What Is It With Cats

And fresh laundry?

So much for that wrinkle-free dryer cycle.

Also, Happy Birthday Justin

Yeah, I had that poster several times on my Justin Timberlake wallpapered bedroom. It was worth waking up to each morning. Thanks Bop, Teen Beat, and Tiger beat for capitalizing on my allowance.

Hidden Treasure.

Last month I uncovered the update I had hidden from cyberspace since AUGUST.

I went from making do, then updating in the heat of the moment to something summery, light and airy that really wasn’t my style, to something that makes me super happy. I even loved the carpet, only because I love carpet. I like being able to walk around and be on something cushy and warm with or without socks. However, it was last updated when I was probably on the cusp of blossoming into a teenager. I’ve wanted to uncover what was underneath for ages, just for the sake of having a consistent flooring throughout our tiny 864sf house.

So I did. Last weekend. And it was glorious because OMG you guys it’s beautiful ORIGINAL 1951 HARDWOOD FLOORS. Which I full intend on having refinished to match the gorgeous laminate shade we put in the kitchen.

Hussy wasn’t too thrilled about me taking it up before we planned on refinishing it, because lets be honest. My intention of having a house with seamless flooring colors to make it more cohesive was only one half step closer to reality. Now instead of 5 different flooring colors and types, it’s just 4. Our bathroom laminate is purposely matched to our bedroom carpet, so once we refinish the hardwoods, it should LOOK like 2 different types.

Of course, my haunted house was upset I was tearing it up, apparently. I cut 2 of my fingers at the exact same square inch of carpet 5 times. 3 of the cuts were just on my fore finger.

But I persevered because the floors were looking oh-so-amazing, until I found this. 

No renovation in this house has been complete without uncovering tape so old and rotten I physically cannot get it up. I’ve been blessed with duct taped plumbing, taped up crumbling drywall, and even legit carpet tile tape. But why this tape was on here, I’ll never know. Maybe I don’t WANT to know. So I tried covering it up for the time being. With a cat.

J/K Y’ALL. But I did find these stupid staples not just on the edges of the room (which is my ultimate faveeeee thing to pull up 300 times!) but also through the center of the room. Ugh. I did find a quick and somewhat painless way of removing them that sped the job up.

And just as I was moving furniture back in place to move the old living room rug in here, my favorite 21 pounder Cooper decided to grab a front row seat. Or he was just waiting for me to feed him with the dinner that’s inside that chest.

Which leads us to what it looks like as of this weekend:

The space is more defined, and cleaning up the cat food that goes everywhere is a breeze. Plus, this room is our main walkway to the hall/bedrooms, so that’s way less filthy. I’ll be glad when winter is over and we can go back to the original sheer curtains I had for the room, and I can find some shelves for the blank wall on the left. But that was definitely 3 hours well spent!

I’m Such a Show Off!

At least, on The DIY Show Off!

 

So if you’ve stumbled upon my blog from there, welcome :) My husband and I spent about 3 months and $3,000 renovating our kitchen with our own bare hands, and I’m so proud that it took so little to make such a huge impact. In fact, I was so excited to post the grand reveal, that I completely forgot to show a single shot of my DIY curtains… which are really just Target napkins sewn together.

(HEY YOU: the green/blue version of these napkins are on clearance RIGHT NOW for next to NOTHING in price. The pattern is gorgeous, so go check them out before they’re gone!!)

 

I posted some of these pictures already back in the summer, but I think those big red puff balls, red microwave, yellow and orange hand towels and pink mixer make a little more sense when you can see the one thing in the room that pulls them together.

 

And although I left the obvious seams, I pretend it’s just character. ((Really, it’s laziness. Shhhhhh.))

So I hope all you new followers/readers/visitors will come back and join me some more. I’m so pumped to be featured (Thanks Roeshel! I love your site!) and even more excited to get to know more fellow bloggers. DIY Show Off is a huge source for finding awesome new inspiration from the blogging community, and I’m forever amazed at all the fantastic ideas people come up with and do themselves. I like to think I’m creative, but not as much as most of you guys!

A Magic Carpet Ride.

Our living room has had it’s fair share of different flooring. Lets take a trip down memory lane.

The problem with the latest one is that the cats apparently liked it as much as we did. As in it became TO’ UP FROM THE FLO’ UP. Because… it was the floor.

So we were walking down the aisles of the almighty bulk country that is Costco when my hands felt the most softest rug ever.  I just stood there rubbing it like my Baby Rube. But Hussy said we needed to keep shopping, so it was touch and go. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I kept thinking about how much our kitties would like it as much as I did, so he promised that we would go back and get it with our fun money a few days later when we got paid.

Like a true woman, I didn’t let him forget that statement.

But Friday I got a migraine. Saturday I ended up doing a MAJOR project, then we went to my sister in law’s party. So Sunday he PROMISED we’d finally get that rug. Guess where yours truly is posting from this very moment? Yeah, that $125 piece of heaven.

For the record: I was right about the kitties. Rupert has been munching on this carpet/BFF since we laid it down. When we went grocery shopping, we came back home to see he brought his new friend one of my sweaters to keep it warm. And that purple ball above for it to play with. He’s a silly Rube.

So if you live near a Costco, please do yourself a favor and at least touch it. Also, that major project I mentioned earlier, is like, major. So major you have to wait for it. Just know I spent 3 straight hours killing my back and legs transforming the room that is now holding that TO’ UP jank.

At least I have this big plush rug to comfort my rear parts ;)

The Biggest Winner.

I’ve mentioned many times how I have the most fantastic place of employment. We’re all about making people healthy, including the staff. So for the month of December (which includes the ever-so-unhealthy holidays) our dieticians ran a contest to maintain or lose weight. They kept talking about how everyone who enters and accomplishes the goal of AT LEAST maintaining got a $30 gift card to Whole Foods, and was entered into a raffle for a “big prize.”

They actually had me wrap the present, so I did what I do best: The finest dang paper wrapping on this side of the universe. As we all met up to celebrate our accomplishments over some delicious snacky food, they did the drawing. Someone volunteered to pull the name, and I sat to the side just admiring my wrap job. Then the name was called. MY name. All I could think about was how now I have to rip open that perfect wrap job. Not the fact that I just WON SOMETHING.

They kept building it up as a huge prize, something that everyone who didn’t win would wish they got. I knew it was heavy, and fragile, because I saw it all over the box before I wrapped it and carefully walked it over to the table for the lucky (HAHA SUCKASSSS) winner. So I ripped it open and found this:

For real for real the 250gb one. I was actually about to cry.

See, many moons ago, my hussy got me a sweet birthday present.

And then he threw me a party to play with it and my friends. But the only picture we got the whole night was of Rupert going nuts over the fish game. (and wow, look at those red walls, black trim, and killer college dorm  worthy décor!) (and OH HAYYY VINTAGE TUBE ((lame excuse for a)) TV!)

But then I realized I got fat. And he proposed. So we joined a gym, and the wii was neglected. So he sold it for an Xbox for him (awesome trade, right?) which ended up getting the three rings of death three hours later.

That was an awful experience. But as time went on, the Xbox continued to get crappier and soon refused to read discs when it was PMSing or some junk, so he decided to sell it when I brought home the Black Beauty. I call that The Sale That Almost Didn’t Happen because it decided to work FINE when I got Blackie, but pooped out when the final call was made to make the deal to sell it. Poor thing.

But to make up for the Wii/Xbox trade Hussy so kindly made, I made him take the proceeds from his Xbox sale to buy me some Kinect games. So after hours of watching Youtube videos of it, I purchased Dance Central. It’s pretty much the most awesome game I’ve played in a long time. Hard to believe we’ve come this far since my DDR glory days. Which, by the way, I kicked butt on. Even while sliding across the floor on those stupid mats.

The worst part? I probably wouldn’t have even won if I wasn’t so deathly ill a couple weeks ago. It was thanks to my virus and lack of appetite that I lost 6 pounds. Hopefully with my new prize, I’ll lose even more, but with the eating.

Thrifty Thursday: OWL BE BACK.

Thrifty Thursday said it will be back. And it is. YAY!!!

Submitted for the approval of the midnight society, I call this story “Mr. Owl.”

I found him at Goodwill around Halloween for $12.25. I had ideas of spraypainting him, but I think he has a nice looking brass. har.

He’s made himself right at home in the dining room, though still awaiting my purchase of a buffet for him to perch.

But the best part of this story is finding his twin online.

Really? Estimate of $100-$150? I mean, owls ARE all the rage, but I even cringed spending $12. This has been a “starting bid” for weeks, so it’s not much to go on.

So I searched a little deeper into cyberspace and… Wait. People are REALLY bidding on this other twin on ebay? The current bid as of Sunday night was $43.

The shipping alone is more than I paid for it WITH TAX! I squealed about it to hussy, who immediately screamed back from the Xbox Command Center to sell mine. No way!

But the real kicker was the final bid. The one that sent this little birdie flying home.

YES. $81. For my $12.25 thrift! I’m sorry for bragging, Dina Mae. It is a fine lamp. I did manage to pop a party hat shade from around the house on my Mr. Owl in time for our party though.

It’s like POW RIGHT IN THE KISSER.

So Flakey.

I told you a couple weeks ago about the fun new ornaments I got at Target on Clearance. Namely, this snowflake ornament in the background

I got 9 of them for 50% off, which came up to $1 a piece. They’re made with wood as the flake glued onto a thick colorful felt outline. I ended up going back for one last hunt when they were marked to 75% off and only found 1 more, but I got it anyhow.

Then came the dilemma of putting them away so soon after I bought them when they match my new finds at Crate and Barrel so well. So, I improvised.

I kept the mantle super simple, using just the vases I got on  clearance at Crate and Barrel.

Oh, and Rupert.

He’s such a camera whore.

I also found these pillow cases for $3 at C&B.

They had boxes of these things, and since I have 16x16 pillows laying around already, so I’ll take the $17 savings to not have it already stuffed. Especially since I only paid $2 for the insides!

Now let it snow IRL!

A Kitchen Renovation: The Grand Reveal.

Finally, after much anticipation (and a comment from a follower saying she googled my counters, kicking my butt in gear) here’s the Official Grand Reveal!

BUT, we must start off from the beginning. When it was my grandparent’s kitchen. With 3 different types of cabinets, 6 mismatched appliances, 100% of them broken, and the same paint color that was throughout the entire house: Old Yeller.

Now I present to you: her Mocha Deliciousness.

The sink area was always a little messy.

To quote Edgar Allan Poe, “nevermore.”

It went from side by side top loading (and broken) washer/dryers,

To stackable dreamies.

 

We tore down the original 1950’s steel rusties,

To make room for our Red Rider Microwave and pseudo-bar (and bonus-points-worthy Kill Bill weaponry station in the back).

It took 3 months of DIY-intense labor, but it was SO worth it. The only things we hired out for were the electrical (since we had exposed outlets wired to the top of our counters) and plumbing (since it was all original, and needed updating behind the wall). All of the cabinet building, floor laying, appliance installing, interior plumbing, splackling, and misc screwing/hammering/gluing/painting was 100% us. It’s just hard to believe we went from this

To this.

Now that’s, Divine.

(you can check out the full serious of “A Kitchen Renovation” here)