MIA

I know, I know...I've been seriously MIA lately haven't I? But, in my defense, this girl has been working her rear end off! Well, at least I wish I was working it off but I have been working, working, working! I decided to take a long weekend this past weekend in honor of MLK day. The Hubs works in the financial industry so they were closed yesterday so I decided to take that day off too. So, what did we do with a long 3 day weekend? Go out of town to a lovely Bed and Breakfast? Nope. Nothing of the sort. We worked on our bedroom. We started on it Friday night by removing all of the furniture. We have some heavy wood furniture so that alone is not a small task. First of all finding some place to put the furniture is a chore and then moving it out. Saturday we started what will now be referred to as "The Big Bedroom Update of 2011"! We started on the ceilings. I have those "lovely" (and I use that term in the most sarcastic tone you can imagine) popcorn ceilings in my home. I'm sick of them and sick of the dirt they accumulate. So, we decided to start here in the bedroom and scrape it off. I went to Home Depot first thing on Saturday morning to find a good scraper and to buy the paint for the ceiling after we finished the scraping. They had a wonderful tool that made the job a breeze. It is made for scraping ceilings and it comes with the scraper and then a built in box like thing that you can attach a bag to it thus catching all of the mess. Well...not all of the mess but the majority of the big chunks for sure fall in there.

Some hints...first of all buy a spray bottle, fill it with just plain water, and then lightly spray the area before you start to scrape. Not only does it keep the dust down but it comes off so much easier. Also, you really have to have the angle right on the scraper which is pretty much even with the ceiling. As a 5'5" woman the only way I could achieve said angle was to climb the ladder. My hubby at 6'1" was able to do it on the ground. Needless to say he did most of the scraping. I did all the stuff that the big scraper would not reach, like around the edges and the light fixtures.

Once the ceiling was scraped, next came the paint. I chose the same paint we used for the bathroom remodel last summer. It is a night caramelly cream color. The painting went super fast and was done in no time. Whew...ceiling done!

We managed to finish the ceiling around 5:00 or 6:00 Saturday night. Then we started removing the carpet. This job didn't go that bad either. Pretty smooth, pretty easy...oh CRAP! Yep, that's the sound I made at about 7:30 on Saturday night. I had forgotten that underneath the crappy carpet is not just the concrete I had hoped would be waiting for us. Oh no...that would make it too simple, too easy...too readily accomplished in a 3 day weekend! Instead of a nice pristine concrete waiting for us was instead the old formica type tile that was on that floor from yesteryear. Oh lovely. OK...we can do this. We just have to scrape off that tile.

Fast Forward to Sunday morning. Time to start scraping...and scraping...and scraping...and scraping...and scraping...and scraping...are we done yet? Oh, that was only the first row and how many rows are there? 27! So, instead of getting to lay our beautiful wood floor down on Sunday instead we spent the entire day prepping the floor for the wood. We got all the tile up but not the black tar light substance that was holding it down. We decided the wood would just have to go on top of it. Once the floor was scraped, Hot Rod started working on the threshold piece of wood between the bathroom and the bedroom. Oh wait...we have to put in some tile. The carpet had gone down the step into the bathroom, so we needed to put up tile to match the bathroom floor so we would know where the threshold piece needed to go. Great, out to the barn to get the tile. Lucky for us we did have left over tile so it was not a big deal. Just had to pull out the wet saw and get to cutting tile. Between having to put the tile up and then cut around the door jambs so that the wood would fit under them we were able to lay the first 6 rows of the wood before we were completely worn out.

So, on to Monday. Time to get a movin, movin, movin! Our wonderful son-in-law came to help and I can't express enough how much we appreciated and needed his help. I was the glue girl, spreading that glue on the concrete like I knew what i was doing. Hot Rod was the measurer and putter-inner of the floor planks and A-Man was the cut man and get-the-plank man. Together, the 3 of us got it done! We laid the last piece of threshold between the hallway and our room at about 6:00 last night. A-Man went home to rest his very hurt knees and Hot Rod and I took a shower and collapsed.

So, the floor is done, the ceiling is done...the room is AMAZING! Unfortunately we ran out of days off though so the rest of the week will be used to clean every thing (since every single thing in my house has a nice thin layer of white sheetrock dust on it) and then move everything back into the room. I can't wait to sleep in my bed tonight in my new room. (We have been sleeping on our bed, it's just been on the floor in the living room all weekend)

Pics to come soon! Promise!!!!!

12 Days of Christmas - Finale

So, I know I kind of dropped the ball on my 12 Days of Christmas, but at least I didn't drop it with my kids. I thought I would summarize the remaining days that I didn't post though.


On the 7th Day of Christmas I gave them 7 emery boards and a holder to keep their nails neat.

I made this by copying one that I got for a gift from one of my lovely stamp club members.

On the 8th day of Christmas they got 8 sticky note pads with a stand to keep them handy. I made the "stand" out of the back of 4X6 frames that I got at Ikea that we used in my daughter's wedding. We had taken all of the backs off and put pictures on vellum in the frames, so I had all these backs left over and kept them. Voila...I found a use for them! They turned out pretty cute. I just covered them with pretty paper, added a clippy and a note pad, stamped a cute image on the first page of the note pad and got this:
I don't have a picture of Day 9...yes I kind of got way behind and just totally forgot. Anywho, I gave them 9 of their favorite cookies when they need a little sweet treat.

Day 10 was another good one though. I made each of them a mini album (came in a kit actually) and then put a $10 gift card from Target. The card said this:

Unfortunately the trip to New York is the trip that wasn't. We got as far as Houston and because of that nasty snow storm we couldn't make it any further. We stayed a day in Houston and then just had to come home. Our trip to New York was a bust. We were all very disappointed. :(

Day 11 was 11 home made gift tags. I made them to match both kids decor, silver for one and bright green and red for the other. They both loved them. I put them in a cute decorative pail that I got in the dollar bin at Target.

And then the last day was truly a big disappointment. I thought I was being so clever too. I made an I Heart NY poster and put it out by the tree on Christmas morning with the tag below. I guess that didn't work out as our trip didn't work out. But it was the thought that counts right?

So, I'm already thinking about what I can do next year...