Battle With Spray Paint

During the trip to Builder's Surplus that resulted in our new vessel sink, mom picked up a new vanity for the half bath.  Only problem was that it was white and she wanted a darker base.  With a little advice from her friend Mary Ann and the Home Depot guy, we opted to spray paint the base.

Sounds easy enough, but with that thin plastic coating on top and the notorious Texas heat we were in for a battle.  The first round was going along just fine until we realized that the two cans were not going to cut it.  Mom made a mad dash to Home Depot before it closed just to find out that that location was all out.  Determined to finish that night, she headed over to Wal Mart to pick up a couple of cans.  Same brand, but not the same easy to use can which ended with sore fingers.  Nonetheless we finished up and let it dry overnight.

The next day we figured that the doors were dry enough so that we could turn them over, spray them and leave them to dry again overnight.  Sadly something happened overnight with the heat and when we went to pick them up in the morning, the front panels (first painted) stuck to the drop cloth and peeled off some of the paint.

Ugh!

You live and you learn.  We did the best we could to just spray a couple more layers to cover it up and let it dry inside.

It may not have been the best experience with spray paint, but in the end we got it done.  Have you had any issues with painting?

30 Before 30: Jason Mraz & Christina Perri

A random trip to our local grocery store turned into another chance to cross off an item from my 30 before 30 list!

Mom and I have wised up to make our money work for us by buying gift cards at Kroger before shopping trips to stores like Home Depot or Jo-Ann's.  This way we can get double the fuel points for gas, win win.  Well on Saturday we headed over to pick up some cards before buying paint for the kitchen when we noticed the 106.1 KISS FM (local top 40s radio station) truck in the parking lot.  Inside the store we noticed a table set up and headed over to see what was up.  They were there to promote buying school supplies for local kids, and anyone who came up to the table was able to take a chance to pick a "winner" card out of 3.  Lucky Mom was the winner and let me select the prize out of t-shirts, CDs and concert tickets for that night's Jason Mraz concert.

Chris and I had no plans for Saturday night so we packed up a blanket and some cushions and headed down the highway about 2 and a half hours before the concert.  I'm glad we headed out early because we ended up running into an accident that turned our 25 minute drive into a 50-60 minute ride.  Good thing I threw together a playlist of Jason & Christina's songs to enjoy during the traffic backup.

Once we arrived at the Gexa Energy Pavilion (for those in the Dallas area it's the same place that has also been called the Starplex, Smirnoff Music Center, and Superpages.com Center), we waited in line until they opened up the seating about an hour before the show.  Those lawn seats filled up pretty quickly!

Located right behind Fair Park 

We passed the time playing games on our phones and drinking strawberry margaritas while enjoying the fact that there was no one sitting in front of us. 

Jason's opening act was Christina Perri who you might recognize for singing one of the popular songs off of the Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1 soundtrack along with her hit Jars of Hearts.

Her 45 minute set list included:

Black & Blue

Run

Crazy

Cover of Be My Baby (from Dirty Dancing)

A Thousand Years (from Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1)

Tragedy

Mine

Jar of Hearts

Arms

After the sun went down, and a 45 minute intermission Jason Mraz took the stage.

He played for a good hour and 45 minutes with songs from a variety of of his albums including his latest Love Is A Four Letter Word.

Tonight, Not Again

The Remedy (I Won't Worry)

You and I Both

Living in the Moment

Frank D. Fixer

Details in the Fabric

Unfold

Lucky

Please Don't Tell Her

The Woman I Love

A Beautiful Mess

Plane

You Fckn Did It

Cover of Jimi Hendrix's Angel

I'm Coming Over (the "hidden track" on his most recent album)

Butterfly

I'm Yours

My butt was starting to go numb so I told Chris we could leave after hearing I'm Yours.  I'm glad we stayed for that song because we got to witness a guy propose to his girlfriend, so sweet!

With Chris working a double on Sunday it was a good idea to get out before the mass exodus. My guess (and some google skills) is that during the encore he played his first single off of the Love album "I Won't Give Up", and possibly another song or two off that album. 

All in all, it was a great freebie date night and gave me some new songs to add to my iPod!

Have you been to any concerts lately?

Get Your Colors Brighter

And I do mean brighter!

While replacing the floors in the kitchen, we made the most of an empty laundry room to brighten it up. 

I have to admit I was really surprised when mom decided to step out of the comfort of her warmer paint tones to add a pop of color that would coordinate with her blue and green rug.

Mom and I knocked out the first coat of paint while trying to break for the Olympics and Dad followed up with a perfect second coat to even it all out. There may or may not have been comments about Ray Charles doing the first coat, but I'm sure that person was mistaken.

It's even brighter once the lights are turned on.

I'm so glad mom went out of her comfort zone with this room's color! I think it really brightens up this small space.

Have you gone with a bold color in any of your rooms?

Breaking In The Sewing Machine

Can I tell you how excited I was to break in the birthday gift from Chris??

As luck would have it, this past weekend was a a Founder's sale at Jo-Ann's so I stocked up on most of the basics including pins, a cutting mat, rotary cutter, fabric, and thread.  After reading through the instruction manual and watching the DVD I started off easy with winding bobbins.

I know this is going to be a great learning experience.  I'll admit I had no clue what a bobbin was or what it did until I read the manual.  

As for actual projects I started small with pillows.  Mom had a couple of old pillows that she wanted to cover for her summertime bedding, so I tested out  my limited skills on some left over material until I was comfortable enough to tackle the 2 larger pillows.

In the future I'll remember to iron the fabric before sewing.  While I was at it, I figured a couple of A&M pillows wouldn't hurt for our home.

I can't wait to learn more and try other tutorials that I've found online!

For those of you that sew, what are some relatively easy and fun projects that you have made?

What A Difference A Floor Makes

My parents have lived in their house for the past 17 years and have finally come to the decision that it's time to  update and make it more them and less builder grade.  It was a long time coming, but little by little this house is starting to have more of their personal touches to it.

The kitchen upgrade began when the microwave went out, followed by a new stainless steel fridge and dishwasher.  Mom waffled back and forth on moving onto the kitchen floors or tackling the last appliance and by the title of this post you know that she opted for new floors.

It took a couple of weeks, numerous stops to different flooring departments and several take home sample tiles to finally come to a decision on the new 20 x 20 porcelain tile.

With the tile ordered it was time for a couple of before shots before we got to work on tearing up the linoleum under the direction of our handyman Mike.

Looking from the dining room back.  To the left is the pantry and to the right is the laundry room.  Down past the island you'll find the breakfast nook with windows out to the backyard.  Feel free to look pass the mess and Gypsy's photo bombing.

From the breakfast nook back towards the dining room 

Close up of the linoleum - 17 years of scrapes and tears 

For the most part the linoleum came up pretty easily, but there were some patches where the glue stuck a little more.  On those spots we watered it down then scraped/shoveled it up.

One last shot before the tile job started.  As you can tell Gypsy was very interested

The team came in and laid the diamond pattern down in one day.  They let it sit overnight and completed the grouting the following day.

In process shots sent to mom who was at work

And here are the beautiful after shots of the new tile floor (prior to adding the new trim).

And one last shot side by side of the before and after.

I think the larger tiles really help to make the kitchen feel larger!

Watching the skill and speed of the team working on the floor was very educational.  Chris has laid tile before, but I haven't so I've always had a feeling in the back of my mind that I wouldn't be able to do it.  Of course the diamond pattern requires more cutting than the standard pattern, but I think we might be able to start with something like a small bathroom.

Have you done any tiling?

Happy Birthday, Time To Make Something

August is always a fun month around these parts!  It's our birthday month (Chris' birthday is 12 days before mine) and we like to celebrate with gifts and our annual birthday trip.  This year we'll be heading out to Albuquerque and Santa Fe, and I'm excited to explore a new state (adding another star to our map).

As for gifts, we both ended up with items that will help in future DIY endeavors. We really tried to keep the gifts a surprise until our birthdays, but Amazon kinda ruined that for us.  Chris ordered my gift and it was sent to the house (where I work so I always get the mail).  Unlike pretty much everything else we've ordered from Amazon in the past couple of years, this order was sent as is.  No need for guessing!

I haven't sewn since middle school home ec class (I still have that gumball pillow), and am so excited to start again!

As for Chris' gift, well I was just a little lazy and didn't attempt to hide this huge box once I got it home.  I felt it was only fair since I saw my box early.

There are a couple of small gifts that will be left as a surprise for our actual birthdays, but right now I'm itchin' to for a trip to the fabric store!

Are you able to keep gifts as a surprise?

Weekend Round Up

Yay, for a fun weekend!  It kicked off with my cousin Jason (who is like an older brother) flying down for a visit.

Here he is walking my mom down during our wedding

It's always fun to catch up and bring back memories of when we were younger.  This also happened to be the big weekend when we finally got to meet my brother's new girlfriend!  Unlike me, who had Chris meeting my family after only one month of dating (in all fairness it was really because it happened to be the only time my dad would be in town from Atlanta where he was working on assignment for a couple of years), Dennis normally takes a while to feel out the situation before bringing anyone to meet us.  Danielle was really great and I'm so hoping this works out!  She got to see us all in our best form - cracking jokes and enjoying some Rudy's BBQ.

While searching the web I found out who the maker of our vessel sink is!  

It's a RonBow tempered 2 layer glass sink that could be found online for $369.  This put a huge smile on my face since we got it for a deal at $99.

Speaking of deals, mom was on it again, this time with a new light for their kitchen.  Making our rounds Saturday morning, mom found a light that she really liked but learned that that location did not have any in stock.  We had to head up the road so I could pick up Chris' birthday gift (the location we were at didn't have any of that in stock either), and she struck up another deal.  This location had the same light, for $79 instead of the original price of $99.  They didn't have any in stock, but would sell her the floor model for $69.  Not too shabby!

We made time to catch the Dark Knight and get some yogurt in between clearing out the kitchen and laundry room in preparation for the team to come today and start working on the new floor. 

Gotta love the fridge in the living room

And to round it out I finished a painting for the half bath.  After seeing our little tribute to the Philly statue for our gallery wall, mom wanted a little love in her house.  I told her it would be easy to paint, if she picked up the supplies.

How was your weekend?  Any fun projects or deals?