New Rug for the Family Room

So this is the rug we purchased at Kohl's on sale for around $200 like last week. With all the holiday decoration boxes still in our Family Room we just got this laid out two nights ago. I know the experts would say it's too small for the room but we like it and didn't want to have to special order a rug or pay more than we really wanted to. Plus the rug is really soft and nice to lay on. The dogs really like it too. Now instead of going straight to the couch when they come in from outside, they just lay on the rug.

When purchasing a rug you should consider the colors of the room, or rooms as we did in our case. With the open floor plan we wanted something that would also go with the Kitchen/Dining Room area so that the rooms flowed together. The walls of the Kitchen are an interesting bluish green (more green than blue) and the ceiling is called Italian Ice which is a really soft blue, where the light has to hit it just right to see the blue. While the rug may not match these colors exactly, they are in the same color family so it still works. Also, don't forget the mat for under the rug. This helps the rug stay in place. We got one that also has a thin layer of memory foam on it which helps add to the comfortableness of laying on the rug on the floor. The mat should not match the dimentions of the rug exactly, it should be short by a couple inches on all sides. I'm not exactly sure why this is, but I noticed in our case with the memory foam attached to the mat that the extra inches helps make a smooth transition to the rug.

Creating holiday cards

Well this year I decided to make my own cards. The past two years I did store bought cards but I would need two packages because one never had enough and I always had some left then from the second package, so I felt I was wasting money. Plus last year several of the cards were not folded right and then refolding them just made them look like crap. Not something I wanted to be sending to friends and family. So this year I made cards. It was more difficult than I expected though. There was the time factor, we are all pressed for time around this time of year trying to shop for all those gifts and getting party supplies ready, making sure everything is ready for our holiday parties.

Then there was the creative factor. I was having difficulty choosing a picture to use. The home is kind of in disarray still, and I don't have a stand yet to place the camera so we could do a family shot or something. So I was trying to decide upon what item to use. I ended up going with our tree that is in the Living Room. I then used Picnik from google to edit the photo and curve the edges, crop it, and blur the edges a little. Of course I then needed something for the inside of the card. (It's the picture I chose for this post.) So I did a google search for holiday sayings and I ended up picking one of those. All that was left was to print them, fold them, address envelopes, put on a postage stamp, and stuff them.

I think next year I will do the same thing but will give myself more time so I can get it how I would like it.

A promise to you and to myself

I promise to work harder at the home projects. I often sit wondering what to talk about here, but was recently making a list of projects around the house to do and I haven't stopped thinking of them yet. I guess I never realized how much there really is to do around here until I put it all (okay most of it) down on paper.

Currently, I am making a promise to myself to write at least each Sunday to let you know how we approach a project, and how things are progressing. I will try harder to not let other events get in the way of working on the home projects as there are so many things that are really starting to drive me nuts and need to be dealt with. For example getting our possessions organized and giving everything a place. Right now there are many things still in boxes waiting to be let out after a little over 2 years. And with our lack of organization we have misplaced a few holiday decorations, like our plastic jack-o-lanturn for Halloween, and a box of Christmas ornaments.

With all the projects I have now listed, with more being found by the minute, I am considering possibly writing every Sunday and Thursday. But for now, my time outside of my full-time job is limited and I fear I would be unable to handle projects each week that would allow me to write something that often. So checking here each Monday you will definately find one update and possibly two.

Now the hard part of picking the project off the list to do first.

Getting ready for the holidays

Well, one tree is up. This is the tree I got from my grandfather since he's tired of dealing with it, and all the ornaments my grandmother had collected. There is still one more tree to put up in the Family Room and sorry to say it looks like it will have the same ornaments as last year as we seem to have misplaced a box containing the remaining ornaments. Or I can add a few I just inherited, as this tree has all but one ornament that was inherited. The tree topper is also something I purchased this year.

Crazy Cleaning Part 1

Believe it or not there is a kitchen table under all that. I know, I live here and I have a hard time believing it too. Our problem is that we have people over or do things so late in the day, or let ourselves get distracted that we don't put things away. As an example, my boyfriend worked the closing shift last night. Of course his head was still going and he wasn't tired when he got home. So he had himself a snack while surfing the web. No I was not awake when he got home, no I did not ask him about it, so how do I know what he did? The empty sour cream and mostly empty potato chip bag by the computer that I found this morning told me. So at least one of us is making a commitment to trying harder to keep the home clean, or as clean as possible. With two Golden Retrievers it's hard to keep things spotless because they get their dog hair over everything and track in dirt from outside. And they are always going out and in. So today, aside from some shopping, I worked to clean some of our mess. I started in one room, because I know from past experience if I jump between rooms I don't feel very accomplished because nothing ends up looking clean, and I get so discouraged that I never complete anything except maybe the dishes for that night. So I tried hard to keep my focus on the kitchen table, and as you can see below, I found it.

On a side note, the dehumidifyer in the picture has found it's way to the basement as well as the papers around it finding their way to the office to be filed. But I wanted to get a picture before something got put on the table and I could have my proof that there is a kitchen table in the kitchen.

Dog fur everywhere

Keeping our home clean is quite next to impossible. I'm experimenting with trying to find the secret to keeping the loose dog hair under control. The difficult part is changing habits, or making new ones.

My boyfriend and I are not exactly organized people. The funny thing is I can tell you where many of my documents are, where the large philips screw driver is, or where the office scissors walked off to. While everything may be covering tables, chairs, and all over the floor, we know where pretty much everything in the house is. There are those items that don't get used often and we look at each other going, where did this go?

In trying to keep the dog hair under control, I've tried brushing the dogs at least once daily. But as the house wasn't exactly cleaned before I started this, and didn't vacuum every room, I couldn't tell if this was making any difference. So to try to see if things were making a difference I've started a hunt to see how to get the dog hair off certain furniture items and such without just moving it around the house and or on to other items. For example, getting it off the chair and in the trash instead of off the chair onto my clothes, then onto the floor where it will eventually be vacuumed or tracked into another room.

I've tried a few of those fur grabbing cloths and things from the stores, but they don't get all of it. I don't know if they need to be used more often or if they just stink that bad. I'm thinking they just stink that bad because even when I get the amount of hair on the chair down, I can run these cloths over the same stubborn hairs and they will refuse to let go of the chair. The other fun is then removing the dog fur from the cloths. It's about as frustrating to get it off these cloths as it is trying to get it off the chairs; I might even say it's more frustrating.

So the great fur battle continues....

Even when not redoing a room, you're redoing a room

Well, we've been saving up for air conditioning in our home for what feels like forever. And the thing we forgot is that even when not actively working a project because you're saving up, you should be planning another project if you want to keep things smooth.

So yesterday I started really looking at Pella doors to replace our back doorwall. We had already decided on Pella when we got our windows from Weather Guard, but found out they don't do doors. The guy recommended Pella to replace the door, and we are so happy with our windows that we decided to follow the guy's advise and go with Pella.

We also have some small projects that we can work on, like the base molding in the Family Room and replacing the base molding in the kitchen that we had to take out for an addition of a divider between the kitchen and Family Room. These are small, inexpensive projects but are time consuming enough that we would probably need a full weekend to do them.

Since we are planning to redo each room and are still working to finish rooms we've started on, it's important for us to remember that we should still be working on those other projects in whatever way we can to keep things moving. Then before you know it we will have the house redone and we'll be ready to fix or redo something else.