Paint, Paint Paint!

I left the house this morning at 7 to go to work, and luckily for me I was really busy this morning so I didn't have too much time to think about the paint.  I wasn't going to home at lunch, I was going to leave the painter alone, but my car had a mind of its own....it drove home!  Luckily for me the painter was at lunch so I didn't bug him.  It was love at first site!  About 50% of the painting is done, he thinks he should be done by early afternoon tomorrow, I can't wait to see it completely finished, the fireplace is going to be my accent wall, a darker brown.  My husband and I always fight about the blinds in the living room, he wants them closed during the day when we are home and I can't stand them closed I really don't know why I even bought them.  The paint is dark enough to absorb a lot of the light but not so dark that it has closed off the rooms.  Enough of my ramblings, here is the big reveal sorry about the bad lighting, it's dark!!!

 I am in love!!

I also got bench for the laundry room today, this was a nice surprise since they told me it was back ordered until the end of the month!

And my new bff entertainment center will be here on Monday, but I am slightly sad because I have to go out of town for work and won't be back until Tuesday.  So tomorrow night I will have pictures of the finished paint job, I can't wait!!!

Ready....Set....Paint!

Tomorrow if the big day!  My painter will be here bright and early to start, I can't wait!!  I got really excited on Monday when I got the phone call and started ripping stuff off the walls before I got before pictures, but I did remember before I got to the kitchen...so much going on with the cabinets (way too much, not all of it, if any will be going back).

Say goodbye to this entertainment center.  This was a hand me down that we have never been in love with but it was better than the tv table we had before so we took it.  After we my husband moved it into the garage we looked at each other and said that is not coming back into the house.  So look what I found!

 Look at the open shelves...I can't wait to fill these up and this matches the rest of our furniture so much better!  Not so sure my husband is in love with it but he did tell me to get what I wanted.  I never thought it would be hard to find an entertainment center with doors so the kids can't touch the cable box without getting caught a lot of them are open and sleek looking.  And for $124 I got a 5 year warranty, if something happens to it (even the kids coloring on it or gouging it) if they can't fix it they will replace it!  And it is smaller than what we had before so it won't be so HUGE and fit better into the living room!

And here are a few after pictures, it looks like we are getting ready to move out.  And the fact that there are no toys on the floor is kind of exciting, this hasn't happened in almost 3 years!

And I got a special delivery in the mail today, have to wait for the walls to be painted before I can reveal!  Hope everyone has a great night and I will post pictures tomorrow!  p.s. It's only 11:36 pm and I am headed to bed!!!!!

The Painters are Coming!

I finally got the call that I have been waiting for....the bid for having the house painted!  And guess what?  Between the left over money from income taxes and my birthday  money (only a month early, don't judge) we can afford it and he is coming on Wednesday!  OMG!!  I never realized how much crap we have, it took me about 5 minutes to take down everything on the walls, 30 minutes to tackle the kitchen cabinets (so much dust) and then we had to take apart the dreaded entertainment center which I hate hate hate!  But it has served its purpose...thanks for the hand-me-down Gram!  But I refuse to bring it back into this house so I am on a mission (and I think I have enough cash) to find a new entertainment center or console of some sort.  Wish me luck!!

And I have been busy crafting, I'm just too lazy to get up and get the camera to download the pictures.  White buckets have been transformed and a few more surprises for my Bug too!  Pictures coming soon!  Happy 9 o'clock Dance of Joy!!

Dollar Store Finds Part 2 and Laundry Room Love!

So I got a little lazy with the dollar store frames, I had grand plans of painting/distressing them but life got in the way and I had a few more projects to move onto so this is what I did!

Love my Cricut, the Home Decor cartridge and my dollar store find!

Letter H I had hidden away in a cabinet and a cute bud vase put away for the winter.

Made over dollar store find and the little ball (found them at Wal-Mart on clearance)!

Cute coat rack from JC Penney.  I am thinking about painting it black but I think I will wait until I get the walls painted and decide.  I also think I need a little greenery in here but our town lacks a craft store of any kind so I will have to wait for a trip to Hobby Lobby.

And tonight's project!  I have been looking for a wall shelf and matching bench for my laundry room (our house does not have a coat closet so we have issues with not having enough places to hang coats.  I found the perfect shelf and bench set from JC Penney's it was on CLEARANCE marked down from $628 to $249!  Yeah for a bargain!  So I anxiously awaited their arrival only to discover they sent the bench in off-white :( and now it's back ordered until the end of March (tear)!  But I did get the shelf put together and my wonderful Uncle came over to put it up for me husband and brother were gun shopping and I couldn't wait!

See the ugly white plate in the middle?  Stupid phone, network,cable box.  And my husband's hat collection!

Ugly!  And it never seemed to bother me before I had my amazing shelf, I pondered painting it to permanent, decoupage what if I hated it, vinyl too expensive to buy at Wal-Mart and I was to impatient to order it online.  I have issues with things that are permanent, I change my mind way too much!  So I decided magnets had potential, but after I moved the magnets from the fridge it wasn't enough.  And the one thing I have enough of in my house is scrapbook paper.  So a piece of poster board, scrapbook paper, a roll of magnet and a hot glue gun = ....

Covers up the majority of the ugliness (dumb box is 15x15 and not 12x12)!  It's not permanent!  And the best part is I had everything I needed stashed away!  So that is it for the past couple of days!  I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Dollar Store Finds!!

So on my lunch today I decided to visit the Dollar Tree and the only scrapbooking store in town (that is closing :( insert tear here...) anyway I found a few neat things, but of course they are from the dollar store so they needed a little work!  I found these little guys who needed a little help.

So I thought I could just paint them black and they would look 100 times better.

Better, but not amazing.  So I decided that I would glaze/white wash them to add some highlights back to the scrolly parts.  I mixed some antique white craft paint with water and used a paper towel to paint it on.  I then took an old diaper (no I didn't use cloth diapers but they did make amazing burp rags) to wipe the white down.  I had some issues with some areas having too much white and it was streaky and blotchy, so I then took a washrag, got it damp and wiped down the blotchy areas and it worked great.  After I was done with all of this I still thought they could use a little something else so I got out a sanding sponge and and roughed them up down to the original color and this is what I got!

I am in love!!!!  And here are few of the other things I got today that I am hoping I can work on at lunch tomorrow...I would have done it tonight but I had to put together the new shelves for the laundry room that I got today, I will post pics later, I am very proud of them!

Not the most amazing frames, but they are decent enough and for a dollar a piece!  And I have some cute ideas in mind for the little buckets, more to come later.  It's 12:15 and the alarm goes off at 5:30 so I think I will go to bed, Happy 9 o'clock Dance of Joy!!!!

Cricut, Cricut, I love my Cricut!

So it's 1 am on Monday morning (no I don't have to work tomorrow).  Kielyn's 3rd Birthday is at the end of March so I am trying to get a head start on everything.  I decided no I didn't ask her....I just couldn't bring myself to do a Dora or Wonder Pets birthday, does that make me a bad mom? to do a brown and pink birthday!  The best bargain I have found so far were pink birthday plates in the clearance section at Wal-Mart the day after Valentines day for 75 cents a pack!  So 100ish plates for $3, and I had to stock up we don't need all 100 for the party.

I scoured the internet for invitations, plates, decorations but couldn't find anything cute, so I got out the Cricut and Design Studio!!!  These invites actually open.

I love, love love these!  25 invitations for about $8, it's a steal!  And what birthday party would be complete without a banner?  And please excuse the mess!

 And since I still have 27 days until her birthday I will have more!  I just want to tell Gramma thank you for the Cricut (Christmas present) and thank you to my Mom for talking me into not taking it back for a more practical gift!  And thank you to my husband for putting up with my  OCD!

Painting.....ughhh!

Little milestones..........the hallway, hall bathroom and all the outsides of the doors in the hallway have been painted!  Yeah for me!!!  All of the trim (minus 2 walls, the tv wall and the couch wall, only want to have to move these once) are prepped for paint.  Tonight I got 1 coat on about 60% of the prepped trim.  Today I stumbled upon the best painting tool ever! XIM Latex X-Tender, it's an additive that is supposed to help with brush marks and make the paint self-level better and I am in love!

My plan is to take Monday off of work (and no it's technically not vacation, it's my leave day for being on-call), send the girls to day care and finish all of the trim in the living room!  And something even better, I have someone coming on Saturday to give me a bid to paint the walls (I know this is lazy and not my style but I just want to be done) and what could be better than going to work in the morning and coming home to a painted house?  I do have a backup plan in case I can't afford it (I have some money, but not a ton set aside) I called Gramma to ask for money for my birthday (only 1 month early)......And yes this is what I want to my birthday!!!!

I had a nice surprise waiting for me when I got home today too!  My new cartridge for my Cricut came today!  Yeah!!  I just need to find the time to start the birthday banner for Kie's birthday, the only saving grace, I already designed it with the CDS so now I can just load paper and hit the cut button and everything is ready to go!  And now it's 11:45 so I am headed to bed, 5:30 comes early!  Good night, Sweet Dreams, Sleep Tight!!