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.

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...

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: 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!