Well, we had a little hiccup in our Geiger Cleaning Week preparations for day 3's post. I guess this picture will help you to understand why.

Yea, that is our bed chilling in on our stairwell. Long story made really short, I decided to switch bed frames. We had one sitting in our guestroom and then we had the frame we were currently using.  I thought I could switch the two on my own. While Jonathan was at work. Yup. I was sadly mistaken. After trying to wriggle it around a bunch, I realized that I was just damaging the stairs more and more and that the headboard wasn't going to be going anywhere under my man woman power (or lack there of). So I gently rested it there and sent Jonathan a text along the lines of, "You might hate me when you get home, our headboard is currently wedged in the stairwell. I promise to fix all damages. Just assure me of your love please." 

Needless to say, my plan for day 3 was totally destroyed at this point. I wanted to clean out our guestroom and get it looking organized and spiffy, but after the realization that the beds weren't going to be switching positions any time soon, I gave up on the rest of the process and moved onto another project for the day. In the end, it was probably for the better anyways. I was feeling awfully sick and by one in the afternoon had already gone through an entire box of kleenex. So, I banished my sick self to the couch and started working on an easier project. 

Awhile ago, I saw this project on Pinterest. I remember thinking that it was cute, but where would I put a gigantic pink heart in our house? It really wasn't my thing. So, until recently, I had forgotten about it. But then, my sister-in-law blogged about it a couple of days ago. I sat there reading her blog and suddenly inspiration hit! See, I have been wanting to do a monogram project ever since I did this one. I was satisfied with the afore mentioned project, but I still wanted something else. Seeing the string and nail project, it hit me that I could do our initial instead of the heart! I figured it would be something different and also be a statement piece. I had purchased all of the materials last weekend and since I was banished to the couch, I figured yesterday was the perfect time to get working on my idea!

First I gathered all of the materials. Like I said, I had purchased some nails and string to match the color scheme I was headed toward and  I just created an outline of a big "G" using Microsoft Word and printed that out.  I also grabbed a hammer and a board that I found in our garage. The board was the backside of the cover that was used for the crawlspace entrance above the back-end of our house. Do you remember this gross before picture? See the big white blob near the middle of the picture? That's it.

This project was pretty self explanatory and if you need more detailed directions, please visit this link. But basically I just laid down the piece of paper in the center of my board. Then I proceeded to hammer nails into place about every half inch around the outline of the "G." Then, I ripped the paper out and started going back and forth with the string. The only thing that I didn't do, that the directions said to, was outline the entire thing with the string at the end. I didn't feel the need to and really liked how it looked without it.

To tie off the string I just turned it back on itself. This is an old boat tying trick that I learned as a kid. It creates a pretty solid hold. And with that, the project was done! I quickly set it on our end table and snapped a few pictures. It won't be staying there, but I will find a more permanent place for it once our house is put back together.

Oh and just to keep things real around here, this is the current state of my dining room. 

Are you as freaked out as I am? Tomorrow I should be back with a full update on our guestroom. I really don't think you are going to want to miss this! 

Friday Pinspiration

Since I'm still getting back into the swing of things still, I figured today's post will involve a lot of fun Pinterest finds.

I told you this would happen.

So without further ado--here are some projects, rooms, and various other things that I have found to be pinspirational. Enjoy!

Source: marthamoments.blogspot.com via Christen on Pinterest

Source: betterafter.blogspot.com via Ensley on Pinterest

Source: lefrufrublog.blogspot.com via Candace & Shanon on Pinterest

Source: cottage-company.com via Kelleigh on Pinterest

Source: apaperaeroplane.tumblr.com via The West End on Pinterest

Source: ashleyannphotography.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

Source: designformankind.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

Source: poppytalk.blogspot.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

Bring on the Cold Weather!

I am in the mood for fall and winter.

Yes, I'm completely finished with this thing call summer. 

Yes, I'm fully aware that it isn't even August yet. 

Yes, I'm definitely in trouble.

So, I turned to Pinterest for a bit of excitement and fall/winter inspiration. Plus, since I still am having issues uploading pictures to blogger, I figured you might all appreciate some pretty inspiration as well.

Bring on the pins!!

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I'm really looking forward to the coming seasons! What about you? Which season is your favorite?

*P.S. I was having horrible luck on Pinterest and couldn't find any of the original sources other than the ones marked. Sorry!*

Monday: Pinterest Love

Good morning all!

I'm going to be sharing some of my favorite Pinspiration today. Unfortunately I am having issues uploading pictures, so instead of skipping a post, I'm just going to use the internet's pictures for the time being! 

Bring on the beauty!

Don't you just love the little birdies? I'm thinking this is a great way to use up my fabric and felt scraps! 

Source: tinywhitedaisies.tumblr.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

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I also really like the idea of making my own cloth napkins. I love that these include rickrack. They would be so easy to make!

Source: pvedesign.blogspot.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

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I have been dreaming of an entryway. Simple and pretty. 

Source: notesondesign.tumblr.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

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Palledian blue? Yes please. Guestroom? Yes please!!

Source: houseofturquoise.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

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I have also been thinking about our sunporch and the need to make it a functional area. I think a pallet bed would be perfect!

Source: apprenticeextrovert.blogspot.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

I just love the ideas I see on Pinterest. :)

The Pinterest Challenge: Summer '12 Edition

Hi everyone! Today I'm linking up with Young House Love and Bower Power for their Pinterest Challenge!!

Now, you may be wondering what "the Pinterest Challenge" is, so I figured I would also include this video. Forewarning, you may just laugh so hard you pee your pants. My favorite is at the end when John says, "Two against one!" bahahaha

                    

Moving on, yesterday they hosted a link up party for the good ol' challenge and I missed it. I had my project complete, but, well, it was someone's two year wedding anniversary.

Yea...priorities people!

So, I'm back today to share my project! As I was selecting a project, I decided to try something that would cost me little to no moolah. You know what happens when you are renovating your entire house right? 

Yea, z-e-r-o money. NADDA.

So, I looked through my Pinterest boards and landed on what, I thought, was a project using Elmer's glue on a painting canvas. This was my inspiration post via Virginia & Charlie. Once I looked at the original source, I realized she actually used puffy paint, not glue, but I decided to try the glue anyways! 


I gathered up my three small canvas' and my Elmer's glue and got to work. 

I had decided that I wanted to use the letter "g" as my "painting" subject. You know, a subtle homage to our last name. So I took a pencil and drew three different gs on my small canvas'. Notice that I messed up on one. I erased it a bit and then realized it would be covered in paint, so it really didn't matter. Once I was satisfied with all of them, I took the glue and followed my pencil lines.

Now, this step was a bit difficult. I imagine using puffy paints would make this process a lot easier, but, like I said, I wanted to use what I had on hand. While outlining the gs, it was really hard to keep the line smooth. Your hands will get tired and you have to go slow enough to let the same amount of glue accumulate as you move along the line. I wasn't striving for perfection, so I didn't worry too much about this. But, if you want a smooth look, I definitely recommend using her original technique.

Once that was done, I let them dry overnight and then took out some acrylic paints I had laying around and mixed up a color that I liked. Then, taking a cheap sponge brush I painted a thin layer of over the whole thing and then used another brush to wipe all the excess off. Basically doing a dry-brush technique.

When I was done with that, I realized that I needed to cover up the edges somehow. I didn't want to paint them because I figured that you would still be able to see the staples. So I decided to use ribbon instead. I bought a basic gray ribbon (make sure to use one the same width as the edge of your canvas) for $2 and then used more glue to adhere it to the edge.

I cut four sections and glued them each individually. I would recommend doing one long piece though. This way you could easily hide a seam in a bottom corner, rather than trying to hide them all around the canvas.

Hey, we learn from our mistakes right?

And, here is the finished product!

I really like them and they seem to offer a bit (ha!) of color to the corner of our living room. My favorite thing is that the carpenter came home and loved them!

You know it must be good if it is husband approved! :)

And here is a cost breakdown for ya: 
      Canvas' : $1.50 x 3 = $4.50 (I had purchased these for another project I never got around to)
      Elmer's Glue: $1.00 (Had this on hand)
      Paint: $2.00 (You only need a little, so just head to wally-world and buy one tube of it)
      Ribbon: $2.00
      Total: $9.50 (This is what it could cost you, but I only spent two big ones)

I would love to hear about the projects that you have tried from Pinterest, so please, leave me a comment with a link to your post!!

Letting it all out!

After this post, in which I revealed our freshly primed kitchen cabinets, I have been contemplating the idea of open cabinetry. 

I mean look at the curves and the simple beauty of those babies! I don't know about you, but there is just something that is speaking to me. It's telling me to leave those upper cabinets alone and just fill 'em up with all of my kitchen loot. The only problem is, I'm not sure if it's the designer in me gently nudging or the worker in me crying out for a break! ha! Either way, I thought I would look to Pinterest for some inspiration. (Don't you just love that someone created this website?!)

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After doing some research, I am loving the look of the open cabinets. My only concern was the issue of grease and grime build up. I am no stranger to having my stuff hang out...kitchen stuff that is! Take a look at our current set up...

These cabinets, while making me nervous at first, have been a true love of mine. I love that I can see where everything is and it makes searching for a misplaced item so much easier. Yes, it happens pretty regularly around here. So, suffice it to say, I'm not worried about everyone seeing what we have. 

Yet, the issue of grease kept gnawing at me. But a solution was placed right in my lap! As I was venturing around Pinterest, I came across this blog post. It was a simple and straight forward post on the ins and outs of open shelving! Basically she said that you don't need to worry about a dirty build up as long as you display things that are used frequently! Since you will use them and then wash them on a regular basis, the dirt and grime doesn't have a chance to get really bad. 

This made complete sense to me and now I'm a bit less worried about the whole idea. Plus, in reality, I can just slap up those cabinet doors if I decide the open shelving isn't for me. 

Now, just to clarify, we won't be leaving all of the cabinets open. I decided that I am going to put the doors back on the lower cabinets

just because I figure no one really wants to see all of my pots and pans. So that will eliminate some of the display worries. Oh and I am also opting to put the doors back on all of these cabinets because of their proximity to the stove. 

Plus, I really don't want to display our lovely duct for the world to see. It's not really the 'in' thing to do! And the larger cabinet to the left is going to become our pantry and will eventually be filled with all sorts of food items, so that is getting covered up as well. It's not exactly what you would call 'eye candy.'

Oh and for those of you who may be wondering about the cabinet under the sink (please ignore the unpainted walls in this picture, its just an old one),

I plan on leaving the doors off of that too. I would love to make some cute curtains to cover up the unpleasant-ness of its underside. I think the curtains will lend themselves to the 'cute country' feel that I'm going for in here. Also, I'm hoping it will help to open up the space. 

So, that's the cabinet 411. I would love to hear what y'all are thinking! I want to make sure that the side of me that is tired of sanding cabinetry isn't making the call on this one. Please back me up here people!  

Git R Done: Week 2

I told you yesterday that I would be back today, with this weeks update on my self imposed challenge.

So, I am here this morning to follow through on that promise. Like I said, this challenge has really helped me to get the ball rolling on a lot of projects that I have been putting off. It's sort of ironic to me how much of a procrastinator I am. I do love to clean, organize, and declutter and to me, my home is at its best when things are simplified. For instance, the less stuff hidden in the closet--the better, the less papers on our desk waiting to be taken care of--the better, and the less hanging over my head waiting to be finished--the better. For me, this goes as far as the more organized and concise my files are on my computer--the better.

Yea, I know, I know. I'm weird. But, this is me. :)

So, when it comes to getting something accomplished, you would think that I'm all about jumping on 'it,' whatever 'it' may be. Wellll, see that's where it becomes ironic to me. I tend to push things to the side and declare that they can wait till later. Often later is the last possible minute. Sometimes later is even too late. I think it has something to do with being-overwhelmed-by-all-that-my-mind-perceives-needs-to-be-done-so-I-just-keep-putting-it-off type of thing. Yet again, weird, but...its me. At least I realize my flaws here people!

Oh you have flaws too?

Great!

Let's form a club. Then we can be BFFs. FOREVA!

Something like Flawed Persons Anonymous?

OK. OK. Too far.

So, lets talk about this weeks results.

I set out this week to accomplish this idea found on Pinterest, decide which bed we want to use in our new master bedroom, and finish putting one coat of primer on the entire kitchen in our house.

The Pinterest project that I picked this week took all of two minutes for me to accomplish. I thought that a short project was in order after my experience with last weeks. Also, since our computer will be in our living room in the new house, I wanted to pretty it up a bit. Right now it looks so electronic. So after finding the project on Pinterest and the tutorial from anamu I went for it. The whole easy and pretty thing had me convinced.

So, I grabbed an old book, I had laying around, and a kitchen knife. The tutorial called for a utility knife, but I didn't have one..so this did the job:

I then proceeded to cut along the inside of the front and back cover. Basically, you just cut the binding that is attaching the cover to the pages of the book:

After all of the separation anxiety dissipates, you should have a cover and then a chuck o' pages. This is the point where I tried it on for size. Here is a before picture of the current set up on our computer desk:

Here is an after with the two options that I wanted to try. I figured it could cover either piece of equipment. 

What do you think? I don't know, I'm not completely sold. It does make the area look pretty, but I want something more. It would be awesome if I could cover up more than one piece of equipment at a time. I do have a few other ideas whirring around in my head, though. So, I will let you know if I decide to try something else!

On to the bed decision. Not really a big deal, but something that I had been procrastinating on for awhile. Basically, we have two beautiful queen bed frames and I just didn't know what one I wanted in our master bedroom. I also purchased a new rug for our house and had to decide which one matched better. So, on Monday, I decided to figure it all out.

As you can see, I rolled out the new carpet in our (now empty) dining room and set up the bed that we had sitting on our porch all winter. See more pictures here.  Originally we didn't think that option two was going to be able to fit in our new master bedroom. With the slanted ceilings it was just too tall (option one is about three inches shorter than option two.) I was a little upset about this because I thought that option two matched our new rug the best.

But after setting up the bed I realized this:

What a wonderful surprise! Because of this, the bed will have to stick out about four inches from the wall. I excitedly called Jonathan and asked if this would make a difference. His response was 'Yes!' Because of this, the bed can be about three inches taller!! Wahoo! Option two it is! Definitely a wonderful and unexpected surprise.

Oh and as for the kitchen. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. The before pictures:

and the wonderful after pictures! Oh first, here is a close up of our wonderful paneling compared to the white paint. Don't you just love the early 1800's theme?

And without further ado!

So, what do you have on your weekend to do list? Stay tuned to see what we accomplish next week!