Bathroom - Before and After

Get. Exc. Ited!  I have a new before and after from my house.  Nothing special really, just a bathroom.  But it has made a major difference in the overall feeling of the room. 

 

Where once it was a heinous shade of matte eggplant purple (why former owner?  why?!)...

 

Vom, Vom, Eggplant Vom

 

             



 

It is now a "faux finish" blue and white striped happy place to be. 

 

 

This was the first time I have had anything professionally painted and, can I just say, what I lost in money I gained in time spent with my husband not screaming at each other over who has to put up the painter's tape.  Painting is a legit marriage ruiner.  At least in my experience, which has consisting of piss-poor-paint-performance and every 4 letter word I know.

 

 

Thanks to some perfectly matching new monogrammed towels and a preppy new shower curtain my MIL gave me for Christmas, I am styling and profiling each time I get ready in the updated bathroom.

 

It's amazing what a little paint can do to spruce up a place!  Where one I was bland and inexplicably purple, now I am bright and cheery.

Exotica

I forgot to mention one of the highlights of this past weekend's gardening extraordinaire: When I found the elusive, exotic hot pink ivy vine underground.

 

I've seen vines this color before, although not underground, so I was in awe of it's location and vibrant hue.  When I ripped it in half by force and discovered that it's insides were strikingly like that of an electrical wire, with 3 threads sticking out, I was blown away...Until I realized that it actually was an electrical wire.

 

Source

 

 

Oops.  I still haven't found any non functioning electrical switches in our house yet, so hopefully it went to something no longer in use. 

 

But I learned a lesson.  If something has a color that doesn't occur in nature, if it's in a location that seems out of place, and if it bears a striking resemblance to an electrical wire, don't pull it and certainly don't rip it in half.  Because chances are it actually is an electrical wire. 

GRI

Source

 

 

It's official.  I have my first GRI - Gardening Related Injury.  It's actual more like a series of tiny cuts along most of my fingers.  I got this GRI from pulling out ivy in our front yard.

 

Ivy is no joke folks.  Not only does it grow fast as lightening and take the paint off of your house, it also weaves an unbelievable web of roots that can span up to many, many feet.

 

I got one that was more than large enough to make a nice whip out of (maybe 8 feet long?).  I tell ya, getting a good clean pull on a root is almost as good as popping a big zit.  Sweet release!  I got kind of addicted to pulling weeds yesterday...until I didn't.  Then I was sooo over it.

 

When I woke up this morning I was more a little surprised to find that I could barely walk to the shower.  I guess pulling with all of your might, nearly falling backwards from sheer force of root release, and getting straight down and dirty in the dirt can do that to a body.  Especially a body that has ne'er seen the light of a gardening project.

 

I'm half way finished with the ivy project.  Somehow every time we try to make our yard look better by taking out some over growth, our yard looks like a naked baby's bottom.  Oh well, Less Is More in my book.

 

 

Before and After - Guest Room

This is the before of one guest room. We didn't really have to do anything to this room except assemble everything. That was nice.

We assembled it as such.


Having twin beds makes me feel old for some reason.



Fun fact while we are in this room: I am not a huge animal lover. I don't dislike them, but I just don't like to touch them.

What I lack in love for living animals, however, I more than make up for with love for the stuffed variety. This room is where I keep my stuffed animals since they got banned from my room after I got married.


Just kidding!

But seriously...I love them.

Here's hoping I don't lose any friends over this post!

Master Closet - Before and After

Because no one lived in our house for a year or so while the seller was redoing parts of it, there were no fixtures or shelves in our entire house. Zero.

This was the master closet when we moved in. Bare walls.

Hardly a place for a lady to hang her things!

Now it looks like this:

After getting a very expensive quote from a closet designer, we went right on over to Lowe's and got a closet-in-a-box for about 15% of what it would have cost to use a professional.

I'm not showing this to show off my clothes because, let's be honest, a style icon I am not. I am, however, showing this to show my husband's crazy skills with a screwdriver and a pair of directions. And what he calls my "dream closet".

*Since building this closet for me he has since become bitterly jealous and made several failed attempts at turning random closets in our home to his own dream closet.

People have been asking for pictures of my new house ever since we bought it. I FINALLY have some before and afters to show. We shall start with a very uninteresting before and after of the laundry room closet.

Before, there was nothing;

Now, there is both a washer and a dryer AND shelves. My wonderful in-laws gave us the appliances as a housewarming gift, then my father-in-law was kiNd and talented enough to come install the shelf for us. I am a lucky girl. Not only did I get a gifted washer and dryer, I also think I am the only recently married person I know to love literally everything about their in-laws. Instead of awkwardness, it's like having second parents. Que magnifique!
Fear not, the next before and afters will be more creative. At least accodring to me. And I'm not creative at all. So, get your grain of salt...and stay tuned.

Abstract Art

It has recently come to my attention that I might be color-blind.

This is a wall in my house that I started picking out colors for 2 months ago. I have since tried not one, not two, but seven different paint samples to try on the wall.

All I ever wanted was a light gray color. And what I have unknowingly picked out instead has been a purple, a pink, a white, several shades of tan, and a gray that ended up being way too dark.

I. Suck. At. This.

Does anyone out there have a light gray they can recommend? The guys at Lowe's can mix paint with a smile on their face, but they are worthless when it comes to suggesting a color.

Yesterday I went to get 4 more samples, one of which was called Dove's Cry. I kid you not, the second the associate started mixing the paint, "When Doves Cry", by Prince came on the radio. I just knew it was destiny and that was going to be the perfect color for my den...

But it turned out to be just another blah shade of tan. Again. Womp womp.

HELP! I need to quit the abstract art in my den and get this bitch painted!

Strezz

I need to be on an episode of MTV's True Life called "True Life: I Don't Know What Day It is."

I be stressin!!! Do you ever feel like there just aren't enough hours in the day? That there isn't enough money in your bank account? And that the human population in general is pretty stupid?

All that has pretty much been the theme of my week. We are having our super, duper old bathtubs reglazed and it is proving to be a pain in my ass!

What was supposed to be a 2 day process has now turned into 5 days (and counting...). Because one of the technicians was allegedly "coming down with something" and messed up the job. What could that possibly be that would make you mess up a tub. A flesh eating virus? A generative brain disease? Surely not the common cold that he said he had.

Add to that one highly over-talkative company owner and a senior technician whose breath smelled like the byproduct of some serious internal rot. And you've got yourself a major headache (literally, the fumes made me think I might not wake up from my sleep).

It's hard to keep your cool when you spend every lunch break and your entire Monday, plus a lot of money on something, and it doesn't come out perfect. I do not like to feel taken advantage of. Grrr.

Making matters worse, I only work Tuesday-Thursday. Which, yes, is a dream schedule, but also makes it incredibly difficult to keep up with deadlines and remember which feckin day it is.

I feel like a chicken running around with my head cut off. And in case you're not convinced, when I first typed this out I wrote "a monkey with its head cut off."

Thank heavens my BFF is coming in town to help me paint and drink wine tonight. It won't help with the brain cells I've already lost from all of the chemicals in our house this week, but it sure will help me chill the eff out!

Mr Fix It...Later

I grew up having a dad that liked to fix things. And even now, he's like the Tasmanian Devil of home improvements. Moving with a determination and speed that, although is probably not even safe with power tools, is much appreciated because he GETS. IT. DONE.

I'm used to that. And I am used to doing things in a timely manner. So this whole moving into a house and doing one improvement per day is not my ideal.

My husband built the great wall of China a closet for me, and although it really is a dream closet, the box that it came it said estimated assembly time is 59 minutes...It took him a week. And I think he's still pretty tuckered out from it.

Last night I tried to reason him into putting up a mirror for me, because I knew it would only take a minute or two. The mirror now works, but my reasoning did not. I tried to tell him that I think we are in pretty traditional marriage roles. I cook all of his meals and clean and do laundry and all of that stuff. He works a lot and hunts and, in a dream world, can fix everything the minute I ask him to!

Well I did not plan this argument well. A mere hour before I gave him this schpeel, I had insisted that we go to Hooters for beer and buffalo wings. And while it was delicious, it did absolutely nothing for my whole "we are traditional" argument.

He reminded me that traditional women don't beg their husbands to go to a place where the only thing bigger than the beers and wings is the bazongas on the women that serve them.

Point. Counterpoint.

I am slowly just getting used to not getting everything finished instantly. And I hate it. But I am realizing...GULP...my way is not always the best way and sometimes a man just needs to sit on his ass. And sometimes a woman just needs some damn buffalo sauce.

Situation Normal

Homeowning so far is awesome. And hard. And hilarious.

Remember that time my husband told me I looked like a newspaper?

Well he still says awesome things like that.

We were swimming in the pool this summer and he kind of held me up in the water. That inspired him to tell me that he would carry me across the threshold of our new house...if we could build a moat around the front door so that the water could displace my weight. Needless to say I did not do any further prancing around in my bikini after that swim. But I think he actually meant it in a nice way?

This past weekend I was out of town and left him to tend to a few home improvements in my absence. When I returned I asked him if he hung up the blinds.

His response: "Well, I started working on it and then I hit a SNAFU."

Me: "What was the SNAFU?"

Him: "...I started drinking wine and watching baseball."

Some call that a SNAFU. Some call that a terrible excuse to not do work. I call it hilarious.

Even though we still have nary a blind in our house, he makes me giggle so I can't get too mad.