A pink bow: a new hobby!

A Pink Bow

No not that kind!!

This kind!

Yesterday afternoon after church we were sitting around the house.  It was really too hot outside to be enjoyable.  So we decided to trek over to our favorite store (the kids and hubby's favorite store anyway, I like the mandarin ducks there though) Bass Pro Shop.  Jeremy had a gift card from his birthday (in March) he still hadn't spent.  So as we looked at guns, trail cams, food plot seed, the ducks, books, camo recliners, pictures, fishing poles (in pink, well that's what I looked at) clothing, etc. Then we decided to head up and check out the cross bows.  That's when it happened...did you know they make pink bows? I looked at it and said it was cute, the next thing I know hubby is saying, "If you want it I will buy it right now!" (If you know my husband this is shocking in itself, he is not a big spender. He is an amazingly thoughtful gift giver and loving man, but he doesn't just spend money to spend money) Of course as a Mom and wife I am always thinking of what I can buy for the kids or hubby or the house.  I have a hard time spending money on myself, I just feel guilty (unless it's a garage sale love cute cheap clothes from garage sales)  And besides home improvement (if you can call that a hobby, can you?) I have never really had a hobby to call my own.  Hubby has been bugging me to find something (other than home improving) that I would like to do.  He has been pushing golf (never golfed in my life.) He wanted to do something together (that does sound nice, doesn't it?) So before I knew it the bow was off the shelf and they (salesman and hubby) were taking me to try shooting it in the indoor range.  I still am unsure how all of this happened. I was shooting it, I failed miserably with 2 shots but hubby was insistent that I would like it and we should get it.  Before I knew it we were walking out (we did pay for it first) with the PINK bow (pink being the more important word there).  Next step PINK arrows and maybe a PINK release (for now I am trying out hubby's to see what kind I like) :)

Hubby even called me this afternoon to see if I shot it yet (I am waiting for him to get home for this.) When I said no, he said well did you go look at it? I am not sure who is more excited (ok, he is for sure) But it would be nice to have a hobby that we can enjoy together.  Hopefully I will be good at this. (I have never liked anything hobby wise to work at being good at it, nothing hobby wise has ever been that important to me. Even as a kid.) I feel like the Brave princess, Merida with my curly hair and new (pink) bow!

Me trying to figure out how to look through that teeny hole! (peephole I think it's called)

I had to share his note to me on our I LOVE YOU board this morning, just in case his excitement did not come across clearly enough in my story LOL :) LOVE HIM!

Just to verify for you all how much my Hubby loves shooting (here he is teaching our 3 year old son)

Decorating a little boys room (who loves hunting)

My husband loves hunting so I think it was inevitable that my son would also love hunting! So when we were decorating his room in our new home I wanted to find some mock animal mounts.  They were kind of pricey though---about $50 each or so.  So I tried to think of something else.  That's when I came accross this bear and moose in the stuffed animal bin at salvation army.  I cut off their heads, I know morbid right.  Anyway, then stained these wood plaques I picked up at hobby lobby and stapled the heads to the plaques.  ****TA DA**** cheap animal head mounts.  My 3year old  (2 at the time we decorated, hence the crib)  LOVES them!

Framing in a mirror

Framing in a mirror

Both of the bathrooms in our home when we bought it had those big mirrors glued to the wall.  The powder room had no mirror at all. Anyway, they were boring.  When we decorated our master bathroom we added a frame with molding and it looked good.  It was a huge change for minimal cost especially since this mirror is seriously HUGE! The kids bathroom however kind of got forgotten about.  I had painted it a brown color and although I didn't hate it I wasn't really in love with it either.  So I just left it all the way it was for about 2 years.  I didn't want to repaint just any color.

The brown color I wasn't thrilled with.  It was kind of gloomy and the counters and tiles all just matched. 

This brings me to last week.  I was looking around on pinterest just to look and I came accross this blog: http://www.sandandsisal.com/2011/10/my-boys-beach-themed-bathroom.html
I was inspired by her boys bathroom.  I had started with an Americana theme since I have a boy and girl sharing the bathroom I didn't want to go too masculine or feminine.  Then the Americana theme started to lean towards beach theme.  So the color I decided would fit my bathroom perfectly.  I stopped by Benjamin Moore and bought my paint.  After I got that on the wall I went molding shopping, I had to buy 2 different kinds of moldings and return them to Home Depot before I found the perfect one at Lowes.  I used a casing molding (the kind that goes around windows and doors).  I originally purchased crown molding but that will not work since it does not cover the edges or the mirror. (My hubby pointed this out) Then we came to the problem that the mirror in this bathroom was not HUGE and covering it up like in the other blog I was looking at would make it look teeny! Although that was is much more user friendly for people that do not have lots of tools etc.  Thankfully God blessed me with a very handy husband. I don't have a picture (I told you I was terrible at before pictures) of the before but this is after we added the luan (spelling?) thin, cheap wood.  To build it up enough my husband used 2 layers of this, so he could then overlap the molding a half inch to cover the mirror clips holding the mirror on the wall! This goes around the perimeter of the mirror and we used a nail gun to hold it up on the wall. So you can see the mirror would have been pretty small.  Also, by making it bigger, it actually centers it better over the countertop.

Notice in the picture below the frame is painted about an inch all the way around in black paint.  I used craft paint since it dries fast and I am impatient, especially when excited about a project! This blacks out the mirror, since mirrors reflect.

Then we have our frame.  Cut two exact pieces the same length at a 45 for the sides and then cut two more exact pieces for the top and bottom at a 45.  The lady in the blog used some kind of contact cement adhesive. Hubby used a nail gun.  On one corner the nail went through and we had to do some repair work. The glue may be a better idea in this case because the frame is pretty fragile. I caulked and painted my frame in semi gloss white paint. I then started to piece in the tiles I bought at Home Depot for $4.98 a sheet, we used about a sheet and a half. I put them all on there and made my cuts with scissors on the mesh that holds them together.  Where it overlapped a little on the edge I just readjusted the spaces a little to squeeze them all in and you cannot even tell!  I used Power Grab glue for this that dries clear and it was on there pretty good after only about 5 minutes. After this it was ready to hang up.  We again attached the frame to the wood with a nail gun, I caulked the holes and touched them up with paint and then......

*******TA DA*********..... we have a finished frame that looks totally custom (well, it is) I am so in love with it and have found myself going up there just to look at it! I am that proud! Silly I know, but if I would have remembered to take a true before picture you would truly know the AWE effect!

Looks pretty great if I do say so myself.  I do plan on finding a new valance for the window.... stay tuned! :)
















Product Review: DAPPER SNAPPER

www.dappersnappers.com

Problem: I have two skinny and tall children.  Whenever they outgrow their pants length wise their new pants fall off their bums.  Then their underwear or bum cracks are hanging out for the world too see. This especially bothers my husband.

Solution: We could go out and buy all adjustable waist pants, however even these still would fall off my children. Also, since we are more frugal I like to buy pants at garage sales. Kids don't wear clothes long enough to wreck all of them and I find GREAT deals at garage sales.  Only at garage sales are quarters and 50 cents worth anything anymore. A pair of gap or children's place pants for 50 cents, YES PLEASE! So by purchasing these dapper snappers for less than the cost of a retail pair of pants I make any and all of my children's pants fit.  From infant to my 7 year old.

I LOVE this product so much! We have 4 of them now and have been using them since my daughter for 2 years old.  How hard is it to find a belt for a 2 year old that actually works and doesn't leave marks on her skin? TOUGH! So when I found this product I jumped for joy!

I had to share the good news to other parents who don't yet know about this great product!

ENJOY! 

They dont make things the same: dresser redo

They just don't make things like they used too!

This is the dilemma I was dealing with when deciding what to do about my son's dresser.  I bought this dresser from a thrift store when I was pregnant with my now 7 year old daughter for $20.  It worked great for her with a changing pad on top.  It sure needed a facelift though.  My daughter got new girly furniture so this was handed down to my son's room when we were expecting him.  Just recently (he is 3 now) I couldn't stand it anymore.  I also knew that most things I would buy at Art Van or similar stores just would not hold up to an active 3 year old boy as most things are not very well made anymore.  The dresser we have is a SOLID piece and very well made so I knew my best option was trying to redo it first.

I knew as with most projects this idea wasn't going away so I thought and thought about how to redo it.  He has a natural wood rusticy type headboard so going all the way black wasnt' an option.  I bought some paint and sanding blocks and got to work.  It had some nice designs in it that I was able to bring out by painting them black and leaving it "trimmed" in the natural wood color to still match his bed. When I went to find 7" handles at home depot and lowes and ace they were special order for $30 a piece.  Not in my budget at that point I might as well buy something new.  So I enlisted hubby to drill two more holes and do two handles and all the handles and 3 knobs together cost about $34.

Again bad at before pictures but here is the best one I could find (I guess I never think it is going to turn out good enough to warrant a "before" picture and I am always too excited to get started and see the after)


Just a small section of the before but it all looked like this.  The top was the worst, had lots of scratches and some water damage I was able to sand off :)





Total cost paint $10 new handles $34 from lowes. 

I am very happy with the outcome of his dresser.  I was nervous until I added the handles, but I think they spiced it up so the total package turned out pretty well! :)



Project Review: Paper Bag Flooring on the Stairs

Dilemma: Stairs going to basement

They were a mess, beat up wood stairs with a 1' x 3' shredded and stained and fraying green and white berber carpeting attached with roofing nails.  I am trying to build the picture in your mind so you can visualize because again I am terrible at taking "before" pictures. I need to get better, especially if I am going to blog more ideas. It's hard to tell how good after looks unless you have seen the before.

I saw on a blog where they painted the treds in a semi transparent stain.  So I went out and bought some and decided that is what I was going to do.  My husband was less than thrilled about this idea.  That's when I came accross this idea.  Seemed simple enough for me to accomplish while hubby was at work.  I like projects I can get lots of it done while hubby is at work, I also like projects I can get the kids to help me with. I am not sure why it is called paper bag flooring only because you use brown crafting paper rolls. 

Supply list should you want to attempt this:

-Roll of brown crafting/painting paper (you can find this in the painting aisles at home depot or lowes)

-1 gallon of floor grade polyurethane, I got semi gloss (I bought quick dry I am impatient)

-brush or foam brush to put on polyurethane

-Glue- Elmer's glue or any other kind of glue- Michaels had decompage glue on sale so that is what I bought.  I bought 3 16 oz. containers and only ended up using 2 of them.

-Stain- if you would like the flooring to have a darker color, I think that it also worked in nicely to the wrinkles in the paper to bring them out more. I used a golden oak stain but the color turned out much darker than that.

-water

-bowls for mixing the glue/water mixture 3-1 ratio.

To get started you want to rip the pieces of paper into sections, smaller for stairs, larger for whole rooms or hallways.  Then crumple them up into balls.  I put them in mop buckets, edge pieces and middle pieces.  Then throw them into the glue mixture (not too long just to soak them), squeeze them out and uncrumple and aoply it on the surface you are covering.  Be sure to get out air bubbles and such.  Keep going, for the stairs I had to wrap them around the front piece.  I also did every other stair as we have a wood stove in the basement to heat our house and I needed to be able to use the stairs.  Let dry 3-4 hours and then stain.  After staining let dry the amount of time recommended on back of stain container and then put your first coat of polyurethane on.  I put 5 coats on my stairs due to heavy foot traffic, 2 kids and 2 dogs.  It took me awhile.  I would put one on before bed, wake up and put another one on.  Sand lightly between coats after you have a few coats on you can give it a good sanding down to get any wrinkles or bumps out. I did a medium sand I liked the textured look.

Here are some during the project phots.

Every other stair complete with stain and one coat poly

 After pics, hubby added some nice trim.  I like the way he wrapped it down around the bottom landing! He is so creative!

After with molding

We decided to complete the back of the stairs with a sheet of bead board paneling.  It took one sheet.  Hubby cut it with a table saw.   We like the clean cut look of the white against the darker wood look.

 We are happy with the way it turned out and so far it is holding up great with our family and pets and I have no complaints after several months of heavy use. Most people have no idea what it is we used and when we tell them they are impressed.  LOL I am very happy with the way this project turned out.

Product Review: Dye Brick www.dyebrick.com

In our old house we came to the point where we needed a new roof and new t-1-11 or siding.  We really hated our brick color though and didn't want to try to match up siding and roof colors to the hideous brick.  There aren't a lot of cheap options though: rebrick (not in our budget), paint it (in our budget but I think it doesn't look good and that is just my personal humble opinion) So I started doing some research online when I ran across this product called dyebrick.  Sounds like a daunting project to hand stain each brick by hand? Sure does!! I also had a 5 month old and 4 year old at the time too!  So during naps I would grab the monitor and sneak outside with my 4 year old while she played next to me and it took me all summer.  The results were amazing though and we LOVED it! In fact it didn't even look like the same house.  See for yourself below.

BEFORE Dyebrick:

Saying goodbye to the 1970's

After Dye Brick (note we also did new siding and a new roof which we had planned to do anyway as the house was that age)

Front view of hosue, we decided to go with a more timeless and classic color scheme (red and white with black accents)

Side view of house

Our new dream

 Our house when we first looked at it:

I have many times thought about creating a blog with all the crazy things that enter my mind and become projects around our home. Well, a blog or a reality tv show, but a blog seemed simpler.  Of course some of the ideas I get from other sources and then try myself as well.  Generally, once an idea enters my head there is little I can do to not accomplish the task somehow.  Whether involving the help from my general contractor Dad, my creative Mom, my husband who can pretty much figure anything out or just trying and sometimes failing all by myself.  With two kids at home 3 and 7 they are always around for the ride and are used to the many projects going on around in the house.  I grew up that way, my parents would be sitting on the couch and the next thing we knew they were taking out a wall (tried that once myself in our old house, it turned out pretty good too.) I enlisted the help of my Dad on that project! So here I can compile our ideas.  We have redone one house already and are on our second house.  This one was a bank owned and more work, even though we said we already redid one house and were looking for a house that didn't need any work.  Truth be told, we probably would have gotten bored.  Not that I don't get exhuasted by the amount of work we have done and have yet to still do on this house! I am attaching a before and after picture of the outside of the house.

My husband is a very visual person so to agree to do something he needs to see an example.  He saw the potential in this house all I saw was work but he wanted to play around with ideas after we looked at it.  I pulled out our paint it program and this is what we came up with (of course after this he was sold on this house)

This is what we have done so far in about 1 year and 5 months.  A lot more accomplished on the inside but we'll get to that later. We would still like to add new white grid windows one day and possibly cultured stone around the bottom.