The past few months in a quick recap...

So, a lot has happened in the past few months which have kept me from posting in my blog. Also, I do not feel like we have really done too many house updates or repairs as of late. The majority of things we have done include buying new appliances, not redecorating. Owning a house is ridiculously expensive but I'm enjoying the experiences.


First things first, we had to buy a new dryer due to our other one catching on fire and burning a few towels in the process. Thankfully, everything was fine. The dryer just got too hot and decided to char a few of our towels. Of course, these were the nice towels I had just bought a few months ago to decorate our bathroom, but it could have been worse. Seth and I had been looking into buying a new washer and dryer for quite some time but this wasn't the way we wanted to buy them. After searching and bargain shopping, we finally scored a great deal on an Electrolux front loader washer and dryer. So far, they have been great appliances. No fires, so that's a plus.

Next, our microwave died, so we needed a new microwave. This is also an appliance we had wanted to buy for quite some time. After shopping and hunting for the best deal, we settled on a Panasonic microwave, which I think is too big for our counter but my husband loves, so whatever. It does its job, so I can't complain too much.

The above purchases put a hold on a few of the household projects we wanted to begin. The list is about 15 pages long but I keep telling myself we have the next 30 years to make our house a home. However, anyone who has talked to me for five minutes knows I am not the most patient person. I'm working on it. Isn't admitting it the first step and all that jazz?

As many of you know, this winter has been crazy. I am thankful to say that our pipes and furnace all worked very well this winter. That is a definite blessing. We were unsure of how things were going to be our first winter in our a new home. Well, one one of the many snow days, my husband and I began to tackle a project that we figured would be pretty easy, paint the trim. Nope. Not in the least bit easy, it unveiled a more expensive project we have to tackle very soon. The trim in the dining room, we noticed had calk around it. My first thought was to leave it alone because I felt like they did it for a reason. However, we decided to scrape at it because surely, someone just calked it without knowing what they were doing, right? Wrong answer. the reason there was calk between the baseboard and plaster wall was due to a crack along the plaster wall that has a small gap. So instead of the painting the baseboards, we are now looking up ways to fix the plaster wall or we are going to redo the walls in the dining room. Needless to say, this project has been added to the 15 page to-do list.

Moving on into the living room. I decided, there must be something I can do it in here to decorate my home. You know, just something small that makes me feel productive on my snow day. I had already binge watched Netflix and read three books. The struggle to feel productive was real guys. I decided to decorate my mantle and my bookshelf. It was well past time to put up the rest of the Christmas decorations.

Book shelf 

We finally hung the present from my grandma! 

After trial and error, we decided this was the best placement for this beauty. 

We could not put in the entry way, the stucco has a cement wall behind it, and let's just say..there are two tiny puncture holes in my stucco now for no reason. Grrrr...you live and you learn.

With spring rapidly approaching, thank goodness, I decided this afternoon would be a perfect time to clean out my flower beds. Of course, I accidentally killed a few bulbs as I did not realize they were flowers. Cut me some slack, this is my first spring in the house! I tried to replant them but I fear they are not long for this world now. Also, I touched too many worms for this lifetime. Why are they so squishy and disgusting? Ugh. Also, the snails!! Oh my goodness, so many snails in the dirt. I had the intentions of cleaning one flower bed and then taking a nap in between church services but, the sun felt too good and it was a great stress reliever. I can always take a nap this week, spring break baby!

Before

One of the nasty snails I kept touching, I failed to capture an image of the worms....ugh.

After

After

Second flower bed, I didn't capture a good before but this is what it looked like when finished, yay.

Before

Before

After.

Hopefully I can spend my spring break planting some beautiful flowers without killing them.

Stay tuned......next Spring Break project is my office. Wish me luck :)

Reupholstering!

My husband and I have been looking for nice dining room furniture. We have found plenty but the problem is....we don't want to pay the high prices for it! The prices on furniture are ridiculously high. So we decided to find chairs we could refinish. We found 6 chairs are the Re-Store in Huntington. If you haven't checked out this place, you should. This is also where we found my antique typewriter desk that Seth refinished.

We found the chairs and they were in great condition, other than the hideously colored and stained fabric. The chairs are solid wood which means we can stain them later if need be. In the meantime, we decided to reupholster the chairs using fabric we found on sale at Hobby Lobby.

Our dog Polly decided to photobomb the picture.

As you can clearly see in the picture above, gross stains. 

Reupholstering the chairs was simple. We went to Hobby Lobby and picked out the perfect fabric after measuring the chairs. We then cut the fabric to fit on the chairs, leaving extra to staple onto the cushion/wood bottom. We flipped the chairs over and used a screw driver to take out the screws holding the fabric and chair cushion on. 

We didn't remove the old fabric. We left it on there; no need to waste your time pulling out staples when it isn't necessary. We wrapped the fabric around the cushion, pulling tightly before stapling it down using a staple gun.

After stapling it, we popped the cushion back into the seat frame and screwed it back together. 

The chairs and fabric match the dining room color scheme and hardwood floors perfectly. Seth is going to make a dining room table to match. We can make the table for a lot cheaper than we could buy one. Also, isn't it better to have something custom made? I think so.

In the meantime, we are purchased a table from the Re-Store in Huntington as well. Our goal is to sand it and stain it. Pictures of that project will be posted later. The table will work until we can build our own.

 

Finished project :)

The dining room is not finished yet so stay tuned!

Exploring the world of flea markets and antique shops

Over the past week or so I have been trying to pick up pieces here and there to decorate our home. I want to decorate my house but I want to do it as cheaply as possible because I am a frugal type of gal. Since my husband and I bought a huge house, I feel overwhelmed to get it all decorated. However, once I stepped back and realized I need to take it one room at a time, I discovered I felt much more comfortable with the task. Plus, it is loads of fun!

I found the following items at the flea market in Milton, WV. My friend (shout out to Jessie!) and I went flea market shopping last Friday. Unfortunately, we discovered most shops aren't open during the week :( A variety of closed shops didn't deter me from finding a few cute items for the home, however.

The first item discovered was the set of 3 copper plated canisters. These were found in one of the many primitive stores featured at the Milton Flea Market. I have been looking everywhere for adorable canisters. I have plain silver ones but I wanted something to help tie the vintage colors in my kitchen together. These look great paired with the turquoise in my kitchen!

The next item discovered was an adorable turquoise magazine rack. This was found in yet another primitive booth at the flea market. I am going to use this in the kitchen to store cook books and cooking magazines. I'm not sure where I am going to station it but as of right now, it looks cute in the corner!

The final item I found at the Milton Flea Market was this adorable "Old Glory" sign. It is made out of half of a table leaf. It has two metal stars on it that pop. We have a building out back and decided it would look nice there. When washing dishes, you can see it out of the kitchen window. Adorable.

This item, I found when perusing local antique shops in my neck of the woods. I love to find anything vintage Marshall possible. I am starting quite the collection. I was browsing in this shop and noticed a price tag that said "jug lamp." I had never seen a jug lamp before so I decided to move items out of the way and discovered a vintage Marshall lamp. SCORE! I had to have it. Of course, I haggled the price down some :) The lamp shade needs replaced; I'm thinking a kelly green lamp shade :) 

That was the end of my shopping excursion. However, I do regret not scooping this guy up when given the chance. 

I'm joking. Kind of. This would have been an excellent conversation starter and it is reminiscent of a Seinfeld episode. If you're a true fan, you'll know the exact one I am eluding to.  

After shopping, we had to have our weekly girls' craft night session. I discovered that much to my dismay, I didn't have a cute wreath to hang on my door. I made a 4th of July one but seeing as it never made it out of the trunk of my car, it never made it on to the door. Whoops. Oh well, there is always next year ;) So I decided to make a summery wreath to welcome visitors into my home. All the flowers and the cute bird came from the dollar store. I stole this wreath from Jessie so all and all, I had about $8.00 in this wreath total. I owe her $4 for the wreath so we will call it an even $12 in the wreath. Per a friend's suggestion on Facebook, I may be adding a nest for the bird. I think that would be a nice touch.