Bento #6 - Or what to do when your fridge dies.

Sunday morning, I went to get a glass of water from the fridge... and my water was warm. Because I didn't want to stock the fridge with food that might spoil, I knew I wouldn't be able to buy lunchmeat, eggs, chicken, or some of the other items that I was planning to put in the kids (and hubby's!) lunches this week until I knew the fridge would be working properly.

So, what did we end up with? Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on toasted whole-wheat white bread, peas and corn (from the freezer), grapes, banana chocolate-chip muffins (from the freezer), and trailmix for the older 2 girls. Each kid also packed a granola bar for recess snack time, since their lunch schedules got rearranged this year and some of them aren't eating until NOON (after having breakfast at 7am at home!)



What was wrong with the fridge? The coils in the freezer were completely frosted over and there was no flow of cold air going into the fridge half of the unit. My husband and teen took everything out of the freezer, removed the back panel, and were able to defrost the coils using my hair dryer... so for now, the fridge is staying cooler... But I'm still nervous about buying things that might spoil. Tuna casserole for dinner anyone??

Dresser score!

If you've been reading here for a while, you have probably seen the dresser that I worked on for the girls' room. It was a $35 Craigslist find. A nice, solidly built dresser from the 1960's, all wood. I simply had to patch a hole in the side, sand it, prime it, paint it and poly it - including removing the drawer pulls and spray painting them. For just a minute, ignore the clothes peeking out of the drawers and enjoy the transformation:



And now, feast your eyes on what I was able to buy yesterday for $5 each at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore...



Built in 1975, these dressers are just as solidly made though they will require a few more repairs. They don't need nearly as much work as some other pieces I have seen, and I think the time invested in them will be well worth it. While mostly structurally sound, they will need more extensive repairs than the one I got for my girls'. They both need to have several drawer rails replaced or repaired, and a bottom leg support on the longer/shorter dresser will need to be replaced completely (but it should be as simple as removing half a dozen screws, getting a piece of wood cut to fit, and then drilling some holes in it for the dowels to fit in). A little bit of wood putty to fill in a few areas, followed by sanding, painting, and polying and I think these dressers will have at least another 40 years of use in them! I bought them for my cousin's family and we are all excited to see how they turn out.



One of the features that I really love about these dressers is the fact that some of the drawers have built in dividers! How handy would these be for keeping things organized?



The staff at the ReStore told me that these had been hanging around the store for a while and they were planning on destroying them, but thought they would give them one last chance. I really believe it was one of those "God things" that I just happened to finally stop in to check out the store because I had been thinking about going there since the store opened a year ago, yet had never actually made it in... though it's only about 4 miles from my house. And it was just last week that I found out my cousin needed two dressers, and here were these matching pieces!

Now I'm just waiting to be led to the "perfect" dresser for my boys' bedroom. Something about the same size as the one I got for my girls room, but with more masculine detailing - maybe some dental moulding! Something that will look wonderful painted a nice brick red....

Color Drip Candles

I picked up a 2-pack of these at WinCo while grocery shopping yesterday. They provided a lot of entertainment during dinner last night, as the children were excitedly discussing which color was going to melt next, what side of the candle the was going to run down, etc. If you find a pack, try them out! At less than $2 for the set of candles, it's an inexpensive way to add a little pizazz to your family dinner.

The lamp

I painted the vintage lamp just plain white for now. I think once the purple sheers are hanging behind it on the window and it has a pretty shade perched on top that the architectural interest of the lamp will be enough in just the solid color. Now I just need to find a nice replacement shade for it... I'd love to cover it in lilac gingham, but I need to find a shade that has the right proportion. The shade that came with the lamp is structurally sound but filthy (inside each of those pleats is a riot of dust and cobwebs).

Time to play "Ketchup".

Last week was busy with all of the "usual" stuff... the daily laundry, dishes, matriculation, and such. On Friday I played hooky from my chores for a couple of hours and visited a friend.
Saturday morning I was able to finally do some "me" shopping to try to replenish my very sad and neglected wardrobe. Using birthday money and gift cards I purchased 6 new tees, a camp shirt w/ matching cami, 2 pairs of jeans, a hoodie, a pair of flip flops, a pair of mary jane tennies, and 2 pairs of sock "liners". I need to buy a few more cheap $5 tees before I feel truly comfortable throwing out almost all of my stained/holey/bleached out shirts. I do need to keep a few for cleaning the bathroom and painting. Saturday afternoon was another baseball game of course.
Sunday afternoon I got to take Nicholas to see his very first play. We saw a stage adaptation of "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" which happens to be his favorite series of books. He had a BLAST!




Today, in between grocery shopping, laundry, dishes, etc. I found the time to put a few coats of spray paint on two flower pots. The white stripes on these have been flaking off, and I just wasn't as "in love" with the bright color as I was when I bought them (on deep-clearance of course). I like them much better in their new coat of "hammered bronze" and will be filling them with mums for the season. Is it such a bad sin to use fake mums in them for a few weeks, since I will undoubtedly kill off real mums before the season is over?

To-do list

Maybe the act of posting my checklist for today will help motivate me to complete all of my self-assigned tasks. Maybe.

~ Make all of the beds with clean sheets for the week.

~ Play catch-up on the dishes that piled up over the weekend.

~ Mop the hallway and girls room.

~ Do the weekly grocery shopping.

~ Tidy the living room (pick up toys/papers, vacuum the area rug, dust).

~ Start poly-ing the dresser.

~ Finish painting the flower lamp for the girls room.

This little light of mine.

I stopped by a little thrift shop with my mom today after her doctor appointment and picked up this little lamp. I debated with myself over its purchase, putting it back on the shelf four or five times. I finally bit the bullet and paid the lady $5.00 for it.



I am planning on giving it a coat of spray-paint in bright white (it's actually an off-white now), and painting the little flowers lilac inside... And putting a new shade on it, hopefully in lavendar or light green gingham. I think I will replace the little plastic finial on top with something else as well.

I am planning on sitting this on top of the girls' dresser. So my lovely internet friends, was this a find? Or should I have left it behind?

More pictures!









And for a special bonus, here's a sneak peek at the hardware for the dresser. I'm giving the handles a couple of coats of "dark bronze" hammered finish spray paint.

More work on the bedroom...

Over the last month or so, we've gotten a lot done on the bedroom. We finally finished painting and installing all of the new trim. Putting up the new baseboards in this room was difficult because the walls on either side of the door are curved, but after a lot of trial and error, they're done!

Here's a reminder of what the room started out as... This was Nathan's room. I forgot to take a picture before moving the bed into the center of the room to start removing the border, so just imagine it up against the wall instead!

From bedroom transformation

Once everything, including the carpeting was removed, we were left with this:

From bedroom transformation

We refinished the hardwood flooring:

From bedroom transformation

Then painted the room "Sassy Lilac":

From bedroom transformation

I bought a dresser to refinish:

From The Ugly Gray House

From bedroom transformation

And pulled out the old twin bed to give new life to as well. This bed was made in August 1945 and was used by my Dad (born in 1948), various family members, myself, and Nathan. It has needed to be refinished as far back as I can remember, but instead of sanding it down and refinishing it in the original maple, I decided to bite the bullet and paint it white. Painting wooden furniture just KILLS me by the way.

From bedroom transformation

From bedroom transformation

From bedroom transformation

From bedroom transformation

I found this soft and fluffy shag rug at Target and had to buy it when I saw how perfectly the color went with the room. It is so uunbelievably fluffy... but too thick for my vacuum to tackle on even the highest setting. Luckily, it's machine washable so I can just take it to the laundromat whenever it gets icky. Still, there is a NO SHOES rule now in place for their room.

From bedroom transformation

From bedroom transformation

We will be replacing the oak bunkbed with a white one in a few weeks. If this one was in good condition, I would simply paint it, but after seven years with my rough little ladies... well, the ladder was busted long ago, the wood is cracked in a few places, etc. It is just time to let it go.

From

Sabrina was dyyyyyyyying for a canopy. They're not really my thing, but she is over the moon with this and feels like a complete and total princess.

From bedroom transformation

Just a few more things left until the room is "finished". We need to buy curtain rods and hang up the lilac sheers on the windows. I need to finish painting the dresser white, as well as their bookcase. Then I need to find a small nightstand table for Sabrina. A couple of small lamps for the nightstand and dresser, and a battery-operated lamp of some sort for their bookcase. I also need to paint some shelves to hang on the walls between their beds, paint some frames for some paint by number paintings the girls did, hang some tulle butterflies that they painted, etc.

And then... work begins on the boys' new room. Just imagine blue and wood. And speakers and stars.

You've gotta get one of these!

If you're a fan of all the wonderful home-improvement and do-it-yourself blogs out there, you have probably heard of these by now. It's the Rustoleum Comfort Grip handle.


It's simply a handle that clips into place over a spray can's nozzle, enabling you to grip it like a trigger. This has been such a great help over the past few days while working to finish up the girls' bedroom project. No more achey pointer finger!

One word of caution though... Be sure to aim the nozzle FORWARD each time you load a new can otherwise when you press the trigger, your entire hand will quickly be covered in paint. Not that I would know from experience or anything like that....

You can use it on more than just cans of spray paint too! At under $7, this is definitely something to grab if you have a lot of aerosol rich projects in your future!

Progress of sorts.

It has been a long time since I started this blog. The original goal of it was to make me more accountable and to motivate me to finish projects around the house. Things didn't quite turn out that way, but we've recently made more progress than in the last year all together. My last post about the bedroom was way back here: The dresser, girls' room, and stuff.

We have now mostly finished painting the room! All of the new trim is up and installed! Putting the trim up in this room was a nightmare because the 2 walls near the door are curved. We just have to do one more coat of the white trim paint, and then go back and touch up the purple in a ew more spots. And cover up some of the purple paint that got on the ceiling.





The dresser has been sanded and primered. And sanded again. I need to do another coat of primer and some caulking, and then it will be ready to be painted.

124/365

My drapes finally arrived! They were a bit delayed because the company was out of stock and had to make these just for me.

Here's the hubby measuring everything out and getting ready to hang the drapes:

You can see the plastic curtain we had hanging up outside to try to cut down on the glare.

Almost done getting them up (yes, we hung them a bit high off the floor because we're going to be putting carpet back in, in the next year or so):


The completed drapes in the evening... that huge piece of wood laying on the floor is the scalloped wood valance that will be mounted up above them. My great-grandmother had it custom made for the window back in the 50's.


And a close-up of the pattern:


Now that they have been hanging all day, all of the creases from packing have been pulled out by the weight of the drapes. I'm going to have to buy table lamps now because the room is so dark, but it is making such a huge difference in the heat factor in this room.

The drapes are handmade right here in America. If you're interested in buying drapes from this company, you can check them out at Factory Bargain Drapes. They're a family owned company that has been around for almost 60 years and have lots of sizes and styles to choose from. They even sent the drapes with all of the hooks in the panels so they were very easy to put up!

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I did it. I framed the kids. Again.

Here's the second frame that I bought last week, spray painted satin black and reassembled. In order to solve my "dilemma" over having black frames, a black monogram, and a navy barn star I bought a double mat for this frame. It's white AND navy blue. The navy stripe is small, and probably not very noticeable, but I feel that it ties everything together nicely. I got the mat at Michael's... and by the way, bookmark this blog; they post the latest Joanns/Michael's/Hobby Lobby/ACMoore type printable coupons and it's so much easier than trying to search for them every time you need one!



I can't wait to have this room repainted and get all of my goodies hung up on the walls! If all goes as planned, I should get to order the drapes in about two weeks!

_______________________________

We have been slacking on our church attendance. It seemed like every weekend was jam packed full of plans, or someone(s) in the family was sick. We made going to church for Easter a priority. The pastor again preached a lot during offering time, about how blessings pour out when you tithe. Today, we received such a blessing. We were surprised to get a packet in the mail from our mortgage company stating that we were qualified for an immense reduction in our payment, nearly halving our payment for the next two years (our interest rate being knocked down all the way to 2%!!), then increasing a bit for another two years (with interest of 4%), then ending up at a payment for the remainder of the term that is still less than our current payment, and at a lower interest rate than what we are now paying (6%)! This was truly the answer to so many of our prayers lately. We'll be mailing off all of the paperwork for it tomorrow, and it just feels like a big weight has been lifted off of our shoulders. It's a savings of 152K over the life of the loan.

_______________________________

I procrastinated a bit on writing my essay (rough draft due on Friday). I was trying to work on it, but Niko was being his usual gregarious self and I just couldn't concentrate. I ended up finishing Eclipse from the Twilight series. I haven't read the 4th book yet, but I must admit that I am more of a Jacob fan than an Edward fan. And as for the movie? I must be getting old because I thought the cutest guy in the movie was Charlie (Bella's Dad).
This week's essay topic that I chose from the three prompts that we were given is on free-will versus fate in Oedipus and Antigone.

93/365

I went to class this morning, then came home and picked up my mom and Niko for a day of shopping. We went to two small thrift shops and an antique store. I have not been in an antique store in so many years that I can't even remember when the last time was! I saw a lot of lovely things that I would love to have in my home, but some of the stuff in there just made me feel old! I'm only 29... I shouldn't be seeing my childhood toys for sale in an antique store!
Between the two thrift stores I bought: long-sleeve shirt for Cecilia, jeans for Abigail, uniform blouse for Abigail, large iron wall cross, milk glass compote, and two wooden frames. Not a bad haul for a total of $10.13!

Here is one of the things that I did *not* buy today... but who could resist a giggle over an album cover like this?


This is the large cross that I bought. I am thinking of spraypainting it a hammered pewster or oil-robbed bronze. It's a bit too faux rusted brown for me right now.


I had this photo printed out last week at Walgreens. It's a 5x7 black and white print of one of my favorite photos from last summer. I spray-painted this frame today with satin black. I have been looking for nice frames in the thrift stores lately and have been coming up pretty much empty handed. Everything I seem to find is either those very simple thin oak rectangles without much character, or somehow lacking in some other aspect. It feels almost like someone is going through and snatching up all of the pretty ones before I get there! I like how chunky this frame is... I think it really gives it some presence.


I have been loading up my poor mantle with a lot of my recent finds until I can get them in their final homes. Frm the left there is the picture from above, sitting on a stack of Christmas cards that I need to put away until it's time for ornaments and crafts next year. The big iron cross from today, followed by my little Walmart cross. Our letter "K" - still in the box no less! My navy barn star... should I paint that black to match the K and the frames that are all going to be hung together on the same wall? Then my little spray painted bunny, and some of my milk glass/white stuff collection. I'm slowly amassing the things that I want to use to redecorate my house, but I am a long way from feeling like I have reached some level of completeness.

81/365

It got really windy here today. We went out for a while so that hubby could do two mystery shops, and got a call from my Dad that our back patio was half-way torn down by the wind. This is what it looked like when we got home:



Now, I'll admit, I had been wanting to take down the old patio for a while. The supports were bent and rusted, and it wasn't exactly a pleasant thing to look at... but I wasn't expecting to have to deal with it today. We easily knocked it the rest of the way down, and then I posted it on Craigslist.

We went off to have some ice cream at Baskin Robbins. Niko enjoyed his to the very last drop, as he licked the whole cup clean.


When we got home, I had an email from someone interested in coming and picking up the patio. He was here within 15 minutes with his saw-thingie, and chopped it up into more manageable pieces, loaded it in the back of his truck, and happily went on his merry way. Now I'll have to replace the fascia boards that got messed up, and start planning a replacement. I'm thinking maybe a nice wooden pergola!