ripen. Menu planning will revolve around what vegetables are picked that week. My best guess for this week is as follows:

To use up the ranch dressing and potatoes before we leave for vacation:
Ranch Baked Chicken with Ranch Mashed Potatoes
Zucchini Casserole
Plum Upside Down Cake to use up the plums

Italian Sausages with sauteed bell peppers and onions are on the menu later in the week after all that above is eaten. That should do it for the week, and then bright and early Saturday morning we leave for Tennessee! Woot, woot!

Dress Reconstructed

What do you get when you cross a dress with a bulletin board? Give up?
Why, window treatments, of course! And it couldn't be simpler!

I cut the bottom 14 inches off for one panel, and next 14 inches off for the other panel (see the red lines). That was all I needed for the curtains. The top portion of the dress did not get touched, so I now have a wonderful tank top! (Which I'm probably too fat for, but that's neither here nor there).

Several years ago I purchased solid fabrics for three bulletin boards in my classroom. Paper fades, however fabric on bulletin boards work wonders! I will no longer be teaching in that building, and so I brought all that fabric home with me. I married the brown bulletin board fabric with my pretty-but-can't-squeeze-my-ginormous-hips-into-it-anymore dress, and here's what you get: *drumroll*



Please pay no mind to the painters tape and hodge podge shelf. This room is in a transitional state right now. I also am thinking about upgrading the curtain rod to one with finials, however I am not sure how that would look since the right side of the curtain rod really wouldn't have room for a finial. Plus I'm trying not to buy anything for the room and instead remix what I already have, so maybe I'll just stick with the plain white one. A coat of brown spray paint might spruce it up though.

A breakdown of the materials:
Brown and Blue Paint- from the basement. Free!
Paintbrushes/roller/paint tray- already had them from a previous project. Free!
Painters Tape- $6 something at Lowes
Window treatments- from my closet and fabric stash. Free!
Clips to hang the window treatments- previously used for the shower curtain. Free!

Sewing Chick: 4, Opponent: 1. Woohoo!

Nursery Walls Redo

My son is five months old. I'm just now getting around to removing the wallpaper border and painting the nursery.

It's not really worth making it all cutesy since he will outgrow that kind of decor lickety split. Instead, here is the color scheme I have come up with. I've picked this color scheme because the tan and the green were already on the walls when I moved in eight years ago. Yes, I'm lazy. All I want to do is paint the area where the border was.

Painting stripes. Good times. I painted the brown stripe first (color chosen because I already had a quart of it in the basement). Of course, the color ran under the tape. Argh. And to make matters worse, the painters tape pulled up some of the green and tan original paint in several spots.

Plan B: Add blue stripes above and below the brown. Why blue? Because I had some dark blue paint, and I had leftover white paint from the kitchen cabinets. Dark blue plus white equals a nice light blue.

I went out and bought a different painters tape. This one is low adhesion and is rated to go over paint that isn't cured yet. We'll see how that goes. Keep your fingers crossed.

Also this time I am going to paint a clear coat under the blue. This way, the clear coat creates a bond with the tape so that the blue will not be able to seep underneath. I learned that little trick from Danielle Hirsch on HGTV. She's the bomb diggety painter.

I'll keep you posted!