Home Tour

Well peeps I'm still here, and I'm still living it up, Louisiana style.  There is one thing that has changed though...MY ADDRESS!  We moved from The Internet Black Hole our rental recently to our super duper awesome new (to us) house.  Its actually the same age as Señor Hotness, but I'm thinking that's a good vintage.  I'm still in the process of unpacking, and organizing our mess...literally.  Stay tuned for pictures of us updating our home backwoods babies style.  Until then here are some pictures of it before we closed.  Looking all empty and lonely.  So without further ado...

Isn't she beautiful?  Pretty Miss J offered to name her for us, but we politely declined.  I didn't want our house's moniker to forever be known as Princess Pink Castle, but seeing as how our home is full of ladies (with the exception of Señor Hotness) maybe it was a fitting name. I'll pass all the same.

This is our formal living room.  What I love about this room is the awesome hardwood floors, and the plantation shutters.  Also the fact that when I have guests over it provides a place for the adults to hang out while the kids run wild in other parts of the house.  I'm not crazy about the beige, but that is a problem easily remedied.

Here it is so far.  Stay tuned to see how I tweak the furniture pieces to suit my style (on a shoestring). 

Just another angle of....AWESOMENESS!

The little desk in the corner is my office area, and was a freebie gift from my best friend, Awesome Kristie.  All of the furnishing in this room (except for the piano) were either free, craigslisted, or purchased off of a Facebook sale group on the cheap. Honestly most everything fits in the free category, which makes my heart happy.

This room is my family room, and I love it!  Here in the south is gets hot, and with the humity it feels like your face is melting off.  Its not though.  Its just you losing a majority of your body weight through sweat...I only wish I were joking.  Those stained concrete floors are refreshingly cool though, and a perfect way to combat that insufferable summer heat.  This room is sporting a lot of the same color though, and I'm honestly not a fan.  I prefer a higher contrast.  So this one will also be getting a new wall color to spice things up.

Just keeping it real. I though I should show where we are in our unpacking and organizing initiative.  When I move I use extra clothes to pad my breakables because I'm too cheap to buy bubble wrap, but the aftermath is, well...this.  Its getting better, and I'm determined to have this squared away tomorrow...hopefully.  I mean I have to because we are having birthday revelers over to consume vast amounts of cake.  Pretty Miss E and Pretty Miss J share a birthday, and I think it only fair for them to each have their own cake...but then we need help eating it.  Its rough being our friends.

Then there's the downstairs guest bathroom, or as we call it the 'monkey' bathroom.  If you've been reading my blog long you will know of my intense dislike for wallpaper.  Its a pain to remove, and it becomes dated far to quickly.  It is the tattoo of the design world.

I hate to be harsh, but I will say this was the only thing about the house that I REALLY didn't like.

I'm now in the process of removing the munching little buggers now.

Semi-updated pictures coming to a new post soon.

This is the breakfast nook.

I LOVE the brick flooring in here, and in the kitchen.  I sadly still don't have a table in here, but we are going to be using Señor Hotness's desk for its intended purpose in this room eventually.

Double OVENS!!!!  Please try to look past my mauve counter-tops.  I have plans to give these a new look until we agree on what surface we want to use for the counter-tops.  You never know.  We might just do pennies again.

I don't really feel strongly about the trash compactor, honestly, but we have one now so I'm sure to form an opinion soon.

The pictures make it seem small, but its honestly pretty roomy with lots of storage space.  Which is good because I have a lot to store.  Another awesome feature is the over-producing ice maker on this fridge.  Most might find this annoying, but seeing as how I live in the south where a beverage isn't refreshing unless its consumed on the rocks.  So this is a huge boon.  In all of our former homes I've had to ration the horde's ice consumption so that we didn't run the well dry on a daily basis.  I also realized that I would never be happy with any kitchen if I kept comparing them all to our Texas kitchen.  After I stopped holding up that impossible standard I could find happiness is my cooking space once again.

Do you see those double doors? Holy pantry space Batman, and this pantry is the same depth as the double oven cabinet so its extra roomy.

This is the dining room.  I will just say that I am not overly fond of the color, or the extremely formal curtains.  I'm just not a formal person, and the overall feel of this space doesn't fit with my personal style.  You can bet that I going to give it a little Backwoods Babies flair soon though!

Sorry I just threw this one in because I REALLY, REALLY love those floors.  Did I mention how much I love those floors?  I do love them...

This is the upstairs guest bathroom aka the little girls bathroom.  Nothing overly spectacular about it, but in case you are keeping counting that is toilet number two for our house full of ladies.  The wall color is absolutely perfect for a girly paisley shower curtain.  So yeah!  Not need to paint this room.  Just hang our shower curtain and done.

The is the room for the youngest two, Pretty Miss J (Destructo Girl), and Pretty Miss P.  You can't see it, but there is another closet.  So even though we are doubling up in the rooms they still each have their own closet.  I've got some fun ideas for this room that involves dots and stripes.

This beige room is where my middle two, Pretty Miss H and Pretty Miss A are going share.  They also have their own closets, and at 11 and 7, being women who know what they want, have decreed that the beige is blah.  They REALLY want to paint this a pale turquoise.  That's on the list to happen as soon as I de-jungle the bathroom, and banish the maroon from my dining room.  Thank heavens I already have most of the paint on hand.

In this house my awesome oldest, Pretty Miss E, gets to have her own room.  She has dreamed about this blue room for weeks, and it goes beautifully with the Parisian Hope Chest she and her sister worked on months ago.

Now on to the master bedroom.  I don't want to brag, but my bed looks like a million bucks in here.  I will have to take pictures soon after I get all the boxes out of there.  This room also currently looks like a war zone, but I will tell you that we are using sewing tables as our bedside tables and that also looks crazy awesome.  This room has a built-in corner unit, and his and hers closets.  These curtains here are also a little too formal for my liking so I'll be looking for alternative ways to dress these windows and the door.  Speaking of the door it leads out to our very own...

Balcony!  I have always wanted a balcony. As you can tell from this picture our new house is located in town.  I never really thought that I would want to live in town again, but this is in an old established neighborhood with big lots, great curb appeal, and is fantastically family friendly. Honestly its super quiet, and doesn't really feel like town.  I'm in love.  Okay lets head back in for a moment.

To the master bathroom, and there my friends is toilet number 3.  I know that in today's market its all about huge bathrooms with all the bells and whistles, but...can I just say that its been roughly 7 years since I've had a bath tub in MY bathroom?  A woman should be able to take a soak at a reasonable hour of the night without fear that any of her MANY female children are going to waltz in, rip back the curtain, and stare at her, naked.  The need is great, and for that reason I LOVE my new master bathroom.  It has his and hers sinks, and despite the shower/tub combo the tub is a surprisingly spacious tub, fabulous for soaking.

This was one of the biggest selling points for me.  This my friends is the "fifth bedroom", but its what we are choosing to call the...playroom.  What?! Thats right we have a playroom!  I want to scream it from the rooftops...or my balcony.  In this room there is also a large walk-in closet for all of our games, karaoke machine, and the horder-like toy collections that we have accumulated over the years.  The best is the walk in closet door has a lock so they can't just get it all out at once, and trash this room.  Also inside one of the attic access doors is an old wooden sled (not sure what use that sucker is in Louisiana but...).  Unfortunately my younger girls are having trouble with the word so if they ever tell you that we keep our slave in the attic...rest assured its really just an old sled.  No human trafficking happening here!

This was a selling point for our girls.  At least the little ones.

The play equipment.

Sorry for the rail through the picture, but I snapped this off the balcony.  As you can see this is where they are choosing to spend most of their time.  I often lose track of them only to look at the window to a scene similar to this one.  Unfortunately we are trying to get a handle of the mosquito problem because what isn't obvious is the creek that runs through the back yard.  Our girls love it, but it is a breeding ground for the buggers...and my kids are tasty.

Under the balcony, and outside the family room doors is this awesome feature.  The porch swing.  As much as I've always wanted a balcony.  I've also always wanted a porch swing.  How fortuitous that they came as a packaged deal.

The littles have also been loving the swing.  This home has been such a blessing for our family, and we look forward to making many happy memories here.

linked up at: jannolson.blogspot.com, thededicatedhouse.com, savvysouthernstyle.net, www.shakentogetherlife.com, the-chicken-chick.com

All Keyed Up: 2.0

Hey remember when I talked about my somewhat questionable eBay purchase turned key holder?  Since the move it just didn't seem to be doing it for me anymore.  So I decided a new face lift was in order, but what to do with it?

First I thought about doing a fun and quirky saying like: 'Not All Who Wander Are Lost...Some are Still Just Looking For Their Keys', or 'Out Running the Zombie Horde Could Come Down to Where You Left Your Keys'.  In the end I thought I would rather do something classier than a zombie themed key holder.  No offense for my zombie loving peeps, but I just couldn't pull the trigger.

My first step was removing the decorative paper that I had decoupaged on the back a few years back.

I just spritzed some water on the back to reactivate the glue so that it would just scrap off.

Slowly but surely it all came off.

Then I decided that I wanted to have a super rad harlequin pattern on the background.

So then I spent the next hour measuring, and taping off the pattern.  It took me an hour because I had help.

Aren't they cut helpers.  Totally worth the extra time added to the project because making memories takes time.

Ok, confession time.  Obviously the zombie theme made it all the way to the mock-up stage before I realized that it wasn't what I really wanted for my house.  I may have a crazy quirky sense of humor, but I just didn't think my home decor could handle it.  So, classy it was.

I carried the whole thing outside to give it a quick shot of silver paint.

I went with Rustoleum in Metallic Bright Silver.

First off lets just all agree to pretend that I'm better with a camera, and able to take a picture without having my toe featured in it.  Someday I'm going to make it though an entire post without my toe making an impromptu appearance somewhere...but I digress. After this step is when my project hit its first hiccup.  While I was allowing it dry out under the sun...in nature, there were apparently two tiny suicidal spiders out there just waiting to ruin my day.  When I went out to check on the drying, apparently two little spiders had landed in the wet paint, and flailed about enough to ruin...everything!

So using my putty knife I scraped off what was remaining of the gummy paint.  Then I let it sit on my counter for well over a week while I made up my mind on how to fix it, or if I wanted to head in a different direction altogether (or if I just wanted to live like an animal and not keep track of my keys anymore).  

In the end I decided I was civilized enough to want to keep track of my keys after all, and wanted to just go with a crisp clean look, and painted the whole thing a nice bright white.  I had a tiny little sample size container of paint that I turned into chalk paint with a little bit of plaster of paris, and after two coats I was in business.  

So...I got a CriCut Explore for Christmas this year because Señor Hotness loves me, and I have used it for a ton of paper style crafts for everything under the sun it seems, but I had yet to use it to do any vinyl cutting.  The youth at church held a MASSIVE garage sale to help raise money for youth camp.  Some awesome person donated some Cricut supplies, and a roll of turquoise vinyl.  So gave myself 2 whole seconds before I absconded with the goods because lets be honest I REALLY wanted it.  Also I didn't abscond with them so much as pay for them.  So now that I was a proud owner of a partial roll of vinyl I thought this would be a good project to cut my teeth on.

So in Cricut Design I found this awesome skeleton key design, and chose it as the background.  

  

So other than the fact that my kitchen was obviously trashed, and I was working on this project instead of cleaning it (because thats how I roll).  Let me just be honest.  Putting vinyl on free hand it WAY harder than you would think.  Next time I try something big I will most certainly invest in some transfer paper to make the task an easier one.  So after I wrestled that bad boy on there I realized that it was not totally centered on the background.  I tried to talk myself into thinking that it was fine.  So I snapped some pictures, and texted them to my, go to, truth tellers aka my sisters.  

Aren't sisters awesome?  They love me, and they feel absolutely no obligation to sugar coat, ANYTHING. So they agreed that it was looking sort of wonky(technical term), and one sided.  So instead of peeling that beast of a key off of there, and trying to reposition it...again.  It was suggested that I just add a bit of embellishment to try to balance it out.   

I found this cool little corner, and cut it out in my vinyl.  After I placed it I sent it back out to the ladies, and they all agreed that it was the final touch that it needed to look balanced, and well...awesome.

So at the end of the day I have this super awesome key holder with an awesome classy feel that I spent less than $5.00 on, everything, for it.  I can't wait to get it hung on the wall.  So the lesson I learned from this project is to not be afraid to change directions in the middle of a project because the end result could be cooler than your original vision could have ever been. 

Linked up at:  Savvy Southern Style, The Dedicated House, Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson, Shaken Together Life, 

Highlighting The Imperfections

You know how sometimes you stumble onto something truly brilliant by mistake?  I like to think thats how penicillin came to be.  Then there are those other times when an event happens that highlights just how very much of a failure you truly are?  Like when you start singing a classic Bon Jovi song at your 10 year old only for her to look at you with a blank expression.  Then you realize that you have been a colossal failure as a mother because your kid hasn't a clue what an 80s hair band is, let alone one as awesome as Bon Jovi, but I digress.

Not the best picture, but until we get our internet issue or lack thereof figured out I am stuck with cell phone pictures as they don't use as much data to upload.  Sorry peeps.

This is how I stubbled on how to highlight these insanely cool imperfections on a pair of thrift store plates destined to be part of a plate wall.

Okay so remember when I found a Goodwill Superstore in Tyler Texas?  Well while I was there I found several plates that I thought might make a good addition to an eventual plate wall.  I got varying shapes, and colors.  Several I got had a fun shape and texture, but an ugly color or none at all.

During that trip I bought two matching Mikasa basket weave plates that were kind of blah, but at a $1.25 a pop I thought I could dress them up with some paint or something (I didn't really have a solid idea though).  Fast forward almost a year and one out of state move later, and there they sat, still looking blah in my closet with all my other plates.  

So still at a loss of what to do with some of these plates I turned to pinterest for DIY plate projects, and came across a plethora of people talking about how easy it is to transform your plates using simple sharpie markers, and then baking them to set the color permanently.

Can you feel it?  My over confidence in an ability that I don't have, and a talent that I have never taken the time to develop.  I mean how hard could it be to free hand a cutesy pattern on there, and then bake it into permanence?  Then when people come visit they can Ooh and Aah over my free handing awesomeness, right?

Um, not so much.  Sadly I spent far too long trying to salvage this super sad excuse, but in the end I decided to take some rubbing alcohol to wipe it off.  By the way did you know that you can remove sharpie marker off of a smooth surface with rubbing alcohol?  Yeah me either.  If only that worked when a certain 4 year old I know decided to leave a partial autograph on the back of one of my car seats.... and her little sisters skin.  Again I digress.

Then I had my own personal penicillin moment (only not nearly as life altering though). It wasn't until I tried to remove all the ugly child like drawings that I really noticed the webwork of tiny cracks all over the base that had been highlighted when the marker had seeped in.  I really loved it though. It really reminded me how when I refinish a piece of furniture I like to play up the imperfections as that gives the piece more character, and a sense of history. 

So then I though holy heck I need to do this to the other plate.

This one had this really awesome almost spiral patterned to the cracks that was pretty rad looking. So then I just needed to figure out how to do on purpose what had been a mistake before.

I started by taking my teal sharpie and liberally applying it to the middle of the plate, and then letting it sit for about 10 minutes.

Then I put a small bit of rubbing alcohol on the surface, and started to spread the marker stain.

I waited an additional 10 minutes allowing the thinned out marker stain to really soak in.

Then after another bit of alcohol I rubbed the thinned marker stain around a bit more.  Removing even more of the excess marker.

Then it was time to clean it off as best I could.

Then what I was left with was a super awesome looking natural cracked surface.  

Then I thought why not leave a wash of color in the basket weave.  So then I scribbled on the area with my sharpie.

Then using the alcohol I removed as much marker as I possibly could.  Leaving behind a faint wash of color that really tied in with the newly hightlighted cracks.

So after having to face the brutal truth that I don't have a future in free hand art I was able to really highlight the awesome cracks spiderwebbing the surface of a few thrift store finds that should act as a super cool addition to my future plate wall.

From now on I think that I'll be remembering that sometimes mistakes can lead me to some truly awesome discoveries, and that sometimes a piece doesn't truly find its beauty until we highlight what might at first peek look like an imperfection.

www.shakentogetherlife.com

Confessions of a Lazy Blogger...

Bless me Bloglandia for I have sinned.  It has been over a month since I last blogged, and if we're being honest my few posts since the move have been sorely lacking.  Our internet issues are still very much, well, an issue.  We opted to go with the crazy slow "high speed" internet that was the best offered in our area.  Well, peeps, its not even fast enough to support WiFi.  Who knew that internet would be so important to a blogger.  It boggles the mind.

The other reason I have been MIA is that my projects have been very much subject to the weather. Fun fact: Louisiana gets a LOT of rain.  Shocking I know, but with the rain and tons of humidity most of my projects have ground to a halt.  I have a few ugly pieces of furniture that are desperately needing a good overhaul, but not being sure how the crazy high level of moisture in the air will affect them has me being caution.  

Other than that we have been house hunting because who loves renting?  Not me.  Also Destructo Girl broke our dishwasher so the amount of dishes that the older girls and I have had to do it staggering, and then we have to do it all over again the next day.  Talk about first world problems.  The amount of dishes generated by a family of seven is no joke, and, believe me, I've tried to joke about it.

All of that being said spring is upon us, and I sense a few awesome projects in my near future.  So stay tuned for new developments...