Ideas

I was talking to a friend about creative ideas and she shared with me some of her inspiration. Wonderful site! and from there I have found two more.

Home decor inspiration:

All Things Thrifty - I am so excited about this. I love that she painted her piano. I am so going to do that! Guess what color! RED!! How fun is that?I probably won't be able to do that until spring but I'm excited for it!

infarrantly creative - She has so many ideas AND the tutorials! I am excited to see what sorts of inspiration I can receive from this website!

And the third is food. You all know I love food. Because, honestly, who doesn't?

Envy My Cooking - I saw a sandwich pocket and I can't wait to try that! I am looking forward to projects to come.

Side note: while writing my last post I was complaining about my inability to get a job (I have applied to like 20 places) and then when I hit publish, I went back to my inbox and low and behold I had an email for an interview! My interview was Friday and went well. I should know tomorrow or Wednesday whether or not I got the job. I will certainly let you all know.

Kitchen projects

We have been busy for the last week. I emptied my back room to tile it then we decided to do the kitchen at the same time rather than wait until full kitchen remodel.
We had to bring the laundry room floor up to the level of the kitchen - that blue line is how far it had to come up. This is what we had to do to bring the floor up two inches. Those are split 2x4's.
Pulling apart the kitchen was quite an adventure.I love that sink. I hope to take it to my new house. It's huge. Probably take all the metal cabinets with us for a craft room or garage cabinets. They are awesome.
This is what is normally spread out in my front room pushed into one corner.
I put my fridge and freezer in my front room with one of the lower cabinets.
My stove is the first thing you see when you open my door. We have since moved the microwave, but my silverware drawer is next to my desk as I type.

Everything out. There was a little mold where the linoleum stops. But it took care of itself.
After we began to pull up the first floor we found this. The first floor was stapled down. Pretty?Lacy was sad she couldn't come in.
My father-in-law spent like 45 minutes to an hour pulling all the staples up. To no avail.


After we brought up the laundry room floor we still had to pull up the next kitchen floor to bring it down to the level of the laundry room. This took care of the mold. It did not go down to the next level because of the roofing paper. Multipurpose!
That level was easier because it was only nailed down with some nails, not 8,000,000 staples.
The original sub-floor.
Confused dogs.

While everything was out I figured it was the best time to paint. We chose butter-cup yellow. I love it. So happy!
This is the first session of tile laying. Now that this is dry we will tile the back room and the edges.
Wow. So much. I am excited to have it done.

Hopefully this fall we will have the cash to buy the new cabinets too. But it can wait. I'm just glad to have a new floor. Whew. I'll update with more when things get done.

What happens when...

Ashley gets up at 8, wide awake and ready for the day? Too much. We went shopping, I helped Daniel make chili (pictures to come), put together a magnet board, and then did some stuff on the computer. I got bored of this, so I thought I'd go put the shelf together that I bought for my craft stuff. Instead... I pulled up the carpet. The best part of this is we are having people over for dinner! I learning how much I can chew - so I don't bit off too much. I think I just about hit my limit today.

Fricken' CRAZY Woman.

(This is like my fifth post of the day)

Ok, this time it's me. Let me preface this. We are in the final stretch of our adoption application. We have the home visit, interviews, and profile to finish. We are actually procrastinating on writing the Birth Parent Letter. It's going to be hard. So, our home visit is this coming Wednesday, April 1. Our interviews are on Friday, April 3. Yeah, happy anniversary. I know. But I'm looking forward to it.

I have heard that every woman who applies for adoption cleans house down to the floor boards before the home visit. I desperately want my house to look it's best.

Daniel left me home alone on Friday. This happens at least once a week. This time I got a bug. Generally I do something sedate or harmless. Not this time. Which is not good.

I started cleaning on Friday morning. Turned on the classical music. It actually gets me going like nothing else. Then did the dishes. Cleaned my kitchen pretty well.

I knew our pantry/laundry room needed to be cleaned. There was flour, sugar, and dog food on the floor. Our shelves also need to be re-arranged and cleaned up. We're kinda messy. So I started to get everything out and off the floor. But things were under my shelves. So I took everything off the shelves. Here is what it looked like before.

Here is where the stuff ended up (my living room). This is only a portion of it. Then as I looked at the floor boards there was one that looked like it was rotting. From the inside. So I called Daniel and asked if I could pull off the base boards. He asked why. I told him. And then I told him he better come home before I went too far. He said I had and he couldn't. I got going. Emptied the room, moved our freezer and pulled out the base boards. No rot. Just a stain.

Well now I have a small mess. But, since the room is empty, we should take this opportunity to up date it. Let's paint. We know that we are going to do our kitchen this fall and whatever we use in one room we will use in the other, since they are connected. We picked a tile out the other day. So we went to the paint store and got a color that pulled the reds/browns out of the tile. So here is before. Gross wall, if you can see.

And here is after. It's kind of a red/orange sand color. I really like it. I think it will look great in the kitchen and with the new tile. I just hope it isn't too dark. We should be okay.

Now here's the problem. I have some one coming on Wednesday afternoon and my house is a bigger mess than it was on Friday morning, before this all started. Let's just say this was not a smart thing to do right now.

The sad thing is, as I go crazy while waiting to adopt, this room won't be the only victim. I have a savings goal for the kitchen. Then we want to repaint and re-carpet the two bedrooms. I just hope I can have the patience necessary to save the money and not go crazy. Maybe we can sell the house before we get a baby. We'll see.

Crazy woman.

Pretend...

I posted this yesterday. I had decided, but then got side tracked trying to cash in credit card points. Grrr. I hate making phone calls.

Tidbit

Hanging Art.

I spent the last two days hanging art on temporary walls as a helper with the Museum of Church History and Art. I did two internships with them and they needed extra help without extra work on their part. So the trained reinforcements were called in. I like helping down there so much that I turned in a Service Missionary application to them on Monday. I'm excited.

So, the art. When the exhibit opens you HAVE to go see it all. It's the International Art Competition Exhibit at the Conference Center in Salt Lake. There are 190 pieces of art created by members of the church from all around the world. There are some amazing pieces.

When hanging art there are lots of measurements to be done. Get out your calculator. I hate math

When hanging art there are lots of measurements to be done. Get out your calculator. I hate math. When hanging for an exhibit there is a standard height, between 58 and 60 inches on center. When hanging over a couch or other piece of furniture you have to adjust accordingly. Taller walls will call for higher centers. But lets work with how to center your piece at 58 inches.

Measure the height of the art.For math sake, lets say 24 in. high.

Divide that in half and you have center. 12

Add the height will be center. So we add

12 + 58 = 70. That is where the top of art will be.


Then you have to decide what kind of hanging apparatus you are going to use. Most things can just use one hook like this. (see below). Make sure it is rated to hold the weight of your piece. If you have a heavy piece or a wide piece you might want to use two at a small distance in order to add stability. Like if my piece was 50 inches wide, that's big. So I would use two hooks, 20 inches apart (each 10 in. off center). Now, measure the distance from the bottom of the wire to the top of the frame. This is how far down from 70 we will place our hook. (I don't recommend just using a nail unless you don't care if your piece ends up on the floor.) So if our wire is 7 inches down from the top then we hang at 63 inches.

12 + 58 = 70

70 - 7 = 63

It gets fun when you have quarter, eighth and sixteenth inches. Haha. Cruel and unusual punishment. Measure up from the floor, use chalk or a pencil to mark your spot. If you are using hook like this, you have to place the hook so the BOTTOM is at your mark, not the nail.



Then pound away. When it is secure, place the piece. If it is at all heavy, use another person to help!! Then place a level along the edge, and level out your piece. It will look great. It will be the right height for people to see the most important part. If you want to see this in action, hehe, then go visit a museum. Especially the Museum of Church History and Art. I'm so excited for the exhibit at the Conference Center. It's great.

Enjoy hanging your art!

Spring

I know it feels like spring will never come. It's my favorite season. New
life, flowers, my birthday and my anniversary. Could it get better? Well as part of my
avoiding depression the last few weeks of the cold, I planted Crocuses. (I do love snow and
how peaceful and beautiful it is - I like to enjoy each season as it's here - but Spring is
AMAZING!).

For the last two weeks my crocuses have been
pushing up through the bark and snow. This morning they achieved full spring glory. They
are small flowers but so happy. The yellow always come up first, then the white, and next I
should have some purple ones. So for those of you who are spring lovers, I suggest planting to
snow crocus. They come up in early February and are guaranteed to bring hope of spring. There
are also other early bloomers, in bulb form. Look in the fall at places that sell plants. It's
great! You plant them once in late October and then they come up every year with no more
effort on your part but to keep them weeded. Yay flowers!!

It's official

Our house is for sale. Here is the link. The sign
was put up on Monday night but the listing didn't go on the internet until early this
afternoon. In the last 12 hours our agent has gotten calls for two appointments on Friday.
Amazing. I have a feeling our house will sell fast. I hope we can the right place for us soon.
Wow. Life happens so fast. I accidentally put my camera cord in the storage unit we are using
for the month, so I will fetch it out and post more pictures. Wish us luck!

Crazy

Our crazy has been evidenced
by yet one step more. We decided Sunday night that now is the right time to sell our house.
We've made some good improvements and we feel the time is right to move on. So here it goes.
Our goal is to have everything market ready my the end of next week. Lots of deep cleaning to
catch up on. Even though it is going to be stressful, we know it's the right
decision.

From House

Home Improvements...sort of

We decided to paint our front door red. In the rain and the cold. My hands
were freezing after each coat. The only problem, as you would know if you've tried to paint
the cold humidity, is that the paint went on and dried weird. It looks good red, but we need
to sand it down and put a better top coat on. I love it though. The house has a little more
personality.This is
our house over a year ago when we moved in.
This is the house now. I think it looks better.
We cut down the spruce trees. Ugly. Now we have tiny new trees starting. The
paint looked magenta going on. Daniel got nervous. It's all good though.

I Love Ikea

We went to Ikea on Saturday and we finally have enough book shelf room for
all our books!
I'm finally feeling like this is the house how
I want it. They were cheap and easy to put together! I love Ikea.

Spring has sprung. Last fall I planted a few hundred bulbs of
different sorts and they are starting to come up. The crocus were first.














The
puppies are going stir crazy. They are driving me crazy. Lacy started to lick her wound and
now she has to wear the cone for another week or two until it heals properly. Winston thinks
he's just the cleverest thing since sliced bread and
acts like it too. Fortunately they get along pretty well.