Gotta love Craisglist

I love to peruse the furniture listings on Craigslist, hoping to find something that I can refinish or paint and use in my house.  I often come across hilarious posts and things that people are selling that make me scratch my head and think, hmmm, maybe they should just trash it or drop it off at Goodwill.

Here's a post that I saw this evening: 

I have an L-shaped porch couch for sale. Both ends of the couch recline. Please email if interested. I am taking $50 or OBO. It has been outside for 2 years.


There was a picture attached, and surprisingly, the couch looked to be in pretty good shape for being outside for two years!!! 

I wonder what OBO he would take...maybe just having someone come pick it up for free for him???  Maybe he's thinking there is that one person out there who is looking for a couch with that "Outside" smell...

and then there were 3

3 Sunburst mirrors, that is.  Sunburst mirrors are evidently a trend right now, but I love them and I wouldn't want to let anyone down by not whole heartedly embracing something that I love with almost over doing it.  SO....I now have created and put up 3 sunburst mirrors.  I previously posted the dark brown one that I did, but I had an extra mirror that was a tad bit larger and I was craving something gold (random, I know), so I made another one and spray painted it gold.  It's now my favorite and replaced the brown one in my living room.  The brown one is now in my upstairs hallway and it gets enjoyed every time someone goes up the stairs.  Don't worry, it's not feeling left out at all.  So, have I overdone it with hanging three of these babies in my house?  Nah, there's rarely a time when I say you have too much of a good thing.



I love that the gold spray paint makes it look like the rays are metal instead of the wooden dowels that they really are!



Another Stinnett Mill update

I got a chance to visit Stinnett Mill this weekend and take some pictures of the remodeling process.  If you remember, Stinnett Mill is owned by my husband's business partner and they are remodeling it before they move in. 

kitchen before

Kitchen during renovation.  The stair case that was right in the middle of the kitchen is gone and in it's place will be a huge island with bar seating.

Living room.  All the stone and woodwork is original to the mill.

the woodwork has all been painted white to help brighten the space, which is short on windows.  The extra wood surrounding the doors has been removed, also to brighten up the room.  Sorry for the quality, the lights were not on and I had to use my flash.

The wall of wood paneling divided the dining from the living room.

Wood paneling gone to open up the dining room to the living room.

Stinnett Mill outside.

Pool Planning

Like I said before, I'm a neurotic, obsessive planner.  Soooo...it's only fitting that I start planning for the day we get a pool in our backyard.  It's probably going to happen in 7-10 years.  Just before my remodel of the kitchen and bath (but that's a whole other set of plans....).  Anyhoo, our backyard is a little wooded with a lake.  The lake is not super close to the house, so there's plenty of room for a pool and space to play.  What I haven't decided on yet, in this infancy stage of planning that I am in, is whether to go sleek, modern and geometric shaped, or have an organic, natural shaped pool that would looke more like a natural body of water.  Either way I go, I would like to have it sprayed a dark blue on the bottom, so that it looks like a lagoon.  Here are some pictures that inspire me.  As I said before, I am in the infancy stages of planning and these designs cover a wide range.

 I like the infinity edge on this pool, which would work in my sloped backyard, so that there would be the view of the pool and then the lake, which would be pretty cool.

This also has the infinity edge, but is very crisp and clean. Very appealing to me, but it might not look right with my craftsman style house and wooded lot.

I love this for the organic shape and the dark blue that makes it look like a lagoon.

Maybe this is the best of both worlds.  It is rectangular with a dark blue bottom but placed in a heavily vegetated lot. 

Online shopping

My husband has come to dread the UPS and FedEx delivery trucks.  If they drive past our house, he breathes a sigh of relief because he knows I haven't bought anything online.  If they stop, he looks at me and sometimes asks questions like, "what did we "need" this time??" and sometimes says nothing but shakes his head.  What he doesn't realize, though, is that I save lots more money by buying online than in a physical store.  There are many more online sales and deals than there are in the actual stores of the things that I was already going to buy in the first place.  So, for the most part, his fears are unfounded...for the most part... 

There are few moments, however, and they are few, but there are moments that I get carried away.  I like to "window shop" online and add items to my online cart that 90% of the time never get bought.  It's amazing what things I find online that I didn't know I couldn't live without.  Take for example, Crate and Barrel.  I was just window shopping online this evening and obsessing and drooling over some couches they have that I really really want.  After wiping up my drool getting over it, I headed over to the kitchen gadget section and clicked around there.  And there it was.  A butter warmer for $7.95.  Genius!  I didn't realize that I needed a butter warmer all this time to complete my transformation into a combination of Julia Child and Giada DeLaurentis!!  And it's under $10!!!  Score!!  Then, about 30 seconds later, my logical self seized control once again and I realized I already have a butter warmer.  It's called a microwave.

Now, a 6 pack of smoothie straws for under $4.00???  That's a whole other story....  :)

Why I LOVE Waco, TX!

My husband and I first moved to Waco back in 2001 so that I could attend Baylor Law school.  He found a job and I found myself with my nose in books for the next three years.  The first day we moved into our little duplex we started counting down the days until I graduated so we could move out of Waco and onward and upward to somewhere bigger and better.  Well, I graduated 3 years later, but we stayed in Waco another year and a half after that.  I had a good job right out of law school at the firm I had clerked for and my husband was a rockstar at his job that he'd taken initially just to pay the bills.  So we stayed.  Then, he got a promotion to Austin, TX, which is one of the coolest places to live, so we moved!  We were there for a year and then we moved to Traverse City, Michigan, again, for his job.  Two years later, when my husband was looking to start his own business, we narrowed down the places to live to two:  Austin or Waco.  I could not believe that Waco was in our top two!!  I was actually considering voluntarily moving back to Waco!  And we actually did!  But, as you can see from the list below, Waco is a pretty unique, and great place to live!  I don't regret moving back for one second!

5 great things about Waco:

1.  It's a big, small town.  It's not small enough that everyone knows everyone, but it's not too big that you get lost in the community here.  It's hard to not run into someone you know most days.

2.  Cheap cost of living.  Waco has comparatively low housing costs and unique areas in older parts of town that make the reality of owning big, nice, older homes a real possibility for the everyday person...not just the wealthy.

3.  Geography.  I'm admittedly bad at geography.  I once thought the Grand Canyon was in Texas... anyhoo... But, I do know that Waco is smack dab in the middle of Dallas and Austin.  Take your pick and go north or south on I-35 and in an hour and a half, you have great shopping and eating!

4.  It takes 20 minutes maximum to get anywhere in the Waco area.  I grew up in Dallas, where it takes 20 minutes minimum to get anywhere.

5.  College town, baby.  Waco is home to Baylor University, the largest Baptist university in the world.  Baylor is ever growing and expanding and bringing highly skilled, intellectual students and professionals to Waco.  NCAA sports at Baylor are among some of the best in the nation.  The Lady Bears basketball team is #1 in the country and the football team is just starting to take the Big XII by storm! The tennis teams are consistent winners and are bringing in lots of student athletes from Eastern Europe.

Not much

Not much is going on here today.  Hopefully since the weather is nice, I'll finally finish my picnic table and then will be able to post before and afters of that.  I'm pretty excited, especially since it's taken me since last JULY to get this thing done.  Other than that, I've got nothing left to paint, so I've decided to dye my hair.  Still keeping it dark dark brown.  I've just gotten tired of plucking out all the gray hairs...which makes me thankful to have been blessed with LOTS of thick hair, but I think I have about 20 gray hairs now and I've just got to accept the fact that they need to be dyed.  I hate getting my hair colored-I don't like taking the time, but it's better than going gray.

Now that you have this information, I know your day is complete!  ha!  Enjoy the weather where you are!  I know I am!

Dumb and stubborn

I made my very own ottoman for the very first time on Super Bowl Sunday (and finished it on Monday).  A friend who was over was impressed that I made it myself and said it was impressive.  I realized then, that my DIY projects are not really impressive.  I'm just dumb enough to try to make pretty much anything myself and stubborn enough to eventually figure it out after many many redos.  Sometimes, I get lucky and get it right the first time, like my sunburst mirror.  Then, there are projects like the ottoman.  I get an idea and go with it and get thisclose to the finish line and then BAM- failure.  In the case of the ottoman, the legs were not attached correctly so it was a little wobbly...and by a little wobbly, I mean it did not withstand the legs, arms, bodies, etc of two boys, a husband, and guests later that night.  So, that is why it took me into the next Monday to (ahem) re-engineer the darn thing.  I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Having to redo it made it much much better looking in the end anyway.  I changed the style of leg on it and actually stained the legs before attaching them.  Also, after living with the thing for the past 5 days, I've learned that I must superglue the upholstery buttons on in addition to attaching them with thread to prevent little hands from pulling them off!  Sorry for the quality of the pics.  I took them at night because I couldn't wait to post them!

The legs part deux.

button tufts with the added protection of superglue...which should make them last about a whole month longer before being ripped off by my boys.

Racecars are in the blood

If you know my family (or, rather, my husband's family), then you know that motor sports of any kind are in the blood.  My husband has his very own race car and grew up racing dirt bikes and motorcycles (which, I have already made clear our children will not be racing dirt bikes or motorcycles until they are grown, which then they better not tell me about it).  Anyway, my 4 year old is obsessed with racecars, much like any other boy his age, but it's not just an obsession...it's in his blood.  It's race car this, race car that.  Mommy drive faster!  Mommy dont' let that car beat us!  Mommy! I said faster!  Daddy, can I have a race car?  Can I have a red one with black tires? No, I mean an orange one with black tires?  Daddy, can you smoke the tires?....  With this as the music of my daily life, it was not a stretch to make racecars a part of his bedroom decor.  In about a year, my baby, who is one, will be sharing a room with Jackson, the 4 year old.  We will keep the racecar theme, so I have been making and collecting race-car themed items.  Here are two paintings I made to hang over their beds when they do share a room.  Right now, they are just hanging on the wall side by side in Jackson's room.  Despite one being Sloan's (the baby) he wanted them both in there. 

Jackson's favorite color is red, so obviously, his car is red.  Sloan is too young to have a favorite color, so I've designated blue as his color because he has the bluest eyes I'ver ever seen! (which is saying something for being 1/4 Korean!)

Snow day!

Well, it finally snowed in Texas!  It should be all melted tomorrow, but that is just enough time to enjoy the snow and get it out of our systems!  Enjoy some pictures of our first romp of the day in the snow.

We'll be repeating these scenes a little later today!!!

Boys' Bathroom

Well, it's cold here, and by the looks of all the people on facebook and surfing the blogosphere, it's cold everywhere else too!  I would love to be outside finishing up my picnic table project, but with a temperature of 18 degrees, no thank you!  So, let's take a random tour of my boys' bathroom.  It's not disgusting yet...they are little boys and are not yet teenagers...

I guess if this bathroom had a theme it would be transportation.  I'm not really a "themey" person, but I figured, the kids are only little once.  It's not that long until they won't want cute little pictures of vehicles on their shower curtain, so I indulged.  The floor is a tile that is made to look like planks of wood.  I love this tile!  I love the color green, so we added two rows of glass mosaic to the shower surround.  Usually, I wouldnt' commit to such a strong color, but I like green and can work with this for a long time to come.  But, because I can't leave well enough alone, I may be painting the walls a new color...just not sure what that is yet.

I ordered these shelves from Land of Nod.  They are so cute and a great place for storage and displaying items.  The bathroom is small, so these will come in handy in the future. 

Making an old armchair new again

Like I said in my previous post, I've been a painting Fool!  One of my victims projects was an old armchair that is the only remaining piece of the dining room set my parents gave us when we bought our first house.  It was really old and had been in storage a while, so I said goodbye to it a couple years ago at a garage sale, but kept this chair because it was the only one with arms and we used it for my son's little highchair (see before pictures).

Before

Just keepin it real: the stains from being used as a highchair.

AFTER:

I bought the fabric from Pottery Barn, which I do not recommend using unless you just really like the fabric, like I did with this one.  It took f.o.r.e.v.e.r. to get here, but I really like it because it has my turquoise and orange in it with beige, brown and greens and even yellows.  This fabric is a great jumping off point to bring in other colors.



Future chair model?