Spring Cleaning - Part Deux

Finally right?! OMG, life has been so busy the last few weeks & I have been procrastinating on actually putting this list in writing. Don't ask me why, but I feel like if I blog it, I must DO IT, lol. But, I got a lot done at work today, so I'm taking my last 30'sih minutes at the office to put up this list...finally. This list will be for the main & upper levels of our townhouse (Parts II & III if you are following along form my first Spring Cleaning post). I'll do the basement list separately, but I need input from the hubbs on that b/c that's his "man cave" & I'm not to make plans for down there unless he approves them first, hahaha. That's so changing when Baby J gets here! After I get all the lists up, then I'll post updates on how we are doing on everything.

As I mentioned before, these have turned more into spring/summer/getting-ready-for-Baby-J lists, so everything won't be done before the spring is over (in just a bout a month...eeek!).  Anywho, here goes....

Main Level To Do's:

Living Room

Powder Room

Dining Room

Kitchen

We actually don't have too much to do on this level for the time being, or at least anything we anticipate having done before Baby J gets here. We are absolutely going to be either painting or replacing our cabinets (you can see how sun damaged some of the sides are in the above photos - boo to the sun for that one) & getting new counter tops in the kitchen at some point & we'd also like to add a back splash. I'm looking at a few options, but our main D&R priority right now is the baby's room. Eventually we will also replace our old @ss fridge & oven with new appliances that are a bit more energy efficient (read: not original to the house - like our fridge is & the oven is just crappy). I'm also trying to beg persuade my husband into some DIY crown molding, which I think will make our little joint kitchen/dining room look 10 million times better. Oh & I'd also like to replace ALL of the white, aluminum horizontal blind in the house with the shades we got for our bedroom, which are these fabricky {I realize that's not a word, lol}, light-blocking, honeycomb shades - I LOVE them!  So the list for this level will be short, but here goes:

• Replace all remaining brass/old light fixtures in all three areas - there are a total of 4 left, including the powder room light fixture.
• Get ceiling painted in all 3 rooms, but especially the living room.
• Buy new rug for living room.
• Mop hardwoods in all areas; I usually do only a few good moppings a year - I spot clean with our steam mop in between time.
• Replace powder room brass fixtures - everything in this house was brass when we bought it, so we are slowly, but surely switching out everything for brushed nickle fixtures.
• Find & install valance over sliding glass door.

Upper Level To Do's:

Master Bedroom

Master/Upstairs Bath

Guest Room...being turned into Nursery!!

This level has already gone thru many many changes this year between our Master Bedroom re-do & the Master Bathroom re-do & now the currently in progress Guest Room/Nursery re-do! Because of our newest edition, we have lots of things to do on this level:

• Remove all the furniture & other misc. stuff from the guest room, go thru it, get rid of what we don't need, recycle anything that can be recycled, sell/give away furniture, pack up our personal items that we are keeping for storage in the attic.
• Clean out guest room closet; buy additional storage drawers for extra storage (something like this).
• Paint, buy furniture for, replace all outlet covers, replace blinds & decorate nursery.
• Find fillers for master bedroom apothecary jars/vase.
• Purchase lightweight bedding for the master bed for use during the hotter months.
• Go thru clothes & pull out items to donate.
• Buy same type of storage drawers for extra clothing space in my closet.
• Decorate master bath over toilet storage nook.
• Go thru boxes in attic & get rid of anything we don't need any more.
• Get carpets steam cleaned.
• Replace any remaining brass light fixtures in hallway.

I think that's it. The list for the upper level doesn't look that big, but it's a lot of work. The first item, which is done (yaaay!), took us like two weeks to complete. But all the stuff (minus the stuff in the closet) is gone or put in a new location. :)

Stay tuned for the lower level of the house portion of this list & updates on how far we've come since starting spring/summer/getting ready for Baby J cleaning! Tomorrow is my 27th Birthday, woot! And we are having a big summer BBQ @ my casa {complete with my fav mocktails}, so I'm not sure I'll be participating in 5QF this week, but I'll post some pics from the BBQ on Saturday or Sunday. 'Till next time!

Conclusion of the table runner saga...

So, IDK if you remember the saga of my monogrammed table runner?! Well, I ended up canceling my order with SD Gifts & they issued me a full refund. The lady even said I will still receive my order, but yeah...still.have.not.received.it. I digress. I got over the fact that they have horrible customer service & just ordered the Linden Street Hemstitch Table Runner in white from JCP. And guess what? They monogrammed it & shipped it two days later (ahem, SD Gifts) & it was on sale & I had a $10 off coupon, so I got it for HALF the price of the other table runner, including shipping!

I am sooo happy we finally got the runner (sorry it's still wrinkled in these pics - I just wanted to see how it looked on the table...I promise I will iron it ASAP), b/c now I can debut my DIY Centerpiece:

 

 

(please excuse the disorder of my kitchen in the background - EMBARRASSING! :o/)

This was my inspiration from BHG:

I followed these directions on the BHG website & it was pretty easy! I got the ribbon ($3.99 on sale), boxes  (about $1.99-$3.99) depending on the size & the scrapbook paper from Michaels, and got the cake platter from HomeGoods for $16! Making the bow stay how I wanted it was the hardest part of this project, but it was worth the effort - I think it makes my table look so festive & pretty!

I also added somegingerbread men towels (also from HomeGoods) for just a touch more Christmas int he room!

 

What do you think of my DIY  centerpiece? Does it even look remotely close to the BHG version?! Hope you like it & try it out - it's really easy!

Linking Up to the DIY Show Off Holiday Highlights blog party & Somewhat Simple's Strut Your Stuff Thursday!

Faux Mercury Glass Pumpkins Re-make!!

In my last post I talked about a few of the fall D&R DIY projects I would be doing & I finished the first major one - Roeshel's faux mercury glass pumpkins. I removed the faux summery white orchid plant I had on the LR/DR entryway table (we don't have enough space for one at our main entry so I put it between those two rooms) and put my pumpkins there. I embellished mine with a pretty jeweled fall garland & faux fall leaves, then added some silver taper candle stick bases & ivory candles. All of which I think added the little extra punch my pumpkins needed. What do you think?! (Click on any photo to make it larger)

I basically followed her instructions to the "T" except for the brown splatter part - that was a doozy! I didn't have a nearly empty bottle of brown metallic spray paint, so I picked up some very pretty brown metallic acrylic paint at Michales & gave it a whirl attempting to spatter with a normal paint brush. Well that didn't work out so well, it created big globs of brown metallic paint, which looked...well, weird! Next I tried it with a toothbrush & it didn't really splatter at all - just globs again. So, the last thing I tried was wetting the tooth brush a bit (not soaking wet, but enough so that the paint is a little less thick when I scooped it onto the toothbrush) & that worked, but it was messy....still not the same effect as the spray paint canister that Roeshel used with hers, but looked good enough for me. After I got the spattering effect I wanted (or at least as good as I could get it), I sprayed another light coat of the silver/metallic spray paint to give it a more authentic look. I am pretty happy with the results; although, I wish I had a nearly empty (sputtering) bottle of the brown spray paint & I could have made the brown spotting look a little better. Let me know if you end up trying this - I'd like to see how other's turned out!

In other decor news, I added some fall colored flowers to the large decorative Pier One pitcher over top of my kitchen cabinets & a candy dish to the LR table with yummy chocolates!

*fall flowers in decorative pitcher*

*candy dish*

My house is nearly ready for fall, but I have a few more things I want to do outside & in to make it completely ready! Oh...and coming soon (maybe tomorrow!) the decorative touches I added to my MB including some DIY birdie wall art! It looks fab!! Thanks for stopping in. :o)

Dining Room/Kitchen Makeover

It's finally done!! Woo hoo, well the preliminary stuff is anyways...I still want to get new vertical blinds for the sliding glass door & a valance or other window treatment. We also plan on re-staining the parts of the cabinets that are sun damaged & replace the two remaining light fixtures & all the brass hardware throughout. Anywho, I am very excited this is finally done..here are some before & afters:

*Before (w/ previous owner's stuff) & During*

And...ta-da -- here are the afters! Paint color is Duron "Orange Burst", balloon shade from JCP, *new* matching microwave is GE from Best Buy, DR art is from art.com (framed at Michaels), wall sconces from Kohls, DR hanging pendant from World Market with some DIY mods by yours truly, DR table pillar holders from both World Market & Pier One. Please excuse the mess on top of our fridge. Hope you guys like it!

We also finished the outside front of the house makeover, pics coming sometime this weekend....it looks AMAZ-ing!

Beach trip canceled...BUT

I am going to pretend like I'm still on vacation & treat myself to a massage, then Dennis and I are going to a fancy dinner on Saturday!! Also, since we won't be out of town, I am going to go shopping for the last few items I need to finish up my kitchen!! I need something to go over top of the cabinets on the wall, new white balloon shade (saw cay-ute ones @ JCP) or tie up curtains for the window over the sink && what I am most excited about - my brand spankin' new over range microwave. I am going to ask my dad to come over & install it on father's day after dinner - is that horrible? LOL...he lives kinda far away & we are going to dinner close by my house so it would be good if he can just do it Sunday. :o) ::crosses fingers && anxiously awaits a call back from dad::

Seriously - it needs to be replaced, it's dirty & it's messed up so you can't read the display...you never know how long the food has left in the microwave. WORST of all it's black & ALL of the other appliances are "almond" which is a discontinued color, so I'm getting "bisque"...can't wait! Here is the type of model I'm looking to buy:

I need to also figure out my next DIY project, today I will search thru the bios & blogs of some of my fellow Nesties to get some inspiration, then maybe I can start that this weekend too! Any suggestions??

And finally, for father's day we are taking my dad to dinner at a Japanese Steakhouse & we got him a nice wedding album as a gift - he will be really excited. He LOVED everything about the wedding, lol. We got the same/similar albums for our moms on Mother's Day. We are alos giving him a final copy of the wedding DVD - finally got them from our very difficult videographer!


In other news, we hung up both the sconces and wall art in the DR along with the wall art and framed photos in the LR - pics coming soon.