We're Baaaccckkkkkk!

And our house is finally solid and the deck was saved. It only took 5 months, 15 holes in our floor, 3 different plumbers, 1 engineer, 1 soil lab, 3 insurance agents, 1 storage facility, 2 truck rentals, 1 motel room with 3 cats, and a partridge in a pear tree!

We've spent the last two days in the company of the world's chattiest plumber who informs us that not only do we have an 8-foot sag in our pipes under the living room, we also have a break in our 90 coming out of the kitchen... (Apparently 90 refers to the 90 degrees, the name of the separated pipe). What does this all mean? Well... basically we just moved home after spending a week in one of the most depressing motels you've ever clapped eyes on while the foundation was fixed. We packed up almost everything we owned and put it in storage to avoid the dust nightmare we were told would be happening back here at home. All the holes patched and concrete dried at last we moved back in last Friday and it's been non stop cleaning and unpacking since.

Today Jarrod (aforementioned plumber) went into great detail about how he would repair our plumbing issues. Guess what? They need to go through the concrete floor.... in the exact same spots recently vacated by our foundation people... GAH! Will it ever end? Hah...

Anyway... if you take a peek over at the To Do list on the right there you'll see that not only has the list been slimmed down significantly, but we've dropped a few points on the taste spectrum. :) You see, we've decided to get the heck out of this money pit before it sends us to the poor house. You betcha, we're slapping lipstick on this pig and getting outta here. That list over there is no longer a Must Do list, it's more of a general idea list. We're going to do the least amount necessary to get it sold.


So look forward to more frequent updates about our new projects, starting with a mini-kitchen makeover... coming soon!

I'd better get back to sucking up the last of the concrete dust before our lungs give up the ghost.

Holiday Project Sneek Peeks

As promised, here are some sneek peeks of the two bigger projects we tackled (with a LOT of help) over the break.

Gasp! We have a deck!!!


Our oven/office is an oven no more! More detailed pics and "finished product" shots to come as well as a few smaller holiday projects we tackled.

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 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.)

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!

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!!

Weekend Project Update!

It's Sunday and finally time to show you the finished coffee table!! I am soooo happy with how this turned out I could seriously cry... I am not kidding.

Here we have the table sans glass in our crappy patio area (yes, I know it's a sty... we're working on it!)



I sanded the whole table lightly to smooth rough spots and create a "key" for the primer and paint to stick to.

Here she is all primed... it was about this time that I posted my feelings about the lattice work and how I hope to never have to deal with it again.

This was the first coat. Don't you love that gorgeous shade of grey/blue? It's Amphibian by Behr. I chose it on a total whim when the Home Depot paint lady looked at me askew after I requested Behr's Dense Shrub... She handed me the paint deck and told me to take it outside to get a better idea of the color in natural light. I am SO glad she did, or I wouldn't have found this gorgeous color!


After 2 coats of Poly, here is the finished product in the living room. I've not set up any table scape as yet.... Want to be totally sure that the Poly has dried before I go setting anything up. The last thing I want is to have things stuck to the surface.


So there you have it! My beautiful $15 coffee table rehab totalling just under $30 all told. Best of all, this color has inspired the whole living/dining color concept. More about that later. For now, behold the beauty....

P.S. Any of you veteran Craigslist furniture rehabbers ever tempted to send a picture of the refinished article to the person you bought it from in the first place? I am sure he thought we were some scrubs buying his beat up old $15 table... little does he know, it looks better now than it did when it was new.

What do you think? Did I make a good choice on the grey? Would you have done the lattice differently? I have some other ideas for ways to fix it, but I am going to live with it like this for a while and see how I like it before I go about changing.

ETA: I forgot to add the final, final pic complete with placemats to distract from the lattice.