My Style...

I was out shopping with the girls yesterday at the mall. I haven't been shopping at full priced stores in a LONG time, and I was totally appalled by how much everything costs! I've gotten used to thrift store pricing, so $14.99 sounds pretty expensive to me for a shirt! I did find a couple of things - a pretty lace embellished tank top for $11 at Banana Republic, and some Teva flip flops for $9.99.

Anyway, as we were shopping, one of my friends defined my style (with some help from me) as "slouchy chic." I love that! It's exactly what I am. I like blousy tops that are supposed to be that way with a pencil skirt or wide leg linen pants. I wear rolled up jeans with "boat shoes," as my dad calls them, but the next day, I'll wear skinny jeans with heals. I flop back and forth, but I'm beginning to gravitate toward this aptly defined "slouchy chic." It's a little yacht club, but less preppy and less beachy. OK, that's all that yacht club is, so I'm not sure how to explain.

So, what's your style? Can you think of a name for it?

Gardening

So everyone knows I'm a little frugal. I'm known for my couponing skills and my thrift store skills. So, this year, I'm translating that into gardening. I want a relatively hassle free yard. I don't want to have to plant annuals every single year. I want perennials that come up without me having to do much to them. The problem is this: perennials are not very cheap. They can be really expensive, actually. Quart sized perennials at Lowe's can run upwards of $10...entirely too expensive for this cheap girl!

This year, however, I noticed that Lowe's in particular puts its perennials on MAJOR markdown once they start to bloom - because they are harder to sell if they don't have a million beautiful flowers on them. These plants, though, do have plenty of flowers left, and some haven't even really hit their prime yet. I have, to date, purchased somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 perennials in 1 quart containers for one dollar each. The varieties include things like Hosta, various lilies, tulips, poppies, and a few things I hadn't heard of yet, but were really pretty.

Here's the catch: we don't really have our garden space laid out yet, so I have been temporarily stashing them in our vegetable garden's extra space. Hopefully we will find a home for them before the fall and I can move them to their rightful places. I'm really excited about it to be honest! I think they'll bloom beautifully next year, and I got them for basically nothing!

I'm so excited!!

Headboard Benches

So my mom and I were out shopping at a downtown consignment/antique shop called Merchants on Main. It's in the southside district of our town which is reviving right now. They were having a sidewalk sale, and I found this BEAUTIFUL antique upholstered headboard for just under $20 (after tax!).

I've been looking for a bench for our dining room table, and I thought this might be the perfect back for one. All of the benches I have seen thus far have been one of three things: 1. No back - you can't eat dinner in a seat with no back comfortably, 2. UGLY, 3. Rediculously expensive (like thousands of dollars....ummm, no). So, I decided to make my own. The idea is that the bench can sit in another room of the house until we have enough guests over to need more seating. Then we can pull it up to the table and avoid having some strangely large number of dining room chairs floating around the house.

So, that's what I'm into these days, just working on that bench. I haven't gotten super far on it. I've stained the wood pieces. Assembly will come in a later post. I'll keep you updated!

It's been a while!

Well, I feel like it's been a while since I've done this, and it has! About 10 months ago, I posted about our bathroom renovation - which is now mostly complete! We just lack some trimwork around the windows, and that will wait until we actually have the money to replace them. In the meantime, we have taken on another MAJOR renovation - in our living, dining, and hallway spaces.

Living Room (fireplace and side door) Before

Our home was built in 1928. It originally had 9 foot ceilings, but those were lowered sometime during the 1960s for efficiency and given a popcorn texture for reasons only people then understood. There were no overhead lights in the living room with this new lower ceiling - even though there was evidence that the older, higher ceiling did have them.













Dining Room (note our only cooling source) Before


So, we began the project in March and are just now finishing up. Thus far, we have: stripped the rooms down to studs and ceiling joists, knocked out a wall between the dining room and kitchen, reinforced the ceiling and put in headers in the doorways, created archways between the rooms, put in insulation in the outside walls (there was none before), installed recessed lighting in all areas and a chandlier in the dining room, re-drywalled (no popcorn here!), added a MILLION electrical outlets (I was starved before), AND - this is my favorite - refinished the beautiful but hiding hardwood floors! Oh, and we had someone come put in central heat and air! It is revolutionizing our lives! We are NOT sweating through the nights any more! It's been a BUSY couple of months.

The rooms are so bright now. The high ceilings and the lights make a huge difference. Cami's not sure what to think of the hardwoods - or the holes in the floor for the air conditioning. She's having to relearn how to run in the house. She is, however, happy to have her spot on the couch back. It's been hiding in the garage for 5 weeks.

We've hung the TV on the wall and sent the cords through the wall, so it looks very nice - not cluttered by wires running everywhere. Eventually, a built in cabinet will go next to the fireplace to hold all of the components. For now, though, they are just on the floor.

The trim, baseboards, and crown molding are all painted but not up yet. We decided to replace the windows and doors before hanging them to avoid the possibility of having to hang them again. John was nice enough to cut some trim and our baseboards for me because I have strange taste that doesn't exist in regular hardware stores. He has a great setup at his house complete with router table, planer, sander, and lots of saw horses.

It's still not finished yet, but we are getting closer! Furniture is getting moved back in slowly, and I'm determined not to put any CLUTTER back in these rooms! Let's hope I succeed! I'll post updates of the finished project soon!

Renovations

The renovation process continues! We have completed tile on the back wall of the shower, and are just a few tiles away from finishing out the floor! I have been wrestling with a new paint sprayer this morning, and have successfully primed and painted 6 pieces of beadboard! They are now outside drying. Pictures will have to come later. Up next is all of the trim...then we can just do touchup work inside!

While this process has been incredibly stressfull, and I think I might not ever want to do a home renovation project again... (don't quote me on that)...I am truly excited to see the finished product. It is going to be wonderful! AND, I'm going to have a linen closet...yay!!! Amazing what gets people excited, isn't it? Well, back to painting...

Job Hunt

So, I've completed Graduate School, and I'm on to my next adventure: finding a job in which to use my newly found skill and licensure. This task, I have found, is easier said than done. You know the drill: countless hours of searching, resume scrutiny, cover letter writing followed by delivering these documents, shaking hands, interviewing and thank-you noting...only to end up (thus far) with a, "Sorry, the position has already been filled." Thus has been the relentless pattern has consumed my life since May.

It is easy to get discouraged by this, and so you think to yourself, "It's the economy - the jobs just aren't there right now, and the market is flooded with heavily qualified applicants," or, "I just don't have the right kind of experience, or I'm not conveying my experience well in an interview." It's enough to make you say, "I quit...I'll just stay unemployed and get some things done around the house or volunteer somewhere rather than waste my time working toward an impossible goal."

But then, an amazing thing happens: God puts these wonderful people in your path who put things into perspective for you. "Maybe those jobs weren't the right ones for you. Maybe God has a different plan. I know you're frustrated, but, in the end, you'll look back and say, 'Oh! So that's what all of that was for!'"

And so, with renewed vigor, I begin the cycle again: resumes, cover letters, shaking hands, interviews......

Bathroom Renovations

Well, it's been almost 2 weeks since the fun began in our bathroom. Thus far, we have ripped out the floors all the way through to the basement, removed all of the drywall and the ceiling. We're still trying to decide what to do about the window. We need new windows in the entire house, so it may be more economical to wait and replace it with the others.

We have re-plumbed the entire house (fresh water and sewer), and, thanks to a little detective work, we have also replaced the water line into the house from the street due to a gushing leak...which wasn't gushing until we wiped the rust off of the pipe...then it was gushing. Bryan has discovered a piping called PEX which has made it so much easier to accomplish - very little joint work, and relatively inexpensive (compared to copper...).

We have been living in John and Karen's camper while the water was not working and while we have no toilet or shower. It has been so nice to be able to escape the disaster area that our entire house has become and sleep in a cool place with no nails or dust. I've been able to wash dishes in there too. Now, however, we do have water back in the rest of the house - just not in the bathroom, obviously, so I can cook again, and do laundry (not that I was really missing the later, but our clothes were emitting an odor that was not exactly pleasant).

The last couple of days have involved an interesting process of jacking up the existing floor joists and screwing new joists into them. The floor had sagged at some point in the past, and the previous owners had added an extra support under the house. Now, the floor has sagged more between the wall and that support (about 8 feet apart). Soooo we are now attempting to get the floor more level so that our tile won't crack when we put it in soon. It's exciting to see progress being made now - up to this point we have torn out a lot but not really begun to put the room back together.