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!

What I've been up to!

I really haven't been doing much DIY or D&R for the house because we are trying to save money/get some other stuff done so that we can reach the financial goals I talked about few blog posts back. But this weekend, we had a little extra money so I decided to get the last few big things I need for the finishing touches to our MB. If you recall from my previous post about our MB, I am going for a birdie themed room...nothing too over the top, still reserved, but definitely birdie touches. So, this weekend I went out and bought few things to finalize the room! I spent about $250 total on drapes, curtain rods, a CUTE birdcage candle holder from Pier One & a vase with little glass birdies on the top edge - here are the last 2 items, WDYT?:

*birdcage candle holder*

*birdie vase*

Last weekend I also bought some cute pillar holders & a birdie bowl from target. I didn't take a pic, but hopefully the hubbs will get the drapes up tonight & I will be sure to take a pic of that stuff with the rest of the room. I'm also working on my very first set of DIY wall art with silhouettes of birdies on canvas that I painted...hopefully it turns out good ::crosses fingers::! I hope to finish that up tonight or tomorrow & then I will post photos of that. Lastly, I need to figure out what fillers I want to put in the apothecary jar & birdie vase - probably a birds nest in one & dried flowers in the other.

I also bought some rugs & coordinating towels for our powder room from Burlington CF this weekend. I forgot to put the before pics of this room up, but I basically only added the wall art (from our honeymoon) & the rugs/towel. Although they are only small touches, I think it really warms up the room. Eventually we want to replace the mirror & vanity and of course replace all of the outdated brass fixtures...but we need to do that throughout the house, so we are trying to finish the small stuff first.

Stay tuned for the updated MB pics & my new DIY fall decor project - I haven't quite decided on it yet, but I know it'll involve pumpkins in some manner! I also am looking into buying a new laptop soon & we are starting to browse for my new car soon...so many exciting things coming up! And in closing, I just wanna say that I 'effing love the fall & I'm soo happy it's now right around the corner, woot!