Moving and switching projects

So as I've mentioned my lease is up the end of August and I finally made the decision to move out of state!!! and closer to my work.  Really it sounds a lot bigger of a move than it is but I get my keys on the 1st so a week from tomorrow.  I knew this was coming soon and gave up on some of the "projects" I've been working on  here and already have a million planned for my new place.  I feel like the month of August is going to be exhausting, between moving, I've been working a little more lately, and I have a big camping trip planned and a trip to lagoon to fit in too.  It'll be hectic for sure but then I'll be on to my never-ending to-do list in my new place.  For interested parties it's just a small studio apartment, all white walls that I can't paint and the kitchen and bathroom are pretty outdated, but I definitely have some ideas to make it my own and feel all pretty and girly.  I'll likely post all the before pics in a couple weeks so you can see what I'm working with.  I'm really excited!  Because it's a new space, it's all mine, it's saving me tons!!!!  Rent is over 200 cheaper and includes utilities.  I'll also save a crap-ton on gas and 8 hours a week in commuting!!  It's starting to really bug me though that my residences always have never-ending to-do lists.  I want to work on that with this new place.  I want it to feel more "done"  and I feel like I have a fighting chance with it being a smaller place and having more money to work with and already having a start on furniture/decor from my current home.

Summer pics

My computer is on its way out, so I'm just making a quick post from my phone for those who follow on here. Here's a phone dump of some projects I've been working on.

Interweb announcements and Lasik!

I've been MIA for a bit now, for many reasons but the biggest one being I'm newly single.  I really didn't want to say anything about it on the Interwebs but after having to tell people a million times and trying to explain the situation I give up.  At this time I have no interest in going into details of that on here, so that's my biggest news.

But I also got Lasik last Thursday.  I can see perfectly with the aid of nothing!  It's a crazy thought and was an even crazier experience.  I also am in the extremely sexy part of healing where I get to wear safety goggles to bed, wear substantially less makeup, and am putting in eye drops constantly.  I feel like I won't be able to fully sing it's praises though until I'm healed and not juggling eye drops and protective eyewear.

In my currently new situation (it's surprisingly really positive) I feel like the world is at my fingertips!  Oddly the biggest things I'm doing is making things my own again, mostly my house. (I'm still in the same house until the lease is up at the end of August)  I have been cleaning and re-organizing and been happy to girlify my stuff!  I'm also glad that I have some time to figure out my next move, I have many ideas rolling around between renting an apartment closer to work or maybe one closer to town even to potentially purchasing a home to fix-up (this is highly inspired by the current rental I've done all this work on).  I'm tempted to post pictures but I want to give it a few weeks to finish replacing some furniture.   Some furniture I'm intentionally waiting to purchase, like a bed.  The bedrooms here are too small to accommodate much more than a queen mattress, let alone a bed frame or nightstands, so I've decided to just wait and when I get into a new place actually get some bedroom furniture.  But I did finally get the bathroom re-caulked and the new shower curtain and bath mat in there.  And sometime in the next few weeks I'm planning a trip to Ikea for new bedding and a chest of drawers to put in the bathroom.  Weirdly I'm even tempted to paint the one room we didn't paint (the kitchen) but I keep telling myself I shouldn't as I'm only here for the summer.  We'll see I guess.

March Phone Dump

For our anniversary we went to a hot springs near our house, they had a pet alligator there.  It was strange, random, and over-priced.  But still an interesting experience.

I worked on a frame we have, I put paintable textured wallpaper on it to make it not so boring

Then I added some stain, thicker in some areas, thinner in others

Then I hung it on the wall, I haven't finished choosing and printing pictures so you just get this crappy nighttime phone pic

My work gave me the weekend of Annie's wedding off at the last minute but unfortunately it was way too late to RSVP and go, so we impulsively decided to spend the weekend in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.  It was glorious!

Here is Chaynce in Arizona, enjoying phone service and 80 degree weather in his jorts

This is the bridge over the channel at Lake Havasu.  According to tourist pamphlets this is the original London Bridge like from the nursery rhymes and it was shipped here where it was re-built.

This is just a pic taken from the car of one of the many crazy rock formations you see on the long drive

This is Chaynce with a bunch of "friends" we made on the beach.

This is the one pic of me from the Arizona trip.  Most of the time we were out in water and phones put away.

2 years

That's right, me and the man-child have been together 2 years.  Oddly it's felt like a lot longer than that?  I think that's just because of the many ups and downs with new relationships and probably that so much has happened in those 2 years! 
- We've moved 4 times and lived at 5 different apartments/homes
- We've traveled to 3 states (not counting the one we're in obviously)
- We've planted a garden
- We've purchased a car
- We have combined checking/savings and auto insurance
- We're remodeling/updating a house together
- We're in the process of becoming licensed foster parents
- We were foster parents for a weekend (I'll talk more about this later)

I feel like that doesn't sound like much, probably because we're total homebodies much of the time.  But it's been a good 2 years, we like where we're at because we're at that point we understand each others oddities enough that we aren't so surprised or conflicted at each others weirdnesses. (in this case that is a word)

It can't all be DIY

So in my continual effort to find storage alternatives, I knew I needed something for our shoes.  I'm the kind of snob who doesn't like shoes just lined up somewhere (unless it's hidden in a closet) and so my mind started thinking about all the different yet awesome storage benches we could make, and I had to stop myself.  We are awesome at making cool things over here but we already have SEVERAL items on the list.  I decided I was going to just buy something basic, so I did.  I went the easier way and I don't regret it a bit.

It actually comes with shoe pockets velcroed to the sides.  And it fits every single pair of both our shoes (it looks crammed but there's actually a little room to spare)  Awesome!

DIY Ladder

I've been wanting for some time now to find an old ladder to hang towels on in my bathroom, much like other pinterest addicts.  Well I never could find a decent priced ladder that worked.  But then the other day I stumbled upon this and I told Chaynce DIY means he runs power tools.  He only has complained for a week and made claims that he does the most chores and is the absolute best, but to his credit he whipped it out real quick.  I basically just followed her tutorial other than 1x3's seemed a little bigger than I wanted so I went with 1x2's and a 1" dowel.

Here it is post-stain.  I forgot to get many "before" pics.  It's the same stain we've been using on everything around here, dark walnut by minwax.  After the stain dried I watered down some white paint and roughly applied that and wiped it off with a rag in an attempt at some sort of aging. 

 Here is the "pretty" corner of my bathroom.  It's technically still a construction zone in there.  We still have a few things to finish in there, not counting buy towels that actually match and aren't old and bleached.

This is me pretending we have towels that match.  And that is how we store our TP.  I got that basket at DI several years ago pre-Chaynce and I always like to use it to hold spare rolls of TP.

Chalkboard Calendar

I made a chalkboard calendar for the kitchen.  I found the idea here and ran with it.  I found a 2x3 "chalkboard" thingy at home depot for about $6.  I had Chaynce cut it down to 21" long with only minor complaining!  I picked up a white paint pen at Joann's for a few bucks and it was awful.  I don't know if I lucked out and got the broken one or if that's just how they work??  With some practice I could make the squares ok but any writing was a mess!  I needed a new idea, and inspiration hit in the form of scrapbooking stickers.  I looked and found a font I liked but they were black, but I wasn't worried I had some leftover white spraypaint at home.

Ok it's just primer, but it works just fine.

 

This is the finished product.

 

Here it is hung on the wall.  I need to practice my penmanship with chalk so I won't embarrass myself with pictures of it all filled in.

Status symbol: walk-in closets

I dream about walk-in closets.  It's not that I'd ever really NEED one but it is such a sign of luxury to me in my mind right now.  I'm pretty minimalist for a girl in that I don't have a million shoes/purses/clothes I never wear.  I very regularly clean out my closet and donate but just the thought of someday having the space to have a few more fun shoes instead of just the basics, it thrills me.  I've already put closets on the need list for the next place we live, but if we luckily enough find a place with walk-in closets, I'm going to think that we're some crazy kind of special!

We're Alive... and the BIG news...

As usual we are caught up in our own lives over here.  I've been working lots of graveyard shifts over the last couple months and it has been zapping much of my energy.  But my last grave was Friday, YAY!!!!  Which means better money AND a better schedule!  In the last little bit I've felt overwhelmed with my perpetual to-do list around the house.  All the painting and repairs are practically done, we're now just to the organizing and finding a home for everything (which is an even bigger deal as we have no closets!)  but we're slowly getting there with a lot of creativity.

One of the biggest things on our plate right now is we've decided to do foster parenting.  We're taking classes right now and this means the second bedroom is no longer going to be our closet.  I plan to have the bunkbed put up sometime later this week.  It seems like a very sudden decision, and in some ways it was.  All of a sudden everything seemed to be pointing that direction and Chaynce was extremely hesitant but now he's more excited than anyone!  There's not too much we can prepare for (like clothes, bedding) without going unisex as we don't know what gender we're getting first and what age until right before placement.  We plan to accept 2 to 8 year olds at first and go from there, but I've really wanted to get some things for the kids so I made some beanies and bought a couple childrens' books.

We're still working... I promise!

I feel like because I haven't posted I haven't been very productive in getting this house together, but I promise it's not true!  We did get hung up on some black mold and trying to seal up some windows.  And unfortunately after getting that all patched we haven't broken paint out again yet.

I did pull out the tree and put it together basically.  I'm still working on a few more ornaments I need to spray paint and modge podge.  But this is basically it at the moment.  I'm not even too worried about hurrying to finish because we don't have kids and I know Chaynce doesn't care how bare the tree looks ornament-wise.  Really Chaynce has opened his present already (he's a spoiled little boy) and it's already on one of the new dresser/media stand in our room (he got a new 50" flat screen)

But that means we did get one dresser sanded and stained and all that.  The drawers, however, he is working on as I type.  With the below freezing temps lately we were too cold to work outside and were worried paint/stain would freeze and such.  But with the weather improving we should have the dresser totally finished by the end of this week I think.

More paint progress...

We finished the back half of the main room last night.  And while switching all the furniture back to the other side Chaynce smashed the light fixture.  It is literally demolished! Ha!  I'm not worried, it was some cheap old thing that didn't even match the other one in the room, sometime I'll replace it but it's on the end of the to-do list around here.  The color we chose was "creamy pebbles" by Better Homes and Gardens.  It's a kind of greige color although I don't know how much you can tell in these pictures.

Maybe I'll start the front half/entryway today.... maybe.... but besides that we just have baseboards in the kitchen and around the shower stall in the bathroom and we're done with paint!!!! 

Window treatments: Check

Ok only the window treatments in the two bedrooms are done, but I'm very proud.  What I'm not proud of is picture quality.  I really need some practice/lessons, probably more patience too to wait until the right time of day to be  taking pictures in whatever rooms. 

I bought 3 of this rod for the bedrooms and I hung these old blue curtains I had from an old apartment in the spare bedroom/closet room.  This is the only pic you get as the room is stacked with stuff from the living room.  We're getting ready to paint this weekend!

I made dropcloth curtains for our bedroom and really love how they turned out

Unfinished edges, exposed seams, uneven ruffle were all intentional.  We like the roughed up, wrinkled material look to them.

Thrift store success

Can I just say I love thrift stores!!!  I know it's become oh so trendy, but it's something I support, I think all benefit from re-using items, being frugal, etc.   Well today's trip was very successful.  I spent $12 and got 5 jars, 3 knives, a glass mixing bowl, a food chopper, and an immersion blender.  I'm very proud in case you can't tell.

2nd Bedroom is painted!

The bathroom is still in progress.  It's close, just needs some caulking and touching up around the shower.  Unfortunately the old rusty stack of drawers I found on craigslist to use as storage is an inch too wide for the space next to the washer/dryer.  I'm way bummed and need to figure out how to get some storage space in the bathroom still.  But I did just go ahead and get the 2nd bedroom painted. We went with the color "smooth stone" by glidden and we really love it.  It's a pale grey although you can't always tell in my crappy pics.

Here's the 2nd bedroom before

Another before shot, we got rid of the broken armoire

starting the wall color

love that grey

After

After

 I'm so excited about this room.  Although I'm sad it's not going to be a very "pretty" room.  We'll be using it for our closet and storage space.

Current nightstand

So we have an old wooden crate we're using as a nightstand at the moment and I love how old and rustic it is. 

Maybe I love sleeping next to old rusty nails?

One down, One to go

We got one of the rolling racks done!  Yay!

 

 

Here's a shot of the casters.  We just ordered some off etsy that are from the 1920s? I believe.  They were a little smaller than I thought but not bad

Seriously love the stain!!!!  In case you're interested it's dark walnut by Minwax.  Love it so much we'll prob use it on everything.

Eventually they'll go into the second bedroom but for now it's in the living room as we still need to paint that room.  But we (mostly Chaynce, ok just Chaynce) made this from scrap materials so we only paid for the stain and casters. Score!

Rental Progress/Update

Remember how I had this lofty goal of getting everything unpacked/painted/updated/pretty a month after we moved in. I was soooo wrong.  But I have to tell myself we really have gotten a lot done in the last month.  We got Internet!!!  (which was actually a huge process as we didn't have phone lines in the house for dsl and we're kind of in a dead zone for mobile broadband but we got lines ran to the house and finally got it all set up for not too much money. Yay!)

The first room we tackled was the front bedroom which we'd be using as our room.  We got it painted finished sewing the duvet cover and moved our bed and TV in there as not much else would fit in such a small room.

 We went with a medium grey paint and antique white trim/ceiling.  You can't see how nice it looks in this pic but this is the only pic I have right now. We love the flour sack duvet cover, we got it from H&M and added some material to the outside as they only had a twin size.  We need to add more pillows and find another set of pillowcases but that stuff has been moved to the end of the to do list along with adding decor for now.  There's just too much else in the house to do.

Next we went to do the bathroom.  It's been a much bigger process than the first room. 

Right side of the shower before

Right side of the shower cleaning out all the rotted/crumbling stuff

Clearing out all the nasty at the top of the shower stall

Left side of the shower, same story.  Don't you love the rotten floorboards?

The bathroom is mostly done now.  I need to do another coat of paint but there's been much puttying/silicone/scrubbing/caulking going on in there.  It's going to look infinitely better and I'm excited.  We also were able to find some old rusty metal meat drawers on craigslist that we're going to be using for a storage cabinet next to the washer/dryer that I'm really excited about.  It was also only $5/drawer so very cheap for something vintage industrial that we love.  I'll post pics when we finish the bathroom.

Other than that we've been winterizing the doors, got a microwave, got a couch, got the shed cleared out (mostly), got a lawn mower, one rolling rack is almost finished (I'm hoping tonight), and I think we'll try to paint the second bedroom this week (fingers crossed)

Rental house BEFORE

Ok we have the keys.  I took over the first small load in my car this morning, don't tell Chaynce I'm taking a break to take pics and post them and it'll all be ok :)

Front of the House

Pic from entryway, and I will be taking down those curtains

Back half of the living/dining/main room

Right as you come in the front door and look right, the first bedroom

First bedroom, these are tiny.  hence they're hard to get a pic of much while inside the room

More first Bedroom, we will likely be using this as our bedroom as it's the room with a door

This is the second room, we'll be using it for the rolling racks and dressers and probably a broom closet but that's not at the beginning of the to-do list

Other half of the second room, it has the bathroom off of it, and that isn't our armoire, we'll be getting rid of them

As you walk into the bathroom

The bathroom is narrow and very difficult to get a picture of this side but a stall shower and stackable washer and dryer

Kitchen, the most "current" room in the house

The other half of the kitchen and the back door

The backyard right as you come out the back door, that is the owners dog posing for the pic, they're scrambling trying to build a dog run at their new home.

back side of the house, that cellar door just leads down to some storage space and the water heater

Side yard

More side yard, there's a clothes line.  Not my thing but I like the added character

the back of the shed where we have struggling grape vines and the back alley

Well there you are.  The house was built in 1920 and definitely has an aged look to it.  These are all pictures before we put anything inside so there's definitely some stuff we need to clear out.  I'll be jumping headfirst into a million projects.  I think first is rolling racks and painting the front bedroom.  However, I work weekends so I prob won't start till next week.  I'm really excited to document our progress though.