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.

Drain unclogged

Well, go figure that after dehairing the bathtub drain it wouldn't want to drain. Sunday my boyfriend cleaned out the tub drain, but Monday when I took my shower I also took a bath because the drain did not want to drain. So, after pouring no end of drain gels and such to try and get rid of the clog, and using a quick made snake, my dad suggested water or the drain solutions down the drain vent because other drains were slow at draining too. When that didn't work I went out and purchased a 50 foot snake to snake the drain. When I couldn't get the snake any further than a foot and a half down the drain I tried the vent from the tub. That's the access point above the drain of the tub but below the faucet of the tub. Went down about three and a half feet when I hit what I thought was another turn in the pipe. Turned out to be the clog. After I jiggled the snake around to try to get by what I thought was a turn for a while, I noticed a small whirlpool at my feet as the water remaining in the tub drained. At which point I let out a whoop of triumph.

Halloween 2011

So, since last year we had so little left after only 2 hours I bought two bags of Jolly Ranchers this year, 3.75 pounds each giving us a total of 7.5 pounds of candy. The picture above is what is left of the 7.5 pounds of candy. Believe it or not, this is about equal to what was left from last year when we only had one 3.75 pound bag of Jolly Ranchers. Go figure.

Started on Laundry Room

Since we are still novices when it comes to do-it-yourself home improvement we started on something a little easy; the laundry room. The cabinets that were there are now just pieces of lumber.

We will be replacing them with a few cabinets of our own but not as deep and probably not as many. Also, we are considering putting a freezer in there for extra food so we can stock up and preserve our own home grown food.

Office still looks the same

So I've failed to really clean up the office. Actually if anything, I slightly added to the mess because I'm trying to reconcile the credit card receipts for the last statement. Currently, due to that task, there are a few envelopes of receipts out on the desk, with a pen and calculator.

I have made a dent in the dirty dishes department. All the plates, bowls and silverware are once again out of the sink and in the cupboards and drawers where they belong. Now I just have to wash the containers and lids then we'll be all set, and I plan to have those done before going to bed tonight.

I'm also wondering about calling someone to see about getting a quote to have central air installed and replace our existing furnace with a newer model. We could really use central air for next summer, and the furnace should survive another winter. So I don't know when the better time to get the quote would be; now or wait until next Spring. Mostly, I'm worried about having the funds necessary for this project.

Storm Damage From Last Weekend

So this past weekend we had some storms come through and knocked over a few large trees. We were fortunate, the large trees around us are still standing but we did loose a small tree that was between us and one of our neighbors. We filled our last yard bag with some tree pieces we cut but still have a few larger branches left. We've been using a regular wood saw to cut the tree to pieces and that was slow going; I think we will be getting some loppers to lop the branches into smaller pieces to go out with next weeks compost.

In other news, I haven't really touched the office yet to get it organized. I got myself sidetracked with other projects. I did change the light bulbs in our basement so it isn't so dreary. Of course I did this now when it's getting cooler, and not sooner when we were taking refuge from the summer heat. I've also upgraded my coupon keeper to a binder with trading card protector pages. With the mini holder I was using a lot of coupons were expiring before I used them, but could have used and didn't because either I didn't know they were there or didn't realize they expired so soon. Hopefully with the binder they won't expire and I'll get to use them instead. The only downside is the binder doesn't fit in my purse at all, so it's a little more difficult to carry. I think in the long run the binder will pay off though.

Need to organize

Well, another week has gone by. All the papers got moved to the office, which only added to the mess that was in there. So this week I'm going to try to focus on cleaning and organizing the office. Part of organizing the office is going to involve getting us organized too. Giving a place for the mail before it's sorted, and a place for all the papers we get. The hard part will be combining our styles. My boyfriend likes things on paper and in a folder, I prefer things in electronic form since that way they take up less space.

Need Motivation to Clean the House? Have a Party!

So last weekend I had family and a friend over for a party. The house was such a mess. Okay I admit I did just move a few piles of papers, but we went through many others because you can only move so much around before you run out of space to put the piles. Now the floors have been vacuumed and mopped, and everything has been dusted. Now with the party over, the house is actually somewhat clean still. The dogs don't help much since they are still leaving hair everywhere and track dirt in from outside because they like to roll around, but relatively speaking it's still clean. And amazingly, now with the party over and a little more time to go through the piles, that is exactly what we are doing instead of moving them back to the rooms they came from. The next time I feel the house getting majorly dirty, I'm going to invite family over for another party. For the meantime though, I'm going to try to keep up this clean and not let it get dirty with papers and what not everywhere.

All Weeded

Well, last weekend I was able to get the front, back, and both sides of the house weeded. The gardens look much better even though I believe the front has two dead bushes. Or at least they look dead. I'm not sure if they are just done blooming and the flowers have died off, or if they are dead. I'm 99% sure they are dead considering how fast after I purchased and planted them the flowers went from a nice pinkish orange to brown and shrivled. Guess I need to work on finding a green thumb or somewhere I can go for advise because it looks like my brown thumb has struck again.

Side Garden Weeded

Well, the side garden has for the most part been completely weeded. It is definately looking a lot better than it was. Now I just need to find some fall color. Everything is just green leaves or dying off because it's done with it's season. I hope to have the front garden weeded later. I had to stop as I think I have developed a grass alergy, and I was having trouble focusing with a runny nose.

Don't put off till tomorrow what you can do today

Okay so we've all heard the saying before. But you can never learn this lesson enough, or at least I seem to need to learn this lesson over and over again.

My boyfriend and I went on vacation for a week. I requested our mail be stopped and my parents stopped by to make sure our mail was not being delivered. Well.... I've slacked a little bit on my weeding and other gardening duties. So my mother now has the idea of having a garden party at our house with my full family bringing a plant each and they get to weed a section of garden and then plant their plant there.

Now I don't know about your families, but just the thought of this party, and my mother would go through with it, was enough to get me to go out and start weeding. How bad does the garden look that my parents would seriously consider this party? Take a look, and this is after I weeded a section.

Can you even tell where the grass ends and the garden begins? I can kind of, only because some of it is taller than the rest. You can kind of see the area I weeded on the left under the large window. I plan on doing more tomorrow morning, and will do a little each day. Apparently I also need to put an air conditioner unit on the side because my mother is also insisting upon purchasing window treatments for us. Yes, we've been living here for almost 2 years and don't have window treatments yet.

So, once again, lesson learned. Do not put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

Couponing

When trying to save for home improvement, every little bit helps. I may not be an extreme couponer like the people featured on TLC's show "Extreme Couponing" but I have taken some tips from them and applied them to my shopping practices.

One of the very first shows I caught told about a woman that searched databases of sales and did mail-order coupons. At first the idea of mail-order coupons made no sense to me, why pay for something that should save you money not make you spend more. But after searching for mail-order coupons and finding thecouponclippers.com, I've changed my mind. The charge per coupon is such a small fraction of the actual savings of the coupon that you still save money and many of the coupons will be doubled by your store. Usually any coupon up to $0.50 can be doubled, but check your local stores coupon policy to be sure and sometimes there will be a limit to how many of these coupons will be doubled in each transaction.

I also visit coupons.com, which is a free website that once you download their printing software will let you print coupons you can use at your local grocery store. Usually you can clip the coupon up to five times before maxing out. Some store loyalty programs will also let you download the coupons to your loyalty card. So when you swipe your card at the checkout the loyalty coupons as well as the downloaded coupons are applied to your order.

Another tip is to watch the sales at the store. When Tyson Chicken Strips go on sale, and you happen to have a coupon for Tyson Chicken Strips, now is the time to use that coupon and get as many Tyson Chicken Strips as you dare. Using a coupon for a sale item helps you maximize your savings. Even better is when an item goes on clearance and you have a coupon.

Following these tips will help those pennies add up faster so you can take care of the bathroom floor that needs replacing, and heck while you're at it, just redo the entire bathroom.

We've been laazzzzyyyy

This is just one example of how lazy we have been recently. It is a picture of one half of our kitchen sink. We can't be bothered to rinse out the can or bottle and then leave it on the counter to dry, no; we just put the can or bottle in the sink to be rinsed out later.

Another example of the laziness we have suffered would be the collection of dog hair around the house. Although that reached a breaking point and the dog hair is disappearing as we slowly work our way through the rooms moving our piles of junk and furniture to get most of the dog hair. I know we won't be able to get it all, there will be some that sneaks by us or the vacuum cleaner.

So, we are making a goal to clean for at least a few minutes each day. But our other problem is we're not done getting shelving and figuring out what we are putting where. Go figure. The office and spare bedroom are the worst. The spare bedroom couldn't even be a spare bedroom right now if it wanted to because there is so much in there. Forget having a junk drawer, we have a junk room. Anyways, an effort will be made to keep things at least somewhat orgainized in piles, binders, folders, and boxes until we can get things the way we want.

No progress made on the house

The Family Room still stands as it did at the end of 2010. The floor is finished but no base molding has been added yet. Things got crazy and house projects have somewhat been put on hold until I can find the time to take them over myself...at least those I can do. My parents have been swept up in some projects of their own and unable to help, and same thing happened with my boyfriend's dad. The problem is my boyfriend and I are both somewhat afraid to start tackling these projects completely on our own without at least some supervision.

So I think we will be starting with something simple like curtains for our Living Room which I plan to make myself. Of course I have to learn to sew first. I have a sewing machine that I got for my birthday last year...but I haven't tried it out yet so I don't know exactly how to work it yet.