Men just don't get us sometimes :)

I had to share this conversation between Micheal and I today, it's hilarious (love ya babe!) Totally unrelated to home improvement, but totally us. :)

(As I'm preparing to go home to KS)
Me: I need a new travel bag - like makeup bag
Micheal: keep your eyes open for one
Me: Target has some cute ones, I want a super cute one. :) Maybe a matching set even
Micheal: Wow, OK. But is it a travel bag or a makeup bag and why is there a set? 1 bag doesn't equal a set.
Me: One for shampoo, bigger stuff etc. One for makeup, brushes.
me: Kinda like this:

Micheal: wow...how did "a bag" become a small army of bags?
Me: :D I don't need all of those...maybe like 3 ;)
Micheal: Do you even have enough makeup and misc to fill all those bags?
Me: Yes! I don't even have a bag right now so I'm randomly shoving stuff in my bag like hair things, deodorant, lotion etc. - Being this beautiful takes supplies ;)
Micheal: You're beautiful without the supplies [Awww...]

Weekend Update & WWL 6/28/10

What a weekend...and generally not in a good way. It ended up okay but felt like a series events governed by Murphy's Law. But, like all good renovators we did our best to pick up and keep going.

My weekly to do lists have been good for motivation but also tend to end in Sunday night cram fests. So let's look at the list and see how we did this weekend.

• Hopefully avoid having to order steroids for Micheal - The poison ivy has been beaten! Thank goodness.
  
• Paint the cabinet doors - Yeeahhh.....They're almost ready to be painted.
  
• Order hinges and knobs - Not even close.
  
• Sand second half of tabletop - Sunday night cram!
  
  There are still spots that have some poly left so it'll need another very fine sand.
  
• Remove final seat cover - Micheal took care of this while I took a coping nap today, he's a peach.

Other things we did:

• Do a complete tune-up on the truck.
  
• Drive an hour to pickup this beautiful buffet/china cabinet.
  
  I did a little preemptive decorating. :)
  
• Went shopping at the Gap.
  
• Did repair work on the first buffet and the second buffet.
  
• Hung a new bird feeder.

The trip to Annapolis was planned after we set goals last Sunday prepping the truck and taking that trip cut into our renovation time. But it was worth it - the woman we bought it from is actually a hobbyist mid-century collector and seller! Her garage was FULL of treasures... We didn't end up purchasing anything else, but told her about a few things I'm looking for and she said she'd keep her eyes out for me.

This would be the time that I would set goals for next week, however - I won't be here! We got a free ticket from United for something that went wrong on our last trip so I'm using it for a quick trip home to shoot off some fireworks this weekend. So Micheal might chime in at some point with goals for himself, but my goals are to see my family, friends, and set off some small explosives!

It's Funny How Things Work Out

About a month ago when we were actively searching for a mid century buffet Micheal found an awesome one on craigslist. You have to be QUICK with these things, so when we didn't hear back immediately we soft of bombarded the woman with emails. After about a week of no answer she emailed back saying it had been sold. :( However she and Micheal had a short email correspondence about where they bought it, it's history, etc. which was nice. They bought it at a garage sale for $25 because no one wanted it! Crazy people! So another missed opportunity. Sad.

Then we hit up this awesome estate sale a few weeks back and scored some amazing pieces at a great deal. Two side tables and an awesome buffet all for $135, sweet! More than we typically spend (thinking free...) but I was ready for some furnishings that I could just bring home and use.

We've been cleaning them up and preparing to post pics for you guys, and low and behold a month later the first woman emails us back! The other person never showed, and even though there were people in front of us in line she knew we really wanted it so wanted to offer it to us!

Just what we need, another piece of furniture right? In this case, yes. It's an amazing deal (and about an hour away) and we're thinking of turning it into a flat panel TV console!



And the best part is the price, $50!!! Even if we can't find a place for it (who am I kidding...we will) we would be able to clean it up and resell it in DC for a much better price. Yay!

Kitchen Inspiration

As we're working on our kitchen I've been searching the web for "orange kitchen" inspiration pictures. There are a lot out there!

You can have orange cabinets:

[Photo from Home Interior Design]

Or orange walls:

[Photo from H is for Home]

So far this is my favorite:

[Photo from Home-designing.com]

With these inspiring pictures to guide us, we're hoping to turn these before pictures (these are the WAY before, prior to replacing appliances) into some AMAZING orange afters!

June 21st 2009...

...was, to date, the absolute best day of my life. I got to spend the day celebrating my marriage to Micheal with those in the world who love us most. It was beautiful, it was hot(!!), it went by way too fast, and I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

So Micheal - Happy Anniversary, I love you SO much - you make every day better. What a year it's been (let alone, what a 4 years it's been) and I'm so blessed to have spent it with you by my side.

Love always,
Sunshine

Good Friends

Amazing Family

Good Times

...and a whole lotta LOVE!


[Photos by Rachel Clare Photography]

Weekend Update & WWL 6/20/10

The weekend update is moved up a day because tomorrow is a special occasion. :)

We only gave ourselves two goals this weekend to try and help focus on the cabinet doors...but we kinda have renovation ADHD and have difficulty focusing on just one project.

So the goals were:

• Sand and paint cabinet doors - Both sides sanded, old handle and hinge holes filled, but not painted.
  
• Take the fabric off one more cheetah seat. They're really gross so I can only get up the motivation to do one at a time. - Done!! Times TWO! Three down, one to go. :)

Other things that we did:

• Mow the lawn and pull a TON of weeds
  
• Strip the first layer of paint of the back of the bedroom door
  
• Sand the top of the new (to us) dining room table
  
• Go to dinner to celebrate our anniversary!
  
  
• Get poison ivy again...(not me...)
  
• Repair and oil the new (to us) buffet

Goals for next week:

• Hopefully avoid having to order steroids for Micheal
  
• Paint the cabinet doors
  
• Order hinges and knobs
  
• Sand second half of tabletop
  
• Remove final seat cover

WWL:

1. Mowing your lawn is like shaving for a woman: When you have plenty of time you get everything trimmed nice and neat. When you're in a hurry you get the parts that everyone else can see and then hope for the best!
   
2. Part of the law that keeps chair and couch owning people in line originated in Kansas!
   
   

Nightstand Before and After

My poor alarm clock has been living on the floor for about 7 months now. I donated my makeshift nightstand to the guest bathroom in October when Jason and Jolene came to visit and it has remained there ever since.


Once we found a nightstand to go with my dresser my alarm clock was elated!


I used a similar process to refinishing my dresser except I had a fancy new tool to get to all the small spaces - The Dremel Multimax!


This little guy has turned out to be an excellent purchase and has the potential to be even more helpful. I'll do a review on it and how it's the perfect woman's tool later this week.

Back to the nightstand. I used the orbital sander with 100 grit sand paper to sand all the large flat surface down to bare wood.

Some tips to think about when using an orbital sander:

1. Make sure to wait to turn your sander on until AFTER you have placed it on the the piece of furniture. If you life it off, turn it off and repeat the above step. If you start sanding when it's already turned on it'll catch and damage the wood.
   
2. Hook it up to your shopvac to reduce dust - there is a nifty attachment that you can find at your local hardware store to go straight from hose to sander.
   
3. When sanding paint or varnish keep your eye on the sand paper. Both paint and particularly varnish can get built up on the paper and cause irregular sanding. You can scrape it out with a wire brush (or just use your fingernails like I do) and continue to use the same sandpaper.

After I had the major sanding done I broke out the new multimax and got into the corners and crevices. I also had to do some hand sanding to rough up the smaller details. I did not sand the trim pieces down to bare wood but instead roughed them up some with sandpaper and then stained over the existing stain. Again I used the stain + poly mix by Minwax so it would match the dresser, however I'm not totally in love with this product. It can be difficult to get an even coat, but maybe that's operater error and not the fault of the stain. :) I stuck with the existing hardware because it kind of matches and the leftover matching one from my dresser was too big. Sad.

Before

After

Update - Fabric Chosen!

Thanks so much for weighing in on our outdoor fabric options. I agreed with most of you and #4 was my favorite heading into Joann's. However they didn't have that pattern in green in the store, but this DID have this fabric that I hadn't seen on line...



I LOVE it! I had to make the decision on the fly because I couldn't get a picture to Micheal and I was at a Joann's about 45 min from our house. But I was pretty sure he would like it, and I was right. :)

Notice that I did buy a zipper - ONE zipper. I'm willing to give it a try, but if I suck at it I'm going to go back to plan B...just glue it all closed with fabric glue. :D

Outdoor Fabric - Sale at Joann's!

I've been putting off buying this fabric because the cushion recovering project is getting the best of me. I have sewing confession...I'm afraid of zippers.

I have no idea how to sew them in and have avoided learning. I actually came up with a button alternative last night to close my first cushion so I decided to buckle down and order the rest. So imagine how excited I was since when I looked up my fabric at Joann.com today it is on great sale! I have enough lime green fabric to cover the single chair so I need a coordinating fabric to go on the love seat. These are the ones I like in order that they appear on Joann.com not preference:

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

Everybody weigh in! If you get this via email you can reply to me and I'll post your comment or if you read this in reader you can click out to the original post and leave a comment! Thanks!

Weekend Update & WWL 6/14/10

Whew guys, this weekend was HOT!! Highs in the 90's so we spent most of our time indoors and enjoyed several frozen desserts. So let's see what we got done indoors!

• Finish painting the side stairs (carryover) Done!!
  
• Paint the MBR and MBath Doors - One side of the MBR door is stripped, that's it.
  
• Sand & Paint the MBR door jamb - Yeah, totally even forgot that was on the list.
  
• Find a planter for my poor parsley and basil, they're wasting away - Done!
  
• Finish nightstand - Done! - Pics to come this week!
  
• Fashion some plant stands for my ever growing garden! - Micheal says he has something for me, so I think that counts as progress

Other things that we did:

• Micheal stripped the old caulk out off of the bedroom trim and repainted it, looks great!
  
• Hung some wall decor in the bedroom - it's really starting to come together!
  
• Took down the upper cabinet doors and removed the hardware!

Goals for the upcoming week(end):

• Sand and paint cabinet doors! (Focusing on this project.)
  
  
• Take the fabric off one more cheetah seat. They're really gross so I can only get up the motivation to do one at a time.

WWL:

1. When sanding doesn't work on gross paint, break out the chisel - works like a charm!
   
2. We have two ground squirrels, a mouse, and three skinks. I think the word is out that we feed the woodland creatures.
   
3. Communication is good.
   
4. Deer poop looks like really big rabbit poop.
   
5. I can get into any sport except hockey. I even got excited about watching the World Cup!
   
6. The Big 12 might come to an end...and it makes me really sad.

Garden Takeover! Before and After.

I took what I deemed to be an embarrassing part of our home's exterior...


...and combined it with some old pieces of wood...


Added a dash of elbow grease and voila!


My garden has taken off! I think I may have overestimated the capacity of my little box, but whatever - there will be veggies!!

Before


After


Before


After