Boxes, Boxes Everywhere

I thought you might like a little peek into the ridiculous disaster that is my current living situation.

Here's the view from the front door into the DR

If you look right instead of straight ahead 

The "Office"/ 2nd Bedroom, view from the living room

"Office"/ 2nd Bedroom, view from the Master Bedroom end (if you look carefully you will see a sad pittie in her crate)

Master Bedroom

I want to paint the bedroom, so I am hesitant to bring the bookshelves in yet, so everything is in still in boxes and piles. Plus, I want to upholster the bed and it seemed silly to put it together just to take it apart to upholster it, so none of my under-the-bed storage is in use, so I can't find anything and everything is a big, huge, GIANT cluster... Ahhhhh!!!

The Breakfast Nook

I bought new pendants, but need to paint the ceiling before I can hang them...

Rest of the Kitchen

I have the paint for the bottom half of the walls (BM White Dove, why mess with a solid choice?) and the millions of holes have been spackled, so we shall see what I accomplish this weekend. Probably not much... Tonite I have dinner with my parents, tomorrow a friend of the ex-Mr.'s (who will heretoforth be know as G) and I is having a get-together and he will be out of town, so I feel like I should go, and Sunday I have to go out to the old house and play with Dozer for a while. I may bring him back to the house for a while to start getting him acclimated. G has decided that it would be best for Dozer if I take him! *happy dance* But unfortunately I don't even have an occupancy permit yet (shhhh), so I can't bring Dozer's big oak containment crate (which I have big plans for, that involves lots of paint and some chicken wire!) over just yet. A few things didn't pass the sellers inspection at the last moment and they were still in the process of fixing them, but they are done now, so hopefully Monday.

The disaster of my DR

You can see a table under all that if you look close! I didn't even want the table and chairs, but G's mom got him an antique maple DR set complete with a 6 foot long sideboard/buffet... Exactly what I've been looking for, I speculate, and I find it highly suspect that she just suddenly came across this great, awesome deal now... ; D   I bought a chandy for the DR and the paint for the ceiling, so job #1 needs to be move all this shit downstairs into the basement so's I can get my paint on.

I found this amazingly hideous piece of wonderment at a junk/antique store in Grafton a few weeks back and I couldn't leave it behind!

It's hand embroidered and signed from 1973! The colors are beyond amazing and are my inspiration for the house. I know, it's ugly, but I think it's super-fun and I just love that it's one of a kind! Plus, it's like Puck or something! Surely that adds a little sophistication to it, right?! That's what I thought.

I plan on putting it in the DR, right on the side of the Bergsbo cabinet.

I haven't decided if I'm going to paint the frame or leave it gold... I'm afraid any other color with detract from the embroidery. Although it does have an equal amount of silver thread in it, so maybe I'll silverleaf it.

What do you think I should tackle first? Can you believe I've been here two weeks and have accomplished next-to-nothing? Go me! Score one for the laziest girl in the world!

The rest of the Reveal

Master Bedroom

2nd bedroom/ Office

Main Floor Bathroom

Finished Basement

Another section of finished basement

Basement Bathroom

To answer some questions from yesterday and give you some idea as to what been bouncing around in my head...

Yes, the kitchen is very, very blue and will be the first thing to be painted over. I already have the Killz and some BM White Dove High-Gloss for the bottom half of the walls to create a board-and-batten type of look, which I think will complement the age and style of the home much better than the contemporary spin she had going. I'm thinking either black or a pale yellow for the top. I know, totally opposite ends of the spectrum, but I want to eventually paint the bottom cabinets pale grey and take out the top cabinets and put shelving up instead and I'm thinking the black would be a really fun contrast.

The lighting will all be replaced eventually. She took the LR and DR lighting and replaced it with some basic "vintage" light fixtures, sort of the 60's version of the builder-basic boob light that is so popular in hallways. Again, I'm going to be going for an antique-ey/cottage-ey feel replete with some school-house-type lighting in the kitchen (maybe) and at least one simple chandelier.

The front door will also be painted sometime soon. I was thinking hot pink (anybody know where to find paint that color?), but not permanently. Just for fun, just cause I can. It's my own house and I can do what I want! lol  

I need patio furniture for the front porch, but that shit's pricey, so probably not anytime soon...

The leather couch from the old house doesn't fit in the basement, so I'm hoping to get an IKEA sectional sometime over the summer. Probably dark gray, ala YHL fame.

As of right now, my plan for the DR paint is peacock. A lovely deep, dark teal, but not too green or too blue. Maybe similar to Sara's entry, Joi's bathroom, or John and Sherry's guest room. Except that I've seen all the color options IRL now and I am not 100% happy with any of them for my space. I am leaning towards Sensual Jade from Valspar, even though the name is a bit... naughty? I don't know, dining room's shouldn't really be sensual, but whatever.

You can see some of my ideas on my Pinterest page, here.

I am obviously all over the place right now and totally overwhelmed, but it'll all come together eventually.

New House Reveal (Finally)

So it hasn't really been super crazy around these parts, but I don't have internet at the new house and I seem to have misplaced my camera in the shuffle (complete with bookoo{how do you spell that?} pics of the house), so I've been making excuses not to post, obviously. Since my camera is currently AWOL in the madness, I thought I would just show you the listing pics. The girl who lived in the house previously was somewhere around thirty (I think) and had a very refined sense of what she liked. Everything in the house was high-glamour/mirrored/retro/mod with a dash of crazy cat lady thrown in. Unfortunately the listing pictures don't capture the cat thing, but you'll get an idea of everything else.

Also unfortunately, you'll only get a taste of it today, because I am attempting to post this from my work computer and the formatting is all jacked up due to our cantankerous firewall or something like that. Hopefully I'll get the rest posted tomorrow. 

Front of the house, from the street

Back of the house, from in front of the garage

Part of the front porch

Living Room, front door immediately to the right

Dining Room, view from the Living Room

Kitchen from the Breakfast Nook, looking back into the Dining Room

Breakfast Nook, Fridge in Kitchen

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big News...

I'm sure you've all been on the edge of your seats wondering what I've been up to.

I'm not really sure what to say or how to put it, so I'll keep it simple: The Mr. and I are no more.

Gidget and I have been staying at my parents house since the beginning of April. It has not been fun. Dozer is staying with his daddy, unfortunately, and I miss him terribly. Initially I was under the impression that I would be taking him with me as soon as I found a permanent residence, so I got crack-a-lakin and found us a cute little house, complete with a finished basement and fencing. I close on May 6th.

The Mr. has since decided that it will be too difficult to not have Dozer in his life, so it will just be Gidget and I. *sad face* I will miss my 65 pound lap dog.

 

I'll share pics of the new house sometime in the next few days.

Spring Wreath

I saw this wreath on Living with Lindsay last year and thought it looked cute. I know the concept behind it is two years old, but I don't care. I'm single-handedly staging an Egg-Wreath Revival! Join me, won't you? lol

I used a larger grapevine wreath, I think mine was 14" as opposed to 10", but I wanted to hang it on the front door and no one can see it anyway, so bigger is better.

This is the first wreath I've make that entails more than spraypaint and some fabric, so it did take me longer than the 15 minutes she proposes. But Lindsay is a Craft Queen, so she could probably whip up 5 wreaths in the time it would take me to make one...

I ordered the Quail eggs from Etsy. They all came individually wrapped in toilet paper and not a single one was cracked! I highly recommend the seller.

I used some burlap I had leftover from the media cabinet makeover for the bow.

But beware: if you are going to use Spanish Moss be prepared for a mess!

That's in addition to all the stuff that stayed on the dropcloth I was using!

Have you made a door decoration for Spring yet?

Painted Birdhouses

A few weeks back I saw this awesome pink bird on Lynett's blog and decided I must have it. She told me she got it at Michael's, so off I went. Luckily they had it! But then I had to figure out what to do with it... Not wanting to steal her whole idea, I came home with two of these from their unfinished wood section:

Using supplies I already had (wood stain from this project, craft brushes, paint from the front door, and leftover ceiling paint), I turned them into this:

FYI, if you are detail oriented this project will take you for.ev.er. However, if you are good with spraypainting them, distressing, and calling it a day, it could take you an hour. I chose to stain the roofs and bases carefully and the only small brush I had was like 10 hairs, so it took me like three hourse just to do the stained areas... 

Did you notice the base on the left-hand one?

It's the base for my broken candleholder! I love being able to utilize stuff I already have on hand. I did spray this with white Rustoleum pray paint. Then I just hot glued them into place:

I thought it was pretty clever to paint the one with the front door the same color as our own front door, but now I'm not sure I like the color inside the house. I may repaint it blue or gray.

Although it does coordinate with the beak on the pink bird, lol!


What do you think? Have you started crafting for Spring yet?

Do you WUSLU?

Do you get the emails for WUSLU Daily Deals? Yasmin has a new special item everyday and shipping is always $5.00. A lot of the items are too far on the "Shabby" end of "Shabby Chic" for me, but they are always cute. When these Turned Pillar Holders showed up in my inbox I had to have them:

Unfortunately when they arrived, the large one was broken:

I have no idea how it could have broken, they were both packaged very well, surrounded by bubble wrap and in small enough individual boxes to prevent moving around inside the larger box... But it was shattered, in about 6 pieces. I could have cried. I immediately emailed Yasmin to ask if there was anything she could do, as it does state on the website that all sales are final. Luckily she got back to me quickly and said she was sending me a replacement! I didn't have to pay shipping again or anything.

I love them. They are hefty and weighted and just the perfect size to hold my beloved Bath & Body Works candles. In person they are a wonderful bronzey color, not too wintery and perfect year round!

She also told me it was unnecessary to send the broken one back, so I figured I should make use of it. Come back tomorrow and I'll show you what I did with it! Waste not, want not.

All in all, ordering from WUSLU was a great experience and I would definitely buy from her again!

Legal Crap: I was not compensated in any way for this post. I just thought I should share a good shopping experience. 

 Have you ever ordered from WUSLU? Or another daily deals website? Have you had a good online shopping experience recently you'd like to share? How about a bad one?