bathrooms!

hello everyone!

it has been forever since we have updated you on our house projects! that doesn't mean we haven't been busy though! we've just been working on several things at once, and are finally finished and able to show you our work!

we have finally finished both bathrooms. this has been a multi-step project...

1.) replace the vanity countertops

2.) stain the cabinets

3.) paint

4.) frame the mirrors

let's start with the guest bathroom...

our house came with lovely blue swirl vanities with the seashell sinks. you know what i'm talking about? (not the best picture of the sink, but it'll work for now. there's a better one of the sinks in the master bathroom below.)

we knew we wanted to replace the vanities when we bought the house, so in july, we started shopping around for a new vanity. the sizes of our vanities weren't the standard sizes so we were going to have to buy custom sizes. custom = expensive. however, after shopping around, we were able to find a local place that was less than half the price of what lowe's and home depot quoted us. yay local shopping!

to make it cheaper, ash and i did the demo and removed the old vanities and mirrors ourselves.

once the new vanities were installed, we moved on to staining the wood. we used general finishes java gel stain and general finishes satin poly coat, both available from amazon! it was easy, and looks great (in my opinion) so i highly recommend!

after the vanities and cabinets were finished, we moved on to the paint. it was extremely difficult for me to find a neutral color paint that didn't clash with the neutral colored vanity. after many trips to lowe's, i finally found the perfect color! (and i LOVE this color and will probably use it in all of my future houses as my neutral color.) :) 

this shows all of my paint sampling! (unfortunately, the winner is not shown on here.) :)

also, i was able to convince ash that we should frame the mirrors. :) (i am thankful he's a good sport!) i am convinced that there is going to be some wife that looks at our house and decides to rent it because of the framed mirrors. and a rented house will make both of us happy! 

ready for the final product?!?

 

   

i know, those aren't the best pictures, but have you ever tried to take a picture of your guest bathroom?!? they are such tiny rooms, it's a hard thing to do.

now... on to the master bathroom! we did the same process as the guest bathroom, so i'm just going to show you the pictures!

ohh, i also painted our light fixture with an oil rubbed bronze spray paint (thanks les!), and i think it made a HUGE difference! so make sure you check that out below! (fake out, i just realized the before pictures don't show the light. sorry!) i used this spray paint from lowe's, and it was easy. i read online different ways to get the oil rubbed bronze look, first paint black, and then brown, and then.. i forget the rest, and it doesn't matter. buy this paint. it's all you need.

before:

after:

before:

after:

so there ya go! our bathrooms are finally finished! :) thanks for making it to the end of this post! :)

living room finished (kind of?)

**disclaimer: i wrote this post on july 20, but i needed one last picture of the finished living room. i thought i'd take it that weekend and finish the post. welp, it's august 18th now, so enjoy! :)

heyy everyone!

our living room is pretty much finished, so i thought i'd go ahead and blog about it! i still have to touch up the baseboards, BUT... i don't feel like doing that right now, so it's on hold. :) (and i'm more excited about my next project than i am about painting baseboards!)

we had ashton's boss (a general) and his family, along with the rest of ashton's work team, over for dinner last week, so my goal was to have the living room done before that dinner. and it was as done then as it is now, so i felt pretty successful! :) for those of you who were wondering, the dinner went great! i made a meal of my favorites... butter chicken, sweet green beans, salad and garlic bread. they all seemed to enjoy the meal, and i know one of them asked for the recipes and i believe has made the chicken and green beans since then. ashton told me after the dinner that i had passed the army wife course of hosting a dinner party, so i think that's a good sign. :) (but les, i don't have any pictures for you of the actual dinner. just a picture of the roses i got for the table. $6 at heb!)

back to the living room... 

when we bought the house, the living room walls were a dark brown. honestly, it wasn't too bad, but it did make the room pretty dark. i was too indecisive and couldn't figure out what color i wanted - i just knew i wanted a neutral color. (i thought that would narrow down the choices for me. do you know how many neutral options there are to choose from?!?) so i put it out for a facebook vote! luckily, everyone voted for the one that we were leaning towards, so that was a big confidence booster!

and the winner is... D! :)

there were two weeks in june where ashton had to work from 5am-10pm pretty much every day (i mentioned this in our no spend june post). so for whatever reason, i decided that would be a good time for me to do the living room. by myself. well, mostly - ashton helped when he was around and available, which i greatly appreciated. so i primed, and painted, and went back and did most of the touch ups (still a few left to be done). we purchased new blinds for the windows, and ashton installed those. AND... he installed the floor transitions between the living room and kitchen, and the living room and entry way. there weren't any transitions in those two locations, so we had searched home depot and lowe's trying to find something that would work. we looked and looked and couldn't find anything. at one point, we were cleaning out the garage, putting some things in the attic, and what do you know? floor transitions! they hadn't been stained, but ashton took care of that and installed them and it's wonderful! 

before i show you the final picture, i always like to go back to a before picture, so here ya go!

before we moved in:

before, but with our furniture:

okay, perhaps not the best before pictures. but here are some after pictures:

i know what you're saying... anne, you didn't really decorate the living room. i know, i know... but i'm now in the "i'm moving in less than six months, so i'm more concerned about making it rent-able" mode.

with the living room done, what's next? well, i am very excited to start on the bathrooms. we're going to paint the walls, color still to be determined. i found this lovely gem online last week and i am so excited. she shows her before and after of staining bathroom cabinets, and the after pictures look so great! i have already ordered the stains, and the new hardware for sink/shower (we're changing to bronze). i also shopped around for new countertops. and i found a winner, so get excited! there will be some new posts soon! :)

july meals!

i absolutely loved having a month of menus in june, so we decided to repeat it for july! i still use the spreadsheet that i shared with y'all last month, but i didn't like the way it uploaded on here. AND one of my sisters asked me to link to recipes, when possible. soo... with that in mind, i'm going to do this month's a little different.

July 1st - crockpot bbq chicken drumsticks

2nd - honey pork chops

3rd - gone

4th - gone

5th - chef's salad with bacon, ham, eggs, cheese, cucumbers, carrots, croutons

6th - pancakes

7th - bbq chicken leg quarters (on the grill)

8th - cranberry pork tenderloin

9th - italian crockpot chicken

10th - lasagna

11th - DB sausage

12th - chicken breasts in phyllo

13th - breakfast burritos

14th - bbq chicken pizza

15th - turkey & dressing

16th - butter chicken

17th - buffalo chicken garbage bread

18th - pizza

19th - sub sandwiches

20th - teriyaki chicken

21st - pork spareribs

22nd - roast

23rd - hamburgers

24th - cheesy chicken bundles

25th - italian breaded pork chops

26th - chicken crescent squares

27th - family reunion

28th - family reunion

29th - buffalo chicken sandwiches

30th - EAT OUT! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! :)

31st - cheddar bacon chicken

i tried to link to as many recipes as possible! enjoy! :)

anne

nephews and the fourth of july!

hello everyone!

apparently, i'm not as good at this blogging thing as i had hoped! life gets busy, and i get distracted. i have all kinds of fun things to share though, so i'm going to back up a bit in our lives. :)

we babysat my three nephews for a weekend while my sister and her husband escaped for their anniversary. and oh my goodness. these boys are precious and very well behaved, but we learned very quickly how tiring it is to have kids. especially three at once. i used to say i wanted to have twins or triplets the first time i'm pregnant, but i think i'm taking that back now. (no offense, jen - you know i love your boys!) we had a lot of fun with them... we made cars out of cardboard boxes for their drive-in theater we had planned for saturday night. we went to the lake and the big boys got to go down the slides (over and over and over) while the little one hung out with us, and then everyone got to play in the lake for a bit. (the little one spent the entire time "helping" by throwing the sand back into the lake, haha.) the big boys went bowling with ash (while the little one and i napped, haha). oh, and we can't forget working out - it was a combination of stroller riding, scooter driving, and racing the dog. these kids were as worn out as we were!

we spent the fourth of july with ashton's family at the lake. lots of good food and fun times on the lake! it was a short trip, and we had to drive home during the normal firework time, so we kind of had a traveling show. we saw fireworks all over the place on the drive home. also, you'll notice that together, he and i make red, white and blue. :)

also, on a sidenote, a different sister of mine and her husband have officially adopted the little boy and girl they had been fostering. which means that i can now show you this adorable picture of my nephew and his pet mouse! (in case you can't tell, that's a computer mouse, haha.)

one of several posts coming tonight, so be on the lookout! :)

anne

no spend june

hey everyone!

this post is going to be a bit different from our normal house updates, but i've had several people ask for this info, so i thought i'd use the blog to share the info!

we have named june our "no spend" month. i've seen lots of variations of this on other blogs, but for us, it just meant that we were not going to spend money eating out this month. (with a few exceptions... we had already planned a weekend trip with friends, but we still took sandwiches and actually only paid for 2 meals out. and then i surprised my dad for father's day, and my sisters and i all chipped in to pick up bbq for lunch with him, so i spent money then too.)

at the end of may, i sat down and came up with a meal for each day in june and then went through and made a huge shopping list for the entire month. which seemed crazy at the time, but i have enjoyed not having to go to the grocery store each week except for some milk or bread. (another exception... chicken wasn't on sale when i went on my first trip, so i waited a week before i bought it and was able to save $35. thank you mom for telling me to wait until it's $1.97/lb.) 

we don't stick to the calendar 100%. we change it up depending on what's going on, or how much energy i have to cook, but the great thing is that i have 30 choices ready for me to choose from, and we're not having those "what are we going to do for dinner?" moments. 

the other side of this is that we weren't going to be able to pick up food for breakfast/lunch. this was definitely a bigger problem for me than for the hubs (i have a sonic right down the street from work), so we had to plan our meals and make enough for dinners that we had enough leftovers for lunch the next day. to make it even more interesting... ash has had CRAZY work weeks these past two weeks. i'm talking leaving the house at 5:30am (or earlier) and not getting home until after 10pm, so that means lots of leftovers for him to take!

anyways, friends and family who have heard about this have asked us to share the month's menus, so scroll down for our june menus! the calendar uploads pretty small, but there is a link above it that says june 2012 menu, so you can click on that and it will take you to a different site where you can enlarge the menu. if you want recipes, let me know and i can share those, too! AND... if you have any other good meals you think i should try out, feel free to share those too!

OHH, also, today i was looking online for a menu calendar so i could put the meals in it to post on here and i found a really cool one that you should check out if you start this. it's an excel spreadsheet that allows you to store meals and sides on there, and then you can just pick from a drop down menu. i imagine this will be soo helpful when i'm stuck and can't think of any other ideas to add to the calendar... click on this link: Monthly Menu Calendar.

June 2012 Menu

kitchen is finished! :)

hello! 

this weekend, we have officially finished the kitchen and dining room! (well, until i decide that i actually do want to repaint the walls, which i'm already leaning towards now.)

we painted below the chair rail the same color that was above the rail, so now our kitchen is very yellow! i guess i can't complain, it was so dark before we did anything and we certainly don't have that problem now! :)

i wanted to put something up on our wall in the dining room, but had a hard time figuring out what i wanted. the final product? framed napkins! and i LOVE them! i cut each of the napkins to show different parts, resulting in three coordinating prints! :)

my sister, J, gave me this cool chalkboard as a housewarming present. it is a cabinet door that has been repainted red, and then painted with chalkboard paint. i LOVE this! it was originally going to go in my laundry room, but once i saw it in person, i decided it was too cute to be hidden. so... it is now my menu board! 

other than that, the weekend has been spent fixing the fence and gate so our dog can't get out, fixing fans, light switches, ya know... fun things like that. 

since we are officially done with the kitchen, i wanted to show some before and after pictures...

before:

 after:

before:

after:

before:

after:

before:

after:

so with the kitchen being done, what's next? well, we're going to repaint the living room probably first, and eventually the guest bedroom and office. we're also planning on tackling the yard sometime in june. we'll be sure to keep everyone updated!

crafty projects!

hello everyone! i can't believe it's been a month and a half since i've posted. well, looking back on the past month and a half, i guess i can believe it. the hubs and i have been super busy - one of my best friend's wedding, girls weekend with my sisters, the hubs' trips to mississippi (had to sing the little song to make sure i spelled that right!) and canada, and the hubs' brother's high school graduation in oklahoma (where the wind comes sweeping down the plains!). we have done a few random projects since the last time i posted, so i thought i would go ahead and update you on those since we are hoping to knock out some bigger projects this next weekend. (hey four day weekend!)

hmm, first off, we'll start with the guest bathroom. our guest bathroom is perfect for us - it's small, but we don't have kids who would be fighting over it. and we only have guests occasionally. however, when my mom stayed with us, she decided it was lacking some storage space. which i agreed with, i just hadn't spent much time trying to figure out how to fix that problem. mom (and sisters!) to the rescue! when my mom was visiting one of my sisters (L), she saw that L had done this (or something similar) in her guest bathroom, so mom took another sister (J) with her later to hobby lobby to help pick out some baskets. they did such a great job! i love them! :) mom brought the baskets to me when she came to help decorate above the cabinets, but we didn't have time to put them up that week.

here's our before picture:

the madre showing me just how she wanted the baskets:

and the final project! yay for towel storage! :)

for a few security projects (don't worry, i have more crafty projects!)...

the previous owners took the door that led from the garage into the house with them. why? who knows?!? so we bought a new door and ash installed it. we still need to install the molding around the door, which will probably happen this next weekend. look at him work!

we had been planning to put 2 inch blinds in our dining room and living room, but hadn't quite gotten to that yet. however, we had a creeper experience, so we quickly decided we needed something over our windows. we went ghetto for one night and threw up a sheet, but then bought and installed blinds the next day.

ghetto sheet...

finishing the installation...

back to crafts!

we have received a lot of housewarming cards, birthday cards, birthday party invitations, wedding invitations, etc. and we used to put them all on the refrigerator. there's just something about a stainless steel fridge that made me not want to put all of these invitations on there, so i wanted to come up with a cool alternative. i didn't realize this at the time, but i stole the idea from pinterest (i saw it on one of my boards after i purchased this).

easter weekend, ash and i went to the warrenton antique festival with my family, and the only thing i was looking for was a shutter. (and that's the only thing i left with too!) 

i tied some burlap-y ribbon to the shutter and have it hanging from the top of the cabinet. this cabinet is actually the pantry and you see this side as you walk into the kitchen. 

clothespins don't work so well, so i found some clips and attached them to the shutter.

and then i found all of the cards we had around the house and added them to the shutter!

there is one more crafty project that i've done, but i'm going to wait until they're actually being displayed in our house before i post about that one. (fingers crossed - this weekend!) keywords: framed napkins.

okay, well, i think you're pretty much up to date now! hopefully we'll have some new posts for you this weekend!