Weekend Project: Zip, Zero, Nada... Or whatever I find to do that's free...

Yep folks, it's that awful time of the month when I am stuck waiting for client's to pay so that I can pay my team... So no fun projects for us this weekend. Instead, we'll be laying low, pottering about the house and garden and dreaming up things to do next weekend. I don't like posts with no pictures on other blogs, so I thought I would sprinkle this post with a few fun snaps of the babies.


I am sure that I will find SOMETHING to occupy myself this weekend. There's a pillow I've been thinking of making with some scrap fabric I have. I COULD tackle the last of those boxes, or maybe I could reorganize our bedroom closets to allow maximum storage-ability. Who knows, I might even get back to operation popcorn, since I already have everything I need to tackle that project.... Hmmm...


Otherwise, the only thing I am planning on doing is re-reading the Twilight series as a refresher. I plan to do it yet again before the release of New Moon on November 20th. (Eeek!) Ahhhh yes, curled up in aurconditioned comfort with these two... bliss!


In some fun news my shades arrived yesterday and they are fab! I am a little unsure about the grey next to the beigey/brown of the shades. Here's a picture, although I should mention that they appear very blue in this photo -- they do not in person. Definitely a charcoal grey color in person.


I can't shake the feeling that I should have gone for the white curtains. What do you think?

Weekend Project Update!

The weekend was a complete and utter disaster... Neither of my two to-dos are finished... Unfortunately I got sucked in to the wonderful world of QVC and HSN and spent most of the weekend vegging out watching people talk randomly about objects... Seriously, those channels are hilarious!

Anyway... we did get to Ikea and grabbed the curtains, as well as another piece for a super secret project coming up in July. The store was ridiculously full, and when we got there the queue went around the whole building to the front door. On a Sunday!! Does no one go to church anymore?

So while I didn't finish the spare room, I did manage to clear the bed, wash all the linens and set that up. But the other side of the room looks less pulled together...

This is our "still to sort" pile. Do I at least get points for being honest? haha

While I didn't get anything on the to-do list completed and spent countless hours laughing at home shopping channels, I DID manage a living room switcheroo that I am kinda proud of.

We went from this...


To this...

The clutter on the sofa table has since been cleared.

Andddd I finally styled the coffee table! W00T!!

See what I did to cover the lattice? Those are the beautimous placemats I picked up at Pier 1 and they work perfectly to distract away from the imperfect paint job. Love!


THIS is why I spend a third of my day straightening rugs! (And pillows on newly made guest room beds!)

Weekend Project: Finish Guest Room & Paint Cabinet

This weekend I am headed to my favorite Swedish home store to take advantage of the crazy deals on offer. With Monday being a public holiday, we're looking at a lovely (albeit rainy) long weekend. But I am totally ok with that!

Rainy days will force me to focus my attention on things I can complete indoors. Can you say guest room? Yes. Come hell or high water this is the weekend I am going to finally finish that room.

I also plan to rehab an old cabinet that I've dragged across three continents with me. I love love love my Oregon pine antique book case, even with it's missing pane of glass and lack of hardware. The fake fiberboard back and scratched surfaces. It has character and I love it... but plan on totally cleaning her up over the next few weeks, starting with a good sanding and few layers of paint this weekend. Right now she is standing in the entry, but I plan on relocating her to the guest room. Eventually I hope to do something about the backing, replace the missing pane of glass and get some cute hardware deserving of her. We've come a long way together her and I and I am confident that with a little makeover we will spend many more happy years together with (hopefully) a lot less globetrotting.

Apart from the above, I am hoping to find time to clear out and organize my closet. Reorganize the pantry and clean the fridge if I find time.

Top priority are the curtains though...

Spilling on my Splurge

As you know on Friday we had to make a trip out to San Antonio for visa stuff. It's quite a trip to get out there, and well... I wanted to make the most of it, so when we drove past signs declaring the San Marcos Premium outlet stores along the way I begged P to make a pit stop on our way back.

You see, I had secret insider knowledge on the San Marcos outlets... unlike our local Round Rock Premium Outlets - severely lacking in home decor stores - the one in San Marcos had not only Pottery Barn/Williams Sonoma outlet, but also Restoration Hardware AND Crate and Barrel SCORE!!

Of course, given our commitment to saving money and get our debt paid off by August the plan was merely to window shop, and return when the debt was behind us.... but y'all know me better than that!

By the time we got there it was already late in the day and we were hot, sweaty and irritated, so we decided to pick just one store and spend "a little money" as P likes to say.

I ran into Pottery Barn as fast as my legs would carry me. After reading about Katie's fab finds at her local PBO I was certain that here I would get the most bang for my buck.

I must say, I was pretty disappointed. The incredible deals that Katie finds regularly, $16 lamps, $7 placemats were nowhere to be seen. Instead, it looked just like a regular store, only the prices were moderately lower and the selection smaller.

(still need to remove tag from rug. Whoops!)

Determined to find a bargain I headed to shelves with bright red placards announcing 30% + discounts. And that is where I found these little beauties for $6 and $7 respectively.

(Please ignore ugly center piece, it doesn't work.)

I also found this cute table runner (at last the perfect length for our 6 ft table) for just $12 beans. And finally snagged the perfect father's day gift for my father in law from the Williams Sonoma section of the store.

It seems I need to spend more time figuring the place out and learning where to look for the excellent deals Katie Bower finds. But I am up for the challenge and am looking forward to our next trip out there... It's good to have a reason to look forward to a visit to your local immigration office for once! Honestly, I could have easily walked out of that store having spent A LOT more than the $30 I did.

OK. SO you're thinking... GEEZ Ros, $30 does not blown budget make! Ahhh, but there's more...

So on Sunday I was cruising my fave online stores, trying to distract myself from the idea of work the next day, when I decided to take another peek at JCPenney. Now, all in all, JCP is totally not our style and I rarely see anything there that even remotely interests me, but like I said, I was bored and in need of distraction.

As usual, I headed first to the clearance section and that's when I saw these! Yep, that's right, less 50%! After a quick Google of the phrase "JC Penney Coupon" revealed a further 15% discount available for the month of May these were in my cart quicker than Grease Lightning.



Grand total spent on 3 blinds for living room windows: $82
Grand total savings on 3 blinds: $92

Husbands comments? "Are you kidding? It would have cost you more NOT to buy them!" God bless him! :)

So, the blinds are the perfect color to go in the living room and were the perfect price.

Curtains were next on my to-do list, but the ones I wanted from Ikea are $30/pair so those will remain on the list until after my birthday as we renew our commitment to saving... PSYCHE!



Yesterday I receive my weekly Ikea sale email and lo and behold, but are the very same curtains I wanted for the living room not marked down to $9.99 per pair?!?!?! This is a-freeking-mazing! I am NEVER this lucky. I think the big man upstairs is watching over me.

Throw in the free Ikea breakfast and we're there with bells on, (right after we acquaint ourselves with a local church of course. We've much to be thankful for this week!)

Now on to the important question... I need your opinions... grey, white, chocolate or beige?
Remembering that we (currently) have a grey/brown sectional sofa, white accents and will have a combination of blue/grey and brownish paint on the walls. Here's the "color story" again to refresh your memories.... (Gah! I still love that phrase)

Paint

Shades
Table (must still update you on the "finished" look)

I created a poll on the right side -------> I need help!

Wordle + Printer = DIY Art

Yesterday I gave you a sneak peek at today's project post. I am totally proud of this one! Seriously, if you're ever in need of inspiration head on over to Katie Bower, she'll soon have you floating away with ideas. Like this post about DIY art.

This weekend I went through some of her posts that I had previously bookmarked and was taken with her States of the Union post (link above) and suggestion of using Wordle to achieve a similar look to the pages she created. I sat down with "The Big P" and together we came up with a bunch of places that mean something to us. I pasted them into Wordle, hit randomize and watched the magic happen.


This beauty took only, ohhh 50 "randomizes" to materialize. (Followed quickly by two more close contenders). I printed all three and decided that this one had the greatest impact, framed it, placed it on the mantle and voila! Personalized art for the cost of about 30 minutes, an old frame, paper and ink.

Totally cute, right?

Weekend Project Update!

So it's Monday and I am a day late on the update. As I said, it's been crazy around here with me playing catch up on the day I missed last week.

I made some incredible progress on the spare room. (Nope, still not "guest room" worthy).
So again, you remember the before:


Here is the "after":

Look! Much more carpet to be seen in this one. And I believe you can also see the blue of the sheet.

Here is the detritus after the battle:


SEE! I got rid of a bunch of stuff. Just not enough to completely free the bed, but getting there. In fairness three of the 4 boxes on the bed need P to take a look. Also, there is a bunch of stuff that will go out to the shed, just as soon as we get one... like the tent for example.

And honestly, I did get a little distracted...
This cute little rooster plate was sweet, but absolutely didn't go with our decor at all. It was a gift from my mom, and I was sure I could find a use for it, but it has spent the better part of 2 years in a box in the garage, until this weekend!

Armed with my new best friend a can of white Rust-Oleum spray paint and some scrapbooking rub-ons, I created....


a cute little plate to corral the hubs' keys, change and sunglasses when he walks in the door. (He has the annoying habit of emptying out his pockets onto the nearest surface as he enters the door). Ultimately, I feel that I could have used a bigger rub-on, I just didn't want to have something too ornate competing with the detail of the plate. One day I may scratch that off and replace with a nice vinyl "N" decal... but for now I am happy with it.

On Saturday we had gloriously cool weather and thunderstorms (and it's been pretty cool ever since). It was the perfect day to whip up some soup. Chicken and brocolli. Yum! Oh, I should come out with it and let you know that our new chicken stock (never tried it before) is so intensely salty that it completely overpowered the flavors and was much like eating a bowl of sea water... but it looked good, didn't it? I ate it anyway... nothing that some buttery bread and a splash of milk couldn't fix!


I also tackled this project (sneak peek below), but I want to do a proper post on this, so I will save it for a day when I have more time.
SO there you have it... our no-cost weekend project update. (Another confession... I DID end up spending money... although it was VERY well spent. Hint: There are some "giveaways" in some of the pictures above. More details soon, promise.)

Long Weekend = Lot's of Work to Catch Up...

I have made progress!! But don't have pictures. It was too dark last night to take flash-less pics (and I detest the flash) so I decided to take them today... but with being away from work on Friday I have a ton of work to do. Will try and get a proper update posted by the end of day today.

:)

HOLY COW!!

It's 1:30 am on Friday morning. We should be in bed dreaming about our awful road trip today, but we're up and our adrenaline is pumping. Why you ask?

At around 10pm we decided to call it an early night to rest up for tomorrow. Before we went off to bed I wanted to make sure that I had all my papers together so that there would be nothing they could ask for tomorrow, that I wouldn't have on me (You'd be surprised at the things they want to see). I gathered all my immigration files, did a quick check for our passports... and discovered that they weren't where they should be.

PANIC STATIONS!!!

We just spent the last 3 hours going through the boxes in the spare room taking each item out and digging right to the bottom in search of our passports... then we realized that our social security cards and birth certificates were tucked into our passports as well. I know... a tidy little identity theft bundle pack just waiting for someone to pick up.

My dear husband, always looking on the bright side (hah!) proclaimed this a good thing... if someone was using his social to pay taxes, we might get a refund this year! haha

I, on the other hand, could think of nothing but the 1 year wait to get a new South African passport ordered from the consulate in NYC. Except, I hear that the wait on passport applications from within South Africa are taking up to a year at the moment, so who knows how long this could take if I apply abroad!!!

We traced our steps and wracked our brains and finally remembered taking them to HR Block when we filed our taxes... then I remembered that I had taken all my business receipts on that trip... then I thought to check my tax archived documents and discovered that my 2008 business receipts weren't in there... and so thankfully we then had a bigger item to look for... a large clear plastic folder instead of two small books!

We headed back to the black hole to recommence digging when my incredibly smart husband thought to pick UP one of the boxes we had gone through three times and voila! The clear plastic folder was hiding underneath!!

SO we have all our important documents AND my 2008 business receipts. And, on the plus side, I managed to remove a further two boxes and one HUGE bag of unnecessary papers from "the hole". Progress people!!

If I wasn't fired up enough to get that room sorted out this weekend, this little incident was just the cherry on the sundae. We also realized how much old crap we're holding on to. I think the garbage men are going to hate us come Tuesday morning, because we'll be doing some serious purging this weekend.

I'll show you the pile of trash on Sunday! (It's pretty impressive already, actually).

Weekend Project: Spare Room, and Only Spare Room

I know it's only Thursday today, but we have to take most of tomorrow off as we need to take a trip out to San Antonio to do some icky visa stuff. I can tell you that we need this trip like a hole in the head, however it absolutely has to be done. The trip out there and back, coupled with the wait time once there is about 7 hours and will leave us out of the office for MOST of the day.

I am kind of happy about this, and kind of annoyed. However, MOST of the day means that we are likely to have a couple of hours free on Friday which technically makes this a long weekend for us.

Now I am sure that with this being a long weekend, you're thinking of all the amazing projects we could tackle. Alas, we're on a saving kick now. This week we sat down with our finances, and for the first time in months tallied our total debts. We were shocked to discover that we currently owe double what we thought. We immediately set about drawing up plans for total debt obliteration and I think this 4 month plan will work well for us if we stick to a tight budget and put some of the house-y stuff on hold for a while.

Ultimately, there are plenty of odds and ends that we can do around here without spending a penny and I am looking forward to sharing some no cost before and afters with you in the coming weeks. I am debating whether to set a small weekend project stipend of $10 or so, for incidentals... but I am going to try like heck to do it all at no cost, at least in the beginning.

This brings us to this weeks project. Remember the spare room?
Oh hell, here's that picture again to remind you...


While I have made progress this week as promised. But it still pretty much looks just like the picture with tidier, more organized edges. Hah!

My mission for the weekend is to get that room sorted so that I can at last refer to it as the "guest room" in place of the "spare room".

We're going to be out of the office for most of the day tomorrow, but as soon as we get back, I am going on the attack!

Will be back on Sunday with a weekend project update. Stay tuned!

Yellow?

Is it just me, or do y'all think that this area needs yellow accents? I've seen so much yellow around lately, and I love it, but just can't figure out how it will work with my taste AND I am sure that yellow is just a passing fad so I refuse to spend a fortune on anything yellow... but seeing those bananas in the green bowl on the table made me think... wouldn't a great wire, or otherwise sculptural bowl in a bright glossy yellow look sublime on that table? Or maybe a grouping of yellow candlesticks or something...

Gah! Not sure how that will work the the paint color on the opposite wall though...

This is the "color story" I am playing with... (Don't you love that phrase?)
Do you think yellow in place of the River Bank would look totally out of place in a room edged by Spanish Galleon? Any suggestions as to how I can change things out to suit? (Remembering that the dining area and living area are in one big space together, and my couch is a dark chocolate color (that really looks like a chocolate grey if such a color exists...)

Weekend Project Update!

We made some progress on the porch this weekend! One coat of white trim paint down, one more to go... well, we're going to wait until after we put the new decking on the porch before we go with the second coat, in case of nicks and bumps during installation.

The bench looks fabulous out there, don't you think? I am a little nervous because the bicycle chain that we bought won't fit between the slats, nor the tabs I sewed into the cushions. Dumb me forgot to measure properly before buying the chain, but another one is not going to be hard to find I am sure.


For now, I will just hope for the best and pray that no one would think of messing with our cute little porch.


In other news I went ahead and painted the last of the coffee table paint onto the dining room wall and LOVE it! There wasn't enough to do the whole wall, and it still needs a second coat, but this gives me a good idea of how it will look when it's done and I love it! What do you think? I know it's not a great color for resale, but we can neutralize it when it comes time to sell.



So far the progress on the spare room is still limited. I did manage to empty two boxes and get them out of there, but if you could see the state of the room, you would know that this really isn't much progress at all in the grand scheme of things. It is literally wall to wall boxes, bags and stuff in there and we're nowhere near to calling that room "done" just yet. I want to make it my mission to remove at least one bag or box per day this week and see how I do with that. It's probably a good thing that my mom is coming out for my birthday in July as I HAVE to have the room finished by then, so that will light a fire under my butt.

Ohhh what the heck... here's a picture of what is becoming known as the black hole...
... don't judge me....

Weekend Project: Porch & Spare Room

Hallelujah! It's Friday!! And it's time for another weekend project to-do list.

This week, we'll be trying to keep the costs down as we've kind of gone a little hog wild over the last few weeks. We have a big visa application coming up soon, so we need to hold back a little on the cash.

In this light, the plan for the weekend is:

- Organize the spare room.

Yes, I know this has been on the list for a few weeks now. But we have now identified the problem. We need to get rid of a ton of office stuff, papers and things that we don't need to hang on to. I also have a secret plan to share some of my rarely used scrapbooking supplies with a friend who actually scrap books and could use some to add to her stash. I know that I need to go through my fabric stash with a ruthless eye and throw out any, and all fabric I am unlikely to use.... ok, except for those pretty vintage sheets... I may decide to throw a quilt together at some point. LOL

- Front Porch Beautification

During our recent trip to Pier 1, we stumbled upon some cute outdoor throw pillows that I love, love, love. It brought up an idea I've been toying with to add something to our decidedly boring porch. Trouble is, my plan involves moving one of my fave pieces of furniture that really doesn't fit in the house to the porch.

Now, the porch is covered, and rarely even gets wet when it rains (which, let's face it, it never does in Texas). My real issue with bringing it outdoors is that the South African in me won't shut up about the possibility of it being stolen off my porch. I know, I know... Round Rock is number 19 on the list of safest towns in the country so what am I worried about right? The bench I have in mind is gorgeous!! It needs some rehabbing, new poly stain, etc. But lately, everywhere I turn I see this bench on display in some magazine, or brochure, etc. It's a hot item, and I want to keep it in my possession, but I also need to make more room in our house.

Enter the master plan... We're going to Walmart to pick up a bicycle chain.... I have already sewn some loops into the back of the cushions, and we will (subtly) chain both the bench, and cushions to the porch railing. Problem solved! LOL Don't judge me! I am a product of my childhood environment.

And look, it's not just me... Here is a picture of my mom and step father's camp site in Calgary, Canada. See that picnic bench? They brought that with them... See the chain attached to the tree? They brought that too! (What you can't see in the below image, is that there is also a fully built shed and a plastic storage/seating bench too!)

Please note the deck in front of the RV... they built that too. You can't be without a deck for the summer,
even if it's only 3 months long in your town, and you'll only be visiting the RV over weekends!
What can I say, it's in the genes people!

I also have plans to slap some fresh white paint on the railings, and possibly also paint the living/dining room wall... But I make no promises on these two, the porch and spare room are main priorities.

My gorgeous rugs arrived today and I must say I am surprised. The leafy one is actually a totally different color to what I thought, BUT.. it's gorgeous and actually I like it more! I want to hold off on showing you pics until I have painted the wall in the dining area and done something with the table top in the living room. Pics on Sunday.

xoxo

It's the Little Things that Make Me Happy

Like this for example...


When we had this house inspected our home inspector pointed out that some of the insulation on our a/c unit needed replacing right quick, both on the outside unit as well as inside.

We also needed some other a/c fixes and had a quote drawn up for this as well as the insulation repair. Well, summer got here quicker than we thought and we aren't ready to get started on the large a/c project just yet so the insulation remained untouched until a recent trip to HDizzeepo where I found this and for $2.25 I did it myself!

This was one of the first things we did to the house and it took only a few seconds, but I cannot tell you how proud I am of this little thing. Saved me $7.75 of the $10 the a/c guys were going to charge and I had enough to do both pipes AND have enough insulation left over to replace them next year as well if necessary.

:) We need to get planting and weeding back there...

A Bar in the Desert

You know, I find decor blogs sooo inspiring. Lately I've spent WAY too many hours reading through archives of some of my favorites and I've picked up so many great ideas. Also, my Domino Decor book has been incredibly helpful. (TOTALLY love that book, just wish the free year's subscription to the magazine could actually still be honored. :( )

Anyway... we have this odd little corner in the living room. It's sort of in no mans land between the couch and the dining area, but has a prime spot next to the window. I've been wanting to do something with this area, other than plonking a lamp there where it is neither attractive nor necessary. I have admired Katie's bar nook over on BowerPower blog and tucked it away in the revolving to-do list that has taken over my brain. Then I stumbled upon this cute, keyoot idea in the Domino Book and put two and two together. (Bar tray on pg 69 for those of you who own the book).

{photography by Deborah Jaffe for domino}

We happened to be in Pier 1 yesterday for some placemats that I needed for another project -- pictures soon -- when I came across this beautiful little tray and eureka, a plan was hatched. (See those little birds? I am totally bird obsessed lately and don't care if they're passe')


Last night I grabbed one of our TV tables (previously used as guest room nightstands), plonked my little tray on top and grabbed everything I could find that was remotely bar themed. Yes, it's sparse. Yes, we only have one bottle of rum (Yeugh!). No, we still don't drink alochol. But I feel like this once awkward little corner now has a purpose, albeit one rarely used by us.

I've never been a big fan of formal living rooms that are only used for special ocassions and rare guests, and I realize that the bar is just a smaller version of a formal living room for our lifestyle. But I figure what the hell, the corner makes sense now and bridges the gap between the living space and dining space and best of all it's pretty, so there! haha

I love it so much I am almost tempted to crack open a bottle of wine or something just looking at it!

Rehabbed Mirror

I said I would update you on the other projects I tackled this weekend. This one I am also VERY proud of... We inherited this mirror from my in-laws. (Hi!! *wave*) I love love love the lines of the mirror, however the finish was really starting to look ratty. The poly was chipping, it was badly scratched in places and the color was uneven in others. I believe it once as part of a dresser set, so it's no stranger to a "makeover" and I felt that it could use one more.

I couldn't find a recent "Before" pic, but I found one taken at our dodgy little apartment in Buffalo above. (Please don't mind the junk shop-esque reflection... it was a tiny apartment and I worked from home... space was at a premium there and that paint color was not our choice, but the landlady's.

Here she is ready for her makeover.

After a light sanding. (The black giraffe statues had a makeover of their own. It failed, but I am working on it. Update soon)

Taped and first coat of Krylon Satin White spraypaint.

And here after a coat of poly. Ahhhh... isn't it beautiful! So fresh and clean looking!
The original plan was to turn it into a blackboard for the kitchen. I wanted to use black magnetic paint, but realized that we don't have a window in there (yet) and adding a black item to the already dark laundry nook wouldn't do our light issue any favors. So instead this little beauty will hang there as a mirror and reflect light from the sliding doors opposite into the kitchen.

LOVE it!!