Lipstick on a pig...

Back at the end of July I decided I couldn't live with our kitchen any longer. I'm not entirely sure what changed, but I think the breaking point was the day that the sprayer broke for the third time in less than a year, the drainpipes completely gave up draining any water into the sewer in favor of our lower cabinets, and the second piece of peel and stick tile cracked, broke free of the un-primed sub floor and revealed yet another issue with our long suffering kitchen.

Whatever it was, I cracked. I actually threatened J that if one more thing in the kitchen broke I was going to light a match, throw it over my shoulder, and walk away. (Not really. The bathroom we spent nearly a year remodeling is next to the kitchen and apparently it's poor form to run out of your burning house not with your dreamed-of, prayed-for, and much-loved baby but with your dreamed-of, prayed-for, and much-loved bathroom vanity in your arms.)

So I started dreaming and sketching, imagining the kitchen I would love instead of the kitchen I live with. Believe me, it is fabulous!  It is also, if my initial calculations are even close to correct, fabulously expensive.  Even pared down, that kitchen is outside our budget. Rather than mope about the kitchen we can't afford I sat down an made a list of the five things I like well enough about our kitchen and the five things I couldn't stand.  The list of the things I like got me out of the kitchen doldrums. The list of things I hated helped create a budget-friendly remodel I've taken to calling the "lipstick on a pig" plan.

The what?!?

You know the saying that you can put lipstick on a pig, but that it is still a pig?  Well, in our case, we are applying some pretty finishes on our least favorite parts of our pig of a kitchen. At the end of the day, it will still be a pig, a kitchen we dream of replacing. But it will be a pig we can live with for a few more years.

So what's the plan?  I started with a list of five things I couldn't live with:

The back door looks awful.  Zep used to scratch at it, and his nails did a number on the soft wood.
The sink drains into the base cabinet.  That's a problem.  And the faucet sprayer keeps breaking.
I strongly dislike the four-inch ceramic tile counter.  And I hate the grout lines in between those tiles.  Seriously.  No one should ever use tile for a kitchen counter, as there's no way to keep the grout clean.  Ever.  Even if you are great about cleaning it every day.  Which we aren't.
The cabinets.  Ugh.  The doors are weird off-white laminate. Trimmed in yellowing oak.  Which matches the cabinet frames, but little else.
The peel & stick tile is not my favorite to start with.  The fact that it's cracking and popping off makes it worse.  The thought of our baby crawling on the floor makes my skin crawl.  (The thought of our baby crawling period makes my skin crawl, but apparently that's going to happen whether I like it or not.)

...and using that list of problems, I created my lipstick solution:

Skim coat the hideous ceramic tile counters with concrete and seal
Replace the back-splash which, also made of that four inch ceramic tile, won't match the new counter
Fill the scratched up back door with wood filler, sand and paint
Fix the faulty plumbing under the sink
Prime and paint those awful laminated cabinet doors (and frames)
Replace the cracked peel & stick laminate floor

That's the plan.  Stay tuned for progress updates!

An amazingly productive weekend...

After a few weeks of busy weekends and long work days for J, we actually managed to put together a pretty productive weekend at the MP!  Don't get me wrong, J actually worked all weekend, too, but he worked from home and I managed to squeeze in a few projects for him.

So in bullets to keep this short(er):
Friday:

• We bought lots of paint and painting supplies
• I bought the supplies to build a new mailbox post (Why? See the pic below to see what it currently looks like thanks to some random stranger.  Re-doing the mailbox was on my list for 2013, so I guess they did us a favor.  I'm waiting on a wood corbel I ordered online to arrive before getting to work on this project.  The local post office is kindly holding our mail for pickup there while we sort this one out...)

Saturday:

• Prepped the nursery for painting
• Welcomed two good friends over for an afternoon of painting and painted the walls of the nursery (and much of the ceiling)  (I'll post a pic later today when I have a chance to get one in good daylight, but you can see a hint of it below!)

Standing at the window looking towards the door, this is the left side of the room. 

And then this is the right side of the room.  The walls and ceiling are the same color.
Obviously still need to paint the trim...

Sunday

• We put the crib together and discovered that much of the furniture actually matches!  (Yes, I know we could have gone out and bought a set of nursery furniture that all matched from the get-go, but I prefer to collect things so matching is kind of a nice surprise!)

• I finished painting the nursery ceiling
• J got the second (final?) coat of poly on one of our library bookshelves

There is MUCH left to be done around the MP to get ready for the baby girl's arrival in a month or so, but we're thrilled to have a productive weekend under our belts!

Almost done collecting furniture...

So as of today, we're seven weeks or so from adding a little person to our home, and as you may have noticed in last Wednesday's post, little people come with lots of stuff.  We'd already bought a baby bed, and we've moved two chairs we already owned into the nursery.  A bookshelf/future dollhouse is in the design stages (thanks, Dad!), and a hope chest has been identified (J's grandfather's grandmother's cedar chest!).  Really, all we have left (we think) is a dresser to hold the ever-growing pile of itsy-bitsy diapers and socks and onesies, etc.

I had a picture in my head (y'all know this never ends well), and had visited several retail establishments in town and online searching for an option.  The options generally fell into one of two camps--too expensive and too modern--though many also fell into the 'cheap, fake wood' camp, an option shared by both the expensive and modern dressers, though those descriptions also apply to real, solid wood dressers, too.  My mom and I visited a used-furniture store where I mused that perhaps I could find something like the picture in my head and paint it.  She pointed out that the picture in my head might be too ornate to paint.  She was probably right.

Monday, I popped into another used-furniture store right as they were closing and asked about dressers.  The lady didn't have anything like what I described, but commented that if I was willing to paint, I should "check out Uncle RayJay's".  Who? Where?  Uncle RayJay's, it turns out, is a relatively new used furniture/appliance shop in town that seems to deal a lot in solid wood used furniture.  I had time, and it was kind of on my way, so I drove over.  And found this:

Now, it's not as ornate as the picture in my head, but it has some pretty, girly lines to it.  And, should I decide to paint it, it's not so ornate that I can't easily do that.  I probably will paint it, as it is fairly beat up and has an ugly burn on the top, but the burn mark will be living under a changing pad for the next couple years anyway.

Also, it came with a mirror attached that won't fit in this room, but will be nice in some other room in our house.  Oh, and we will be swapping out hardware, which works well because I think those four drawer pulls across the top two drawers will work really well in the library on our built-ins!

The best part?  The entire dresser, plus delivery, cost us $130 (Uncle RayJay starts negotiating when you pull out cash).  As I told J, the mirror alone would have cost that at our local big box hardware store, and the dresser would have been twice that at any other used furniture store in town.

So that's the story of how we've finished collecting furniture for the nursery!  I think we'll end up with a basket or two for blankets and toys, as well as a small table and an ottoman for the reading corner, but it's so nice to have the big things out of the way!  Next up for the nursery: painting!

How To... Make a tufted headboard

Remember last month when I mentioned that I told J I'd finish a project before starting another?  Well the new project I had in mind was an upholstered headboard for our bed.  Our bed is against a window, and the windowsill tends to dig into my back when I try to sit up in bed and read blogs.  J had an old wooden headboard hanging out in our overflow guest/storage room upstairs, so I decided to use that for the base.  I added the headboard to our bed for a couple weeks to get a feel for height, and studied up on how to make the transformation.

Let me stop here and say, if you want to tackle a project like this, you need to go read Jenny's tutorial at Little Green Notebook here (and the post she links to in that post).  I followed her directions pretty closely, and when I reached out with questions via email, she responded quickly and most helpfully!

So in pictures, here's what we did to take this (yes, it's turned on its side):

to this:

First, I cut down the legs to bring the headboard to about ten inches above the mattress.  Because we're in front of a window, I didn't want something taller.  If J had a footboard with this bedroom set, I probably would have used it, instead!

Then I sketched out some options to give J an idea of what I had in mind.  We decided to go with one row of buttons (so pretty basic tufting) with large buttons.  Here are the sketches I showed J (No, this one shouldn't be on it's side...) and after playing with some other options, we chose the one on the left below.

So then I cut the foam and laid out the project.  We used two kinds of foam:  3" foam for the main part of the headboard and 1" foam rolled into a 4 " roll to create the looked of a rolled headboard.  Those were pieced together like this so that it was a smooth transition:

I measured out where the buttons would go and marked the headboard and foam (um...with gel food coloring...my pen wouldn't work and I was doing this part in the kitchen...  Don't laugh.  It worked.)

Then I just drilled the holes in the headboard, attached the foam and wrapped everything in batting to further smooth the edges (a step I apparently managed not to photograph).

And then I went shopping.  I couldn't make up my mind, and ended up making multiple trips to multiple stores in an effort to find inspiration.  I ended up stumbling across a bolt of light blue duck fabric in the very back of JoAnns.  It goes well with the slightly modern (aka Ikea) masculine look we've got in this room.

I made buttons (well, J made most of them while we learned how to make covered buttons), carved out the holes in the foam per Jenny's instructions, and got to work.  I should tell you, this part was harder than I expected.  Not hard, mind you, just more than I thought.  I took it apart a couple times, and may still do that once more.  I can definitely see why having an assistant help out is a good idea.  Unfortunately, Zep just wasn't as helpful as, say, someone with opposable thumbs would have been.

I started with one of the center buttons (I have a total of eight) and then measured across to be sure I maintained somewhat even spacing.  

It looks like this in the back, and I completely followed Jenny's instructions here.  I'd also recommend doing the stapling flat against the ground (or employing more muscle when stapling).  I ended up hammering in each staple to hold the thread.

After I got all of the buttons in, it looked like this:

Then I started the process of pleating the extra fabric and stapling it in place.  Quite frankly, I think this is where I went wrong.  If I were to redo this (which may happen yet), I'd plot the points out on the fabric first and iron in the pleats before starting the tufting process.  Anyhow, here is how it looked after stapling the fabric across the bottom (yes, I trimmed the thread and added more staples before pretending I was done):

And then after wrestling for hours (days?) with the top.  As you can probably see, there isn't enough extra fabric to make great pleats over the top of the headboard.

After consulting facebook, I decided to go ahead and install the headboard and live with it for a while.  If I decide I hate it, or if it gets dirty, I'll take it apart and try out my pre-ironing project.  In the meantime, I really love it.  I've leaned against it several times in the last week and it works exactly as I'd hoped.  It's a touch taller than I'd planned, which is a bit of a problem with the blind, but not so much that I've been bothered.

So here we are--a finished, tufted, upholstered headboard!

Oh, and the white stripe across the headboard is my iphone charger.  It's convenient, and y'all know I don't stage my photos!

What projects have you tackled lately?  Since I finished this "new" project, now I have to finish an "old" project before starting another.  I think the built-ins in the library are up next for us!

A look at the garden

After yesterday's tease about the garden, I felt that I had to share a picture of the garden with you!

On the left is Container Two, which holds our two tomato plants.  The Old German (who may or may not be nicknamed Germie) is on the left; Grandma Mary is on the right.

On the right is Container One, which holds our pepper plants and our herbs.  The peppers are in the center of the container; Pepe, the Garden Salsa Pepper (not a jalapeno, like I thought) is on the left; Tila the Tequila Pepper is on the right.

Photobombing the picture (and waiting patiently for me to throw his ball) is Zep, right in the middle of the picture.

Holiday Happenings

Most years I'm pretty hardcoare about waiting until December first before I start decorating for Christmas.  I just feel pretty strongly that Halloween is to be celebrated (and decorated for) in October, Thanksgiving in November and Christmas in December.  That said, the first of December falls this week and J and I had a pretty relaxed four-day weekend (okay, so I worked Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday at Williams-Sonoma and put in a couple hours at St. R on Saturday morning, not to mention teaching Children's Chapel Sunday morning, so maybe my long-weekend wasn't all that relaxing...).  By 7:00 Sunday night, I was ready to think about Christmas. 

Last year I spent a very long hour underneath our tree in a dim living room looking for the sockets to connect all of the lights on our tree.  When I took the tree down, I managed to keep as much connected as possible, but there were still three or four connections to be made.  Not interested in repeating that miserable evening under the tree, I decided to pre-light my pre-lit tree.  This time, I put everything together one layer at a time in the very bright laundry room.  I also tagged loose light ends with long ribbon so I could find them later.  Once I thought I had everything connected, I plugged the tree in.  Blessedly, all the lights came on!!

Next up (perhaps this should've been the first step, but I wanted to get the tree all ready to go while J was still available to carry it upstairs), I headed upstairs to work on the living room.  And then I couldn't remember how I arranged it last year and headed back down to my laptop to review pictures from previous years.  Apparently I took no pictures of my tree last year (how on earth??).  Regardless, I've changed the furniture a little bit anyway, and need a new configuration. 

I spent the rest of the evening thinking about how to rearrange my living room, and plan to make those changes today.  By this evening, our living room should be ready for Christmas, and probably our front porch, too.

Craft Room Update

So last week I told you about the changes I'm making to my craft room to accomodate my new daybed, and yesterday I mentioned a little more.  Now, I'm ready to show you a close-up of where my daybed has been placed.  There is definitely still work to be done on the room, but I'm pleased with the progress so far!

First, I definitely decided to put the daybed under the window at the end of the room, instead of along the wall just inside the door.  I also decided to slide the bookshelf down into the spot I'd initially picked out for the daybed.  I'm not sure what should go into the place where it was, but I'm sure something will find its way there.  Here is the view from my desk (please ignore the mess on the desk--I'm not ready to deal with that, yet):

It's almost funny to me that I'd never considered this layout, since I love how symmetrical and orderly it is now.  You can't tell, but there is a space between the desk and the bed so you can walk through.  One of the things I love about my desk is how you could walk around it (this is more useful when I'm using it as a craft table...not so much when I use it as a catchall), so I'm glad that the daybed actually makes use of that space, too.

I plan, someday, to recover the daybed, but since it is an upholstered mattress rather than just a covered cushion, I think it will be some time before I am crazy enough to take on that project (or smart enough to hire it out).  In the meantime, the soft gold fabric works for me.

Checkerboard shelves

So this is probably stretching it, and I'll be irritated tomorrow when I don't have a picture for Wordless Wednesday, but I just wanted to share this picture of the shelves in the craft room.

I started buying these photo boxes several years ago (if you clicked through yesterday's post to the picture of my craft room back in 2008, you saw the beginnings of this collection).  When my mom and I moved the bookcase upstairs (it used to be in the library in our basement, but was removed when we got our barrister shelves), I discovered that three boxes would stack on each shelf.  Mom took over the placement strategy, and we ended up with this awesome checkerboard.  You might notice that a few are still unopened.  I bought ten a month or so ago, and haven't needed to use them.  Then, after putting everything on the shelf the other night, mom noticed that I was 5 white boxes short of a perfect pattern.  I picked those up yesterday, thanks to a sale at Michael's. 

Most of the boxes are labeled, and it is (so far, at least) a pretty well-organized crafting system.  I commented to my mom how strange it is that someone who can be so cluttered can also be so very OCD about having her craft supplies so very organized.  I totally love it.

Craft Room redo

My craft room is always in some state of mess.  Remember way back in 2008 when I blogged about trying to clean the room up a bit?  That was about a year after I condensed much of my pre-wedding apartment into this 120 (or so) square feet.  About a year later, I turned a partly broken laptop into a desktop on my desk, moved a small printer cart in next to the file cabinet and added a four drawer chest to that wall as well (to hold gift bags and tissue paper).  My mom came up and helped me sort through all of those copy paper boxes, and those boxes left over were moved into the closet. Over the last couple of years, I've continued to periodically clean and organize the room, but it is much more frequently a catch-all for anything craft/hobby/work-related.  I think (hope) that is about to change.

Also a couple years ago (in October 2008), I first spied a daybed at Duncan Tavern, the Kentucky DAR headquarters.  You can see part of it in this post about Miss Molly (on the far right of the picture).  Earlier that year, when I'd been working on my craft room (see post referenced above), I decided that I needed a daybed in the room.  The ideal space I identified, though, was too narrow for a traditional twin sized daybed.  On the day we delivered Miss Molly to her new home, I thought to myself that this particular daybed might work--if only it wasn't locked away in a museum!

Fast forward to last month.  An email went out about an auction at Duncan Tavern.  Several items that did not fit the period represented had been deaccessioned and would be auctioned.  "My" daybed was on the list.  Squee!  On Friday, mom and I attended the auction.  I'd ignored the cardinal rule of auctions (discuss how much you can spend with spouse), and I was worried.  I've been discussing our tight budget, and despite my immense love for the daybed, I wasn't willing to spend too much on the dream.  I set my limit in my mind and prepped myself for disappointment.  Which happened about an hour later when the daybed sold for $50 over my limit (and $25 over my highest bid...yeah, you did that math right!).  Then, in desperation, I decided that maybe I could spend more.  I quickly texted J and asked for approval on the higher number.  Then, I went in search of the winner.  I guess I got lucky, as she was having a moment of buyers remorse (she ignored the cardinal rule of auctions, too) and feeling sympathetic toward me.  In fact, we were able to swap out the paperwork, tear up her check, and submit a new one from me for just $5 more than her winning bid.  Success!!

The only problems?  One, getting it home (I've still not settled that question yet), and Two, where to put it.  Now, I knew where I wanted to put the daybed, but I also knew that the space in mind was full of craft-room junk.  Mom and I spent a couple hours Sunday afternoon working on the craft room.  We made considerably progress, and I expect we'll wrap it up today.  Once the daybed arrives, I'll take pictures so you can see it!

I've seen fire, and I've seen rain

So I mentioned in yesterday's post that J and I went out to the Athens Schoolhouse Antique Show on Saturday.  This is the same place where we found our "dining table" and our fireplace surround (which I mentioned buying in February 2009, but don't appear to have written a blog post about).  So anyhow, we went out to Athens without planning to buy anything in particular, but open to whatever might pop up.  What popped up, it turned out, were lots of umbrella stands!

Let me back up.  In the long-term MP plans (the ones that come after finishing our current projects and saving up to redo our kitchen, so clearly five or ten years down the road), J and I plan to annex our current coat closet for our kitchen.  I know what you're thinking--why would anyone take out a closet in an already closet-starved house?  Because the kitchen is also starving for storage space, and I'd love to have a built-in pantry.  And because, really, we don't wear ninety percent of the coats that we store in the closet, so it's obviously wasted space. Well then, you're thinking, what about the other ten percent of our coats?  To answer that question, you need to know a little about how our house is laid out.  To help, I've created a very rough sketch in MS Paint.  Now, this isn't to scale, and it is obviously missing a lot of information, but this will give you a pretty good idea what I'm talking about:

I've no idea if you can read the little writing in the middle, so basically the top drawing is "now" and the bottom drawing is "future".  The stairs to the second floor are in the center (left to right) of the house going up from the front of the house (bottom).  The closet in question faces the hallway between the kitchen and the living room.  We do not have a real entry because you walk in the front door right into the living room.  To get upstairs, you have to close the front door, step up once to a landing, then turn right and proceed up the stairs.  The landing is a pretty decent size and I have one of those decorator tables sitting in the corner with a lamp and a couple other things on it.  Way long term (probably before the kitchen but after all of the currently in-progress projects are done) I'm going to tear down the wall that separates the living room from the stairs. 

So my plan is to turn the landing into an entry area.  The decorator table will come out, and I'll put a coat rack on the wall to the left of the door (as you look at the picture above).  I've seen cool pictures where people screw antique doorknobs directly into the wall, but of course I can't find that now. Beneath the coats will be a tray for shoes/boots and an umbrella stand.  (Yay!, you're thinking, She finally worked this around to the antique show!) 

Yes, I decided to look for an umbrella stand.  We saw several copper or wood/copper stands that looked cool, but that weren't quite right.  The MP is pretty transitional in style, but our living room is very traditional and the overwhelmingly mission style stands just weren't clicking for me.  Besides that, these things are expensive!  (Who knew??)  Then, when we'd been through almost every booth at the show, J spotted it.

Here is what is so awesome about this stand:  first and foremost, the shape is perfect.  The lines of it completely mimic the lines of the mantel in the living room (see below).  The stand is 21 inches tall and about 7 inches across the main portion (the rim is about 9 inches across).

Second, this stand, unlike any of the others we saw Saturday, is brass.  We have a lots of brass/gold finishes in this room already, so this fits right in.  Finally, the price was right.  (Quite frankly, the price was right to start with, but I managed to negotiate it down a bit more.)  So we've got one piece of the entry finished.  I'll probably go ahead and work on that part of the project while we're saving up for the kitchen reno.  No sense in keeping the stand out of service!

Title:  In a throwback to our music lyrics titles, J suggested this one.  Can you guess why?  Anyhow, the song is Fire and Rain by James Taylor.

A Sign of September

Among my favorite things about September (first day of Autumn, first day of professional football, traditional first day of school and all the awesome back to school supplies that comes with that season) is my anniversary.  One particularly nice thing (of the ten thousand particularly nice things that made up our wedding celebration/receptions) about our wedding was the blue eucalyptus wreaths that were hung on the front doors of the chapel, then again on the front doors of the Bell House, where we had our Lexington reception.  J and I kept the wreaths, and each September I hang one on the front door as a little month-long reminder of the very special day that comes at the end.  Especially now that we have a working storm door, the scent of the eucalyptus when I open the front door in the morning is still so potent--I love it!

Nesting

After three days inside, I guess I'm feeling better and maybe just a bit stir crazy! J will come home to several small changes!

This morning, I sanded down the blistered parts of the bathroom wall and got a first coat of paint on the two walls that were still white (back story: I painted the two "easy" walls of that bathroom three years ago). Two interesting observations--first, the room doesn't look as dark as I was afraid it would with all four walls that color, and second, the new color matches the existing color. I was afraid that the color on the walls would have faded and/or that the paint still in the can would have changed somehow, too. I will definitely have to do a second coat, but am pleased so far. Next up, finishing the floor, then the magical call to the plumbers that J is waiting so eagerly for!

After cleaning up from the bathroom job, I decided I was hungry. Which eventually led to whipping up some spaghetti sauce (seriously, the most delicious sauce ever!) to use in a yummy pizza. I've mentioned before how very brand loyal I am and generally (almost always!) we have a jar or three of Ragu Traditional on hand. Unfortunately, I emptied the last jar last night, and didn't bother to look for another until I'd prepped the pizza crust. So I did a quick recipe search, decided I had everything needed, and went to work. Thank goodness for our food processor!


Want to make your own? Here you go:
One can Hunts diced tomatoes
One can Hunts tomato paste
handful of chopped onions
a couple small handfulls of brown sugar
a dash of chopped pizza pepper
a couple of dashes of Mrs. Dash tomato basil seasoning
two tablespoons or so of chopped garlic
two tablespoons or so of olive oil


After putting in every couple of ingredients I stopped, ran the food processor for 30 seconds or so, then stopped, added a couple more, ran the processor, etc. Obviously, I wasn't measuring anything. I think that's okay and it obviously didn't hurt the end product. I'm totally looking forward to some pasta tonight!


I did some DAR work for a while, then decided I was itching to do something else. What could I do? Oh wait, there's that spot in the drywall downstairs that needs to be primed and painted (what, you thought we finished that a year ago? Yeah...We started it December 2009, but the drywall work just got finished a couple months ago...). So off I went to the family room, can of primer and paint roller in hand. Now, we cross our fingers that the paint in the family room matches as well as the bathroom paint did.

So, thinking that I was done for the day, I curled up with my laptop and a few favorite blogs. Then I came across the Winter Mantel linky party that Beth at the Stories of A to Z is hosting. Of course! I hadn't decorated my mantel for winter! And off I went in search of a garland and wreaths I picked up at Hobby Lobby at an after-Christmas sale a couple of years ago. The wreaths and garland are a kind of grapevine base with feaux crystals, like ice tipping the edges. They are perfect for this time of year--icy and cold and still beautiful!! One went up on the front door, replacing the sleigh bells I put up for Christmas; the other I hung in front of the Paul Sawyier hanging over our mantel. The grapevine trees I put out for Christmas still fit in and the garland looks great draped across the mantel itself. I tried other things on the mantel, too, but edited it back to just the garland. I like its simplicity. So anyhow, here you go!



Lucky for me (and you, if you're still reading!), J came in just as I finished taking pictures, so I think that's all the nesting you'll get from me today. Tomorrow, I'll be braving the cold to run errands and go to meetings!

Main Bath update!

I woke up feeling better today (still coughing and dealing with a voice that isn't always there when I need it, but still much better!), so I decided to tackle the bathroom. I think the last time I actually talked about the bathroom was here, back on October 9. Now, it hasn't been an entirely quiet three months on the bathroom front, but to assume that three months have passed and we're still stumbling downstairs in the middle of the night to use the facilities would be accurate.

I came back from my trip to find the marble tile in, but we learned an important lesson about natural stone and lippage (the idea that not every piece is the same thickness and that you have to watch how level everything is). After debating, researching, talking to tile contractors we decided, finally, that we could live with tile.

Next step? Paint the walls. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. We took the old medicine cabinet off the wall to find that the PO covered up a huge hole in the wall (and some sketchy electrical work--shocker) with the medicine cabinet we so disliked. A quick visit with an electrician and a long, long, long process with a friend who has drywall experience (and, to be fair, a part time job that turned into long days and weeks in December that kept me from being at home to work more on the house), and we are finally ready to paint.

I picked up primer last week and today threw it up on the walls. One problem (of course!): In one part of the wall--the one part that won't be covered up by vanity and mirror--the paint is bubbling and peeling. Like, I've primed over the existing paint, and the existing paint is bubbling. When I pop the bubble, the existing paint peels.

Now what? Can I ignore the bubbles instead of popping and peeling? Will they grow or will they go away? What caused them anyway? Am I using the wrong primer? Will painting over the primer cause the same problem?

If I knew you were comin' I'd've baked a cake

Greetings! Yes, I realize it's been ages (seriously, well over a month and a half...I know!) since an update, and I'm sure that I'm way behind on whatever I promised in the way of blog posts. I'll get better about that over-promising, under-delivering thing one of these days! If it helps, I've been insanely busy (and of course, J has been insanely busy by extension) and have managed to keep the house moderately clean (that was for you, mom!), entertained a few times, made some awesome craft projects, and survived two more Thin Mint Sprints! My running suffered and I went from the first week in April to the first week in June with no 5K, and believe me--my time in my June race showed it. Our next goal is the Bluegrass 10,000 on July 3. Stay tuned for results!

Last week, I started lessons on a new hobby, and I'm pleased to share the preliminary results. That's right, I've taken up cake decorating!

My timing is a bit off, as baking and decorating cakes really doesn't go hand-in-hand with weight loss, but I've found many co-workers and friends willing to help me out with that. In my first class, we learned how to use the star-tip, and I decided to practice a little baking/decorating this weekend to the benefit of the Girl Scouts. I was thrilled to receive many compliments and to find an empty cake plate pretty quickly.

Today I attended my second class and made a cake to share with some close friends this weekend. S & C gave birth to their first child last week, and I'm on my way to meet little D tomorrow. It seemed appropriate to make her a birthday cake to celebrate 12 days of life (really, cake is appropriate to celebrate any day, right?).

I still have two more weeks of class to go, so hopefully there will be more pictures to come!

Title: If I knew you were comin' I'd've baked a cake, by Eileen Barton

Brown paper packages tied up with string

Just wanted to pop in and share my latest crafty efforts! A co-worker of mine shared one of my hand-made banners (I talked about those here and here) with her daughter, who is hosting a wedding shower this weekend. She, in turn, asked if I could make a banner for the shower, which has a Lovebirds theme. Never one to turn down a challenge, I agreed and whipped up this beauty:

My previous banners have been strung on ribbon, but this one is entirely put together using brads (remember those from first grade?). I like the brads for two reasons: first, it totally makes it look like the birds are kissing (cute!), and second, the banner conveniently folds up on itself for easy storage and transport. I added ribbons on each end to hang the banner, and these wrap around it when it's folded up to hold it all together. I tell ya, sometimes I have moments of genius!

Here is the banner all tied up, which actually prompted my post title today...maybe "bright colored banners tied up with rib'n"?

Also, a friend has encouraged me to open an Etsy store using these pictures to make and sell custom banners. I'm thinking about it, but am not sure about pricing...what do you think? What would you pay for a custom-made banner (this is made using a heavy weight cardstock, so really sturdy)? Also, J says I have to wait until June to get serious about this, as I still have to survive May and the two Thin Mint Sprints I have planned. If you're near Lexington (May 8) or Ashland, KY (May 22), come out and join us! You can register online at http://www.thinmintsprint.org/!

Hopefully I'll be back soon with pictures from the Baby Shower I hosted this weekend. It had a bathtime/rubber ducky theme and was absolutely adorable! Yes, there were some cute invitations and cards involved in that one, too! (Something else for the Etsy shop?)

Title: My Favorite Things, from The Sound of Music

Paint your palette blue and grey

Some blog posts require back story, and I am afraid this will be one of them. Bear with me, and I will get to the point quickly (or not at all, but I might make you laugh).

I've mentioned before that I am a very brand loyal person--a marketer's dream. Morning TV?The Today Show (for the last twenty years). Spaghetti Sauce? Ragu Traditional. Laundry detergent? Tide. It works both ways, too. Pet Store I'll never darken the door of? PetsMart. Really, I could go on and on.

Big Box Home Improvement Store? This is where it gets tricky. My default setting is Lowe's, and has been since I started going there with my folks as a kid. In grad school, Lowe's sponsored a reality competition show. I loved it and couldn't believe they didn't do a second season. I signed up for their free magazine, and still read the copies my mom brings me. When J bought a house around the corner from Lowe's, I was in Heaven. Until I started visiting regularly and discovered that more often that not, the service is awful and visiting Lowe's just leaves me grumpy. Seriously.

I've discovered the wonder that is Home Depot and have made many major purchases there in the past couple of years (usually after a Lowe's clerk ticks me off), but somehow, when inspiration hits, my car drives me to Lowe's. It's the Brand Loyalty, I can't help it.

Last week, J and I purchased a new dresser and wardrobes from Ikea for our master bedroom. While I was telling my mom about them, she suggested we paint the room before installing the wardrobes. I agreed she had a good point, and hit Lowe's on my way home from work last night to pick up some paint samples. I chose the lightest shade on two different cards and had the sample cans mixed, then went home and painted sample splotches all over the room. (Side track--I noticed the sales clerk didn't use the magic-shakey-paint-mixer contraption to mix the sample cans, but didn't question it. I regretted this when I got home and opened poorly mixed paints that I had to re-shake myself.)

This morning, we decided on one shade, but agreed that it was a little too dark to cover the entire room. Not concerned, I grabbed the paint card and went off to work. When I left work tonight, my first stop was Lowe's, to ask that they mix up a couple gallons of the color on the card, but lighter than the sample color I picked up yesterday. I walked in and saw the same clerk I'd worked with last night. This worried me for a moment, but I reminded myself of our 2010 phrase and vowed to cut her some slack. Until she flat out told me she couldn't lighten my paint. Exact words--"I can't do that; you need to pick a lighter color."

I seriously thought I heard her wrong. You have machines that that can color match paint to the gold fleck in Brad Pitt's eye, but you can't go one shade lighter than the color listed on this card that also conveniently lists the formulas for the next two shades darker? Really?

So I explained again what I needed, and that it specifically needed to be the same color family as that card I was holding, just lighter. Again, "I can't do that, you just need to pick a lighter color from the paint cards." I explained that I didn't want a new color, I'd already picked one. Now, it's very possible that Lowe's carries another card that continues down the spectrum of the card I took in. Unfortunately, I don't know if they do or not, and I wouldn't know how to find it. You'd think their employees would know, and that they would be trained to walk me over to the wall of options to find it. Not this girl.

At this point I gave up, told the girl that someone could get me a lighter shade and they'd be getting my money tonight, and walked out. I heard her offer to call a manager for me, but she'd already fulfilled her Lowe's responsibility and ticked me off.

I sent J the following text: Why do I even bother with Lowe's? I know better!

As I alluded to earlier, Home Depot has a knack for cheering me up when Lowe's has knocked me for a loop, so I headed there next. I was now prepared to hear that maybe I couldn't get a lighter shade after all, but I knew that I'd get better service and that it would cheer me up. I walked up to the clerk at the paint counter, held out the paint card, and explained what I needed. "Sure," she said. "How much lighter? 25% 50?" Really? Was this possible? The girl at Lowe's just told me this was impossible, and this girl is offering me scientifically altered paint options, using another company's formulas? She quickly whipped up a gallon in the new, lighter, shade, then offered to paint a swatch on my card to see if it would work or needed to be darker. After making sure I was satisfied, she made a second gallon and sent me on my way.

I seriously considered walking my two lighter blue-grey gallons of Home Depot paint back into Lowe's to share with the clerk and her manager. Just to show her that it can be done.

Now I'm crossing my fingers this snow storm shows up early and gives me a chance to paint our room this weekend. I'll post pics when it's done!

Title: Vincent, by Don McLean

All I want is a photo

I promised a follow-up post with pictures, so here goes!

Deck:








These aren't the most recent pictures, but you do get a nice look at the back of our house--way better than that dark green we had before!

Bobby Flay:








By the way, J gave me a hard time about not mentioning the other part of his Anniversary gift to me--a woven tote-bag/basket full of awesome goodies that he won at a golf tournament for me (he argues that the basket is a "fiber"). Stay tuned for pics of the roses and dance lessons that I now have gift certificates for!

Yesterday, we visited Kelley Farms (you might remember our visit last year) with the KSDAR Junior Club and had a great time traipsing across Henry Clay's face, as well as scaling the haybale mountains (J and I chose different "mountains" to climb...).














Then, we took another turn at babysitting (our last adventures in babysitting were chronicled in this post). This time, we hung out with four month old Chelsea, the daughter of a couple we attend church with. Chelsea, who was described by her parents as a "hands-on baby", was simply adorable, and we had a great time with her! J, it turns out, is the ultimate baby whisperer and was a great hand at getting Miss Chelsea to sleep and at giving bottles. Fortunately, I was pretty good at keeping her occupied between naps and enticing after-bottle burps and spit-ups, so between the two of us, we survived and kept her alive (and dry), too!

That's it for us this week. In between work and other obligations, I'm working on October/Halloween decorations around the house and working on decorations for a party at work next week, so I'll try to post those pictures soon. We hope you're enjoying your autumn (even if it is a little cooler, a little earlier than usual!)!

Title: Picture This, by Blondie

Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door...

Tap, tap...

Tap, tap, tap...

Anyone out there? Probably not, and we'd understand. According to Blogger, we've not updated since mid-August, so that's nearly sixty days of nothing-ness from the Meltons. Rest assured, though, there's been plenty of activity around here!

First up, LOTS of unfinished projects. Not for lack of trying, mind you. I mean, we've been working on the deck since before Independence Day, but it's still not finished. In fact, our most recent attempt to get it done (painting the trim-work) was mostly washed away by a heavy rainstorm before it had a chance to dry. And by "away", I mean onto, and then through, the plastic sheeting covering the newly painted decking. I've given up on "just getting it done" and accepted that my new palm sander and I will be spending several days sanding down the trim before I can try again to paint the trim. After that, we'll have to get another coat on the decking to cover all the blue that had no problem sticking to the wrong wood.

What else? Hmmm...cabinets in the library? Still not installed, but at least they're hanging out in the right room.

Bathroom reno? No closer to getting started on that one, though the dripping faucet is now a steady stream of hot water, so I'm starting to feel guilty about not just fixing it.

Kitchen re-do? Oh, you haven't heard about that one? Yeah, it's my new dream, but I've promised J not to start on it until I've finished the other projects first. Hopefully we'll make some progress soon, and I'll actually be able to post some pics of finished projects.

What else? Well, J and I are still on the running kick (or at least the thinking about running kick), and are planning to run the Black Cat Chase in Frankfort on October 30. I'm definitely looking forward to that one, and I hear they have good tee-shirts, too! I'm just over a third of the way to my weight loss goal, and J has just started his own weight loss journey, so I expect we'll stick with the exercise thing a little longer.

Best of all, we celebrated our Two Year Anniversary on September 29. As my dad said, this might stick! For those of you interested, Year Two is the Cotton anniversary (traditional, not contemporary), and J and I did our best to stick to the plan. He gave me three new flags to fly in front of our house (not cotton, exactly, but fabric just the same), and has promised more as the months pass. I'll post a picture of October's flag and the wreath I made to go out front with it soon. Keeping in mind J's new-found interest in cooking, I went off-theme and bought tickets to see Food Network Chef Bobby Flay. Bobby was fantastic, and J got some great ideas, which he promptly came home and tried out. While not using his actual anniversary gift, a poly-cotton blend chef's apron that declares him to be the Melton Point Chef (apparently, he's afraid of getting it dirty...).

So that's the last couple of months in a nutshell. We'll try to be better, and hope that you're sticking around for it!

Title: "Knocking on Heaven's Door", by Bob Dylan (or Guns N Roses, depending on your generation) (chosen for the knocking on the glass of the computer screen...kind of obscure, I know.)

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

I've been a little down this week, and I'm guessing that it has more to do with the fact that I haven't run in a week and a half than with anything else. (Though it could be the lack of comments on my last post, I dunno...)

In an attempt to break the funk yesterday, I ran by a flower wholesaler after work and purchased half a dozen sunflowers. They did cheer me up a bit, but I decided that they just didn't fill up the base I put them in so this afternoon, I dropped in for more flowers and some filler, too. One dozen sunflowers, tree fern and some berries that I didn't catch the name of made for a fabulous arrangement, and it looks great in my tree vase.

I'm still not sure what caused the funk, but finding a way to be creative and work with my hands has certainly lifted the gloom. I'm pretty sure J won't mind the cost in exchange for a happier wife!

Title: My Favorite Things, from The Sound of Music

Time keeps on slippin', slippin'

July is shaping up to be a long month for J and me, and it seems to be a bit of a habit to be so (you might remember that I spent half of last July out of town). We spent the first weekend of this month prepping our deck for a little remodel. The deck was powerwashed, old and rotten boards replaced, and finally sanded. We picked out and purchased new paint (and were reminded by the not-at-all helpful paint guy at Lowe's that you should never paint a wood deck. Where was he when the previous owners bought the paint in the first place?).

And then we left town for a week. My mom and I had a great time in Washington at the 118th DAR Continental Congress (national conference) and J had a good weekend of golf in Tunica with his buddies D and E. Unfortunately, the deck-painting fairies did not visit while we were gone, and we came home to the same fully prepped, but not yet painted, deck.

This week was spent catching up at work, so nothing was done to the deck. Not a big deal, except that I'm leaving again tomorrow for another week, and we are hosting a judge from Russia for a week the week after that. I spent last night and today prepping the house to play host, and J spent the day putting the roof on a Habitat house here in town. No work on the deck, though. Maybe the first weekend in August?

In good news, I'm finally able to post pictures of my living room. I last posted a picture in April when we received my grandmother's living room furniture. It took a couple of weeks to determine that no one we knew wanted our old furniture and another couple to schedule a pick-up with the Habitat Re-Store. I still need to find slip covers for the chairs and couch, and eventually will paint the room, but I'm pleased with this for a while.

Title: Fly Like an Eagle, by Steve Miller