Our Bedroom, Kitten Approved

So if you remember (or even if you don't) we began a little "facelift" to our bedroom back in March, and it's been nearly finished for a long time, but we finally completed it! I think it looks great!

We painted all the trim white, removed the rug (it was gross), made it so we could each have an alarm clock on our side of the bed, put in reading lights on both sides of the bed, put in a new ceiling fan, and painted and trimmed out the ceiling. Take a look! "Befores" on the left, "Afters" on the right...

        

One more "After"...

Don't be fooled by the crop of the above pictures, the room looks bigger than ever, and is cleaner that it's been in a long time. I know the projects were a complete success because the room has been kitten approved!

The 40 days of Lent are over...

For the past two years during Lent, my hubby and I have "given up procrastination" for lent by writing out a list of projects that we never get around to, and trying to accomplish as many as we can over this time period. I call it 40 Days 40 Projects. Here's how we did this year, below is a list of completed projects:

#3 Make summer camping reservations
#4 Fix Rattling Vent
#5 Put up shelf/towel rack/hook in the bathroom
#9 Paint mirror white in the bathroom
#10 Replace switch covers in the bathroom
#11 Wash and switch shower curtains
#12 New pulls on the bathroom vanity
#13 Hang lights in the bathroom
#14 Paint bedroom ceiling
#15 Re-hang hooks on the back of the bedroom door
#16 New ceiling fan in the bedroom
#17 Remove bedroom TV
#19 Paint bedroom trim white
#20 Drill holes in bed for alarm clocks to plug in
#21 Trim out bedroom ceiling
#28 Put away camping gear
#32 Organize cubby hole
#37 Fix hole behind TV in the red room . *This one is only halfway done, the cover has been painted red a few times, but it's still streaky. We'll do another coat or two and then it will go on the wall.
#39 Paint covers for in the kitchen. *Ditto for #37.
#52 Plants. We've added a large plant to our living room, and gotten two plants for our bedroom. Plants are supposed to help the air quality in your house, and they look nice! Loving them!
#53 Completed today. Edit shelves in the living room.
#56 Plates over the wall in the living room
#63 Kinda done...Get ready for another garage sale. Not that we're totally ready, but all this organizing has helped weed out the things that we can sell in our next garage sale.
#93 Entertain at least once during this time, today, Easter!
#94 Start planning a party. We have officially started planning my Hubby's graduation party; invitations are out, room is reserved, menu is rollin'.
#95 Drop off to Reuse-A-Shoe
#96 Organize/Put away winter gear
#97 Organize under the sink in the kitchen
#99 Move hope chest and organize bedding
#100 Add new handles to camping gear storage

So that's 30 projects (3 of which are in progress), it's not 40, but hey, it's more than last year. And I'm proud of us; with Hubby finishing up grad school and a vacation there was very little procrastination going on around here and that's was the true goal. Yeah us!!!

#9 Paint Bathroom Mirror White, #10 Replace Old Switch Plates with New White Ones

The titled tasks kinda describe themselves perfectly...

Here's where we had left off...

Here's now...

I'm glad we decided to reuse the mirror and paint it white--it was more economical and earth-friendly. I really like the amount of white in the bathroom now! That door across from the mirror better look out, it might be painted next!

#21 Trim Out Ceiling

So we completed another big project on our list of projects, we trimmed out the ceiling in our bedroom. The project started a few weeks ago when we did a few other projects in our bedroom. Here's a picture of the nearly completed bedroom ceiling...

Here's what we did to tackle this project...

1) Measure in an even amount (you choose what you'd want to do, for us it was about 14" on each side) around the entire ceiling. We measured in every foot or so and then connected the dots with a straight edge making a solid box on the ceiling. 

2) Prime and then paint the entire square.

3) Then measure the lengths of the painted sides and cut trim accordingly, cutting at 45 degree angle at the corners. That kind of over simplifies it a bit, but that is basically what you do. Tip: 1) Cliche as it might sound measure twice, cut once. 2) Remember, the trim will be stuck to the ceiling bottom side up, so either cut with the back side of the trim up, or remember to angles will be reversed if cutting back side down.

4) Paint the trim pieces.

5) Put the trim pieces up on the ceiling using liquid nails or adhesive caulk and finishing nails. Use a lot of caulk to ensure the trim pieces stick and put a nail in every 6" or so. Tip: 1) We found two length finishing nails at the local hardware store. We thought the shorter ones would have been fine, but that would have been a mistake, use the longer finishing nails to sink as far as possible into the ceiling. 2) Get ready for lots of caulk jokes like "squeeze my caulk", "this caulk just exploded all over", "the tip of caulk is all sticky", etc--have fun with it, because there is truly no escaping them.

6) Using a paintable spackle, patch nail holes and trim piece seams.

7) Paint over spackle. (We actually haven't done this part yet, but it is next on the list!)

8) Enjoy!!

Check out the cool new ceiling fan too!

Just a few more finishing touches and the bedroom will be complete and I'll post all the "after" pictures!!

#56 Plates over the blank outlets in the living room

When we repainted our living room in the summer 2009 (yes, nearly two years ago), we took two plastic plates off the wall (the kind that cover blank outlets) and they never went back up. The blank spaces are behind a piece of furniture, and really I rarely if ever think of them...but I did when I was writing our 40 Days, 40 Projects list!

Instead of just replacing the covers, I primed the plastic with spray paint and then painted them with same color as the wall. Painting the plates is a lot better than holes in our wall, and quite a bit better than stark white plates on a light brown wall too.

#16 New Bedroom Ceiling Fan

Continuing with last weekend's projects, we did a little bit more work in our bedroom, by hanging a new ceiling fan. To be honest, I don't love the way ceiling fans look, but I love love love sleeping with the fan on pretty much year round. So we went with function over form on this one. We found our ceiling fan at Walmart for about $50 which is exactly how much I wanted to spend on it. It was pretty easy to install, and I think it looks good...MUCH better than our last one!

Still waiting on the "after" pictures for when we've completed all the work in the bedroom, which will hopefully be next weekend. Stay tuned!

#28 Put Away Camping Gear, #100 Add Handles to Camping Gear Storage and #3 Make Summer Camping Reservations

Only a few more weeks of the Lenten season, and we're still marking projects off the list!

#28 was to Put Away Camping Gear. We actually organized this area of our basement really well in the fall too. When we renovated our kitchen in the Spring of 2009, we moved some of the old cabinets into the basement. These cabinets now hold laundry supplies, tools and camping gear. In addition we are using some of the furniture I've had since I was 4 years old to hold camping gear. Both the re-purposed cabinets and kid shelves and drawers are perfect for this kind of storage. And even though we haven't used any of the camping gear since last fall, we were generously given a lot of great camping gear for Christmas. While the new gear had previously been corralled to the basement, it now has a permanent home with the other camping gear.

At the same time we completed #100 Add Handles to Camping Gear Storage. When we got my old childhood furniture from my mom, the first thing my Hubby did was paint it. And while it looks much better, some of the drawers now stick from being painted and living in the humid basement. Easy fix, we added inexpensive 4" drawer handles today, and now the drawers work just fine!!

After the organizing of the camping gear, it seemed fitting to do #3 Make Summer Camping Reservations. We are now planning a trip to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore (which we learned actually does not take reservations) and to Mirror Lake Wisconsin State Park. We decided that while we hopefully will do more camping than this it is difficult to make reservations too far into the future, since stuff always seems to pop up. But I am not uber excited for these two trips!!!

#99 Move the hope chest upstairs and organize sheets, pillow cases and duvet covers

Completed tonight, this makes 14 projects so far!

Organizing our bedding for our room and the guest room, has always been a challenge for us. To help, we moved the hope chest that my hubby made in high school upstairs from the basement, and put all of the bedding for room in it. We separated out the guest room bedding and put it in the storage cubby in the guest room. Simple, easy, didn't take too long, and now its done.

Bedroom Fix Up

After our trip to Arizona, we had a few days before we went back to work. So what did we do but cross more of our Lenten projects off our list. Since we had a little more time than a normal weekend, we tackled some of our projects in our bedroom. I forgot to take some "before" pictures until after we got started taping and moving stuff around. Kinda weird to post pictures of our bedroom online, but here it goes...

When we first moved in, the Hubby took off about a week to do some work around the house. This bedroom  was actually pink, but I found a green color I liked, and Hubby went to painting. While I was at work, Hubby called and asked where he should stopped painting, and I said just to paint everything green. Its difficult in Cape Cod homes, where there are slanted ceilings, to know where to "stop" painting and what is the wall and what is the ceiling. When I came home to see the Hubby had painted the entire room green--which I had said I wanted--I immediately realized how dark it would make the room look. The room was lightened up a little with a white rug, but two cats and dog later, that white rug is not in the best shape. Since we are not all done in the bedroom, I'll wait to post "after" pictures. But here is what has been completed so far...


#13 Hang Sconces next to the bed


#14 Paint Ceiling in bedroom


#15 Hang Hooks on the back of the door


#19 Paint doors and door trim white


#20 Drill holes in bed to plug in alarm clocks

#4 Fix Vent that Rattles

Okay, another of our 40 Projects is marked off the list. My hubby-poo fixed the vent in our living room that would rattle when the heat was on. Not sure what he did (tightened a screw or two, I think) but I know I am not constantly irritated with the heat is on now. The rattle was very "grate"ing, so I'm glad its fixed. Forgive the pun, but I had to.

We also completed #13, 14, 15, 19 and 20, but those projects come with pictures and it is late. I go back to work starting tomorrow, so I need to go to bed now. Post more tomorrow.

#97 Clean and Organize under the sink in the kitchen

It didn't take long, which begs the question why I just didn't do it before. I took out everything under the sink, there were a few surprises but mostly it was cleaning products and our recycle bins. We use two recycle bins, one for aluminum, glass, plastic, etc and the other for cardboard and paper products. Under this area was quite dirty with soda splatter and the like. I organized the cleaning products too, and realized a couple of things: 1)Our disorganization leads to waste. When we can't find something, we just re-buy it, as we had duplicates of a few different products and I didn't realized we had some of the stuff that was in there. Organization is good for the soul and the wallet, I guess. 2) I would like to stop buying so many cleaning products and start making more of my own. I very recently started using white vinegar and water as an all-purpose cleaner. These home-made cleaners are more often eco-friendly, pet-friendly, and very inexpensive. I'm going to finish using what I have first, of course, but then would like to start. 


Any suggestions on home-made/eco-friendly cleaners you use at home?

#96 Organize/Put away winter wear

Last night we picked up a long storage box, that fits perfectly in the top of our long coat closet. Today I organized all our winter scarves, hats, mittens, gloves, earmuffs and ski goggles. For just two of us we have tons of this type of stuff, so I was happy everything fit into the box! I even had room for the hubby's snow pants. We did keep a pair of gloves and a hat out each...just in case...but at this point in the year I'm pretty much gonna refuse to wear such things!

Done and done.

#32 Organize cubby hole in stair way, and clean up back door area

Our stairwell has a nice little cubby hole in it that is a great place for extra storage. Today I cleaned it out organized it into two crates and two bins. The bins now hold shoes since the back door area is ideal for shoes, since this is where they like to congregate anyways. One of the crates holds extra or specialized cleaning products, and the other holds paper plates, cups and napkins. And the best part, there is still room!!!

At the same time, I cleaned up and re-organized our back door area.

We have four hooks (great for jackets, purses and hats), three Ikea shoe organizers (stacked one on top of the other and mounted to the wall), white board for messages, and cutie bull heads for key holders.

The bull heads were actually part of our Lenten projects last year, and they've worked great every since! On top of the shoe organizers we are able to keep sunglasses, a catch all, and at least for a few more weeks a box with gloves and hats.

#12, #5 and #11...More work in the bathroom

#12 New cabinet pulls for the vanity in bathroom

We found these pulls at Ace Hardware. They match the facets in the shower and sink perfectly and they were about $2 each. Easy to install and they look great!

#5 Put up shelf, towel rack, toothbrush holder, and robe hook

So for this project, the hubby and I had to do something neither of us had ever done before...drill into tile. Now it may not sound hard, and it wasn't really, but it was a little intimidating since there is no good way to patch tile if any mistakes were made. Luckily, there weren't! Another challenge, was marking where to drill once we'd measured out were the holes went. We accomplished this by marking on painters tape since we didn't have anything that would write on the tile. Hubby says the key to drilling into tile is going slow and applying very firm pressure to the drill bit. 

We bought the glass shelf, double towel bar and toothbrush holder from Lowes, along with the two robe hooks, the cost was about $50. We love the way they look, take a look for yourself...

Unfortunately, the toothbrushes we have don't quite fit right, but hey, it's nearly time for new brushes anyways! On the shelf, I'm displaying some of my "finds"; a blue glass hand that I got at a flea market and I put my jewelry on and my round Asian guy I found at a thrift store, I'm not sure what he is supposed to be used for, but I'll use when I burn incense cones. 

#11 Wash, and switch shower curtains. 

Pretty self explanatory. I just thought the solid color shower curtain would look a little better in the bathroom now...so the striped one is now in the downstairs bathroom. Here's a look from the hallway...

#95 Drop off Old Sneakers for "Reuse-A-Shoe"

"Every year, across the globe, millions of pairs of athletic shoes end up in landfills or disposed of in some other way creating a lot of waste.  Much of what we dispose of contains valuable materials that, with a little bit of imagination and ingenuity, could be reused.  With the pursuit of sustainability in mind, Nike created a program to recycle worn out athletic shoes and turn them into something new.  Old athletic shoes of any brand, are collected, processed and recycled into a material called “Nike Grind”.  Once SWALCO collects the athletic shoes (sometime after Earth Day each year) from our school, community and business partners, we transport them to Nike's facility to become "grind".  This material will then be used to create sports surfaces like basketball courts, tennis courts, athletic fields, running tracks and playgrounds that will be enjoyed by children of all ages, for many years to come. Now that's creative recycling!" 
-SWALCO 
www.lakecountyil.gov/swalco/Programs/Reuse-A-Shoe


Yesterday we dropped off some old and/or half-chewed (thank you, Nola Belle!) shoes to this program at our local drop-off point the Zion-Benton Library. If you have old athletic shoes, think about rounding them up and dropping off for a similar cause. Cleans your house, good for the environment, good for sport surfaces.  

This Year for Lent...Another 40 Days, 40 Projects!

So once again, my hubby and I are going to give up procrastinating for lent. We've made up a very long list of projects and tasks we've put off for too long, as well as some activities we've been looking forward to over the winter. Basically, it's a collective list of all those "You know what we should do..." conversations that we've been having for months. 


Lent this year runs from March 9th through Easter, which is technically 46 days, but the 6 Sundays during this time don't count and are, as I understand it, supposed to be like mini-Easters. But we aren't doing this for religious reasons, and truthfully, Sundays are really good days for us to get things done, so we will still be checking off projects on Sundays. Also, I'd like to accomplish 40 projects, that's the goal, but really I'll be pretty happy that we are just making progress and getting things taken care of. 


I hope you follow along during this time to watch our progress! If you look at the tag "40 days 40 projects" you can see what we were able to get done last year; it will also tag all of our "projects" for this year. 


So with that, I am very excited to get started...tomorrow. 

40 Days, but not quite 40 Projects

So lent is over, Easter was yesterday, but we did not get to all 40 projects. In fact we only completed 18 projects. But that's nearly half, so I'm pretty okay with that. With little exception, we most likely would not have accomplished any of these projects in the last few weeks.

Overall, the experience of "40 Days, 40 Projects" was great. And I'm really glad we tried to tackle so many tasks! We will continue to accomplish these projects around the house, and not put them off...or put them off for too long.  As the weather gets nicer and nicer, I am sure our focus will shift to the yard--and boy, let me tell you, we have some work to do out there!

#61: Put basketball hoop on Craig's List

So I took pictures of our b-ball hoop, and Matt put the ad on Craig's List. We need it out because one of our spring project is enclosing the rest of our backyard. As of right now the hoop is in the way.

Here's the posting for the hoop if you happen to be interesting.

#19: Take care of stick pile in the backyard

Today is Easter, so technically lent is over. And there is more of the stick pile left, so technically this task isn't complete. BUT I'M COUNTING IT ANYWAYS!

Pretty much since we moved in, there has been a large pile of sticks in the backyard. Over the years we've added to the pile. However, over yesterday and today Hubby has cleared the pile to the back alley (where the city will come to chip in a few weeks). He also trimmed a tree in the back and added those limbs to the back alley pile. Now the only stuff left were the old pile is large stumps from when the former owners took down a tree. We are planning to cut those stumps up more to make firewood.

#54: Hubby submit Fall teaching schedule

So we've been sitting on this a little while now. Now that Hubby is teaching at the local community college AND working his full time job AND going to grad school, life is a little different for us. Good news: he's not going to teach or go to grad school over the summer semester. Bad news (but very responsible news, mind you): During the fall semester, Hubby will be working Monday through Saturday. What a good guy!!!