Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Just a little bit of progress and meeting the neighbors

So I am proud to say that the "new" medicine cabinet is painted and hung!!

The doors are a little off but my darling hubby stayed up extra late to help me get it hung and I wasn't going to be too picky about the doors when he was so tired! I am so glad it's finished. Everything the girls aren't supposed to get into is well out of their reach. Yay!!

Part of the reason it took me a little longer than I was expecting was this:
Which is a $40 dresser we purchased off craigslist for our guest room. It looks like someone tried to stain it but didn't sand it first or something. Poor dresser. Right now it looks like this.
and this
Which, while is not finished is still leaps and bounds better than it was. The tricky part of this dresser is that it was all veneer. And it was thin or broken in a lot of places. I sanded it down as best I could while trying to be aware of how thick the veneer was but despite my best effort the stain still did not take as evenly as I was hoping for. It looks like reclaimed wood and like I did it on purpose so I guess we can pretend like I did :) The top was loose in a few spots and we got out the wood glue and the clamps this morning. I am hoping that in the next 2 days (since it's supposed to be really nice!!) I can get the top coat on it and then it can move to it's home upstairs.

The dresser that is up there now is another project waiting for my attention but I am going to play musical furniture (the best part of settling into a new house) so we knew it wasn't going to go back upstairs and why we bought the other one. You will hear about that one more as I get to it!

We got new neighbors about 3 weeks ago. The house that is the mirror image of ours, on the outside at least, finally sold. We like our new neighbors. It also made me realize we hadn't really met any of the neighbors we already had. It's cold and no one really hangs out outside in the winter unless they are shoveling. And we haven't had snow, so... no neighbors. Yesterday I tried a new cookie recipe. I guess I didn't really read the recipe because it made 7 dozen cookies. What do we need 7 dozen cookies for?! So I bagged the majority of them up and started knocking on doors and playing cookie delivery lady. I found out that we have a lot of really nice neighbors. I also found out a lot of good info on the neighborhood. Apparently this was the Italian neighborhood back in the day and there are still a few older Italian couples that live here.
One of the houses that borders our back yard is adorable. It's on the small side for the neighborhood but has lots of character and charm. The couple that lives there, has lived there for 45 years. With as much moving as we have done in the last 5 years, I can't even imagine. That same lovely couple also had put this out at the curb.
Apparently they owned the chair as long as they've lived in the house. She had gotten a quote to have it redone and at $700 she decided she would rather get rid of it. It can be my learn-how-to-upholster practice chair. I am pretty excited. I love the wood detail. Best meeting the neighbors trip I've ever had!

It is nice to know a little more about where we are living and the people who live here. It really does seem like a nice neighborhood. I wanted to share one picture of Aleena from the other day. Her hair is getting so long and her Daddy requested either a ponytail or some pigtails since I don't usually try to put it up.
Doesn't get much cuter than that!!

See you soon!
~R

Thursday, February 9, 2012

And the list grows...

I am finally sitting at my dining room table with room to eat, or type a blog, or maybe finally pull out my sewing machine!?! It's crazy talk I know!!! We had our first visitors yesterday. My Best Friend Tricia and her mom.. and baby Eli (the twins boyfriend) drove up to see us. Which was a wonderful visit and gave me the push I needed to finally make the dining room not look like a storage area. There are still boxes but you can actually see the table which is a huge improvement.

The added bonus to this is there is room to work on projects. I have more going at one time than I should so my goal this week is to get at least one finished.  When we had originally looked at the house Aleena's room had no light fixture- just wires dangling from the ceiling. We were fortunate enough that the owners put a brand new ceiling fan in her room before we had settlement. It's white and fairly generic but will most definitely work for the time being. The babies room is another story. They have this.


It is an ugly, green blade-less fan. Only 3 of the lights work. It just drives me nuts. (on an unrelated note you can see at the bottom of the picture we have yet to finish painting their room.) Today we took a little family drive to our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore. I was looking for a pantry cabinet for the kitchen. No luck with that but we did find this.

 A very cute ceiling fan for 2 little girls and it was only $30. The one I had been looking at that I thought we might get for in there was $60 and was more grown up. I am thrilled to have found something that saved us some money and fits them for the next however many years. I tried to see if I could find this fan at Lowes or Home Depot so I could see exactly how much we saved and I didn't see it online. However at Lowes the other fans that were more geared towards kids rooms started at $80. I will admit installing the fan will be more of a Matthew project, than something I can do but I can at least cross buying a ceiling fan off my list! I also got the curtains hung in the babies room. I know We haven't finished painting but I was tired of looking at them in the packages when they could look like this.


The flowered curtains I got from Ikea but they are discontinuing them and I got the last ones in Conshohocken. And the pink panels are corduroy and are from Pottery Barn Kids but I got them at the thrift store for $3 for the pair. Good Deal! It really lightens up the room since we haven't finished painting over the blue yet.

Another project I have going on right now are these beauties. (Please note the sarcasm.)


Hey look you can see our pretty wood floor! Back to the chairs. There are 2 of them and in their original state I did not find them attractive. I picked them because they are light weight and I could carry them but they are also smallish. Our foyer is fairly large but I didn't want to take up the whole space with 2 chairs. I already have them painted and the fabric I picked is draped over them but no sewing action has happened. Now that I have my dining room table open I think I might be able to start making some more progress. Once they are finished I will take pictures of the whole foyer for you.

The other project that I want to get finished before I take anything else on is this.


And this would be our old spice cabinet, already disassembled to paint, that is turning into a medicine cabinet for our powder room.

There is so much more on the list. Like these:



That is the door leading to our basement from the kitchen and the side window off the kitchen. They are primed but the kitchen is on hold for now. But I also want to take down the wall paper in there as well as the wall paper in the guest room. And, like I said, I still have to finish painting the babies room. So my list is getting longer by the day it seems but I will try to keep you posted as I actually accomplish my projects. Time is flying by. We have been living here almost 2 month already and Aleena is going to be 3 in a couple weeks. It's hard to believe. Hope you all are doing well and hopefully I will have more to share soon!!