The Nifty Foodie's Life

We’ve lived in the new house for about four months now. It’s sort of weird to think that it’s really been four months already. Back when we viewed this house, I took a ton of pictures and decided that some things needed to change.

These curtains were one of them.

These curtains just aren’t our style at all. I’m into modern, geometric patterns and sheer lace-y sage green just doesn’t fit the bill.

It stinks that it took me four months to get to this, but I’ve been trying to get in the craft room more often to de-stash. I think I own way too many craft materials, especially since my husband nearly panicked when he saw how full the closet in the craft room was. Yikes!

So, I need to get some projects done. The bathroom curtains were one of them. I’ve had this fabric sitting in a folded pile for almost a year now. I won a giveaway on a blog, and the credit got me two yards of this super cute home decor chevron fabric.

This morning, I decided today was the day. Two hours later, our bathroom had new curtains. What do you think? (Note: our bathroom windows are not see-through…they’re frosted, so no one can see in.)

My next personal project to help me de-stash? I think it’s time to attempt my college t-shirt quilt. Just getting that project done will move a huge laundry bag full of shirts out of the craft room’s closet. I’ve been really looking forward to making that quilt too, so I can’t wait to get started on it!

It’s crazy to think that we closed on our new house exactly one month ago (when I wrote this yesterday). One month ago, we were cleaning an empty house that would soon become our home.

When we had the inspection done on our home prior to the closing, the inspector pointed out that our house would soon need a fresh coat of paint and some minor caulking around the exterior. It wasn’t a huge deal to us, since paint isn’t really that expensive. With this news, we had a decision to make. Keep the colors or change it up a little?

Here’s a refresher so you can see the color of our house on the day that we closed.

We decided that the green just wasn’t for us. So, we went to Sherwin Williams on a weekend where paint was 40% off and started brainstorming some colors. I really should admit, I stink at choosing paint colors. I just don’t have a knack for it. However, my husband? That’s totally his thing. The only color we debated on was the color for the doors and the shutters…Joey wanted a dark olive green color and I wanted a dark chocolate color. In the end, we ended up going with the dark chocolate color as a compromise.

Just to note, we hired someone to do the painting. Exterior painting/caulking is something we leave to the pros.

Here’s our house now:

The colors on the house are from Sherwin Williams: Paper Lantern, Lanyard and Chateau Brown.

What do you think? To me, it looks like a completely different house! I love what a couple coats of paint can do.

So, our house is about 25 years old. When we moved in, there were a lot of things reminiscent of the 80s. Wood looking laminate floors, really old closet doors and well, in our bathrooms, super ugly pink formica countertops.

It was always something we wanted to change, but we knew it would be a fairly large financial change. We originally thought to do granite, but the quotes to do such small amount of work were just terribly nauseating. At that point, we knew we wanted to DIY, but heck, what a huge project to take on!

We actually thought about using a pre-cut piece of formica that looked like faux granite. However, the measurements were for kitchen counters…2 inches longer than needed to go over our cabinets.

So, we decided on tile. This was the most fun part for me. I love choosing things like this for our house, and after a couple of trips to Lowes and Home Depot, we ended up choosing this for our bathroom.

This ended up being quite a huge undertaking for us (mainly the hubs). We chose a porcelain tile, which is harder to cut than ceramic. The hubs is the power tool genius of the house, and worked HOURS on cutting this tile. He’s awesome.

Here’s how things looked during demolition. That stuff was glued on WELL! Eesh!

Like I said UGLY pink formica.

The hubs really made these counters happen. Not much credit for me, except I did occasionally vacuum up tile pieces and dust, and helped him position tiles as needed. Please don’t flame me…our guest bathroom is fairly small, as is the countertop. Two people in there at once ALL THE TIME is a crowd.

The cost of this countertop makeover? Just over $300, including tools that we’re going to use for the master bath redo as well.

OK, I’ll stop rambling and just show you the after.

Isn’t it AMAZING? We’re going to eventually end up doing the master bath in the same tile too. Can’t wait…I’ll be able to help much more this time around too. 

What house projects are you working on?

This weekend, my dog got jealous. Mad jealous. Something was taking up her precious play space, and well, she wasn’t going to have that happen! So, she stared it down, I guess hoping that her eyes would turn into lasers or something and burn this new intrusion into dust.

I bought a table this weekend on Craigslist. Not just any table, but a sewing table. I do already own this table, but it doesn’t look much like furniture, and I thought that a new table in the guest/craft room would look much more welcoming than my current table.

As you can see, it’s a little rough looking, and it’s totally sitting on Millie’s play rug as we work on it. She’s an angry pup.

Hubs went to a local hardware store and bought an orbital sander. Look at the gorgeous wood that was hiding underneath!

Now, the dilemma. Originally, I was inspired by Heather Bailey’s studio furniture and thought I could paint this a gorgeous turquoise color and distress it slightly to give it an antiqued look. However, the hubs mentioned that her furniture that had a lot of detail that made the paint job look awesome. Also, now seeing this wood underneath, I want to stain it (a la Young House Love).

Now, the problem is, the table-top folds out revealing a drawer for the sewing machine to sit in, but that drawer is veneer, not solid wood. We’re sure it’s plastic veneer, so you can’t sand that down to reveal bare wood, meaning it can’t be stained, but possibly painted. I’m thinking of staining the wood that you can see, and when you fold out the table, it reveals a fun painted color (where the veneer is)? What do you think I should do? I really need help/advice on this.

My first quilt has been quite a great experience. I learned a lot about sewing straight lines and really feel proud that it all started with this. I now have a fun blanket that will keep me warm, and I’ll cherish it even more since it all started from a few yards of Hobby Lobby fabric. Amazing, no?

This quilt is a tied quilt with some funky green yarn that I had in my knitting stash. Yeah, I have a stash of yarn too…eep!

I found this to be an excellent quilt for a beginner and it gave me much confidence to try this again! I can’t recommend this book enough to people. I’ve learned the most from this book, as well as sewing blogs.

Without further ado, here is the quilt. Isn’t it just so much fun? It’s now hanging over a loveseat in our living room until I can figure out a permanent place for it.

Oh, and another thing? I finally hung up our fleur de lis from the painting class we took last week. Hubs is embarrassed of his painting, but hey, I think they look great in our room!

By the way, feel free to leave lots of comments with painting love for the hubs. He thinks his painting is terrible…he needs a boost.