I thought Sunday would be the perfect day to post a cleaning schedule. Of course, I’m not this organized nor this talented to have come up with this myself, so feel free to click the picture to be taken to the original source.
And if all else fails:
Happy cleaning everyone!
Happy Saturday all! I trust you are all having a smashing good time this weekend. As you are reading this I am working on a few projects to share with you this coming week. Maybe you won’t be subjected to my fake autumn-ness outside again, there’s nothing that says fall is in the air like fake flowers.
So, on this 6th day of 31 Days of Getting it Done, I thought it might be fun to look at some pretty pictures from Pinterest. You know, because that’ll really help in hacking away at that long to do list! Maybe I should have named this series 31 Days of Procrastination.
Anywho, on with the eye candy. I’ve been thinking about organized entry ways lately, particularly entry ways that really aren’t entryways, but more of a door and then suddenly the living room. At least, that’s how it is at my house, when you walk in through the front door you step directly into my living room. Which means that all those things you carry into the house with you, get plopped down right by the door. Keys, purses, shoes, wallets, anything and everything that is part of “leaving the house” gets thrown on the floor or the end table near the door. So, it’s become apparent I need to do something to wrangle all that clutter. Thanks to Pinterest, I have a few ideas to work from. Hopefully, you’ll get to see the outcome, you know I’m not the greatest finisher of these types of thing
Both of these came from Martha Stewart, if you are curious about the original context, click on the image to be taken to the original link. I liked the use of both baskets and hooks, especially the baskets that are mounted to the wall. I’ve got a couple of vintage locker baskets that would be perfect for something like this.
The bars with huge “S” hooks looks like it might be an easy fix to a messy problem. I especially like the cork board on the wall, and that mail sorter thing-a-ma-gig.
Speaking mail sorting things, I liked what was done in this little entryway, in particular those cute little rainboots. If only it rained enough here to constitute purchasing my own little rain boots, but alas, in the desert there is no need for such boots. Wonder if anyone makes cute sand boots??
And with that deep thought, I leave you to enjoy your Saturday!
Yesterday I showed you how I made the coffee table more autumn like, well, today you’ll see how I’ve made the front porch a little more fall-ish.
The mums came from Wal-Mart, the hokey scare-persons I bought for 90% after Christmas a few years back, I think those came from Wal-Mart as well.
I love this wreath! It’s been on my door every fall for two seasons now. If you haven’t guessed, it’s a fake and it’s spectacular.
(Name that 90’s sitcom!)
The little signs in the flower boxes came from Big Lots (I think this store used to go by Pick-N-Save), again bought off season and at a pretty hefty discount. Some of the flowers stuck in there are fake, the theme this fall seems to be faux. I wanted some color and couldn’t wait for my natural mums to bloom so off to the dollar store I went. I didn’t want to put more real mums in the same box as the others for fear they may choke one another out.
But not all is fake out here on the porch, as mentioned above, I hit up my nearby Wal0Mart again, and found these GIANT mum for $10 each. Typically I’m pretty cheap when it comes to this sort of thing, but this time I’d say they were worth it.
What have you done to fall things up at your house?
This month, I’ll be talking about getting things done. You know, those things that nag at you everytime you walk by them, like that wall with the 20 zillion paint swatches on it, or those annoying little jars of nail polish that jump out each time you open the medicine cabinet. Yeah, those things, the annoying things, the things you end up ignoring or not even noticing after a while. So, October will hopefully bring a home for all those little jars of nail polish, and a painted wall in one color. October will bring a mix of big and small project, more than likely you’ll be seeing lots of smaller projects, the kind of satisfying projects that go quickly.
I love those quick satisfying projects that have a big impact. It really helps to keep the momentum going. Well, today is a teeny tiny thing, it’s not really a project, but it makes me happy so I’m including it in the 31 days.
I turned my summer owls into fall owls.
You may remember this shot from my 31 days button. I like to recycle, especially when it means less work for this lazy girl.
The two big owls have been living on my coffee table since July, they were a gift from my uncle, you can read more about that here. The teeny squirrel and golden owl came from various thrift stores around town. Since this picture was taken, I have replaced the golden owl with a much cuter bronze owl that my mom gave me. I would have taken a picture of it, but by that point the table was cluttered again and I wasn’t in the mood to move keys, wallets and junk mail. Hmm…my spidey senses are tingling, maybe it’s time for a post about key and other “leaving the house” paraphernalia. Would that constitute spidey senses to tingle? Anywho, the clear leaf containers came from Goodwill, I got a stack of 4 of them for $2. See? I may be a hoarder, but I don’t spend a lot of money on my hoard.
While I was setting all of this up, Goldie was helping.
Yeah, that had nothing to do with the fall coffee table set up, but I don’t feel that a post is complete unless I include a dog picture in there somewhere. But isn’t she cute? I have a fear that I may be turning intthe dog equivalent of the crazy cat lady from The Simpson’s. But instead of throwing cats, I’ll be throwing dogs.
And with that nice random thought, I think it’s time to conclude today’s installment of Getting it Done, making the living room all autumn like and such.
Here we are on day 2 of 31 Days of Getting it Done, and it appears that this 31 day challenge will really be a challenge considering it’s 11:30pm on day 2. Maybe I over estimated the hours I have in my day, between 8 hours of work, nearly 2 hours of dog time, and an 1 hour for dinner and dishes (I won’t lie, most days I let the dishes build up during the work week.) there doesn’t seem to be a lot of time left over to blog and do a project. But it’s only day 2, so I can’t throw the towel in yet!
Anywho, on this second day of Getting it Done, I had planned on talking about this great organizational project I had completed, but then the clearance carts in the Lowes garden center happened.
Yup, I managed to fit 4 large shrubs and three smaller ones in my trunk. Bubba (my husband) thought I’d never fit them all in there, but I showed him!
I ended up with:
Two of these, for 7.50 each. They will live in the backyard, and they’ll be pretty big guys once they grow up.
Two more of these, for 5.50 each. These flowery gals will live in the front yard.
Two of these, for 2.50 each. For the front yard.
And one of these, I didn’t read the label and thought this guy was another boxwood. Since, these get pretty big he will live in the backyard.
After unloading everyone it was time to get my dig on. Everything went well, until a few minutes into it, I hit a small road block.
Actually, it was a water line 3 inches below the surface. Why they put a waterline right smack in the middle of a flower bed and at such a shallow depth is beyond me. All I knew was that this posed a slight problem, and I had to change my layout slightly. And when I say change my layout, I mean digging all of my holes three inches closer to the outside edge of the flower bed. Hopefully, the roots of the my new sticks won’t cause problems with this water line down the road. I guess only time will tell. But in the mean time, this is what the front yard is looking like now.
It’s still looking a little sad, I need to put in new mulch and would like to lay a little sod out there to green things up a bit. Living in the desert has given me a greater appreciation for green things, well maybe not the scary fuzzy green things that seem to lurk in the fridge. I see a fridge cleaning post in the near future.
Once I got the four shrubs planted, I was too pooped to start digging holes in the back for the Privets and the Holly. Plus, it was time for the season premiere of Once Upon a Time, is anyone else hooked on this show? Honestly, I can’t get enough of it.
Anywho, the last three shrubs have been sitting on my front porch for nearly 3 days now. Which has given me a little bit of time to do some research, I found that both Privets and Holly shrubs are toxic to dogs (!). Yeah, toxic.to.dogs. I have two dogs that consume just about everything that enters their yard. So, sadly, my beautiful ,new and cheap plants will not be going in the backyard. In fact, I’m considering returning them, if they are that toxic to my doggies, I’m not sure I want them in any of my yards. Although, after researching the Boxwoods a little more, (after they have been planted) I found they were also toxic to dogs. Actually, it turns out a lot of shrubs aren’t good for little dummy dogs who insist on taste testing everything.
So, I learned a valuable lesson, always research plants before buying them or in my case planting them. You never know what could be harmful to the little dummies you love.
Do you have things you’ve been putting off for no apparent reason other than the fact you just don’t want to do it? Yeah, me too, I have a house filled with “don’t wannas”. I don’t bring this up to complain, but to introduce this years 31 Day series, yes, I think I’m a little nuts for doing this again, but it might be fun!
Like last year I am playing along with The Nester’s 31 Days of… , you see every October Nester and a group of her friends get together and blog for 31 days straight including weekends (!). The blog topic should focus on one area, but be broad enough to not bore you to death by the end of the 31 days. Last year Miss. Nester opened this little project up to her readers. So, being the natural follower that I am, I attempted to participate. But also being the non finisher that I am I only got 16 of the 31 posts up. Maybe it was the topic I chose, 31 Days of Treasures , vintage and of the heart. It was a topic I thought I would enjoy, and did until I didn’t. It got kind of old after awhile and I started to worry that I was outing myself as a hoarder.
So, this year the month of October will bring us:
Like most everyone else, I’ve got a mile long to-do list, so over the next 31 Days, I’ll be documenting the peaks and valleys of finally tackling all those projects I’ve been putting off. The focus will mainly be on home projects, but I’ll shake things up with a craft or two. And I’ll try to do projects that won’t require materials or conquer those projects that I’ve already got the materials on hand to complete. Hopefully, you’ll be seeing some pretty big projects finally come to fruition, or you may learn how I organize my toilet paper. Either way, I hope you join me on this bumpy and random ride through 31 Days of Getting it Done.
If you’d like to read what I’ve had to say on these marvelous 31 days please follow the below links:
Day 2: Clearance Plants
Day 3: Autumn in the Living Room
Day 4: Autumn Outside
Day 5: Lolita and Car Repairs
Day 6: Procrastination
Day 7: Cleaning Schedule
Day 10: Sorting the Etc.
Day 12: A Clean House
Day 17: Enjoyment
Day 19: Owls and Monkey Trays
Day 20: The Business of Busy-ness
Day 23: Plans
Day 24: Goose Heads and Dog Beds
Day 25: Clearance Plants Part 2
Day 29: Shoe Hoard
Day 30: Early Christmas
Well, we made it to Friday, the weekend has arrived! Aren’t you excited? I can’t wait to eat waffles and ignore the growing fur bunnies under my couch. (We don’t grow dust bunnies, we grow fur bunnies. If you have a dog that sheds profusely then you’ll totally understand the fur bunnies.). As I had mentioned in my previous post, it’s a three day weekend!! (!!!!) Which gives me an extra day to eat those yummy waffles and watch the persistent fur bunnies grow under the couch. With Labor Day weekend upon us, it kind of feels like summer is coming to an end, even though summer doesn’t officially end until September 22. Doesn’t it feel like fall is rushing in and stealing summer from us? Maybe it’s just the warm weather girl in me, but I’m always a little sad to see summertime come to a close. I love fall and spring and can tolerate winter, but summer seems to be the season I mourn the most when those transitional times come upon us every few months. Although, I’m the type that gets sad when her food is over, so maybe I just have some attachment issues.
Anywho, back to the point of this post, the end of summer. This summer I didn’t have any get togethers, mainly because the last get together we had at the house was so stressful I wasn’t sure if I could put myself through all that trauma again. Trauma you ask, from a party you ask? Let’s just say it involved the police pounding on my door at 6am and a fire truck. (You can read about that drama here and here)
Since I chose not to put myself threw the ringer this year, I wanted to spy on a few outdoor parties from Pinterest. I love Pinterest, it gives me blogging material for Fridays! 😀 If you are curious about the original source of these pretty pics, click on the picture or the link below the picture and you’ll be taken to the original website.
Via Pinterest Via Houzz
Via Pinterest via Lavender and Ash
Via Pinterest via Desire to Inspire
Via Pinterest via Real Simple
Via Pinterest via Martha Stewart Living
Via Pinterest via Country Living
Via Pinterest via Design Your Revolution
Happy Weekend Everyone!!!!
Hello, and welcome to Friday!! Fridays have always felt like a holiday to me, everyone seems to be a little more jovial and those smiles seem to come a lot easier than they do on say, a Monday. So, with Friday upon us and the weekend knocking at the door, I thought it might be fun to look at some Pretty Pics from Pinterest. Just to get myself in the mood for the weekend, and maybe in the mood to finally get something done around the house. It might be time to review my 2012 Home Goals next week, I fear I may be sorely failing in some areas.
Anywho, since the weather is cooling off a bit and fall is soon to be here, followed by winter (a season I don’t really look forward to, I’m much more of a warm weather girl.) I wanted to bask in all things outdoor, particularly front porches. They seem to be a dying art, at least in the southwest. It’s pretty rare when you see a true front porch on a house out here in the south of the west. So, let the front porch ogling begin.
Via Pinterest via Architectural Digest
Via Pinterest via Country Living
Via Pinterest via Houzz
Via Pinterest via House Beautiful
Have a great weekend everyone!!!
Have you ever had one of those projects you were so excited to get started on and completed, and surprisingly started it and completed it in the same month? And then gotten so excited about sharing the project with all of your loyal blog readers (Hi Mom!), in the same month the project was started and completed in? Yeah, I only got the first thing done. So here a year later, I shall share with you the saga of the round coffee table.
You see, I’d been looking for the perfect round yet petite coffee table to place in the petite but not round living room. I had been using an old Lane cedar chest to act as a coffee table, but with a dog that was oddly curious about the blonde veneer (she enjoyed the occasional lick) and sweating glasses of sweet tea it was time to find something a little more durable and less cherished. I toyed with the idea of using the ever trendy ottoman in place of a coffee table, but that didn’t quite work out as planned, a tray does not provide enough hard surface for our needs. We spend a lot of time in the living because, well, that’s where the TV is, and where ever we spend time we are going to be doing little projects that require a hard surface. So, I knew we needed a true coffee table, one that could with stand sweating sweet tea glasses, and even tho I don’t like to think about it, dogs that enjoy tasting the furniture (“Sharona, wipe!” Don’t ya miss Monk?).
Last year around this time, I was perusing through our local Goodwill and came across this beauty for 9.99.
Needless to say, since she’s in my backyard, I was all over that deal like Goldie fur on black denim. But, the finish was a little too dark, as in the exact same color as my couch.
See…
So, I needed a little contrast. Plus, I really wasn’t diggin’ the fake wood top and the scratched up legs.
I could have made it work, but honestly I just wanted to experiment with painted furniture. So, I read up on different techniques, I found that Centstational Girl has some good pointers on these types of things. You may know a lot more about this than I do or have another resource you found more helpful, but in my case her simple pointers were a life saver.
First, I decided that since the top of the table was super shiney, I would need to prime it before painting.
Then once the primer was dry, I painted my precious with Behr Premium Paint in Gardenia White semi-gloss. It’s a nice white, not too white, but not heavy in the blues or the pinks, it’s juuuust white. (Qwiet I’m hunting wabbit!) To keep from having those pesky roller or brush marks on this piece I used Floetrol. Essentially floetrol helps to sort of thin the paint, it makes for a slightly longer drying time but it’s worth it.
To apply the paint, I used a small trim brush for the sides and the legs, and a small sponge roller for the top. Nothing fancy, I know the experts say you should use good quality tools, but I’m too lazy to wash out brushes and rollers, so I pick mine up at the dollar store. Once I’m done painting, the brushes and rollers go away. Not exactly green, I know.
Anywho, I love how it turned out! Did I mention I finished this project in the fall?
Let’s just pretend I’m ahead of the game and this picture was taken more recently than a year ago.
Naw…I can’t lie,here’s how she looks now…
Here’s a closer view, also I just wanted to show off my yellow cow again.
The coffee table has held up pretty well over the past year, there are a few knicks and scratches. But that’s a given seeing as how much this table gets used, plus I didn’t bother to seal it with a latex paint sealant. I may repaint it, and use that sealant to further protect from those knicks and scratches, and also to help with the stickiness. Latex paint has a little bit of a sticky feeling at first, so if you’re like me and can’t wait a few days for the paint to fully cure, a sealant would prevent decorative trays from sticking to your newly painted coffee table. Not that I’ve ever had to pry a decorative tray off of a newly painted coffee table…
Going with the train of thought from an earlier post about finding happiness in the silly and obscure things. Even though, I’m not sure that I touched on that aspect of the post, I may have focused more on dogs eating rawhides. But anyway, here’s another post on all things weird, fun, and pride inducing : pigs ,owls, and Ole Glory. Not meaning any disrespect by putting our beautiful flag in the mix with a pig. Just to keep things clear here, we’re not talking about an actual bacon producing pig, but more the white ceramic animal head variety, I call him Sir Hamster the III.
As you can see I couldn’t be bothered with removing the 3.99 price tag before taking a shot of his royal pigness. In fact, I haven’t been bothered to even hang him on the wall yet. When that happens I’ll be sure to share.
One of my not so recent acquisitions, a set of beautiful ironwood owls from my sweet uncle.
That little guy I already had, but he matched so well with the two big guys I just had to put them together to make an owl family. Thanks Unc. D for sending these guys my way!!
And finally, something that makes my heart swell with pride…
Our beautiful flag, it not only looks nice proudly rippling in the wind, but it also represents all those brave men and women that fight for our freedom everyday.
And with that I leave you with an obliatory dog picture, what post would be complete without one?
Semi-Seasonal 