Orange Crush

 

 

Sometimes life is about compromise and you have to let go of some control and allow others to use their creative side too, at least if it's their room.  My youngest son wanted a desk for his "work."  Even though he hasn't even started kindergarten yet and when he does, I know he'll be doing this "work" at the kitchen table!  I stumbled upon this desk at our local Restore, it was twenty bucks, so I figured it was worth fixing up for him.  I wanted navy or deep red.

 

 

 

 This guy's favorite color is orange.  (Yes, Greg Brady). He would literally only wear the color orange for about a year of his life at one point.  My sister talked me into orange spray paint, all to make him happy!  Not my choice...at all.  
 

 

I swapped out the knobs to some brushed nickel extras I had around.  It's cute for now and the color can be easily changed ;)  You can see I didn't put a lot of effort into this, it still has the streaky shine from the spray. 

 

Not my favorite color, but he loves it and just look at how cute this guy is workin'.

 

 



It's Here!!!! My Staircase Redo is Published!!

I'm having my own little celebration over it.   My staircase experiment turned out much better than I ever imagined and now it's famous...  Ok, that's a stretch, but it is featured on the "I Did It!" page of Better Homes and Gardens!  

I am more excited than I thought I'd be, and I can finally share the news and some more juicy details about how this came to be!  No, I didn't race off to the magazine aisle at the local supermarket to find my issue. I was sweating my butt off outside pulling weeds, when my sister texted me that she was in the store and saw it!! 

I was under the impression that this baby wasn't coming out until next Tuesday.  So my wonderful sis promptly drove over a few copies, and there we were!!!  This is an awful picture with my phone...but I was weeding, I swear!  

Links to the Staircase Adventure are below if you missed them! 

Part I 

Part II

Part III

  Thanks for looking!



Blogcation!

 

 

Hey all..did ya miss me? I've been away... a week off from work, blogging, and several DIY projects left unfinished.  We just returned from a fabulous week in the OBX, yes, my first time there!!!  We are just soooo darn close to the lovely beaches of South Jersey, that we never ventured away, until this year, and it was great! 
There's nothing more relaxing than the beautiful beach, time with family, and tons of fun, fun shopping! 

I found lots of inspiration for some projects for next summer!
 

 

 

 

 

I have a "little obsession" with coordinating the offspring for an annual picture while we are away, every year.  I know, I know, not a simple task when there are five of them and some people have attitudes about taking this pic (the nerve of them).  I just have this need to capture them, in at least one picture, all together, while we are away.  This takes planning people. 

 

Here's my layout, before we left...

 Since we've done Atlantic Ocean background pics for the last few years, I found an adorable spot on the Sound, that just looked so "North Carolina" that we had to do them there!

I try to keep it interesting, with color and all, but not too casual, I'm sorry, they have to at least look at the camera.  As much as I admire the "in action" photo shoots, we don't have time for that in my family.  The kids start complaining, my brother-in-law gets stuck as our photographer, after dinner, on the last night of vacation, and this year it was between thunderstorms!! Scary ones too.

...and here's some of what we ended up with, not bad, thanks to the bro-in-law! 

 

Now that we're back, aside from all of the laundry I have to tackle, I have a simple desk redo to complete  and some fabulous vintage furniture I purchased and will be picking up this week! Can't wait, oh and lookin' forward to the Sept. issue of BH&G to arrive!!! (Back page, people)

$5.00 Ceiling Light

 

 

Our Laundry Room is a sight unseen by anyone but yours' truly and the cat.  (he only goes in there to use his facility, if you know what I mean.)  I'm serious, nobody goes in there, and it's located on the second level, so guests don't even pass by there.  As much as I'd like to devote a week and some spare change on making it all cutesy and fun, I can't justify that, since the cat doesn't care what it looks like, maybe later on that.

 

I could not resist this $5.00 chandelier though, since I could justify actually seeing what I'm doing in the laundry room, and that would benefit the cat too.  

 

So I bought this ugly thing at our local Restore, (they tried to make me pay ten bucks, no way, so we settled on five)

 

with left over spray paint, I made it a Raspberry Sweetie for me and Harry (the cat) and lucky for us, it actually lights up

 

The best comment I've gotten on this one, was from my six year old son, who said he feels bad for the cat because he has to have a pink light in his room!