thrift store day... and other adventures.

the other day i was bored and all alone and feeling very inspired so i went to value village, union gospel mission thrift and ross to see if there was anything that struck my fancy. oooh!!! and boy did my fancy get struck!

one of the projects that i have been dying to do is a diy table from a suitcase seen here:

weve been trying to figure out the perfect coffee table, and its been a challenge because its such a tight squeeze between the couches, so i thought that a custom suitcase table would be fun. luckly i ran across this perfectly green one at ugm.

its in great shape and was only $4.99!

the only sort of lame thing is that it has this "washington" apple sticker on it. but i  kinda like it.

it even has the key to lock it.

i went to home depot after i picked this puppy up to look for some table legs. they didnt have any i liked, so i just bought two 48in dowels that we can cut down and stain and use for legs. i gotta get will to help me with the rest of this project. i dont pre-drill holes well or cut things with saws. it freaks me out.

i also picked up some lavender seeds and two little pots while i was at home depot. i couldnt resist! 

NEXT...

ive been really stoked on glass cloches made from cheese plates. they are all over bloggerland, like here, and i think they are absolutely adorable. so when i stubbled across this one at value village, i couldnt pass it up.

it was only $3.99 and the plate is marble.

a quick coat of black spray paint to clean it up and it looks like new.

this little birdie is just a temporary dweller until i can find a permanent resident.

AND LASTLY...

ive been drooling all over giant wall hanging letters and i almost bought these ones from urban outfitters two weeks ago, but i stumbled across these bad boys at ross and picked them up instead. 

they are a lot bigger and better quality,  i think. 

and for $3.99 each, you cant really go wrong.

i will post pictures and blab more when these great finds get homed and projects finished. :]]

green thumb? it looks flesh colored to me.

yesterday i told you all about my painting experience gone bad and how i was going to garden to make up for it. well, ive got some pictures for you so you can follow along. 

like i said, we picked out a salsa seed kit from home deopt. we also got 2 bags of potting soil, some biodegradable starter planter thingies and 2 planters. 

the "salsa veriety pack" included: roma tomatoes, green onions, cilantro and jalapenos. 

these jiffy pots seemed pretty awesome, but we didnt end up using them. maybe on our next gardening adventure. 

i did two rows of jalapenos and a row of green onions in one planter and 2 rows of tomatoes and a row of cilantro in the other. this is our first time ever doing something like this so i hope it works out. i am thinking that i will have to do some transplanting, but thats ok.

we are going to start them indoors and then move them outside when it gets a little bit warmer, but for now their home is in the kitchen window where we can keep a close eye on them and watch them grow. 

i even made these cute little tags so we remember what is where.

about two weeks ago we were at wal-mart and i found these little starter basil kits for $5. i couldnt pass them up, so i got two. i followed all the directions (except for when it said to plant only five seeds, i dumped about 45 in there) and then 4-5 days later i had little sprouts!

it even came with this super cute little planter and a puck of dirt. ive never seen anything like the dirt puck before. 

its groooowing!!!

i havent had the best luck with plants. i either over water or under water them, but people keep telling me that veggies and herbs are a lot easier to grow, so i am giving it my best shot. we shall see...

ORANGE you happy you get a new bathroom update?

the title of this post is funny for two reasons:

1.) because yesterday at work i messed up the knock knock joke and
2.) because we are painting the bathroom orange... or so i thought.

yesterday as i was driving to post falls to pick will up from work i stopped at home depot and picked a few color swatches for the bathroom. i felt confident on the decisions that i had made and was ready to take the plunge, (haha. bathrooms, plungers... get it?) and make the most of this rainy weekend.

this morning i begged will to wake up and go to home depot with me and get the paint and help me tape the bathroom (he is a waaay better taper than i am) and then i could get started while he had band practice. it seemed to be the best idea ever... until we we got to the paint section. i began to panic and forgot everything that i had previously put so much thought into and decided on. i got the sweats and pulled out a million new swatches impulsively and came up with new schemes and i cry and AHHHHHHHH!!!!! its like i fear color commitment. i have done this with every room we have painted, and it drives me nuts. anyway, after forty five minutes, will finally calmly and very sweetly says, "honey, maybe you just arent ready to do this." and i agreed.

how about a big eff you bathroom. 

so, after the paint section episode i felt like i had to still buy something, i mean i had some hard earned cash burning a hole in my pocket, so we bought some jalapeno, cilantro, green onions, and roma tomato seeds, potting soil and a couple planters. energy focused elsewhere.

old news

no new progress means i can blab about old things that we have done, and that makes me excited.

when we bought the house it was move in ready. like ive said before, my step brother owned the house before us and he did his fair share of up-keep and remodeling. im not completely positive of all the updates that he made, but i know that he installed wooden blinds on the living room and bedroom windows, wired in custom lighting all through the house, knocked out a wall between two bedrooms to make a killer master bedroom and giant walk-in closet, put in a home security system, made a third bedroom in the basement and many more things. the man is amazing. once we moved in it was just a matter of taking what we were blessed with and making it ours.

the first room that we started with was the bedroom. i never took any before pictures, and i am kicking myself in the shin for it now. it is a GIANT bedroom. the carpet was forest green, three of the walls cream, one of the walls was maroon and the trim was white and brushed with brown stain for an antiqued look. when choosing the color pallet i went off of a room inspiration swatch from home depot. even though the bedroom barely replicates the photo now, it was the perfect amount of inspiration to get the ball rolling.

as you can see, we dont have any art on the walls. i have an idea of what i want to make to hang above the bed, but that wont happen for awhile. 

please excuse the dog fur. a fun little fact about us: our two dogs also sleep in bed with us every night. also, thursday is bedding switch out day. (i havent gotten to it yet.)

for the furniture we invested in the edland series from ikea. i just fell in love with that series. we picked up the five and six drawer dressers and two night stands. i think they are completely adorable. for the bed we picked the malm series in a king size. will liked that one and since i had been making all the decisions on the bedroom furniture, i let him pick the bed and mattress. im such a good wife.

the bed is a platform. it took me awhile to get used to the feeling of sleeping so close to the floor. 

i loved the knobs on the edland series dressers and night stands. gives them a vintage feel.

we also picked up this area rug from ikea for $20 bucks. its a little thin, but it covers and protects a big portion of the wood floors. 

 i am having one hell of a time deciding on an accent color for this room. i know i want it to be either red, rose, or maroon. i just cant commit to a color. whichever i pick i would like to incorporate that in with some curtains, a throw blanket and some vases.

on to the living room...

after the bedroom face lift we felt like experts so it didnt take us long to begin tackling the living room. i did take some crappy phone before and progression pictures of this project.

i told you they were crappy phone pictures. :] the old walls were a tanish/peachy color and just didnt give off the vibe that we were going for.

this is a half done moment. look at cute manchester. awwww!

annnd then we were done. we wanted the room to be warm and cozy so we went with a coconut brown wall color and a chamomile yellow for the ceiling. as you can see, will was pretty burnt out. 

and this is what the room looks like today:

since then we have purchased some furniture, and hung stuff on the walls. i guess you can say that i have nested. 

the couch isnt new. we bought that two summers ago from mor furniture. it was the display model and we did get a good deal on it and it is extremely comfy, but its pretty poor quality. it has already gotten a few rips in the cushions (my mother sewed them up) and on the back of one of the sections the wood has been broken. and it just looks frumpy. next time we purchase couches i think we are going to get them from www.lovesac.com. when we were in slc last time we fond out about them. they are pretty awesome. 

our tv stand is new. it is another ikea investment. it is from the hemnes series. its great because it has three drawers that hold everything from extra candles to our dvd collection.

our bookstand from ikea is a work in progress. i am having one hell of time organizing this sucker. for now it is a free-for-all when it comes to storage. 

overall, i feel like the room is gaining that cozy feeling. especially when its night time and the shades are drawn and the candles are lit. nearly perfect.

floors...

we waited about two or three months between the painting of the living room and the laying of the hardwood floors. we also had a wedding and a honeymoon in the middle to keep us busy. we knew that we wanted hardwood floors, there was no question about that, but we didnt know what kind to get; pergo, laminate, real wood, engineered. it was a hard choice. obviously real wood is like 5x more spendy than laminate, but real wood looks and feels a million times better. after weeks of looking and researching and price checking we decided on engineered flooring that was on sale from great floors. engineered flooring is the best of both worlds. it has about a quarter inch of real wood on the top and then like particle board (or something) for the rest. whatever. i dont know the molecular build up of the crap. anyway $5,000 later, we have hardwood flooring all through the bedroom, walk in closet and living room. muah. perfect. 

more crappy phone pics. but here are the boys ripping out the old carpet and pulling up nails. it was a lot of work, so i heard.

and this was the end result. 

and there you go. 10 million words later, you have been educated on the history of the work done to our house. 

bathroom 101

i am in gearing up for my next big project: the main floor bathroom. weve known from the beginning that we wanted to paint it and redo the floors, but i just couldnt decide on the colors and we jumped in head first with the bedroom remodel and the living room remodel and the hardwood floors, so i decided that we might need a break (i was a little burnt out) . welp, four months later i am chomping at the bit to get this started!!!

there were a few key factors on my decision to choose a color scheme. all the fixtures in there are gold and the cabinets and stuff are like natural oak colored, and everything is in great shape so we couldnt justify ripping it all out, so whatever color i picked had to go with what we already had to work with. since our bathroom is too small to have any furniture in it i figured the only thing that i could really have in there to accent off of would be the shower curtain. i searched and searched online and in stores for a curtain with oranges and maybe yellows or reds and i finally found one at world market for $24. it ia a little thin, but its pretty durable for the most part. and i love the colors!

the curtain!!! i love it so much!

its so pretty!

gold fixtures and oak cabinets. 

not a very big space.

but i do have my own little beauty bar :]

the tile in the shower :/ ive been googling how to paint on tile, cause this is ugly.

so... as far as the wall colors go i am thinking all white walls, except for one and that can be a burnt orange, and then a darker burnt orange for all the trim. i havent gone to home depot and looked at swatches yet. but for now that is the plan. ill update more as we go.