Monday, March 5, 2012

Oh my, DIY!

Well, well, well, it turns out I was not very successful at keeping up with blogging. However, I'm back! In our time apart, I have cooked a few different recipes. I made up a new version of Shepard’s Pie, fried some pickles, and have made various lo-cal/nutritious meals. I've been experimenting with turkey since it is lean and I have been trying to get into shape. But, of course, the fried pickles were the best ;).

During the holidays, and while we had a bit of cooler weather, my husband and I took a little break from working on the yard and the house. OH! We did, excuse me, my husband and his friends built a fire pit in the backyard. Maybe I'll write a small post on that. It was super easy and took about an hour. Anyhow ~ I took a break on the inside of the house, for sure. So, this past Saturday while I was sitting in the recliner on my phone looking at Pinterest (of course), I told myself that I was going to get off my butt and do a project this weekend. So I went out to hubs (who was also off his butt, trimming the trees) and told him my plan to give our laundry "room" a “facelift”. Fifteen minutes later we were in the [new] car on our way to Lowes.

[side note here]…so we were so excited to take the new car to Lowes!! We get to the car after about an hour at Lowes and a huge piece of plywood and long-ass 2x2s and molding pieces later….it doesn’t fit in the new car! HAHA! So I had to take it home and pick up my Jeep to get everything back…

I found a few inspirational posts on Pinterest before we left, so I knew exactly what we needed and what I wanted to do. A special shout-out to the Lowes associate who helped Bron and I. I was totally lost and Bron was getting frustrated, but this gentleman knew exactly how to help us. He pointed us in a cheaper direction, and gave us a few pointers along the way. We got all of our building supplies and then picked up a few items to decorate with at Target.

What we were working with (before)...

Unorganized, messy, and just plain unfinished

This was one of those areas that we never really defined when we moved in. A few things that we didn't know what to do with (spare paper towels) just got stored; my bridal bouquet still hung upside-down from last April, etc. And let's face it, in chaos nothing gets done well...and as you can see with the laundry build up, that was very much so the case here.
We started by sanding and cutting our plywood. I’ll have to remind Bron to get some safety goggles for our next project ;). Bron went inside to put up the supports and I stayed outside to sand and stain. We had many, many speed bumps along the way. I can tell you this much, we will be buying a stud finder the next time we decide to take on a similar project, which will probably be to convert the office into an office + guest room, turning the closet into the desk area – hopefully, sooner than later… ;).

Late night glossing, music, and my love = an awesome 1st year of marriage kind of night
Since the stain and gloss took many hours to dry, what we thought was going to take a few hours turned into a day and a half project. By Sunday afternoon we were ready to install everything.

Now we have a nice counter space for folding. The lighting, picture frame and flower bouquet brings that “homey” feeling to the space. It feels really nice to have the space finished, pretty and functional. We wanted to put a bar in to hang our “line dry” items. So we put a cheap shower curtain rod up, high enough so that you cannot even notice it unless something is hanging.

We found this really cute lantern lamp at target for about $15 and the vase for the flowers was only $2.50 at Target.
I am now excited to do my laundry. Never, and I mean NEVER have I ever been excited to do my laundry, and I could probably count on one hand the amount of times when I have done all of my laundry, from start to finish, in one day. I HATE folding. I hate doing laundry period, let’s face it. So to be able to say that I am excited to my laundry makes this 1,000 times worth it.
I have to also say that we really enjoyed ourselves. It was a definite bonding experience for Bron and me. We worked well as a team, helped each other out and got the job done. We are pretty proud of our selves and can sit back and admire our workJ.



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