We are always working on something around our house. This weekend, we decided it was time to move our light fixture in our dining room. The builder decided to center the light to the arch rather than the room. It looked fine until we put our 8 foot dining room table in. It drove us crazy that the light was not centered above the table. Here is what it looked like before the move:
Here is Russell moving it. I will have to put a picture up once we paint over the patch. This project was not hard since we had attic space above the light. Thanks hubs!
Maddie is now one years old. Hard to believe how quickly the time is going.
Here is the day we got her:
This picture still makes my heart melt. She was so tiny!
And here she is now:
The last two are some of her tricks. TA-DA! She is "sitting pretty" and then "standing up". She will do anything for a treat :)
I am embarrassed to even show the before pictures, but I spent hours researching, hours cleaning, and then hours cleaning up from the cleaning product. More on that later. I have to tell you how this all began. When Russell and I bought our house, we saw things we did not like and thought, "We can change that". Our biggest dislike in the entire home was the kitchen. The tiles were so light, the grout showed dirt so easily, and the cabinets are....not our taste. After living in the house for 2 years, we realized the kitchen is staying for now. It is expensive to renovate, so we decided a good wipe down would be best.
I decided one day that I COULD NOT look at our nasty grout any longer. I began to research on the DIY blogs about what worked. This lead me to the Clorox Pen. This little pen works GREAT. Seriously. But at about 3 dollars a pen, it was going to cost me about 50 dollars to do our kitchen and bathrooms. I then found out about Oxyclean. You know... from those really cheesy commercials.
I read that this stuff really works. So, for 8 dollars, I bought the biggest one I could find. The pen worked great, but this stuff was working miracles. I spent 2 days cleaning the grout. The reason it was taking so long was I had mixed the solution into about 4 times the recommended strength. Oops.
Well, it worked, but the whole house had white footprints everywhere from where I would mop and then spread the cleaner. It has been about 2 weeks and I still see a few spots that I need to mop again. I will let the before and after pictures speak for themselves. Do not judge me. We are clean people, but come on....how often do you clean your grout?????
The before:
The After:
Long story short...Oxyclean works. Billy Mays knew what he was talking about.
Russell and I had been looking for a piece of furniture to store our laptop in for months. I kept finding great make-overs of antique secretaries, but they can be expensive. This secretary dresser was found on Craigslist (duh!). The woman was practically giving it away for 20 dollars. The hardware was in descent shape, the drawer runs were not, but overall...I saw the potential. Unfortunately, the wood is not perfect, but that is what you get with a 20 dollar antique. I painted the inside of the drawers a seafoam green and loved it. The gray paint is left over from another project and I found the green paint at Lowes for 5 dollars on their mistint table. Score! Overall, this project was about 30 dollars.
Here is the before:
Here is the after:
This project is best friend approved (thank you Jessy), but not husband approved (he hates it). I love it, so it stays!
I used a jig saw to cut this letter. Not as easy as I thought. I would recommend purchasing a pre-cut letter at a Hobby Lobby. This whole project costs me about 5 dollars.
What do you think?
