neathering our fest + thumbprint designs: February 2011

February 26, 2011

{happy saturday}

all images from weheartit

February 25, 2011

friday before & after: tv stand

hellooooo! it is friday and friends that makes me sooo happy!

this weekend i will be trekking back to my home town in texas to visit my dad. i am so excited - i haven't been home since christmas and can't wait to see him and a ton of my family and friends. it is going to be a fast paced weekend but it will definitely be worth it!

anyhoo - a few weeks ago the p.h. and i procured a new tv stand and tv for our living room. i have been dying to get rid of the monster tv that was in there. it was so huge i couldn't even fit in in the camera frame. it was threatening to eat my furniture and possibly my sanity. it was that bad.

the tv stand we got was beautiful - it has plenty of dvd storage and cubbies for electrical equipment as well as a storage compartment with two glass doors. but it was stained a dark mahogany color. it was like a black hole. it sucked the life out of the room.

so i painted it!

here it is the day we brought it home. p.h. was so awesome and took all the doors and hardware off so i could get straight to work. i did a little post here about the first few steps but i will recap here.

i had to set it up in the living room to do the overhaul - it was right before the snowpocalypse storm blew through and i did not want to be caught in 20 degree weather painting this thing outside. no. thanks.

i put it on these little blocks so the paint wouldn't make it stick to the tarp.

{don't be jealous of my supa-fly camo tarp}

i did not want to sand it. so i coated it with two coats of zinnser primer.

then i coated it with two coats of sifted flour in dutch boy flat.

rindercella rule of thumb: only paint what you can see. ;)

i knew i wanted to do something different to the doors. i did not want a big white blob in the living room anymore than i wanted a big dark brown one.

i had this sample of bedford gray by martha stewart from home depot.

so two coats of zinnser and two coats of bedford gray went on the doors.

and then we put it all back together.

and that is the start to all the work that is going into the living room. there is a lot to be done in there:

~~find less intrusive tv and a tv stand to go under it~~

paint the black shelves

add trim to make the shelves look more custom and less tar-jay

possibly connect them over the tv to look like an entertainment stand

paint walls (most likely bedford gray)

get rid of bachelor pad recliners and get a chair/ottoman

paint coffee table and side tables.

art and accessories.

unfortunately this room is not at the top of the list.. but one day i will get there! :) happy friday - hope you have a great weekend!!

linking up here:

centsational girl

February 23, 2011

what i wore wednesday {week 4}

so i was sitting in the living room last night and i had a mind-blowing revelation.

i own and am in posession of a full length mirror. how could i forget those horrible mirrors that lined the walls when we looked at the house for the first time?

so, today i am confirming the fact that my top is in fact connected to my bottom and i am a complete person, head to toe!

thursday - day at work

tuesday - another day at work:

linking up to the pleated poppy!

February 21, 2011

the quotable dave {week 3}

hello! i am doing a series of posts during our journey to financial freedom via the dave ramsey financial peace road. this is our third week - if you would like to read about the previous weeks click here! :)

last week i promised to show our budget and how we keep track of where our money goes every week.

first - our budget.

i love excel. probably a little too much for normal people to understand. i use it any chance i get. before the p.h. and i got married he had no clue how much money he spent on what so i whipped him up a color-coded budget so he could see how much money he spent at taco bueno each month. (that figure is slightly embarassing so i won't share...)

i believe that budgets have been given a bad rap. they are not strenuous activities made to effectively take your brain to the whipping post. they are really very simple and can be very liberating and eye-opening when you really don't know why you have so much month left at the end of the money.

for example... the p.h. and i spent $560 dollars on eating out in the month of january. i sat down and added it up. i was astonished and totally ashamed that we could just blow that much money and not even know about it!

anyhoo - to the goods. here is our budget:

i literally just saved the stubs to all of our bills and outgoing cash flow for the month of january. then i sat down and put it in a spreadsheet. it took all of about 15 minutes once i had all the information. completely pain free.

and now, we are in control of our money. we are telling it where to go instead of it just flowing out our ears without us seeing it!

personal finance is not a microwave; it is a crock pot.

second - how we keep track of where it goes.

dave ramsey suggests a couple of different methods of keeping up with how much you spend on gas, groceries, clothes, and general "fun" money. one of the more popular ones is the use of envelopes. you set your budget for how much you are going to spend for each category for the month. then you put that amount of cash in the envelope so that you have instant access to a controlled amount of money.

i don't like envelopes and i don't have any and i didn't want to buy any. i did have a plastic picture frame, some scrapbooking paper and a dry erase marker.

voila!

now i have a reusable budget "envelope" that was completely free. i just write down the amount we spend out of each category and keep a running total. simple!

money is a dynamic, flowing, ever changing being. we are prepared to make adjustments where necessary and cut back in some places if we need to. but having this to help us (and now having the entire blogosphere able to hold me accountable) really keeps us focused and heading in the right direction!

how do you keep track of money? are budgets easy for you? i would love to hear some other ideas!

disclaimer: i am not in any way affiliated with dave ramsey and there are just my honest opinions. i am not endorsed (ha - wouldnt that be nice!) and he has no clue who i am, no matter how many times a day i tweet him. i just think he has the right idea and think you should join in. all phrases in italics are from financial peace, revisited.

February 18, 2011

swingin' doors

two points to you who got the reference to good ol' merle haggard in my title.

so if you take the time to dig through my archives you will notice that eons ago i posted this little ditty about a door that i was going to make into a headboard.

if i went through my archives more often, i would have seen that i never revealed to you lovely people how that door turned out.

today is your lucky day folks. ready for the big reveal??

aint she beautiful? i am so pleased with how she turned out! granted, the rest of the room (especially the rag-a-muffin random pillows) hardly stands up to her beauty but there are definitely plans in store to make this room shine! it is a tiny room (i think the dimensions are 11 x 12) and has a queen size bed, a tv, two tv stands, a chest of drawers and two hand made cedar chests. one is my hope chest and the other was made for me by my p.h.'s grampie.

once i finally took a saturday and actually did this project it was so easy and took about an hour plus a few hours of drying time. i gave it two coats of sifted flour by dutch boy (the same paint i used here) and then just lightly distressed some of the edges. i want it to gain some character over time so my goal was to help it get started. my dad helped me attach it to two 2 x 6 boards and we attached those to the bed frame so even though the door is super heavy, it ain't going nowhere.

i had my doubts about leaving the doorknob on because i was afraid of guests hitting their noggen on it... but i decided to keep it. i really love the patina on it and i think it gives it a lot of character.

it is exactly what i wanted! thank you auntie nana, dad and kay for helping me put it together and of course to my mom for buying the thing.

linking up at just a girl - show and share day and tater tots & jello weekend wrap up!