Not so Holiday weekend

Let's just say, completing three projects in an extended weekend sounds like a great idea until you do it. Boy, do I feel old! I could barely move the past two days. Since I am one of the lucky people who have off for holidays like President's Day, I decided to paint the accent wall in the living room, including touching up the baseboards, paint the master bedroom closet (again) including baseboards, and remove and re-grout some kitchen tiles. Among here, there was a small plumbing issue, or so I thought, Sam managed to fix it instantly which I still have not decided if I am happy about or not. Not that it wasn't fixed, but that it was so easy for him and not for me!

For this post, I will tell you about the master bedroom closet. After I had bought the house, I set about cleaning it. I had planned to hire a cleaning crew to save me time, but the previous owners said they were going to do that, so not to bother. Well, they never held up their end of the bargain. So not only did I have painting to do when I first moved in, I had cleaning. One Saturday morning, I went a little overboard and gutted the master bedroom closet. I then had to learn how spackle as I made a few errors with removing shelves. I also insisted on priming and then painting the closet with two coats of paint prior to moving in. I mean, my clothes were not going into any space that was less than immaculate of course. But I couldn't move in as I had not shelves to put anything on. So to make a long story short and after numerous tears were shed, Sam built me shelves and made the master bedroom closet something I was happy with.

If you notice, there is not a stitch of men's clothing in this closet. Yes, I monopolized the entire thing. So a year and half goes by and now I no longer like the off white closet, I think it needs some color. I fell in love with the Benjamin Moore's Baja Dunes that I painted the first floor bathroom and had a half gallon left. After a couple of hours, I had it all painted on the walls.

It is hard to tell from the pictures, but the wood had never been painted and I wanted it to match the trim. I still had almost a full gallon of the original off white so I used that to paint the shelves and trim with on Sunday. If you are curious to where all the clothes went, I can show you that. We slept in the guest bedroom in our house for 2 nights. Awkward!!!

When it was time to put it all back in on Monday, I decided I should put back in only what I wear. Since I no longer wear suits to work, I thought it made sense not to hang them and continue to gather dust. If you are related to me, I suggest you sit down before you continue reading. It is astonishing how many clothes I have and do not need!! Yes, I did say that. I do not need to go shopping for a while and I was kind of sad at how much stuff I had. The closet continued over to the dressers and I am proud to say, that I have consolidated back into 1 dresser and I could now share my closet!

Weekend Warrior: Part #2

Well the fun task this past weekend was painting the trim in the 3 bedrooms upstairs. You may be wondering why this wasn't done already, since we have lived in the house for a year and half. Well, these rooms were painted with the help of my parents when I first moved into the house. The main concern was getting the walls painted and at the time, I thought the trim was fine. But, the perfectionist in me has started to really notice the "little unfinished" tasks in the house and it began to wear on me. Since I am not spending any additional money this month, I thought it would be another perfect task. We already had the white paint!

I started this project on Saturday morning and really did not give it much thought. Sam actually left earlier in the day than usual so it worked out well. My plan was to clean down the baseboards, caulk them, paint and it would be done. Turns out, this was an all day project. Each room also has blinds and while moving up the curtains so they would be out of the way, I decided to clean the blinds as well. That is a thankless task that takes up T I M E!!!! It took me 2 hours to get the master bedroom and office room clean. I ate some lunch and then cleaned the guest bedroom. I was finally ready to start painting around 1:30. 

The painting ended up being more tedious than originally planned. I never finished painting until 6 p.m. By the time I had the rooms cleaned and put back together it was 8/8:30. Let's face it, if they are already torn apart, might as well finish cleaning them before putting them back together. So this project took much longer than anticipated. I thought I could have all of this done in 3 hours. Yep, I'm delusional!! I have to say though, they look so nice. I even painted some of the closet doors. The previous owners never gave much thought to the finishes apparently because some doors are a flat, matte white and others are a glossy white. I painted the flat, matte doors with the white semi gloss paint and they look much better next to the glossy white trim. Hopefully this will make them easier to clean in the future as well. Here are some before and after shots of my hardwork.

 

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

I loved waking up on Sunday morning knowing that more little items have been crossed off the list! Luckily for me, next weekend is a 3 day weekend. Love Federal Holidays!! So now I have to decide what is next on the list. I did decide how I want to finish painting the master bedroom closet so that will be one of the projects. I really need to figure out the kitchen tiles, so that will probably be the other project!

Frugal February: Post #2

Okay, so after I had come to terms with not being able to shop, I thought this would be somewhat easy. Boy was I wrong! The other day at work I realized that I needed some caffeine. So I reached into my wallet to get $1.25 and then realized I was allowed to buy a soda. It was very crushing in that moment as it was only day #4 of this endeavor. Sure enough, I survived without my caffeine hit!

Luckily, I have some gift cards and gift cards do not count as spending money since I'm not going to have to deduct it from my checking account. Thank goodness I have an Amazon gift card and iTunes gift card also, but so far, I haven't felt the need to spend them.

My sister had asked me to stop by our local yarn store to see if they had additional skeins of yarn she had purchased when she had been here last, but they did not. I had returned a pair of knitting needles to the yarn store several weeks ago and they had given me store credit for my return, which makes sense.  Turns out that I do better with wooden needles than brushed nickel. Since I was unable to "spend money", I used that credit to purchase 3 skeins of a bulky gray yarn. How can anyone not like the color gray? It is my favorite color! I had seen this  Infinity Scarf pattern on Pinterest and had fallen in love it.

 My first attempt of using circular needs did not go as well as I would have liked. Looking back, I am realizing the yarn I used was not bulky enough. The pattern only takes about 6 hours to make and then voila!

 So here is the finished product

 The best part is that the pattern produces two different knit patterns and can be worn on either side. I have yet to decide which is my favorite way!

This may just be an item that appears as presents for friends and family this year!

Weekend Warrior

The first weekend in February has passed and I'm proud to say that I tackled 3 items on the to do list. Yeah! I completed cleaning and painting the little hallway into the kitchen, cleaning and painting all trim in the kitchen, and painting the bathroom on the first floor, including the trim.

I started by cleaning everything on Friday night after getting home from work. I know what you are thinking, great way to spend a Friday night! I washed down all the baseboards and then completed the caulking and spackling of nail holes. I am a novice at blogging, but I did take some photos. Trust me, I thought twice about producing evidence of my dirty home!

Now I didn't get as early of a start as planned on Saturday morning, but that is okay. I still managed to get everything done. I have to saw, the difference is huge! I love how white and clean everything is. Pretty obvious we don't have children or pets.

So for the bathroom reveal. Too bad I forgot to take some original before photos. This is the best I have as befores.

I have to say though, I love this color. I am going to paint the Master bedroom closet with it too! It is a cross between light brown with gray undertones. It is Benjamin Moore's Baja Dunes. I think it is quite appropriate to have a beach reference based on where we live! So here is what the bathroom looks like.

I think I am going to paint the mirror white and I have a basket that goes above the toilet that I am going to paint white as well. I contemplated painting the cabinet, but have decided I like the dark color. I will change out the knobs, but I will have to wait until March to purchase them! I also have silver picture frames in the attic which I will be putting up in there as well.

The best part of this was my plan to tackle another item on Sunday. However, I'm not as young as I once was and when I bounced out of bed in the morning and struggled to stand up straight and not hurt when I walked; I made a great decision to do nothing!

Until next weekend...