Beast to Beauty

I am slowly trying to declutter and simplify my house.  It is a never-ending process!  But one thing I tackled that I am rather proud of is my bedroom TV cabinet.  We had an antique armoire in our bedroom for years that was used to hold our TV.  It worked great at first, when we had less STUFF, because I could close it up when the TV wasn't being used.  (The subject of having a tv in the bedroom is controversial, I know, and some people hate it.  I used to be one of those people, but now I love it, and it makes our bedroom our own personal retreat. YAY!)  Anyway, back to the story....Rob was given a "reward" for spending a certain dollar amount on dental supplies, so we chose a new tv for the bedroom. Great!  Problem was, it didn't fit in the armoire.  And as you can see by the pictures, we had outgrown it anyway and it was really just a mess.  That whole wall was a mess.  I can't believe I'm showing these pictures, but hey, it's real life I guess.  My new favorite saying is "Sorry my house is such a mess, but....WE LIVE HERE"


You can see the new tv on top, since my husband couldn't wait to hook it up and start using it.

I keep the sheets and bedding for our bed in our bedroom rather than the hall linen closet, but holy sheet mess!  That's embarrassing.

So who do you turn to in desperate times?  Craigslist, that's who.  I found this LARGE, old dresser one day, and within a few hours and 40 bucks later, it was mine. 

This puppy is made of solid wood and it's quite long, so boy, is it ever heavy.  My boys were not happy with me when they had to heave it up the stairs!  (Don't they know that's why I put up with teenage boys anyway, so they can MOVE things for me?)

 

You can see by the old speckled finish that it's from another era...I had to set it free.  It had to be done.  So I got to work painting it, what color, why white, of course. I don't have any "during" photos, mostly because while I'm doing a project I turn into a mad woman running back and forth to Lowe's, the garage, outside to my saw, and when it's dinner time, Taco Bell drive-through. 

But I built a hutch to go on top of the dresser and painted it white as well.  I designed the shelving to fit our new TV and all our other stuff.  Here it is:

 

Those sunny photos were a few months ago, and here are some from today: 

The Tv is positioned high so that when we watch tv in bed we don't have to be sitting up to see the screen.  Ultimate laziness factors are important, you know.

I made the back out of planks, and wanted them to look rustic and imperfect like you would see on an old farm wall or something.

I like that it can hold some of our books (we have a LOT of books!), the dvd player, magazines, and cutsies.  And as you can see, I have a thing for baskets of all kinds.  Wicker, wire, wood...all baskets are fun and essential, in my opinion, to hold just about anything.  They make items on shelves look like they are contained and have more definition.  Did that sound professional?

The cabinet below has a lot of storage room.  In fact, I think one drawer is even still empty!

The best part is that the doors open up to reveal 3 drawers inside!  So no more cramming things in cupboards and slamming the door before they all fall out!

So in total, this baby has 9 drawers!  The sheets are happy that they have a home.  I'm happy that everything looks cute and is more organized.  Rob's happy that his new flatscreen fits and is usable.  I guess we're all happy!

 

My Pantry

This is my pantry today.  This is the "after" part of my before and after.  Unfortunately, I didn't take any before pictures, so you'll have to use your imagination!  This small pantry was not as functional as it could be because it only had 4 shelves which were spaced rather far apart, so there was a lot of wasted space between shelves.  I left the very top and very bottom shelves, but removed the other 2 and put back in 3.  It was quite a job!  What I thought would easily take me a few hours took more like 5 days!  But it's done and much more functional now.

These are pictures of the "during".  All my food was stacked all over the place.

 

 

It was a mess!

This is when I taped off the electrical panel doors so I could paint them.  They've always been an eye-sore, just gray and ugly.  And they take up almost one whole wall of my very small pantry. 

 

Where these blue jars sit there were NO SHELVES.  They had left it open to allow for the electrical panel to the right so its door could swing open.  I put in narrow shelves just wide enough for canning jars that now hold my bulk spices.  I ordered the zinc lids to make the jars look old.

But the jars themselves I painted.  I coated only the outside (so the inside could be food-friendly) using mod podge mixed with water and food coloring.  I think I went a little too dark on my color, so who knows I may do them again someday.

After coating them I baked them in the oven until the mod podge looked clear.  It was pretty easy to do, and it's now one of my favorite parts of my pantry.

I seem to have a lot of pasta, so I used cute jars to hold them all.  Now everything's easy to find.  I love the large baskets that sit on the floor, they hold all those miscellaneous snacks and packages that don't fit anywhere else.

I like the tall plastic containers on the top shelf, they hold all that extra flour and sugar.  Chalkboard labels make them look a little cuter.  Baskets keep like foods together, like crackers, granola bars, etc. 

Now chips have a basket instead of being all over the place.  The white plastic popcorn buckets get used on a daily basis, we are a popcorn family!

The wooden crate was raw wood, I stained it and added the divider to separate potatoes and onions.  I put casters on the bottom to make it easy to move around.

I tried to use every inch of space.  These letter bins are shallow, so they don't interfere with getting to the shelves, but they hold quite a bit of packets and mixes.

A small sturdy stool makes it easy to get things off the top shelf, or sit on it when I'm pondering what to make for dinner.  By the way, what are you making tonight, I need an idea!

These are the electrical panels now all painted in chalkboard paint.  Now I can use them as magnetic chalkboards to write shopping lists.  The magnetic container holds scissors for cutting open packages and markers for writing the dates on containers.  The magnetic clock just makes it cute!  The small wire baskets came from Wal-Mart and work grea for small packets of things.

It's so tiny in there it's hard to get good photos!

That is the tour of my small but newly organized, much cuter to look at pantry!

A little makeover

This is a chest I bought years ago at HomeGoods.  I have always liked the shape, but was ready for a more neutral color.  It sits next to my front door.

So this is what it looks like now.

I was going for a pale gray, but ended up with more of an off-white.  That's what happens when you mix your leftover paints.  But I still like it.

The large blue scroll piece can now take center stage.  It was a find at HomeGoods one day.  I put it in my basket right away just because I thought it was so cool and the price was pretty good, $50.  After a while though I decided maybe I'd put it back, I didn't know where I was going to use it.  Just then a lady asked me where I got it and went on and on about how darling it was and I was lucky to have found it, so she convinced me to hang on to it.  I'm glad I did.

Th knobs are black with gold painted designs.  Kind of something different.

The large frame was purchased exactly like it is, chippy paint and all, at D.I. for $3.00!!!  You can't beat that!

I like how it all turned out, a fresh new look for a little money and a little time.

A few things

So I've had a few things that have been frustrating me lately.
First up is my dishwasher.  Pinterest is great, all kinds of tips and recipes and decor ideas.  When I saw how to make your own dishwasher detergent I though I'd give it a try.  I thought of all the money I was going to save by making a huge amount of detergent.  Wrong.  I ended up losing money because it slowing started making my dishes cloudy and dirty.  Yuck.  That's one of the things that drives me nuts is cloudy glasses and milky silverware.  I threw out the whole batch of detergent I made and just bought some cascade.  The people at cascade know their business, I shouldn't try to pretend to know how to make dishwasher detergent.  My dishes are sparkling once again.  Lesson learned.

Second thing.  Dogs and carpet.  They don't really mix.  If you own a dog (or cat) and have carpets, chances are you have accidents on your carpet.  I heard somewhere that animal urine will show up under a blacklight.  Well when Emily had her big 18th bday bash last weekend she accumulated alot of blacklights because it was a glow in the dark party.  So I used the opportunity to check my carpets out one night.  I wish I hadn't.  But I'm glad I did.  All I can say is:  OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was disgusting and disturbing.  I was ready to give my dogs away right then and there.  What the Heck?  I have since cleaned my carpets and made alot of changes.  The dogs have access to the carpets ALOT less than before.  They're dogs, not people.  I'm afraid permanent damage is done however.  So you may want to check out your carpets with a blacklight.  You don't really want to, but you should.  By the way, does anyone want a couple of really cute dogs?

Third thing.  Shower scum.  I'm talking mostly about hard water build up on a glass shower. My shower is enclosed with clear glass panels.  We squeegy after every shower, but the hard water takes it's toll.  I've used several products and scrubbed and scrubbed, never with great results.  Then after making my own window cleaner with water, vinegar, rubbing alcohol & dish soap (making my own stuff, see a pattern?) I decided to try it out on the glass shower.  I literally sprayed it and wiped it with a paper towel and the build up was gone. G.O.N.E.  Vinegar.  The power of vinegar is amazing.  My shower literally sparkles. I'm also using it as a rinse agent in my dishwasher, I put it in with a load of whites in the washer, it repels ants, cleans floors.  What else can vinegar do??
If it sounds like I'm obsessed with clean, just take a look at my dust covered bookshelves.  That will assure you I'm not.

Our Missionary

Our missionary is out in the field again.  After a time at home to get more prepared, he is back out and doing great!  He is in the Provo MTC right now, but he will be going to Peru eventually.  He has to wait for his Visa to come through.  It's possible he'll go to a state-side mission while he's waiting, but that will be just fine with him, he just wants to get past the MTC.  We got our first letter today, he sounded great, his companion is from California and is going to Mexico.  He will email us on Thursday, so I'll forward that on to those who want to read it.  Just let me know.  His MTC address is:
Elder Brady Robert Dow
MTC Mailbox #320
PER-TRU 11-26
2005 N. 900 E.
Provo, UT 84604-1793

More recipes for you and yours

Glory be to Bev who gave us a kick in the pants.  I've been trying to think about why I don't post anymore.  Not even on my own blog and I can't figure out why.  I feel like I have nothing new or interesting to say or show.  But it doesn't have to be new or interesting, it just needs to be SOMETHING!    I can do something at least.

So to keep with the recipe theme:
Our Bishop brought over some smoked pork that he smoked in his smoker.  And he had some sauce in a squeeze bottle to go on top of it.  The pork was very good, most smoked meat is.  But the sauce!  Holy Canoli!  I loved it!!  It took the meat to the next level.  So I made some pulled pork in the crockpot and then made this sauce, some potato salad and biscuits.  Oh Mama!  A great break the fast meal.  But let me warn you, this sauce has a kick to it.  A little goes a long way.  Believe me.  It makes about a cup but you don't need much to flavor your meat.  I asked him for the recipe & he said he came up with it himself.  Here it is:

1 cup cider vinegar
2 Tbls. brown sugar
1 tsp. cajun seasoning
1/2 cup ketchup
1 tsp. coarse black pepper
1 tsp. red pepper flakes

Heat the cider vinegar enough to dissolve the brown sugar.  Add remaining ingredients.

I came up with a different kind of potato salad a few years ago.  It's kind of weird, but I like it.  I don't have exact measurments because I just kind of put some of this and some of that.

Cooked, cubed potatoes ( or if you're in a pinch you can use canned whole potatoes and cut them up)
mix together mayonnaise, a tsp. of lime juice, a dash of cayenne pepper, salt and pepper to taste, sliced black olives, sliced green onions.  That's it. 

Happy Fall ya'll!