Before & After- TruGreen Update After 1.5 Weeks

After 1.5 Weeks, I think we are starting to see a difference in our lawn.  I tried taking pictures from the same or similar view for the side by side comparisons:

front lawn

front left

front right

back lawn

back right

Next time I'll try to remember to only take pictures on the horizontal..  not bad, right?  TruGreen staying "true" to their healthy lawn guarantee!

Easter Eggceptional Eggs!

I know, what a corny title, but I am married to the King of Corn, so what do you expect?

For Easter weekend, we had a few friends over and ended up doing the ole' Easter Egg painting thing. I love Egg prints. I don't know why, because they are so darn expensive, so I decided to see if I could possibly replicate some for framing:

Not too bad, right? Now I just gotta find some nice frames =D

Curtain Call!

Remember my post about the Marrimeko tableclothes turned minimal DIY curtains?  Well, they finally arrived!

Unfortunately, my hubby's back was thrown out, so I had to do the bracket installations:

It wasn't too bad, except that I ended up putting the two side brackets too far out so the rod wasn't supported.  doh!  Here's me pre-mistakes:

It was nothing that a few extra holes couldn't cure! (the wall was incredibly difficult to screw through in some spots, so I did a little experimenting and then my husband came over with an electric drill, which fixed all of the erroneous trial and error screwing by hand.)

I loved the way they turned out! Here's a few close ups:

I did do a few different curtain placements (like the four panels instead of just two, but I thought the two on each side looked the best since the curtains were kinda busy and I wanted to keep the room clean and simple)

Oh, and I do have a picture of the room without the spackle marks. I'll have to update this post later ;)

Dresser Redo

I actually repainted this dresser a while ago, but I thought it would make for a fun post:

Here's the old dresser I brought from my parent's home.  About 30 years old, red crayon drawings, pen markings, dark water stains on the top...

I decided that it couldn't hurt to try to use some of our leftover paints to see if we could salvage it.  Here's the top of the dresser getting painted over with Martha Stewart's Sharkey Gray that we used in our study:

Here's the outside finished product.. not too bad:

Since I was running out of the gray paint, I decided to use the green that we used in our guest room (Martha Stewart Timothy Hay.. can you tell we have a thing for Martha paints?). Here's the finished dresser sans kid markings:

I did end up painting the knobs too, but I plan to change those out once I find nicer ones for cheap. Anthro has gorgeous ones, but I can't bring myself to spend 7 plus bucks on a knob.. especially when I need 10 of them!  I'm looking for vintage knobs that don't look like eyeballs or nipples.. like this one:

but at 8 bucks a piece, I'll just have to wait on them.

I like how the paint gave the old dresser a salvaged, beachy vibe. I'm slowly trying to incorporate that in one of our bedrooms upstairs.. I'll let you know how it goes ;)

Guest Room Progress

So the only room in our house right now that is kinda more at a finished state (meaning we aren't waiting on buying more furniture, or painting, etc.. is our guestroom.  I figured I'd post the transition pics so we can keep an accurate log of how things progress (either with the season or just because I want to change something out).  All in all though, it's fit for it's purpose.. to house our guests =).

Here's a picture of the room freshly painted.  I know, night shots aren't the best because they tend to skew the paint color and of course, the pictures just don't look as good when they are snapped at night:

Before:

Here's a picture of how the room looked once we hung curtains, put up a picture frame I got from Homegoods, with our bedframe and mattress in:

Progress:

Things to note:
1. I really don't like the curtains tied back like that.  Ikea enclosed these rectangular strips with a hook that does absolutely nothing, so you really have to tie it into a knot- but it looks very.. countryish.  It's posted in here this way because my husband likes the look of it. 
2. Not so fond of the mushroom shaped lamp in the corner.. although it does provide ample lighting, the shape reminds me of those mushrooms that used to crop up in my parents yard.
3. It's a little bland and boring. Maybe because we just have too many neutrals going on, and the green walls aren't doing much for brightening up the space.

And here we are today:



1. We pulled in an unused side table from our family room so that each side could have a nightstand. They don't match exactly because one is square and the other is round, but I think it works to create some interest in the room.
2. Relaxed curtains... ahhh.. so much better!
3. I added two matching seaglass colored lamps I got on the cheap from Pier 1 (I had a rewards credit and a coupon). Although they look more blue when the lights are actually on, I think they add a nice pop of color to the room.
4. I added some homemade pillows with some cheap fabric scored from fabric.com.  (That way I'm not spending more on extra pillows and I can give a new look to the ones I already had.. saves me some closet space too!)

And just because I like a good side by side comparison shot, here's that progress picture again with today's after shot:

 Doesn't it look a little bit more cheery with the lamps and the changed pillows? The nightstands help to anchor the space too. Plus, I'm sure any couples staying overnight would appreciate having their own side table to prop things on. 

Closet Case

In the spirit of spring time cleaning (it's a whopping 81 degrees outside and I'm stuck at home), I decided to clean out my two Ikea closets:

Since I have a main closet, these two cabinets usually get filled with the out of season items or the clothes that I don't really wear anymore, but "haven't sorted it out to give away yet".  And yea, there was some miscellaneous junk in there too, like a lamp stand that I haven't found a shade for yet and some bags of stuff I brought from my parents' house that really don't belong in a closet.  After sorting out the extraordinary, my plan of attack was to create two main piles: clothes to give away and clothes that I needed to try on once more before giving it the heave ho'. 

After some sorting, here was what I was left with: 

cheapo hangers that went straight in the trash, a bag of shoes to give away...

Clothes that I was 100% sure I would never wear again in bags, and a big pile of "try-on's"...

As far as the keepers, they were sorted into piles and placed back in the closets...

Most of the "try-on" pile eventually ended up into the give away bags, leaving me with this in the corner of my bedroom:

AND a nicely sorted out and clean closet:

Now that I actually know what's in these closets, I can put some of the keepers to good use... =)

P.S. Yes, that's my wedding dress sitting in there. I haven't quite decided what to do with it yet..

Oh Happy Day!

Ever since we painted our dining room Home Depot paint-matched Martha Stewart Potter's Clay (that's a mouthful), I can't seem to decide on what to put in our dining room in terms of curtains, wall art, tablescapes, etc.. until today!  (It's always been a mish mash of things that I change on almost a monthly basis... that's when you know it's really not working!).  I was scrolling the online sale/clearance racks of my favorite furniture stores for a guestroom bedframe, and I stumbled upon these beauties at Crate & Barrel:

Isn't it lovely? And although it's shown here as a tablecloth, I've got some pretty exciting plans to turn it into curtains. The light gray tones of the circular blooms will bring out the silvers and compliment the wall color nicely, while the dark lines of the branches will match all the dark wood furnishings we have in our dining room (hopefully).  Cue happy dance! 

Why curtains you ask? 

1. I've already got a Home Goods white, silver trimmed table runner that I received as a gift from my sister. They match my TJ Maxx dining room sconces nicely, so I'd rather not switch it out to a full blown tablecloth. Besides, showing a little table-nakedness is always nice when you have a table made of nicely stained real wood.

2. When I saw the tablecloth on the Crate & Barrel website, it immediately reminded me of a picture I saw of a guest room redo that used a similar Marimekko print for curtains:

Isn't it gorgeous?

And while the $46 dollar price tag per curtain panel (err.. or 60"x90" tablecloth) isn't exactly the cheapest of all finds, it's not a bad deal considering it's minimal sewing (in fact, I can even use iron on tape if I'm feeling really lazy) to turn this tablecloth to a nice curtain panel.  Plus, when I looked up this fabric to buy as just a bolt, it was about this price per yard (making it a lot cheaper to go the tablecloth route).  I should mention I'm a pretty lazy person... I try to look for ways to get the highest impact at the least amount of effort.  So I wasn't looking forward to buying a big bolt and having to hem all the sides to make it look nice.  And it was super convenient since we don't happen to live close to any designer fabric stores or clearance shops.  (Virginia is good for those so I hear).

So fingers crossed that these babies come in just the way they look on the website.  Sometimes color can be skewed from website to reality.  

I also bought 4 matching table napkins to possibly turn into some pillows for the living room for good measure.. we'll see how they come in though. I'm not worried, Crate & Barrel is pretty good with returns just in case!

photos courtesy of Crate and Barrel and makingitlovely.com

Blog 1: Help Us TruGreen!

If we were more ambitious and had a little more time on our hands, we would've started this blog when we first bought our home.  Ah well, better late than never, right?  And what better to get things moving along then my hubby's big 3-0!  He's been saying that we should track our homely progress and I decided this will be our venue to do it.

Ever since we first moved in, our grass has been.. well.. oh so yellow and bare.  Here's a snapshot of the view outside our front door:

Pretty sad, right?  The rectangular patch of grass towards the left was replaced by our builder to fix some settling issues.  Too bad they couldn't just repatch our entire lawn...

Here are some sorry side shots:

and our lackluster and boring backyard:

And because we are both completely lost when it comes to growing grass and maintaining a happy and healthy lawn, we called in the folks at TruGreen to help us fix our problem.  (Actually, they came knocking at our door and gave us a pretty sweet deal).  Supposedly we should see results in about 2 weeks.  Hopefully TruGreen is up on their game and can stand behind their Healthy Lawn Guarantee.. progress (or non-progress pictures to follow).

(happy bday hubs.. luv u!)
Kelly

psst.. the bright pink hyacinth-looking flower outside our doorstep is one of many! They are finally starting to sprout up after our long cold winter. pictures to follow. =)