Boo!

Happy Halloween from Barbie and Ken!

Harley the Bull

While I finish up making my wig and desperately searching for white pants for J, I thought I’d share Harley’s costume this year.



Happy Halloween!

The Office

I’ve recently realized I actually have shown very little of our house. So without further adieu, half of our office! You would be seeing the full she-bang but I was playing with the lock-switch-thing on the side of the memory card and the whole thing cracked before I could take the other half of the rooms pictures. Yikes.

This is actually MY ROOM. It was supposed to be J’s “Man Cave” but I sneak attacked and started painting it while he was off on one of his trips. I have no idea why he wouldn’t want his “Man Cave” to be painted this color? tee hee.

Those are my tattooed fishies on the left, Will and Grace. Yes, they are actually tattooed.

The other half of the room is nothing to look at. It consists of a cheap futon which is soon to be on the outs. We’ve got our sights set on building this daybed.  So maybe once we finished building it I'll be able to show you the rest of MY room.
Do any of you guys have your own special room?

Now that’s what I call high quality H2O

Sooooo, our water sucks here. It has 12 chemicals that exceed health guidelines, 24 chemical pollutants, and nitrate amounts that exceed health standards. And it tastes funny. I’m just curious why all of my bushes died when there’s fertilizer and pesticides already in the water?!

Anyways, I decided that we needed to get a water filter to attach to our sink. We have a Brita pitcher but we’re too lazy to use it. We want filtered water out of the tap, dammit! So the best option for us was to go for an under mount filter as opposed to the ones that mount to the faucet because those are ugly. We ended up getting the 3m professional because its supposed to filter out more bad junk. Trust me, nobody likes bad junk.

 

It’s very straightforward and easy to install. It probably took less than 15 minutes and now we're drinking water free of bad junk! yippee!

 

The sad part? I actually bought this 5 months ago but just needed some brawn to unscrew the water hose. So thankful my muscleman is back home.

Oh and if you are curious how your water stacks up you can ch-ch-check it out here. I’m crossing my fingers for you!

Wordless Wednesday: The Pumpkin Thief

Cleveland Rocks

I might be partial to Cleveland, but I think this is a pretty crafty idea. Instead of boarding up vacant homes the regular, ugly way they are hiring someone to paint the plywood to look like fancy windows and doors. The point of this is so the vacant homes aren't an eyesore in the neighborhood which would draw in vagrants and kids. Enough chat here's the pictures:

Pretty nifty idea, eh? You can read all about it here.

Images all from here.

Guess who's back, back again.

I know you missed me. While I took my blogging vaycay, I also went on a nice, little overnight vaycay to Charlotte! We spur-of-the-moment decided to leave Monday and stayed smack-dab in the middle of the city. The views were gorgeous. So much greenery throughout the city.

Try and spot little Jeremy. haha

We visited the Museum of Modern Art.

And stopped by the Nascar Hall of Fame (even though neither of us are into Nascar).

It was very interesting though. You got to feel how heavy the gas can is to refuel the cars (which is actually super heavy) and jack up the tires among other things. We briefly talked to a guy that was visiting who was a tire carrier. I have no clue on the technical terms. You also can take weird pictures with the statues, if you would like.

We liked.

 Here's the only picture of the two of us together the whole trip. I learned that when choosing to ask someone to take a picture for you to make sure that they are not still using a film camera. I almost ended up with a close up of the ladies face. Which actually would have been awesome. Hmm. Scratch my lesson learned.

I'm not going to lie the main purpose of this trip was to eat at THE LUBE! Or Quaker Steak and Lube for the unfamiliar. Back home in Ohio we lived 20 minutes from Sharon, PA where the original one is. Down here in North Cackalacky the closest one is Charlotte. So we ate their twice, Monday night and Tuesday. Just as good as back home!

And now I'll end this before I bore everyone to tears with our family vacation pictures. Don't want to be "that guy."

So Happy I Could Die

I have been MIA for a while now but it's for a very good reason and I hope you forgive me. J IS HOME! Back track: J's been gone for quite some time now.. I'm talking months.. and now HE'S BACK! WAHOOO! I try to keep it under wraps on this ol' thang, for security reasons. But anyways... hopefully I will be back to somewhat regular posting sometime soon.. Here's a video of Harley and J reuniting to tide you over until then. Hasta la vista, baybays!

Project Preview

 Since I've been in Ohio the past week and ignoring this ol' thang, I figured an update was due. Here's a preview of what I worked on before I left.. One last finishing touch in the bathroom. And I promise you won't be hearing anything else about this bathroom.

Brad Pitt for the Win

I recently stumbled upon a website that morphs two pictures together to see what your child would look like.  You can morph two celebrities, upload pictures of yourself and a friend to morph, or morph yourself with a celebrity. The pictures you upload have to be front facing pictures. I thought it might be funny to see what J and I's future children would look like.Since J has an extreme aversion of getting his picture taken it took some searching to find one but one emerged from the depths of my iphone. I think it was a sneak attack picture at Applebee's.

 I'm cool and found this myspace-esque picture I took it of myself from a while ago. I should have at least made my background look better.

So I morphed those pictures and somehow our future son is going to look like Donald Trump.

Seriously? They think I would let my kids hair look like that? My mom said if our kid looked like that she's sure we'll still love it. lol

Out of pure curiosity I wanted to see what my love child with Brad Pitt would look like. 

Much cuter. Sorry J. Brad Pitt for the win.

For now (and about ten more years) I'm fine with our son looking like this:

The Good, the Plaid, and the Ugly: The Reveal

Ah that feels so good just to type that. The bathroom face lift is done! Since this is new house we didn't have any major renovations to do. It just needed a little work. Hopefully this face lift isn't like Heidi Montag's --better before. Jeremy and I have plans to put in hardwood floors in the future, so that's why the ugly vinyl floor was left. This is what the bathroom looked like when I moved in:

Oy.

And here is what it looks like now:

 

I followed younghouselove's advice and bought an extra long 95" shower curtain. It makes the bathroom feel so much larger and spacious. 

Ah, I love it.  Too bad it's only the guest bathroom because I love it so much I want to hang out in there.

Here are the previous posts to catch you up:

The Good, the Plaid and the Ugly 

The Good, the Plaid and the Ugly: Part Two

The Good, the Plaid and the Ugly: Part Three

This is linked to:

The Shabby Chic Cottage

The DIY Show Off Project Parade 

The Good, the Plaid, and the Ugly: Part 3

So as you know, I've been working on the bathroom. I moved a picture and hung some new glass shelves and built a frame for our mirror.

I knew I was never going to love the bathroom with the laminate wood vanity sticking out like a sore thumb. Once I got the OK from J to paint this bad boy I started immediately. Since it's laminate I wasn't exactly sure how to tackle this so I googled and I found this as a guide.

To start off I lightly sanded everything with 220 grit sandpaper to get the sheen off. I was careful not to sand down to the bare wood or particle board. I wiped down everything to get the dust off and got to priming. I used an oil-based primer. And this is where I had to practice the art of having patience.

It sat like that for 7 whole days. Talk about being antsy. No rushing the 7 days either. The primer needs that long to fully cure. I figured if I'm going to go through the hassle of this I don't want the dang thing to be scratched from anything that touched it. So I waited. And day 7 came. And then I painted. I used a color called Clean White from Lowe's pretty much because I liked the name. Clean. ahhhh. I put two coats on and then I had to work on my patience again. The paint needs to dry for 3 to 5 days before it can be hung. This is to be sure the paint has fully cured before you start man-handling it to rehang the doors.

Alas, the day came to hang the doors. And the wait was worth it.

Please ignore the basket. I need to sew the liner so that's why it looks to bad.

So, have you ever tried to paint anything laminate? Did it hold up for you?

Awwwww

Well the vanity is done. I just need to take pictures. I've just been busy doing... I don't even know. But look at what J surprised me with. For no reason.

Can I get a group awwwwwww?!

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

We've got the bathroom vanity all primed!

 Now its just the waiting game. Since its a laminate cabinet the primer needs 7 days fully cure to make it more scratch resistant. Booooo. Five days down, two to go! 

So while we're all anxiously waiting- here's a picture of my cutie-boy Harley! 

 

He's watching Comet from Full House.

Random Little Fact: I used to look like Michelle when I was little, so of course I was obsessed with the show. Because of this, I've always wanted a Golden Retriever named Comet. So flash forward to puppy naming time- my little boy didn't look like a Comet. So I compromised and that's what his middle name is. Mr. Harley Comet. :)

I'm So Excited!

I'm so excited! I'm so excited! I'm so... scared! 

   -Name that tv show!

Would you like to know what I could possibly be so excited about?

The new season of  Flipping Out starts tonight!! Yahoo! I can't wait for Zoila. She might be my favorite.. I actually named one of my fishies after her! I also think Jeff is hysterical. (Yes, we're on a first name basis.) Does anyone remember him teaching Chloe to lift her shirt when he said "girls gone wild!" or teaching her to say chardonnay was her favorite drink? Funniest thing ever. And this is why I should not have kids for another 10 years haha. I not only think he is hilarious, but he I also love his design aesthetic. He designed House Beautiful's Kitchen of the Year. Look how gorgeous:

(All pictures from House Beautiful's Kitchen Of The Year Tour)

Love it. Is any one else obsessed with this show like I am? I can't wait for tonight!!

The Good, the Plaid, and the Ugly: Part Two

I ended last post with the shelves being hung and picture moved:

But if you take a gander at the mirror it's plain and frame-less and adds nothing to the room. So I did a little googling and most sites recommended a chair rail molding with the lip on the back to fit around the mirror. Unfortunately for me the bottom of the mirror sits directly on the bathroom sink so that was not an option. Instead I picked out some trim that had a flat back. I cut the pieces at a 45 degree angle- like a picture frame. And yes I did accidentally cut the angles the wrong way--twice. :) Too bad J wasn't there to help, the cutting part is usually his job!  I used some L-bracket's to attach the four pieces of molding together. Originally I had planned on using Liquid Nails for mirrors to simply glue the frame directly to the mirror but the way our mirror was hung on the wall with the brackets made the trim not sit flush.

With a little thought (rare for me haha), I came up with the idea of using hooks to simply hook the frame over the mirror. It actually ended up being a better solution because it's less permanent. 

And voila!

Oh, and if any one is planning on trying this at home make sure you paint the back side of the trim too because it reflects in the mirror!

Next up: Painting the vanity!