SNOW DAY!

It's a crazy blizzard outside, so I'm going to try to get some "stuff" done around the house. I might even write about it here!

thanksgiving

Today I'm thankful for a day in my pj's and time spent doing whatever I please.

After: The Bathroom!

Although it's been finished for some time, I hadn't made it 'round to posting the "after" of the bathroom project. This week's CSI Project is Beautiful Bathrooms, so I thought that was the perfect chance to reveal the final product. There is a little bit of the process that I'll go back and mention later, but for now...

Remember the BEFORE?

Don't forget this is how it looked when we bought the house in 8+ years ago: (we painted before we moved in)

Well, here's the AFTER:

Big difference, huh? (long gone are the days of "The Fish Bowl")

For those who didn't follow the entire process, here's a quick run down of what we did.
Ripped out:
old vanity
all the old tile
old toilet
part of the wall down the studs around the tub
sub floor down the joists

& then we:
replaced the subfloor & put down cement board
replaced the removed portion of wall with cement board
replaced the vanity
replaced the toilet w/ a more efficient model
replaced all the tile
new countertop
new sink
new faucets
reused the towel bars
painted- Pittsburgh Paints Spring Rain
sewed a new shower curtain
purchased a couple of new accessories

Now for some fun photos:
Our beautiful Italian ceramic tile floor.

The new vanity with the Piedrafina marble countertop-it's a recycled product!

The hooks I stained to match the rest of the wood tones.

Ikea Limmaren bottles for lotion, face wash & soap, along with the back spash tile.Joe and I both have drawers now!
We love the new bathroom. It's calm and serene and the opposite of what it was before. It's a pleasure to end the day soaking in the tub. I think we achieved the spa feel we were going for. We also love not having to bathe in the wash tub- thank goodness we have a powder room or this project might have been the end of our marriage!

All totaled, I think we ended up spending around $1500 for the entire project, which considering we ran into unexpected problems, wasn't too bad. I'd budgeted $1400-$1600, so we did pretty well.

If you'd like to read more about how the whole project went down, please click on the "bathroom" label to the right and it will show you the whole process.

I'm linking to :

Cleaning Green

For some time now, I've been thinking about making my own household cleaning products & the last few times I've used the chemical versions of these cleaners, I've noticed that I'm having a harder time staying in the bathroom while I use them thanks to the fumes-that's not healthy if you ask me! I've always had to be very careful of choosing products thanks to exceptionally sensitive skin, so, I guess there's no time like the present.

I'm starting off with the things I know I'll use on a weekly basis:

Toilet bowl cleaner
General Cleanser
Glass cleaner
Something to clean our ceramic cooktop
Something (different from the general cleanser?) for the marble countertop

I figure I'll need:

Spray bottles
Raw Ingredients
Recipes (lots of good ones on line)

I already have:

Buckets
Rags

I'm thinking that if I find a really good recipe that works well, I'll make a spiffy label for the bottle and include the recipe on it, and offer it as a pdf if anyone wants to use it.

Ghosties, Ghoulies and Long-Legged Beasties

I finally finished getting some Halloween decorating done!

Normally, I'd have had lots done for weeks, but although I knew I was leaning toward a glitzy holiday instead of our usual creepy one, I just couldn't find the motivation. I was very strict and stuck with only shades of Black, White, Silver & Orange as my colors.

I was trying to be frugal this year, but sometimes something calls to me and I can't leave it behind. Case in point: our university Homecoming was the first week in October & I found this super cool candle stick at TJ Maxx:

It holds a pillar candle and was a bit of a splurge for me at $16, but it was way too cool to leave all alone in the store. I really didn't know how I was going to use it until last night, but I knew it was way too good to pass up. To compare: the glittered skull above came from Dollar Tree for a buck, the boa I had on hand and the candles always stand in that silver tray, I just change out the items around them to make a new seasonal arrangement. So that whole arrangement was $15 less expensive than my one candle stick!

I also fell in love with a silhouette of witches dancing at Gordman's, but so far I haven't figure out where to use it. I don't feel so obligated to use it however, since it was only $6 & because they had only two and both were flawed, she gave me a discount.

I tried my hand at glittering my own tiny skulls this year:

What a mess! But the results are cool. I figured it couldn't hurt to try it out on a Dollar Tree skull or two. We had glitter in our food for days, but as they say "this too shall pass".

I really liked the glittered ball fill from Hobby Lobby, but overall, was not impressed with their Halloween selections for 2010. I did feel inspired by a few things, but nothing enough to bring home with me. I used more of the fill on our coffee table:

I was inspired by Jessica of Craftily Ever After's beautiful lace wreath to make my own version from things I had around the house:

I made it from an old wreath, some orange fabric that I ripped into strips and an old pair of stockings. Some hot-glue, some Halloween ribbon and a vintage button held in place with pearl buttons and voila! It's not nearly as classy as Jessica's, but I can make a lace one another year.

I also put out my usual collection of ceramic jack-o-lanterns, but there's nothing very interesting about that.

vintage pattern

While doing a tiny (as in I spent a total of under $2) thrifting, I found this great vintage pattern:

Here's the really fun part: It's marked with $1.50 as the original price and I paid 29¢! I'm pretty excited about it because it's *just* the style I was thinking of for some black dotted swiss I have. The pattern even has the little slip for underneath! PERFECT!

The not to good news: It's only a 32 inch bust! So, this is going to be a learning project for me. I'm going to learn how to grade a pattern-eek! Luckily, I only need to bring it up 2-3 inches in the bust. I haven't had a chance to measure the pattern pieces yet to see how much I might need to regrade the waist & the skirts should be pretty easy (although I have HIPS, so that will be a lot more added inches than anywhere else)

I figured for 29¢, I could risk it & try to learn something new.

I'm Back!

I've been MIA lately, but for a really good reason. For the last 8 weekends, I've been busy playing/working at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival with a little business I share with my mom called Fest Friends.

This, along with my real job have been occupying so much of my time that I barely had time to do laundry, much less anything else.

This is going to change in October & I'll be back to more regular updates.