New table for Jane’s room

July 14, 2014September 21, 2014 / Winnie / 1 Comment

Even though Jules has her own room now, she ends up in Jane’s room 95% of the time. They were just hanging out on the bed, playing on the floor most of the time……or coming to the living room to use the coffee table. I wanted to add something very functional for them to use….I want to extend the playtime for them for as long as possible. There is almost 5 years between them and anything I can do to keep the sibling love and play going….I am giving it a whirl.

I wasn’t able to find anything that I liked locally, so I started in on the internet search. I ended up going with an Ikea table.

Well – the box came and I was in construct mode.

It took me less than an hour and I got a completed table with 2 chairs. So far the set is a hit.

The girls have spent a bit of time using the chairs by themselves and then the set as a whole. I hope that it stays popular with the girls for awhile.

Friday Wrap Up

June 20, 2014 / Winnie / Leave a comment

This week has been a full one – quite a few little things going on (besides the removal of the microwave). We removed the microwave instead of putting in my new front door….so I have to wait another week until that happens.

Here are a few highlights:

We had a Buck in velvet and his girlfriend wander through the neighborhood.

I found some bedding to use in Jane’s room…..on sale!! If you remember – since Jules moved to her own room – Janey has been living with mis-matched everything. Click here for the before. I painted the ceiling and have been on the look out for some new bedding. FOUND IT! I am now playing around with the art and the throw on the bed.

I am officially calling it on the driveway….well as official as anything is around here. It is awesome now….but I may have to do some tweaks after living with it for a bit 🙂

Dave put in a small retaining wall by the house to help with the drainage….he only had a few more bricks to put in when I snapped this pic…..but the hail made us pause.

That black drains leads to a perforated black hose that leads all the water away from the house….score. Dave has since added in the remaining bricks and I filled it in with additional gravel.

….you can barely made out Jules being Vanna….but you get the drift. Done.

Well – prep time for the weekend is commencing. We are working on the boat and taking it out for a day trip to make sure all is good. See you on the flip side, peeps!

Removal of the microwave

June 18, 2014 / Winnie / Leave a comment

When Dave and I moved into this house, I was on the look out for a nice upgrade to the counter microwave we had at the time. On Craigslist I found a brand new (never used) over the range microwave. It was $60…..what?! That microwave was an amazing add to our kitchen. See below:

A little bit ago – I noticed that there was something white dripping from the roof of the interior of the microwave. I cleaned the inside and didn’t think anything of it…..until it happened again…..and then a HOLE appeared in the plastic looking through to the mechanics of the microwave. ECK.

Decision made. That thing is coming down. I decided to take it down completely instead of replacing it, because it was really low. There was not a lot of room for our larger pots on the back burners. I liked the over the range convience of the microwave we had……but I am thinking of adding a built-in under our middle pass-thru.

I know I (Dave) could tie into the electricity in the back of the shelf on the left side of this picture with a new microwave…..but I am getting ahead of myself and giving Dave tons of work. Dave and I already have a plan for re-doing the middle area of this kitchen. We want to make this an island instead of keeping it as a pass thru. That plan is at least 1 year away and at most 5 years.

For the time being I am keeping an older microwave on our counter. It will do for now.

I am excited to pick out a new range hood. Maybe this? It will be very basic and something that mounts under our cabinets as I do not want to lose the cabinet space. One thing that annoys me to no end is the mis-matched levels on the cabinets on this side of the kitchen. When we lifted the cabinets we left these alone….because if I would have moved those to the ceiling as well…..there would be no way to use the over the range microwave (too tall). With the microwave down….eck. Check back later to see if I can convince Dave to move these as well.

As I live with a smaller microwave on the other side of our kitchen…I am sure that I will be moving a few things around (the black toaster oven???!!!) to make the placement a bit more functional.

Organization – shoot me now

June 12, 2014June 12, 2014 / Winnie / 3 Comments

I like things organized, I like being able to go to a drawer or a bookshelf and finding exactly what I am looking for. The thing I don’t like is keeping up on it, ~~harping~~ encouraging the girls and Dave to put things where they belong. The one thing that I will not budge on is making beds…..my bed is made EVERY morning before I leave the house and the girls are getting better at making their beds each morning as well. On the other side of the coin (in the bedroom) I do not keep my closet up very well.

A little while ago I ran across a Pin on Pinterest about keeping items in your closet limited. Unfortunately – it was a late night stroll through Pinterest so I apparently did not Pin the idea…nor do I remember where it came from. DANG IT! How crazy is it that I am posting about organizing and I wasn’t organized (or awake enough) to keep track of what inspired me to dive face first into getting AND KEEPING my closet under control. Seriously, shoot me now.

I started by picking the same hangers for my entire closet….I had a mixture of white and black so I kept all the black. These are my favorite:

Then I started emptying my closet – changing out the hangers to the ones I picked.

I left Dave’s clothes (on the right-starting after the dress and going all the way behind the wall) alone for the most part. If I haven’t worn an article of clothing in a year, it went into the hold box. I decided on a hold box to ensure that I don’t end up with purge regret. I will keep the box in storage for roughly 3 to 6 months and if I do not go digging in it – the box will go to a clothes swap or be a donation.

This is the end result….I only used 33 hangers…..but the majority of those are getting used for my cardigans. I have A LOT of cardigans….and I kind of feel like I cheated as all my tanks are in the drawers next to Dave’s work shirts.

I can do a little more work in making the My side/Dave side even….by switching the shoe cubbies and switching the drawers around.

I will be on the look out for a new set of baskets for the swim suits. Dave and mine are in the top fabric container and the girls’ are in the bottom. I used those containers….because I had them and those are the best kind when trying out a new system.

So here is the completed closet……I set a reminder on my calendar and in 3 months, I’ll give a sneak peek at how I am doing with the 33 hangers, and baskets.

What do you think? Could you do it?