DIY Wainscoting

Doin’ a little happy dance because the 1986 country rose wallpaper in our entry is GONE!  Well, it’s still there, but you can’t see it.  Finally.  Allow me to share a “before”….  This is the view from the front door looking towards the kitchen.  The second pic is a close-up of the wallpaper that I do not miss one bit.

   

After spending waaaayyy too much time on Pinterest and multiple blogs, we settled on doing basic DIY wainscoting.  The main reason is that we wanted it to match the dining room (now office) so that it looked like it had always been there.  I am SO very thankful for my handy engineer husband!  He actually enjoys math and figuring out angles – both of which were majorly needed for this project.  (A point he made sure the girls knew since they all hate math.) 

The first thing we had to do was fix all the wallpaper seams, because we were not going to cover the paper with MDF.  Adding anything over the paper would have increased the depth & we would have needed to remove the existing chair rail to accommodate that.  We wanted to avoid the headache, time and expense incurred by doing that.  So, we (actually hubs) trimmed back each seam and then mudded over it with sheetrock mud.  It took a couple of coats to make it all flat and even.  Then we primed with interior latex primer so our paint would adhere to the nasty wallpaper.

  

We used painter’s tape to mark off the boxes so we could see how they would fit on the wall.  Once we were happy with the size & placement of the rectangles, it was time to work on angles.  Hubs went online and printed off a protractor.  He used that to build a couple of jigs.  Everything was cut on the table saw.  I REALLY wish I had taken pics of the jigs and the templates he cut!!  But, **sigh** I didn’t.  He cut a piece of 1/4″ plywood to the size he wanted.  In this case 4″ wide so all the boxes and angles would be 4″ from the trim and we wouldn’t have to measure every.single.time.  Then he cut that into the correct angles needed so we could make the trim pieces fit.  Some construction adhesive (that didn’t work too well) and a nail gun were the tools we used to put up the trim.  I painted it to in a gloss to match the existing trim.  I LOVE our entry now!  It is SO much better!

 

The next step is to hire a painter to come paint the 2-story high walls above the chair rail in the entry.  They will be Realist Beige like everything else to keep it simple.  I’m not about to put my hubby on scaffolding over the stairs to paint!

I think I promised at the beginning of this blog to put measurements of the rooms.  Not sure I’ve held to that, but I’ll do it here.  This entry is shaped like a “T”.  The top of the “T” (front door wall) is 145 1/4″ long & 56″ wide.  At the base of the stairs is a little piece that is 31 3/8″.  Going up the stairs is 174 3/4″.  The wall directly in front of the front door is 63 3/8″.  The walls on each side of the leg of the “t” (going in to Kitchen) are 129 5/8″ long and it is 39″ wide.  The chair rail is 34″ from floor.

Hopefully all that makes sense!  If you are considering DIY wainscoting, just Google “DIY Wainscoting” and you will get some great pictures and some blogs that actually give step-by-step direction.  I just picked a picture I liked, printed it and asked hubs to make it happen.  He loves it when I do that….. 

Honey Do List Revamp

It has been well established that men & women are just so very different.  (Which I think is a good thing.)  However, my sweet hubby & I are very much alike in one way – our memories are becoming non-existent.  Especially regarding things we don’t really want to do.  Anyone else experiencing this phenomena??  We would talk about all the things that need to be done around the house & yard…….and then forget about them.  So, nothing was getting done.  One day my daughter told me she needed something for school.  I told her to write it on a sticky note & stick it to my steering wheel.  I’m in the car all day, so if it’s on the horn I see it & am more likely to get it done.  **Light bulb!**  “Hmmm….if that works for me, perhaps it will work for hubs..”  Enter the new idea for our Honey Do List.

Hubs came home from work on Tuesday to find his new “Honey Do List”.    It was displayed prominently in his favorite spot.  Do you see it?

Yep.  The “List” is now on sticky notes.  Post-It notes to be exact, because their “sticky” is just better.  No, they aren’t paying me to say that.  I can assure you they don’t know I exist.  But I know their sticky notes exist & that’s what matters.  Now, when I need hubs to take care of something, I write it on a sticky note & put it by (or on) his computer.  When he completes the item, he trashes the note.  Actually, he folds the note in 1/2 and lays it to one side.  I trash the note.

If you & your sweetie (or kids) are having trouble getting things done, perhaps this will work for you too.  Just write one thing on each sticky note.  (I’m also careful to begin with the word “Please” to make it a little less demanding.)

Once the item is done, the note goes in the trash.  Probably not the best solution for recurring things, but for occasional things, it works really well.  So far.  For our recurring things (ie: kids’ chores), we use our laminated chore cards.

Valentine’s Boxes

School Valentine’s parties are about to round the corner!  For the younger kids that generally means  it’s time to create cute V’day boxes for friends to deposit your Valentines in.  Our girls have pretty much reached the age of no Valentine swapping, but I came across some pics of boxes we have done in the past.  These are super easy!

The hot air balloon was definitely a favorite!  The base is just a box with top cut out.  You can use a tissue box, small shoe box, whatever.  Then we covered the box with red paper inside & out.  Save yourself some grief & cut the top out of the box FIRST.  If you’re using a shoe box, just leave the lid off.  You could also paint the box if you have red paint on hand.  Next we stuck 4 bamboo skewers into the corners of the box.  You can get these in the kitchen accessory section at WalMart.  We wrapped these with red paper as well.  After that, we grabbed some sheer red ribbon that had hearts printed on it & strung some pink heart-shaped ornaments on it.  I think the ribbon & hearts came from Hobby Lobby.  We wrapped the ribbon around the top of the box and secured it with scrapbooking glue dots, then tied a cute little bow.  The “balloon” is just a small paper lantern.  The heart was already printed on it.  We cut some red, pink & white curling ribbon and tied that under the lantern.  To hold the “balloon” up, we stuck the skewers through the paper on the lantern.  It was a little easy to knock off, but that was okay.

Next up is one my middle daughter made herself.  She is VERY independent!  She also made a dog shaped box last year, but didn’t let me take a pic of it.  It was really cute.  Anyway, here is her iPod box:

I thought it was pretty cute, actually.  She used an old shoe box, covered it with pink paper and ribbon, then glued on some jewels.  Her friends raved about it & that’s all that really matters I suppose.  This is great for that night before panic.  Oh, your kids don’t do that?  Lucky you. 

My eldest wanted a house-shaped box one year.  This one is slightly more labor intensive.

We used a detergent box and cut the top out of it for the house part.  We covered that with pink paper.  The door is white paper.  The little fence is wood & I think it’s from Hobby Lobby in the little wooden letter & box area.  The jewels, flowers & buttons came from the scrapbooking area.  The silk butterfly came in a pack of like 6 or 8 of all different colors.  I don’t remember where I bought those.  The roof & chimney are from a shoe box that has a flip open lid as opposed to a detached lid.  I just cut it the way we wanted it with some scissors.  We hot glued it all together.

Hope this helps you with some ideas for your child’s school Valentine box.  I’d love to see what you come up with!

Bathroom Drawer Organization

What is it about pinning up a new calendar that sends us into clean out/organize/lose weight/get fit mode??  Or is it just me?  Judging by all the pins and blog posts out there relating to those categories, it is not just me.  Whew!  I’m normal.  Kind of. 

I know most posts about organizing talk about making more space in small places, but as small as our rooms are in this house we actually have too much storage space in the bathrooms.  Weird, isn’t it?  Our Master Bath is only 14.5 feet x 5 feet.  Yep.  5 feet wide, of which base cabinets take up about 2 feet.  So, only 3 feet of walking through space.  BUT in that small amount of space the builders fit 2 sinks in an “L” configuration and a floor-to-ceiling cabinet.  It’s a LOT of unnecessary cabinetry that we will deal with one day in the near future.  For now, let me show you how I organized 3 of the drawers in our bathroom.  The under sink & tall cabinets will be another day.

We have 7 total drawers in the bathroom.  The 3 I organized are all 3″ deep.  The first two are 9.5″ x 15 5/8″.  Here is a “Before” pic of one of those:

Yep.  That’s all that was in that drawer.  For 6 years.  Well, I mean those EXACT items are not 6 years old, but you know what I mean.  Toothpaste, carmex, a sunscreen stick and a little electric shaver.  The drawer next to it is just like it, but it had a jumbled mess of travel size items.  Wish I had done a “Before” on that.  Or….maybe not.  It was a little gross & scary.

For the 2 smaller drawers, I just shopped the house & attic.  (Is it weird that about 1/3 of our attic space is taken up with organizers?)  Anyway, I was able to find several things to get the two smaller drawers whipped into shape.  Here they are now!

    

Toothpaste drawer on left now houses extra do, q-tips, carmex, floss, toothbrush covers, sunscreen sticks and a couple of small toothpastes (that will actually be moving to the girls’ bathroom soon).  Most of this stuff was in the jumbled drawer.  The jumbled drawer on right is now first aid central.  The first aid items were all stored under one of the sinks and were kind of a pain to get to.  Now, we can access all the most needed items quickly and easily.

To the right of these drawers is a wide drawer – 23.75″ x 15 5/8″ .  I obviously don’t know how to convert 5/8 to a decimal.  Sorry.  Guess I could ask my 5th grader….    Aaaannnyway, the wide drawer is mine and holds mostly stuff I need in the mornings.  The main exception is my daily makeup, which stays in a bag in another drawer.  So, here is the semi-organized “Before” shot of that drawer:

Not very well utilized & it had become a “dumping ground” for hair clips and ponytail holders.  For this project, I actually had to go buy what I needed to fill the space.  I found 2 of these bamboo organizers at WalMart and they work really well for this space.

  

There is a central compartment with all the little “boxy” spaces and then the sides can slide in or out as needed.  Some of the inner dividers can also be removed if more space is needed for a particular item.  After playing around with it for a few minutes, I came up with this:

There is still a little bit of space at the back, but over all it is perfect for what I need.  The hair clips are separated, there is space for my “back up” make up items as well as the little perfume samples I love.  The red & green ribbon things you saw in the “Before” pic were Christmas ponytail holders that go with my “Who” costume I wear every year.  They now live with that costume.

It’s been a few days since I did this & I have to say I really love the change.  If you’ve been busy organizing, I’d love to hear about it!

Valentine’s Pennant Banner

I love pennants!  Especially strung together in a banner.  They have been quite popular for a while now, but I’ve just been to lazy to try to work them in around here.  Better late than never, right?!?

To give the whole story on this, I should backtrack to Christmas.  I decided to turn an antique mirror frame into a card holder at the front door.  The frame originally went with a dresser that belonged to my great grandmother, but we were not using it.  It fit perfectly over the chair rail in the entry, so I just added some picture hanging wire to the back and chicken wire in the mirror opening.  And there, you have it, a card holder.  Easy peasy!

Took the picture at night.  Sorry about that.

For Valentine’s Day decor, I decided to make a cute pennant banner like I’ve seen all over Pinterest.  For the pennant shape, I just googled “free pennant pattern” and found one I liked.  It looked like this (sorry I don’t remember site).

 

I used the measurement line to cut it down to the size I wanted.  Then it was just a matter of choosing my papers from what I had on hand, tracing the pattern on the back of each paper & cutting everything out.  Once it was cut, I pinned the pennants up to figure out placement and how many I would actually need.

I knew I wanted the word “love” on it & thought I had some stickers in my stash that would work.  No deal.  Oh, I have LOTS of letter stickers, just not the right size.  And I didn’t want to spend any money on this project.  I decided to just print the letters from Word in a font I liked and cut them out.  Of course, I wanted them to be black and my black ink decided to run out.  So, I printed the letters in blue & went over them with a Sharpie before cutting them out and gluing them on the pennants.  A little fuzzy yarn & it’s all done!

     

I added some pics of our girls to fill up the space.  And because they’re cute.    They have had much fun looking at pics from their younger years!

Sharing this (free) project at 52 Mantels & Little Inspiration.

100 Day Challenge

Have you heard about the 100 Day Challenge?  My sister-in-law introduced me to this at the beginning of the year.  You basically promise to be active for 100 straight days & log  your activity.  The above link is to the Facebook page & here is the website link.  I love this because it doesn’t tell you what to do.  (Perhaps I have authority or control issues…)  You just do SOMETHING for at least 30 minutes a day.  Choose your own activity, time, & level of endurance.

Today is yukky, wet & cold in our parts.  Oh, to be on a tropical island somewhere!  But, I’m here.  So, I opted to do something at home – because I refuse to pay a gym when I know I won’t go.  We have 31 stairs in our house.  31.  I know.  So, I popped on my walking clothes & spy belt, cranked up the tunes, set my iPhone timer for 30 minutes & hit the stairs.  For all 30 minutes.  Constant ascent & descent.  I began questioning my sanity on about the 3rd trip up those stairs.

To add a little variety, I jogged up and walked down.  Then I “lunged” up (stepping on every-other-stair) and walked down.  Then I went up sideways (turning midway so I got both sides worked equally) and walked down.  Then I hopped from side to side up and walked down.  Please walk down.  And use the hand rail. 

A friend of mine actually jogs in her house on a regular basis.  She has a great one-level home and just pops on those jogging shoes & hits it.  That is dedication.  It also eliminates any excuse I ever had for not working out.  Although I generally prefer the park.  On yukky days when I don’t have to go to work, I hit the mall.  Most malls will open 2 hours early to allow for mall walkers.  Check your mall’s website.  Sometimes they will even give the distance of one lap.  I just set my timer for 1 hour on mall walking days.

Care to join us on our 100 day challenge?  Just jump in any time & start your own 100 days.  Nobody cares when you start.  They just want you to succeed & be active.  Get some friends together & start your own 100 day challenge group on FB like my SIL did.  Super good accountability!

Hope you’ll join us & head towards a healthier you!

Kitchen Remodel Update

I am so stinkin’ excited to tell you that we are (almost) DONE with the kitchen redo!  All that is left is the floor and possibly a new fridge.  I’m not sure about replacing the 30-something year old fridge because the new ones just don’t seem to last very long.  We’ll see.  The floor will be replaced after the entryway remodel.  I have no idea when we’ll get to that.

Let’s go back to the Country Blue bombshell beginning, shall we?

Yeah.  That’s enough of that, don’t you think?  If not, you can read more about it here, here and here.  Let’s move on to the current After shots!

**For some reason, my computer is now refusing to upload pics.  I’ll add them when it decides to act right.**

*Edited – pics now working!*

We took the cabinets to the ceiling & eliminated the florescent light over the sink.  We removed the peninsula that hindered entrance from the deck, as well as general flow through the room.  That allowed us to turn the dishwasher, so we could actually reach the cabinets & sink with the dishwasher open.  Yay!  We also swapped out the old drop in style oven for a convection wall oven & gas cook top.  Love my “new” gas cook top!  Both items, as well as the microwave w/convection baking, came off Craigslist for WAAAYYY cheap!

We removed the super nasty formica countertops & installed Uba Tuba granite.  Such a difference!  I don’t have anything against formica in general, but ours was bluish & you probably remember how I feel about that.  Also, apparently nasty little six legged monsters are able to get in behind the backsplash part & hide.  Eeewww.

Our backsplash is now cream colored subway tile.  Love.  This is the smaller subway tile that comes on a mesh backing.  It was our first experience putting up a backsplash, but it was pretty easy & we LOVE the way it looks.

We are really enjoying our new layout & additional storage over the fridge & at the top of the cabinets.  I’m still working out the best way to organize things in the new cabinets & drawers.  As soon as I do, I’ll be sure to post.