Dreaming of a Dremel - Which One?

I've wanted a Dremel rotary tool for years, I think I'm finally going to go for it.

Now, I'm obsessed with researching which one to get, corded or cordless? (I've had horrible luck with cordless tools, so I'm seriously leaning towards corded.) Variable speed or single speed???

Decisions decisions...

Anyone else out there have a Dremel and if so which one? Love it? Hate it? Wish you had gotten something different? Lusting after one as well? Which one do YOU have your eye on?

ISO: Pre-tween Room Ideas

As much as I try to keep it from happening, my little Bug girl is growing up. Like any mom, I find these transitions filled with a mix of emotions. I'm so excited to see the little girl she is becoming, I love watching her become goofier with each passing day, more comfortable in her own skin, more confident in herself. But then I see glimmers of the baby girl we brought home from hospital what seems like yesterday and I get misty missing the sweet baby girl who has amazed us each and every day of her life.

With Bug's 7th birthday passing she has decided that the bug room is a bit too "little girl" and she want something a little different. She's too little for a "tween" room, so I'm just going to try and update what she's got in there now.

Here is what the room looks like now -

I want to keep the mural on the walls  - I spent too many hours on top of furniture and ladders while 5 months pregnant with her brother to change that yet.

But what I can do, is REALLY punch up the color from the mural and use it in the room. New, bright bedding, fun pillows, getting rid of almost ALL the baby toys and such. I'd love to play with a lot of textures and patterns.

Here are a few of the things I'm looking at:

(Source: Bed Bath & Beyond)

(Source: Bed Bath & Beyond)

And I'd love to do a netty-canopy thing... Normally, I'd be a little nervous about doing something like that I think, but being that she doesn't sleep in her room, but in her brother's room, I think I might go for it. 

Like this, but I don't want to do with a hoop, I've got something else in mind: 

 (Source: Bed Bath & Beyond)

Of course - for me, creating a room, even updating a room can never be as simple as buying a bed in a bag, or 10 things from the same collection. There will be many trips to TJ Maxx, Home Goods, JoAnns and a million website to find just the right things.

Music To Be Creative By

This summer is flying by and while I'm not betting a chance to be as creative around the house as I'd like - I'm being creative in different ways. One of which has been teaching my stubborn daughter how to swim. That is taking A LOT of creativity.

I'm no stranger to teaching swimming, in addition to swimming in high school, I was a life guard and taught swimming in college as a red cross certified water safety instructor. We've tried everything with Bug, mommy & me lessons, group lessons, I tried teaching her when she was 4, then private lessons and now, I'm back at it. And thankfully - we're finally making progress.

My theory to swimming is that once you can float, you can swim. And finally, Bug can float on her back and even swim a bit. Now we're getting her through her fear of being under water and with her face in the water.

If there is interest, I can post a little about what we've been doing...

But that isn't the point of this post, I'm sorry. I've gotten way off topic.

Each month, I work on a freelance design project. A 16-20 page newsletter for a non profit. And one of the things that really keeps me in a creative groove has always been music.

My favorite way to listen to music for the past 2 years has been on Pandora.

If you're not familiar with Pandora - sign up for an account, you won't be disappointed. You pick what kind of music you want to listen to, either by artist, song, or genre and then Pandora plays that music and music similar to it.

For example, tonight, I'm in the mood for Rusted Root, so I pick that band as my station on Pandora, from there Pandora begins selecting music similar to Rusted Root and now I'm working while listening to Rusted Root, Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, Ben Harper and others with similar qualities.

If I don't like a song, I click the thumbs down and it helps them feed me only the music I like. If I'm not in the mood for a song but still like it, I can skip it, tell them not to play it for a month or tell them to move that to one of my other stations.

Through Pandora I've found new music I never would have otherwise and been able to listen to music you just don't hear on the radio down here without having to spend a fortune on CD's and downloads.

Want to climb inside my head?

Here is a bit of what my kitchen looks like inside my head:

• Appliances & Kitchen table are black (except the fridge which will soon be a bisque eye sore.)
• Cabinets will be painted white as will the café shelves
• Counter tops stone effect black laminate
• Half the walls will be light blue
• Other half will be beige
• Breakfast bar will be an antique oak butcher block
• Floors will be an antique oak laminate flooring

We are having a yard sale this weekend to raise the rest of the money for our $1,000 budget which we are really close to being at. Goal is still to have it done by June 1.

So much to do!!!

Kitchen Countertop Research

As part of our low-budget kitchen renovation, we are planning to replace our countertops.

Over the course of the last week to 10 days we've been researching all our options, keeping in mind our budget, which if you check out here, you'll see is TINY!

We'll I've learned that the $200 I had thought we could get away with, we can't. (You can stop laughing at me now.)

Here are the options we've found:
- Precut Laminate at either Lowes or Home Depot, for the amount of space we're trying to cover will cost about $300. The problem, all the options are not what we hand in mind which was clean, crisp, black.

- Custom cut laminate at Lowes would cost about $900 for the black that we want.

- Custom cut laminate at Home Depot would cost even more... $2100 if we want it installed.

- We also looked into solid surface solutions, VERY basic solid surface solutions and including installation, those options start at around $2600

What is a family on a tight budget with a VERY ugly kitchen to do?

They head to Ikea, that is what they do.

: )

Here are the options we're entertaining now, first the Pragel in Stone Effect Black, this prices out at about $9 a linear foot. Drawbacks are, it isn't flat black, note the peppering effect. Up close it looks really busy... from far away though, it looks really good. And yes, we're painting our cabinets white so this would be almost the exact effect we're looking at.

Next up we have the Numerar with a black laminate top and a metal edge. It prices out at about $12.50 a linear foot. We really like the clean black finish, the profile of the counter top which is a little taller than most traditional laminate countertops. BUT, we HATE the metal edge. As in HATE HATE HATE. It really doesn't fit with the look that we are going for in the kitchen. We've talked about taping off the black part and then just spray painting the metal edge black but are worried about how that will look.

 Another thing we are considering is using a butcher block surface on our breakfast bar and the desk we are building. It would go really well with our floors and I think be a great feature for the kitchen. We would go a bit darker with it than is pictured below.

Soooo... that is where we are. We're living with the idea of both the two options from Ikea right now and hope to have a decision on them in the next 2 weeks. So while $200 isn't go to be possible, it does look like $300-$500 will be. The budget is going to have to be revisited.

Blog Meet Bench, Bench Meet Blog

I have a story to tell you... it is about a woman who wanted to freshen up her master bedroom. She had already investing a lot of time and money, especially money, into this bedroom. And yet she hated it.

HATED IT.

She decided she had WAY too much invested to hate the room so she set off to TJ Maxx with the intention of spending about $100 to get what she needed to upgrade the bedroom.

And it worked!!!

She found everything she needed, a new quilt, pillows, a curtain panel and a few accessories. But wait... what is that over there. Over there in the furniture section.

A bench.

A glorious bench, nothing like that the woman would typically buy. It was very different. Iron base... which was good, the room already had too much wood. Zebra upholstered top.... ZEBRA I TELL YOU!!!

It was too different. It was too much.

She left it.

She went home and feel back in love with her bedroom as the new items fixed all that was wrong with the bedroom. Paint landed on a desk and her workspace was transformed.

But, she coveted the bench. She couldn't live without it. It was all she thought about.

So just few days later she returned for the amazing bench.

It. Was. Gone.

GONE I TELL YOU!!!

She visited every TJ Maxx, Marshalls and Home Goods in the area. She enlisted the help of friends (Hi Cass!!!), Googled herself silly.

No bench.

And then, last week... she returned to TJ Maxx with her good luck charm (Hi Cass!!!) and what did she find... no, not the exact bench, but just about as close as you can imagine. This one, has a brown base, not black, and the top is brown and black zebra not white and black.

Oh yes, It because mine!!!

Blog Meet Bench, Bench Meet Blog.

 

Soooo now... the question is, do I just live with this bench, or do I try to transform it into THE bench... I turned to my friend photoshop for some advise.

Here is the bench with black legs:

 

 

Me likey.

And here is the bench with the black legs and white and black top:

 

Wow.

Do you have any idea how out of character this bench is for me??? Do you have any idea how much I love it!!!

I'm going to live with the pictures for a while and see what I want to do... either way, that tag is coming off. The bench is MINE!!!

I'm dreaming of a mud room.

Yes, mudroom.

I'm dreaming of a mudroom.

We bought our current home at the peak of the real estate market here in Northern Virginia, it wasn't our dream home, but it was as close as we expected to find. Since moving in, the market crashed, our equity is gone and we are stuck here.

On the bright side, we love the house. It might not have been our dream home when we moved it, but we've done a damn good job of turning it into our dream home and we don't want to be anywhere else.

One of the things the house is missing that I'd love is a mudroom. I figured there was no way to make that happen with the way our house is on the lot and the way our garage is attached to the house. Over the weekend a friend helped me see that there just might be a way to build a mudroom to the side of our garage. It would also allow us to move the doorway that connects our house to the garage and make our kitchen much more 2 person friendly.



I want a mudroom with a storage space for each member of the family.

I want a mudroom with a pantry.

I want a mudroom with an extra door to the side yard.

I want a mudroom with a place to kick off your shoes - and then a place to put those shoes, and a place to sit back down and put them on if that is what you want to do.

Sigh...

I want a mudroom.

Looking at our finances, I'd say this one is going to remain a day dream for quite a while... but I'm going to keep dreaming.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow...

I feel like a little kid on Christmas Eve.

Since moving into our house over 4 years ago, I've not been happy with our master bedroom. I've tried little things along the way to make it work... but it still doesn't feel like "us". I like the palette, beige, cream, sage green and cranberry red. When we bought the furniture I thought I liked it. I've since come to regret it... we should have just gotten the bed, not the whole collection.

We've been through a number of quilts, comforters and collections of pillows. They've come up short and been returned, listed on ebay or donated to goodwill.

Well after realizing how much I've come to HATE this room, I realized it was crazy. We've got a lot of money invested in this room. A LOT. And while we don't like it, I think the room has good "bones" and we've got enough working in the room to build on.

So about a week ago I picked up a new quilt, some pillows, a drapery panel and decided I was going to make this room work. Then I remembered a desk we had in the basement that with some TLC could really shine in there...

I've got a coat of paint the desk and it is looking amazing. The bedding is working better than I imagined and my mistreatment of the drapery panel is just what I was looking for.

I can't wait to get up tomorrow, get another coat of paint on the desk and get everything pulled together!!!

Day Dreaming: What I'd like to Make - 081209

If there is one thing I've learned, I dream of a lot more projects than I get to make. I actually shop for a lot more projects than I get to make, that is a bit embarrassing to admit. I've got supplies, or partial supplies for a lot of projects, but it seems to be that whatever project I'm prepared for, is the last one I want to make.

Here are a few of things that if I was stocked to make, I'm sure I'd hop right on them. (Sure I would...)

Weekender Tote:
How can you not want to make this adorable bag... I'd actually like to make 2 or 3 of them. I think it would make the perfect bag to carry all the things that keep the kids occupied while we try to have dinner out. It would also make the perfect bag for my mom... I can see her using it for her projects or even a weekend visit here...

And then there is the Reversible Patchwork Bucket Hat - I've planned on making this all summer.
But I'm not sure it is worth the trouble, the little monster man won't wear hats - except of course from any old Easter Bonnet that Bug has laying around, he'll wear those. Just not anything that my husband would want to let him out in public in.

And have I mentioned that Bug loves to cook - how cute would it be to make matching aprons for us???

I especially like what they've done with that black and white fabric... oh, how I love it. I think this pattern would also make a good gift for my Sister-in-Law. Then again, she can sew better than I can - it might be embarrassing to give her something I made.

Sadly, too many ideas... not enough time, energy or money...

Wow, this has turned rather depressing for me hasn't it?

Pity.