No more tangled necklaces!

I've gotten some really cool necklaces as gifts over the past few years, but didn't have a great place to put them. My jewelry box has a spot for a few necklaces, but they would inevitably fall off the hooks when I closed the lid. I had some necklaces hanging from bobby pins stuck in my book shelf, which worked for 2 or 3 necklaces, but 7 or more was overkill. I turned to the trusty pinterest to look for ideas for necklace storage and found one that uses upholstery nails and a piece of trim. I had plenty of trim laying around and upholstery nails were only a few dollars for a pack of 20.

I cut the trim to 24 inches to parallel the towel bar in my bathroom so I could use the empty space above it. Appropriately, my earring holder (made from a large black and white handkerchief and some push pins) is over my hand towel holder as you can see in this old post.


I painted the trim white, added some saw tooth hooks to the back, put two little nails in the wall, and hammered the upholstery nails at the bottom of the trim an inch apart to hold the necklaces.

I'm really pleased with how easy it was to make and how great it looks.

"Made me think of you" gifts are the best gifts

My favorite gifts to give and receive are the ones that are not forced. When I see an item that makes me think of someone in particular, it's hard not to pick up. Bonus = when the item is on sale.
I was recently on the receiving end of an after-Christmas sale item that perfectly captured one part of my identity!

This is the new gift

This is also a gift, but one I've had for 6+ years

I immediately put it out to display, but it didn't seem quite right in that spot. While I was thinking about alternative locations, I also thought about what I wasn't getting to do this week as "dog mom." My mom, aka dog grandma, is watching him this week. [Sidenote - my house is lonely and I miss him.] One of the things I try to do regularly is take him for walks and jogs with his appropriately coordinated red leashes....💡💡💡💡 ←Brilliant idea forming here!

Hrmmmmm... a few hooks and thumbtacks would make my new gift a great decoration for an empty wall AND functional as a leash holder. Previously, his leashes lived on the floor next to the door or in a bag in the closet. A few screw hooks in the bottom, 2 thumbtacks in my wall, and a little help from my dremel resulted in this amazing addition to my living room. A thoughtful gift became a creative project for me. Wins all around!

#ruglife

A new friend and I were joking about our rock and roll lifestyles because of our recent purchases of curtain rod (her) and rug pad (me). Sarcastic enough for you?
Just after I told her that curtain rods have nothing on the rug pad I had coming tomorrow (ya know... because rug pads are WAY more rock and roll), UPS brought it a day earlier than expected! Here's our message exchange and her response cracked me up:

The impetus for getting a new rug pad was because the one I have had for years (see picture on left) was affecting my hardwood floors. Over the weekend, I moved all of my furniture in order to shampoo-clean my hardwood floors. It took longer than I thought it would because the old rug pad was leaving a grid residue. I was afraid the old rug pad would cause some the long-term damage. Plus, it wasn't very soft. I ordered an all-felt rug pad to replace the old one. I didn't need one to keep the area rug in place because the rug is so large and secured under the couch. Once I was done working today, I did even more furniture moving to put the new rug pad under my living room area rug. Unfortunately, the furniture in my living room is slightly too large to move entirely out of the way because it would have been easiest to roll the rug up. Instead, I had to move the couch back and forth twice in order to get the rug pad in the right place and the area rug back on top of it. I'll just count it as a workout. Hopefully, now the hardwood floors will be protected and even though it's not the thickest of rug pads, it's better than the old, grippy, grid one.

Rockin' and Rollin' Lifestyle!

Go ahead. Eat my pumpkins now, squirrels!

My garden hasn't had a huge yield this year. I have had pests like squash bugs and harlequin bugs. I had too alkaline soil. And the squirrels got some of my tomatoes. The only crop that had a ton of yield was my ghost pepper plant.

I was sad that I only had 2 pumpkins, but happy they were impressively large. Then I saw this happened to the younger of the two...

UGH! I hate squirrels. Luckily, my one high-yield crop is the perfect defense! I made a homemade pepper spray with a chopped up ghost pepper and hot water. I made sure not to touch the pepper so I wouldn't hate my life. I could smell the heat. The rest of the process was done on my porch b/c I didn't want to risk spicy vapors in my home. I poured the hot water over the chopped peppers in my measuring cup and after letting it soak for a few hours, I poured the water into a spray bottle. The soaked peppers went straight into my compost bin, where the squirrels also occasionally frequent. I thoroughly sprayed the pumpkins. The squirrels will better stay away or THEY will hate life. The exciting news is that I have at least 4 new, tiny pumpkins starting and they have been ghost-pepper protected too. I have some spray left to reapply as they grow or in case it rains. Hoping it works!

Bathroom Base Tiles

I continued my slow remodel of my bathroom by installing base tiles. Like many of the walls in my house, the walls in my bathroom were also in poor shape. I had some fun times with plaster as you can see around the venting. I had installed some of the tiles earlier, but couldn't get to the space behind my vanity without unhooking the water and moving it away from the wall. I've been trying to check items off my to-do list so I took a weekend to complete the project by doing wall repair, adding tiles, framing out the duct vent, adding a vent cover, grouting tiles, and caulking.

When I turned off the water and unhooked the hoses, there was still a slight drip. I had to come up with some innovative ways to contain the water while still giving me access to the wall behind them. I used rubber bands, bags, and buckets (see picture below). I was able to install the tiles in a day and used the next day to grout and caulk the tiles. Even though they will be mostly hidden by the vanity, they still look really good.

My phone camera is not great

Paint preserving trick!

My least favorite thing about painting is the clean-up process. My friend Steve was lamenting that he had a lot of painting to do and it's difficult to find a chunk of time to do it all. [BTW - Happy Birthday Steve!] Who wants to spend an hour or two painting followed by 30 minutes of clean-up just to have more painting to do the next day? I recently filled him in on a tip I learned when I was doing a lot of the painting in my house. When I perused my blog posts on painting I didn't see it. I can't believe I haven't shared this yet!

This tip come from my friend Cori who was a huge help when I was painting my house! In addition to doing a lot of the painting (including ceilings which she does FAR superior to me), she showed me that you can wrap rollers and paint brushes with plastic wrap to keep the paint wet if you need to do more painting the next day! 

Steve can attest that it works. In fact, here's an email I got from him the other day:
"I finished painting a bedroom yesterday.  Your plastic wrap suggestion worked like a charm.  Thanks for the advice."

Baseboard finishing

Sometimes I just need to blog so I have a reminder about the little things I have done around my house. I may have mentioned before that this blog has been really helpful when I get overwhelmed with all that I have left to do. I go back through my posts and realize,  "wow! I have done a lot" and then I don't feel so bad.

This post is one of those situations where I don't have much to say about my experience caulking the baseboards and filling in nail holes with spackle. I spent a Saturday in June doing that for all of my baseboards downstairs and used a full tube of caulk. On Sunday, I used up another tube of caulk doing that for the baseboards in my bedroom and around most of the doors that I installed upstairs. I have gotten better about caulk.  One tip that I may not have shared before is have rags and a little container of water nearby. Smoothing caulk is much easier if your finger is wet.

A few weekends ago, I installed the shoe molding in the little landing/hallway upstairs, so that area is pretty much done. Making progress!