Design on a Dime- Enrichment

This post is being used for an Enrichment night talent showcase- just to avoid any confusion :).

There are three things that I love to do and although they may not qualify as "talents" in the proper sense, I thought it'd be fun to display them all the same. A lot of my free time is spent blogging, garage sale-ing/bargain hunting, and decorating. The following is a blog I did a while back when I needed to fix up our guest room. I've also added some pictures towards the end of this post of some of the other rooms in my house and the deals I've scored to decorate them.

GUEST ROOM MAKEOVER

If you've ever seen that show on HGTV called "Design on a Dime" you may be like me and think "$1000! I could do SO much more with that!" They build TV cabinets for $200 and I usually find myself thinking "I could totally get something nicer on craigslist for that amount of money." Anyways, for the next two weeks I plan to do a "design on a dime," emphasis being on the dime. I saw this bedroom featured recently on HGTV.com (can you tell I wish I had cable sometimes?) and I'm kind of in love with it. I love color, so it kind of took me by surprise, but I thought it would look great in our guest room. Seeing as how we will have guests in 2 weeks, I decided to go for it and try to get the majority of it done before they arrive. Crazy? Most certainly. I'll be lucky if I get even close, but this will be good motivation nonetheless. So here's the before picture. It kind of reminds me of those makeover pictures where they have the person in bad lighting, with no makeup, drooling- anything to make it look like they can go no where but up. Sure I could have put the luggage away, but considering what little time I have, I need to be able to make this room as ugly as possible so it will look like I've done a lot by the time 2 weeks are up.


And the dream room- I won't even come close, but this is the desired effect anyways.




Wish me luck!

RESULTS

So it's been 2 weeks...and I'm not quite done with the guest room. But I'm done with it for the time being- I need a break! The roman shades aren't done and the night stand still needs to be refinished. I discovered that the night stand has 3 coats of paint on it and probably will be a labor of love- I don't want to do a rush job on it. As for the shades, my serger's tension is off and I need my mom to show me how to fix it. Excuses, excuses.

This has been a fun adventure though. The first day was a bit of a trial. The person who decorated the dream room mentioned the paint color she used and so I decided against my better judgment to just go ahead and copy that. The paint looked like baby poop. So, strike one. I then proceeded to try and dye some fabric to make it more khaki colored and less light yellow. This was the result:

This is such a good idea!

Hmmm...maybe it'll lighten once I rinse it out.

Yeahhh...that's not going to work.


I should know better. My mom is notorious for dying things and I think I can count on one hand (maybe one finger) the number of successes she has had in doing so. She's dyed shoes, outfits, you name it. The only thing I've ever liked was a leather coat- it looked even better when the dye wore off a bit because it gave the leather a really nice distressed look. So you live and learn. Don't dye things.

Continuing on with my first day (we're on strike two now), I decided to go back to the paint and try to salvage it by lightening it with some extra white paint I had laying around. I got a lighter baby poop color. Nice. In my anger I ended up dropping the entire can on my bathroom floor. Needless to say I just about gave up then and there. Luckily, the following day fared better.

I followed my initial instincts and went with a different paint color. #1 helped me paint an accent wall and we had a lot of fun doing so. He helped me quite a bit with the painting and although it was a little nerve-wracking at times, he did a great job overall.
You can see the baby poop paint higher up here.

My cute little helper.

Baby N watched from afar.


The headboard needed some help. I got this for free off craigslist, but there was a nasty hole in the backing that someone presumably to put some cords through. It looked like a rat had chewed through it. I wanted to do a cheap new backing, so I picked up this seagrass rug at Ikea for $5 and spray painted it black. After painting the headboard, I stapled the rug on as a backing. I love how this turned out!
Before

The rug...


Total cost- $6


Since I had the spray paint out, I also painted this lamp I got at a garage sale for $2. I liked the shape, but it was dark brown with a strange shade. I ended up getting the shade new for around $7. Total cost for the perfect lamp- $9. A little more than I would have liked, but I didn't have much time to shop around.



A while back I had gotten these frames for free at a garage sale. I wasn't keen on the print inside, so I used some old photos I had laying around and got them resized at Walmart for $2. I didn't want to pay for custom mats to make them fit, so I just glued the photos onto a white backing and it turned out pretty good. Total cost- $2.



Proceeding to the pillows. I got some large down-filled pillows for free from a Zion's market at church and resized them to fit my needs. It was REALLY messy and I have a feeling I'll be finding stray feathers for a long time coming- I even found one in the fridge today.


Walmart was clearancing off their fabric and trims, so I made the middle two pillows and sewed some black trim on them to replicate those in the dream room. The rectangular pillow is a pillow sham I got on clearance from TJ Maxx that I cut in half. Total cost for all the pillows came to $15. The throw I made from fabric I found in the store and then I used some microfiber curtains I wasn't using anymore to line the back. Total cost was $7. The bedskirt I got for free off the internet during a promotion a while back. The most expensive purchase was for the down comforter that I got on clearance from Target. Overall, I'm pretty pleased though.


Lastly, I got this television stand for free from a friend. It was in great shape, but the top had some marks and the color was a little off. I used the leftover paint from the accent wall ($12) and called it good.


I wanted a little more lighting than just one lamp, so I picked up this wall sconce for $1 at a garage sale. We hacksawed a strange thing off of it that reminded me of a Cootie bug (think swirly and strange) and presto- a normal sconce.


So, all in all I spent around $60. Not bad considering that includes most of the furniture (end table from Garage sale- additional $10). I'm pretty pleased with how it all came together.


Maybe not as good as this...

but definitely better than this...


DINING ROOM

The biggest deal here is the table and chairs which was $90 at a garage sale. The valance I made for about $12 and the accessories are from garage sales as well.







KIDS' ROOM
Once again, just about everything you see came from a garage sale or Craigslist.





LIVING ROOM

I think everything in here came from a garage sale or Craigslist as well. The biggest deal is probably the two chairs which came to about $7 each. The globe is a recent accquirement which also came to $7 and I just painted the base black.

Everything but the kitchen sink

It's catch-up blog day. I'm laying on the couch sick and I don't have the energy to do anything else. So welcome to random tid-bits from the last month of our lives.

Fourth of July

What a disappointment. It rained. Everything got cancelled. The only bright point in the day was the food and company, but it still didn't feel much like a holiday.
I have to say, I cannot wait to get those other four chairs to this table. We need them!




These two may be in cahoots when nursery rolls around.


Later on in the month, we kept getting snags in our plans so we ended up going min-golfing with #1. It was his first time and it showed. He proclaimed himself "Rescue Hero Baller" and would rescue anyone's balls when they did not go into the hole on the first try. Considering my golfing abilities, that meant my ball needed rescuing at every hole. Then he got distracted with the ample water features and proceeded to wash everyone's clubs. Considering the lack of variety among the different holes- no windmills or clown faces, just astroturf and water- #1's antics definitely made things more entertaining.
Off-course golfing

Check out that hockey stick grip- those Canadian genes are coming through!






Further on in the month we took Aunt C out to see Allerton Park. We've been there a lot and never hiked the river bottom, so we decided to venture out and try it this time. Knowing that #1 wouldn't want to walk all that way, we took along our bike trailer/stroller hoping that the larger wheels would be able to handle some of the more rugged trails. This trailer is another one of my dumpster dive accquisions. Anyways, we are glad we took it, but S may disagree.

There were the stairs leading down to the trail...




The informative map along the way...


And...


Well...


We're still glad we took it. And that we went. Here are a few pictures my sister-in-law snapped. I was too busy laughing at S's plight to take pictures of the actual beauty we encountered.

Is there a pause button somewhere?

Since last week, baby N has started to crawl. Today, I noticed her first tooth. I'm starting to feel panicky about how fast this little girl of mine is growing up. It doesn't help that her growth spurt shows no sign of slowing down. She's now out of her baby car seat and so we are encountering the stage of carrying around a mobile baby. This typically isn't problematic until you go to church and you have no place to put said child, especially during nap time. Add in the fact that S and I both have obligations during the second hour and it's becoming increasingly difficult to figure out what to do with her. Right now we are relying on the kindness of strangers and friends.

I have to say it took me a while to get this video. #1 kept jumping in and distracting N from crawling, or he would make obnoxious noises in the background that I didn't care to share with the world. Such is the role of a big brother, I suppose.



I wonder if it's any coincidence that baby N started crawling only a day after we took in a friend's cat while she is away on vacation. Maybe the cat inspired N. They both have become the little escape artists, as evidenced by these next two pictures.




It's a good thing we don't have a pet monkey, although #1 could qualify as one some days.

Hi, my name is ... and I'm a negligent blogger

This summer is flying by and I can barely catch my breath to document some of our comings and goings. My friends are moving away, my family is in town, and there's things to do outside because the weather is perfect. I find myself wistfully watching the days slip by. Perhaps I don't feel like blogging much because I don't want to see how much has happened already.

We recently said goodbye to our good friends, the Dyers, who left for a post-doc in Alabama. They followed the Bybees, which I didn't really write much about because A- it's too painful and B- we still see them since Chicago isn't that far away. The day the Bybees left, #1 and Preston held hands when they walked back to our house for the last time. I still wish I had gotten a picture. But they recently came back down on the fourth of July weekend to celebrate Preston's birthday at the pool. That was probably the only outdoor thing we got to do as it rained the rest of the time. No parade + fireworks postponed = not much to do other than have some friends over for an indoor bbq. I still have a stash of illegal fireworks I need to detonate somewhere- contact me for suggestions :).

The day before the Dyers moved we had the girls over and they were entertained by the Wii Grandma brought down with her. Aunt C lead everyone in some group exercises and it was the funniest thing I had seen in a long time. Here's a clip.



The pirates attacking the green monster.


Here's some pictures of Grandma. When #1 saw these, he said "Mommy, Grandma is really old." Apparently my mom needs to stop making disparaging comments about herself everytime she sees a picture with her in it.

Baby N testing out our garage sale finds.






So the nice thing about living where I do is that although our friends move away, we do have a constant influx of new ward members. This little boy moved in a week or so ago. #1 and him ran around with some laser tag gear proclaiming themselves the "viberators"- their words, not mine. The head gear vibrates when you've been hit, so it wasn't totally random.





Baby N's hair is finally getting long enough for some accessories. She is the happiest baby!! Love this girl. Almost crawling, but mostly backward scooting- she still gets around enough to get into trouble.



She still has her rooster tail- very reminiscent of Alfalfa.


Girls are so fun. I actually had to restrain myself from posting more pictures than this. SO CUTE!!!






The sad part at this point is I have barely scratched the surface of what I have yet to post. We'll get there :)

#1ism of the day: "Mommy you have to wake up!! It's 45 o'clock on Saturmorning!"

Apparently some lessons on time and days are in order...