Ch..ch...changes

When your house is a whopping {1000} square feet & occupies 4 people and 2 dogs, well...let's just say that having some personal space is a necessity if everyone wants to maintain a level of sanity. While both of the tiny people had their own rooms, and the hubband was able to disappear to the basement, his office, the garage, etc., {I} had no space that was really my own. Even the bedroom was being invaded by the tinier of the tiny people in the middle of the night.

So, I decided to employ guerilla tactics and take back some space for {me}. Call me selfish... First, I talked the hubband into letting me buy bunk beds for the tiny people. A whopping $160 at IKEA and a couple of hours of work and {voila}, the girls are now sharing a room. Can I get a {WOOT!}. Next up? Decor. I moved them into the room previously occupied by the not quite as tiny person. Her room was already pink, which the tinier person was just fine with ~ I just had to make them coordinate. When we talked about the move ~ even before we bought the beds ~ the tinier of the tiny people said she wanted her bedspread to match her sister's. This is the bedding in question...

Now, I {love} Land of Nod ~ really, I do ~ but I just couldn't stomach spending $60 on a duvet cover. The only reason the not quite as tiny person had this bedding was b/c my MIL bought it for her as a gift. I started thinking about it and decided that there was no reason I couldn't figure out a way to make that duvet cover into 2 duvet covers. So while I was at IKEA, I picked up 2 plain white flat sheets....for $2 each. I also grabbed a synthetic down comforter for the tinier of the tiny people for $14. Then, I trimmed a bit of off each of the comforters (b/c I knew I was going to lose some fabric from the duvet covers when I seperated the front from back...and there's not a lot of extra width on bunk beds to begin with) and sewed them closed. Next I laid out the plain white sheet & one half of the comforter, put right sides together and pinned around three sides, and sewed the new, plain white back, onto the existing flowered print. And there you have it....two bedspreads out of one. I love it when a plan comes together.

I'm not gonna lie, the transition to a shared room has been rough. The tiny people have been staying up {waaaay} later than I'd like, and there has been a lot of coming out of the room over and over again ~ but I didn't anticipate it being an easy over-night switch. I'm just hoping that they'll be over the excitement and novelty before school starts again.

The {really} exciting part of all of this is that the tinier of the tiny people's old room is now {vacant} and ready to be used for whatever I darn well feel like. ;) I've already started moving stuff in. More to come soon!

You Won't Believe It...

I've got about 16 projects on the brain right now. There have been a few pretty significant changes in our little house over the last few days ~ there's just a lot going on around here and my mind is just {swimming} with all of these ideas. In fact, this should be a week chock full of posts from me if all goes as planned. First up? Something for the master bedroom.

There are lots of changes I'd like to make to that room (paint...window treatments...finish the floor...) but I was thinking along the lines of some throw pillows for the time being when I went to the linen closet to look for my leftover burlap. What I found is a little crazy. See?



That brown fabric on the {left} is my current duvet cover, which we've had for a few years. The floral print is a flat sheet that belonged to my parents....it's a solid 26+ years old. The orange is leftover from the curtains I made for my kitchen a few months ago. The blue is a sheet set my MIL gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago. And the cream and tan print is the same fabric that I used on our headboard. And they all {coordinate} darn close to perfectly. What are the odds...seriously.

I'm feeling some throw pillows. And I think my pretend BFF {Sarah Richardson} would be proud. ;)

Homework

I apologize (again) for my long absence (again) and promise (again) to try to be around more. Our 4th of July weekend was a busy one. My mom was here for the weekend, which was beyond wonderful. We managed to get the entire front garden planted ~ finally ~ as well as some pots for the back yard. And....the really {big} project ~ we painted the front porch.

The reason you're looking at only the floor of the porch in the pics is because I wanted to make a quick-ish point about color. (And I should add, I'm not thrilled with the way the paint color looks in the after...it's actually an almost-exact match to the color of the mortar.)

The hubband & I have lived in our home for 10 years, and in that time we came to take the color of our house for granted. It's grey brick. That's one of the things we don't {love} about our house ~ we both agree that the red brick homes in our neighborhood are so much nicer looking ~ but brick is brick and we can't see painting it, so we've agreed to live with it. However....as we learned when the hubband came home with a pre-mixed gallon of grey porch paint, there are a whole lot of shades of grey.

What it comes down to, really, is that our house is more of a brown-ish grey than a pure grey...and neither of us really realized it. Then one day, as I was walking through our neighborhood with one of the dogs, I started really {looking} at the other grey brick houses. What were they doing differently that I found really appealing? A few jumped out at me right away because they went straight to black trim. WOW. Definitely not subtle and {way} too drastic for me. There are a few with plain white trim and red front doors. Hmmm. And then I noticed a house with a second story addition ~ and the siding on the addition was matched to the brick ~ and the siding? Well, it wasn't grey! It was more of a taupey-ish color. DUH!

Needless to say, my tip for the day is for you to do the same thing I did. If you're not thrilled with the exterior of your home, do a little homework. Stroll through your neighborhood ~ or even take a Sunday drive ~ and take note of what other people have done. Staying in your own neighborhood means that the styles of homes will be more similar to your own, and in our case, the brick most likely came from the same truckload. ;) You might just notice some things about your own home that you've never noticed before!

Weekend Wrap-Up @ TT&J

Just a quick note to remind everyone to head over to Tatertots & Jello and check out the weekend wrap-up party! Jen's is always the best!

Family Trees

I have to admit ~ I wasn't thinking about Father's Day {at all} when I first started this project. I was thinking about the big empty space on the wall in the half bath, and trying to figure out how to fill it. So I bought a big canvas...brought it home...and stared at it. I even bought paint ~ but had no idea what I was going to {do} with it. Stripes? Some other type of pattern? Hmmmm.... A tree? Trees. I'll do some trees. So I started painting the first tree....

And then it hit me...four trees, one for each member of our family! Cute! So I painted four tree trunks, limbs, etc....in varying sizes to represent the hubband, each of the tiny people, and myself. And {then} ~ a moment of brilliance (which doesn't happen often, so I have to celebrate it. ;) ). I'll have the kids use their {fingers} to make some of the leaves & we could give it to the hubband for Father's Day! {squeal!}

I used my finger to make some of my own leaves, too, then filled in the trees with more, brush-painted leaves.

It's not quite done yet. The hubband still needs to do some of the leaves on his tree, and then we'll hang it in the half bath to fill up that big empty wall.

Not too bad for a totally unplanned, {last-minute} Father's Day gift, right?

I'm linking up to a few places....so click on over & take a look-see at these fantabulous blogs!

,

Sumo's Sweet Stuff

Lemonade Stand {Update}

The tiny people had their lemonade stand yesterday ~ Mommy was too {scatter-brained} to have everything ready to go the weekend before ~ and I just wanted to share the results with you all. We limited our time at the stand to 2 hours so the tiny people wouldn't lose interest and leave Mommy to do all the work...sitting outside under the tree alone... ;) In those 2 hours we had somewhere around 12 customers and we brought in $26.50.

I'm thrilled with the total! I really didn't know what to expect, and was hoping to break the $20 mark, so this is fantastic! Additionally, I agreed to match what they made, as did my mom and our {awesome} and incredibly sweet neighbor, Sue. SO....all told the tiny people will be donating $106 to the National Wildlife Federation! Incredible. I couldn't be more proud of my sweet girls.

If you have kids, and there is something you all feel strongly about ~ whether it's helping to clean up the oil spill in the gulf, finding a cure for Cancer, funding Autism research, or helping a local food pantry, I strongly suggest you get your kids involved and do something like this. We had the price listed on our sign, and set up an empty pitcher for donations. In the 2 hours we sat outside, only 2 people paid the minimum (50cents) for their lemonade ~ everyone else {donated} more. It was a truly incredible feeling.

See, it's true ~ it might be a great big world, but no one is too small to make a difference.

An Introduction

There's someone I'd like you all to meet.

For those of you who don't already know, this is Sarah Richardson ~ she is an interior designer based in Toronto, and the host of my new obsession {Sarah's House} on HGTV. On her show, we get to follow her through the entire process of finding a house, buying it, and completely renovating it from top to bottom. It's so much {fun} to watch. I watched her show a few times a season or so ago, but it was on at a funky time and I never could figure out when to find it consistently. This time around, I set my lovely DVR to record the whole series so I wouldn't miss a thing ~ and I'm sooo glad I did. Take a little peek for yourself...

(photos taken from HGTV's website)

Sarah is the type of girl who, in addition to having a completely {awesome} name ;), comes across as being very real, normal and down-to-earth. I like to pretend that she just moved in next door to me and has become my new BFF. ;) I should be so lucky. And her design partner, Tommy, is a RIOT. They use and mix fabrics in ways that are unique, fresh and completely {inspiring}.

After a marathon online viewing session of the 2nd season of Sarah's House, and the sleep deprivation that came with it, I'm seeing fabric pairings that I {ne-ver} would've seen or considered before, and I'm pushing myself to go a little further than I would've before. Can't wait to see where it leads!

You Might Just Get a 2-fer

Maybe... {If} I can get going on the project I have planned for today ~ we'll have to see how that goes.

For now, just wanted to share that I'm linking up the Blanche lamp to another party! This one is at somewhat simple ~ but I can't get the button to work for some reason, so there you go! Hope to see you all again later on today.

Just a Quick Note...

To let you know I'm linking up yesterday's post to a par-tay....




Head on over and check out the {ka-ton} of fun stuff Roeshel's blog (and her friends) has to share!

P.S. Old Peachy has been affectionately re-named Blanche. Rue (I actually thought her name was Ruma Clanahan rather than Rue McClanahan for the {longest} time) always was my favorite. :)

Meet Peachy

Check out this little beauty...



Doesn't it look like it should be sitting on Blanche Devereaux's bedside table in an episode of Golden Girls? It's such a lovely shade of 80's sitcom {peach} don't you think? And, hey, if any on you lovely reader people live in my area, you can swing on by the DAV thrift shop and, if you're quick and lucky, you might just be able to scoop up it's twin! Don't lie...I know you're tempted. ;)

Anyhoodle, peachy here is a glass lamp. Because I'm not well-acquainted with the use of spray paint (yet) I googled to get some tips on spray painting glass and the information I found suggested that I rough up the surface, either with sandpaper or with glass etching cream. Now, I realize that my blog title can be easily shortened to SNDR....which looks a lot like what might pass for "sander" on a {vanity} license plate....but this girl doesn't hand sand. It makes my teeth hurt. So off I went to Lowe's in search of etching cream. That went well. Lowe's dude said he'd never heard of such a thing, they don't carry it, and hey...if he were me he'd skip the sanding and use an all-purpose highly bonding spray paint primer that he knows adheres to ceramic tile, so why not glass too? Awesome. Works for me. And it did! A couple of coats of primer, and then I busted out the main event. Here she is all pretty...



I painted the base {espresso} and the color I used on the lamp is {paprika} ~ both in satin. Of course, peachy didn't come with a lampshade, so I had to make a trip to find one. I'm pretty happy with what I chose, and I think she looks nice sitting in the corner of my living room.



Happy, happy, happy! :)

A Different Kind of DIY

Lots of things on the go right now. I've got the bed/bench project that I'm going to be working on (come h-e-double-hockey-sticks or high water) this weekend, I'm still trying to figure out what to do with that lovely dresser and where in the world I'm going to PUT it, I hit the thrift shop this afternoon & found a lamp in need of some spraypaint...and a shade. But my favorite of all the {DIY} projects on my plate is the one that involves the tiny people.

This weekend we're having a {lemonade stand} to raise money to help the animals that have been affected by the oil spill in the Gulf. The tiny people saw some of the pictures on the news ~ and then saw mama crying because of the pictures on the news ~ and so we had to have a difficult and not fun discussion about how we use too much oil....and so companies have to drill for the oil we need....and how this company did so without a plan for what they would do if something went really, really wrong....and that something {did} go really, really wrong....and it's a big ugly mess that is going to be very very hard to clean up.

The not quite as tiny person is 5 now, and it's the perfect age for teaching that, no matter how small you may be in this big big world, you {can} make a difference. SO....we're doing what we can to help by selling lemonade and rice krispy treats and hoping to raise a respectable amount of money (which will be matched by me, and by my mom, and by our {awesome} next door neighbor who absolutely loves the tiny people...and they her) to send to the National Wildlife Federation.

Wish us LUCK!

Even A {Blind} Squirrel...

Some people are born with a true {gift} for finding amazing deals. They score ridiculous deals on everything from toilet paper to tires, and manage to walk away from a garage sale or flea market with the exact item they set out to find...for half of what they were willing to spend.

I am not one of those people.

Which is why I'm so {thrilled} about my finds from last weekend. And by thrilled I mean that, truly, if you were anywhere in the great midwest there's a good chance that you actually {heard} me squeal in delight when I found this...

Even better?

Yep, you read that right...{$10}!!! An antique spindle bed for TEN BUCKS! I nearly wet my pants. The plan is to make a bench for my front porch (and maybe a 2nd bench for my mom's house). Mom is concerned that I maintain the integrity of the peices so that it can be used as a bed again down the road. She also doesn't think I should {paint} it, but hey...it's my ten bucks...and a painted former headboard being converted into a bench is far better than a broken up headboard going into a landfill or ~ heaven forbid ~ a fire pit.

And my good fortune didn't stop there. I also got my hands on this...

And the price on this one is a real stunner. It was {free} to a good home. :) WOO-HOO! I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it just yet ~ maybe a new stand for our television? Or I could put it in the guest room (in our basement) to hold the extra bed linens. Hmmm...

Can't wait to get going on these projects!