Cold

Our furnace has shut off twice since this winter storm plowed through Oklahoma. It happened Tuesday evening while we were watching tv. We just noticed that it was quite chilly in the house, even with a fire going. We didn't think anything of it for awhile, just thought that it was cold because it was like 3 degrees outside. Then we thought about it and it occurred to us that we hadn't heard the heater turn on in awhile. Sure enough it was about 65 degrees in the house. That's not anything too drastic, but in the winter, it's pretty cold.

We actually had to turn the thermostat off for awhile and then turn it back on. After a few minutes it was working again.

But it happened again this morning. We woke up and were super cold. It was hard to get out of bed. Stephen checked the thermostat and it said 61. Brrr! It's working again now, but our poor furnace just can't keep up with these cold temps. Please, please, please, don't break on us this winter. That would be really bad.

An Afternoon with Photoshop

My parents were witnesses at their friends wedding on New Years Eve. They took some photos for them and then asked me if I could work my (amateur) photoshop skills and make them awesome.

Well I gave it try on one of my favorite photos and this is what I could come up with. If anyone knows how to get rid of the glare in that window...let me know.

I like most of the edits I've done, but I can't quite get the perfect warm and cool effect. Too warm, everything looks really yellow because of the lighting and background. Too cool and the subjects looked washed out.

Another Remodel

We started the new year off by demo-ing some of our master bathroom. Here is what the before was like.

And here is what it looks like now.

We are going to raise the ceiling of the shower about a foot. Basically, attic level. We'll need to take out the supports for the can light and move it all up so it can be ready for new drywall.

Other things we are going to do:

- Remove the old vent/light/heater

- Patch drywall

- Replace with new awesome vent/light

- Take the current light switches from this:

To this: - Tear out the shower floor and replace shower pan.

- Level the floor to actually drain to our offcenter drain...instead of next to it.

- Tear out the tile of the floor.

- Re-tile everything.

- Maybe replace toilet. If we don't we will get a new toilet seat that closes gently.

- Get new flex piping and fixtures for shower

On the design side of things we plan on using some dark tile and cool mosiacs using the same design we did in our other bathroom, just darker and with brushed nickel finishes.

We are also scheming how to build in some cubby holes in between the studs instead of using corner shelves, and working on doing a small corner build-out whose soul purpose will be to put my foot on so I can shave my legs without putting my foot on the wall.

Christmas Gift

Stephen got me this great console table to put in our entryway. I have been looking for just the perfect one for like 2 years. I totally love it, as now my entryway feels complete.

Of course, every table needs some decor on it. I already had the vases which now have a home while they aren't on the mantle during Christmas. The green and white basket is from Longaberger (a Christmas gift). The wooden box is from my grandparents and this is the perfect place to showcase it. The frame I already had in a another room with a picture from our African Safari.

What's in my closet.

Hoodie: New York and Company

Shirt: Target

Skirt: Target

Leggings: Target

Shoes: None

Clean Slate

I've mentioned it before, but I'm obsessed with blogging. Not really writing my own, but following others. I don't think I have the creative writing skills, nor that exciting of a life to post something about every day. I mostly like to follow DIY blogs, home decorating or crafty blogs. It gives me such great ideas that I can store in my brain as something I'd like to do for my house someday. A lot of the crafty ones I look at from time to time are a little to0 "country" or just make me think "okay, seriously,why would I take all that time to get those supplies and

then make that." But such was not the case when I decided I wanted to make a desk out of a door.

Surprisingly, I don't think my idea even came from a blog, but it could have. I just finally decided that I had had enough of our corner desk. I wanted a custom look, something that was not too big and had plenty of work surface space.

To get some ideas of what others had done and what mine could look like I started looking at blogs and google images. I first found this one on the younghouselove facebook page.

I was like “yes, perfect”. Although, the legs weren’t doing it for me. I wanted mine to be a bit more streamlined like the one younghouselove had actually done for their house (seen here).

After some more looking around I decided that I wanted a door, probably stained, some straight legs and possibly a shelf or two to accommodate the shelves I was losing by not having the corner desk anymore (which had shelves, or levels really).

First step, I knew I could find a cheap door at the Habitat Renovation Station downtown. Just like I thought, I had more than enough to choose from . We ended up picking a 36” by 80” hollow unfinished door. Since at that point I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to stain it or paint it. The large door also gave us the ability to make our own custom size.

We decided to make our a desk 27” by 72”. That also enabled the 9” excess to be our shelves.

In the beginning, I thought making this desk was going to be really easy and take no time at all. I was wrong. It was pretty easy, but it took forever.

First, after we cut the door to size, we had to cut away the cardboard filler, insert some 1x2‘s so we could have something to screw the legs into, fill in the sides with 1x1's, let everything dry, then give everything a good light sanding. We also had to fill in the edges of the shelves. Then we had to stain everything and apply three layers of polyurethane.

In the end, after taking an afternoon to put it together. I am totally in love with my new desk.

I really like Shout and my washer

Yesterday I spilled one drop of polyurethane on my "good" jeans. Or should I say the only pair of jeans I'm wearing these days. I've tried to find them again and buy some more, but I don't remember where I bought them exactly. Could be JCP or Macy's.

Anyway. I was devastated. I thought I had ruined them. But because I'm cheap and crazy, I was down to keep wearing them despite the really obvious spot if it didn't come out.

I quickly applied some Shout and put them in the wash on the "stain wash" cycle. 2 hours and 45 minutes later I think the spot was gone. But I couldn't really tell because now my jeans were wet and dark, same as the spot. I let them dry overnight because I was really afraid of heating them to dry and therefore setting in the stain.

To my amazement, my jeans turned out just fine. YEA!!!!!