Every Man Should Have a Place to Put His...Deodorant

When I was a little girl there were two things every dude needed to be eligible for a man card. One was to serve in the military.  The other was knowing how to fix things.  All the men I knew had done those things so I thought it was just something guys did.  So when Señor Hotness needed a bathroom shelf solution, clearly he, being a guy, knew how fix the problem himself.

So even though our new house is beyond fantastically awesome.  Our master bathroom is somewhat humble as far as master bathrooms go these days.  I'm just happy to be able to take baths in peace without little ones randomly wandering in disrupting that peace and tranquility.  That being said we do have double sinks (bonus), and ONE medicine cabinet...on MY side.

See isn't it pretty.  Better yet it holds all those things that make women mysterious.  Like, tweezers, nails clippers, and...deodorant (this should be read in a breathy voice thus upping the MYSTERY).

According to Señor Hotness he too needed a place to shelve his goods, but because he's a man not interested in mystery, he wanted to do a small open shelf.  So after sketching, then coming up with a design he liked, it became a bit of brain bug for him that he couldn't get out of his head.  You know the kind that keeps you awake at night, that you think about day and night (this is not factual), and talk to your wife about none stop (totally true)...

So we wanted to procure some galvanized pipe fittings for this little project.  However, that is where we ran into our first snag.  Someday I'm going to do a project with no snags.  It will be glorious, to be sure...but I digress.  They didn't have everything we needed in plain galvanized.  They did, however, have a plethora of options in blackened pipe (which basically looked like a super greased galvanized pipe), and the best part was that they were actually cheaper.

Here is Señor Hotness degreasing the blackened pipes. Please excuse the mess.  I'd like to give a good excuse for this, but truthfully its just a by product of extreme laziness.

All clean...

After removing the old towel ring he then pre-drilled for the wall anchors.  Don't worry peeps he didn't hang extraordinarily heavy pipe simply using wall anchors.  Two out of every four holes lined up with a stud, because my stud knows how to find the studs.  Sorry for the bad pun, I couldn't resist. Actually I could, but I didn't want to.

He secured the middle piece first.

Then he double checked it to make sure it was all plumb.  For those not in the know, plumb is achieved when the bubble is in-between the lines on the middle gauge of the level.  The more centered the better, but anywhere in between those lines is totally fine.

At this point he joked that his vision had been achieved.  Clearly I'm not the only one with a sarcastic sense of humor in this relationship...our poor children.

The board he was using was a 1x6 piece of oak.  Just FYI, oak is known for being a hardwood.  So to save himself time, and effort we (and by we I mean he) held the boards up there while I pencil marked the holes so he could pre-drill them.  My one useful contribution to this project.  I'm of course not counting all the many times I offered him up my witty replies, and useful insight.  I'm just kidding I was pretty much just a smart aleck in the background with a camera on this one.

Also as you can see from the kid head in the corner of this picture.  It was hard for me to truly help because all of our littles were on deck and ready to lend a helping hand.  The teen and the tween couldn't be bothered to help out on this one.  The finished product did get their stamp of approval though.

After he finished pre-drilling he assembled the other pieces for easier installation.

The hardest thing about the assembly was working around the pipe to get all the screws properly secured.

Here it is partially done.  Then through the magic of the blogosphere...

Bam! Its done.  Well, mostly at this point we had not yet stained the wood.

Here are just a few up-close shots of the fittings.

I love that you can see the "1/2" that is on the pipe, and that he added a towel rod.  I'm in love with a very industrial country feel to things, and I love when the metal is married into design.  I especially love it if it seems aged, and that is the exact feel that we get once we cleaned to goop (technical term) off of those blackened pipes.  

I couldn't resist staging things just to get a glimpse of how awesome it could be, but...

Then it was time to bring this project home.  So we, and by we, I mean Señor Hotness, took this out to the man room off the garage to stain it.  The stain he used was American Heritage made by Minwax.

After letting it dry overnight he gave it a coat of polycrylic.  I don't think it really needed the protectant coat badly, but with it possibly getting toothpaste or shaving cream residue on it I wanted the surface to be washable.

Staining the wood really steps the whole thing up a notch.  I love how the stained wood really adds a whole other depth of color to the entire piece.  The pipes seem to be a richer color when in truth all that happened was the boards got a darker shade.

This was Señor Hotness's first attempt at staging for a photo.  It was a nice effort kid, but...

I think mine looks better.  The ibuprofen looks so incredibly awesome in the glass jar that I may decide to do that with my vitamins too.

But always in the end I like to keep it real so this is what it usually looks like.  It adds a super rustic vibe to our bathroom, and it turned out so incredibly cool its not even funny.  

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

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,