S is for Sink to Shelf

We're getting there.

Slow and steady wins the race.
I know what I am going to do about "U" and "W" and I even have an idea for "X" it's the other letters I am not so sure about.
But that is another week.
Right now I just have to worry about "S."

Decorating A-Z has been fun for me, I hope you guys have enjoyed it too.

This week I am going back to see Truvy and tell you about a small detail in her
beauty shop.
In case you forgot, my master bedroom used to be a beauty shop, complete with a hair washing sink.

This is along the wall as you enter the bedroom. I lived with it like this for a few months. Then I decided to make do with what I had until I could REALLY do it like I want to. If you want to see the full transformation of the bedroom, you can find it here.

This post is just about the sink.
The sink, the whole sink and nothing but the sink.
You saw the before.
This is me trying to live with it. I painted the cabinets and countertop black.
I reused a sink skirt that I made for my old house.
It was like putting a pig in a silk hat, or however that saying goes.

We had a plumber come and cut the pipes off and he took the sink off the wall. I was scared for him to cut the pipes all the way back to the wall, because frankly he scared with me all his talk of "water from the upstairs coming out these pipes."
I had visions of ruined carpet and a big mess.
You all know me well enough by now.
I'm impatient.
I just wanted a cosmetic fix.
I wasn't prepared for the commitment of the full on renovation.
So we were left with the pipes sticking pretty far out of the wall.

However, hubby started by putting a shelf on the bottom and then another one right on top of the pipes. To finish off the ends and make it look a little more professional, I had him put some trim molding along the fronts of the shelves.
He used the same trim along the countertop too which made it seem alot more like furniture. The thickness of the trim also helped block the view of the pipes.

Then I just painted everything black. I even painted the tips of the cut off valves on the pipes that were sl-i-gh-t-ly showing on the bottom
(I know you saw them. Don't try to lie to me!)
Now you never even notice them.

The next to last step was to rough up the edges a little and make it really look like a piece of furniture that I WANTED instead of something I was just
"making do" with.

The final step was to cute-ify it, but let's take one more look at Truvy's before:

and the much, much better after:

I'm joining in with the CSI Challenge for "molding." Come on over and see some neat ideas!!

S is for Spray Paint

Getting closer to the end.

I'm not really sure what I will do after the letter Z.

It will probably be all random and scattered and I will lose every follower and faithful reader I ever had.

Oh well, at least I'll have you guys for a few more weeks.

Here we are week "S." This post is actually going to kill two birds with one stone. Not any of these birds, mind you, but some random pesky birds that pooped on your car or something.

I am going to keep up with my plan and follow through with "S" week. But I am also participating in the "CSI Project." It is going to be so fun! You should check it out, you will probably want to play too!

For those of you who follow me fairly regularly, you probably know how much I love to spray paint. On a nice day, I could go through about 5 cans of spray paint.
I have some favorites, Heirloom White, Canyon Black, Oil Rubbed Bronze. Those are my standard go-to's.
I am going to try to branch out with a gray and blue color. I'll have to let you know how that goes.
Today's post; however, is about a color that you may have seen but aren't sure of:

This paint creates the look of frosted glass.
Okay, that was a little obvious, you all can read. Sorry.
Anyway. I have some really nice sidelights by my front doors. I liked them, but it kind of creeped me out that people could see inside them at night.
Yea, I could have put shades or curtains up, but they are kind of skinny and I just didn't like that idea very much. Plus, that would have been WAY TOO EASY.

Here was my solution:

I bought a big stencil and traced the design onto contact paper that I had cut to the size of the window and then put the contact paper onto the window:
Here it is on the window.
That was the easy part.
All those nice swirls had to be cut out.
With an exacto knife.
With a pretty steady hand.
There were TWO windows.
I am VERY impatient.

Hubby stepped in and cut them all out for me. I am sure there was some whining and bottom lip sticking out (on my part) going on, but he did it cause he is sweet that way.

Oh, and let me mention, that I wanted most of the window to be frosted so the bulk of the contact paper had to be cut out, leaving the cute swirls.

Anyway, from there I shook up my neato can of Rust-oleum paint and started painting the window.
Two tips: (1)try to block the area that you are painting (I used cardboard) because frost shrapnel kind of gets everywhere and (2) ventilate the area.
This is pretty stout stuff and I may have had a few hallucinations during this process.

When you take the contact paper off, be very careful because some of the frost might come off. Hubby cut around all those swirls before we took them off (again, there may have been more pouting and lip sticking out, but he did it because he is sweet that way). I have since learned (with some other frost projects I will share later) that if you use an exacto to help pull off the contact paper it does better.

Anyway, here is the after all dressed up for Christmas (I have Tom the peepers no more!)

I am more than pleased with the results. The look is really subtle during the day.

Like I said before, I am joining up with The CSI project. This week's challenge is "Paint."
Come by and see, you might want to join the fun!!

R is for Roses

For those of you who have been faithfully following along on my journey from A to Z, allow me to apologize for the lack of a new post last week.
Out-of-town conferences and field trips had me all out of sorts.
(4 hours on a school bus can really mess a girl up).

I will also admit that I am struggling with the letter "R."


I have a few ideas, but nothing sounds all that great. Okay, honestly I have only had one idea and that is "RED." But that seems kind of boring to me.

This post came about after a trip to Lowe's yesterday. We moved into this house in October (I know, I know I've said that a million times...) and I can do just about anything INSIDE the house. I have ideas upon ideas when it comes to INTERIOR decorating.
Take me out the door and ask me to look at the yard and well, the
inspiration just STOPS.

I have little to no talent in the landscaping or gardening realm. Forget green or brown thumb, let's just say I have NO thumb. I can't keep things alive and I have no idea what to even plant so that I can kill it later.

My house is crying for some color. You have seen pictures of the front:
It's all beige. The back is even worse. More beige, on the house, on the deck...it's really bad.

Anyway, this post is not about the color of my house. Nor is it to try to make you feel sorry for my beigeness. It is about a little gem of a plant that even I cannot kill. Actually, can't kill is not even accurate.
Here is a plant that I can make GROW!!!

Knock-Out Roses.
Have you ever seen them?
(You probably have because you all probably have
nice, chartreuse colored thumbs.)
Anyway, in our old house I planted three double knock-out rose bushes and they grew HUGE in less than 2 months.
(I drove by the old house the other day and they have bloomed again this year in full force.)

This is not the old house, but this is what most of the bushes in this area look like. They will bloom like this all summer. I prefer the "double knock-outs" to the regular
knock outs. Here is a close up of both:

This is the single variety.

This is the double knock-out. These look more like traditional roses.

Here is the kicker. I had thought about replacing some of the bushes that run along the back driveway with these roses, but that was going to mean buying about 6 rose bushes. I wasn't ready for that price commitment.

I went to Lowe's yesterday with plans to buy some ferns. As I was eavesdropping, I learned they had marked down many of their plants.
(I bought three hydrangea bushes for $12 each--those are my absolute fav, but that is a post for another day).
The double knock-out roses were marked down to less than $10!!! These usually are $25/bush. The only draw back was the pink ones were the only ones that were on sale. I didn't have any I was trying to "match" so I went for it!! I was so excited. I came home and put them where I wanted them to be planted and it is so nice to drive up on the backside of the house and see the sweet pinkness there to greet me!!

It should be mentioned that in my excitement I managed to lose my cellphone.
That too is a post for another day...

Q is for Quaint

Debbie is having a "Newbie" party and this is another old post that I think tells alot about me.

If you are regular follower, drop by her site and meet some other new people to blogland.

If you are visiting me from her, thanks for stopping by. I hope you will be back soon!

Post #2 of one of the more difficult weeks:

Q is also for Quaint.
According to wordreference.com:
Quaint: strange in an interesting or pleasing way

That pretty much sums up some of the things I am going to show you in this post.
Strange, but somewhat interesting.

I chose to do this post because Richella over at Imparting Grace is having a neat party.
I'm all about a party that I don't have to get out of my paint splatter clothes for!



I; however, couldn't call my post "Special Touches" because, well frankly, that would
break the rules of my A-Z.
And some of the pictures seem a little
more "strangely interesting" than special.

First category is photographs
First, let me say that I have very little "artwork" so to speak.
I am pretty picky about things I hang up and in order for me to buy something mass produced it REALLY has to speak to me. So most of the things I have hanging are either photographs or things I have collected, or they have an "interesting" or fun story attached.

This door was bought at an auction for $6. The pictures are attached to rods that are supposed to hang off another rod. Rearranging downstairs one day, I "hung" the rods off the door and kind of like it. These are some of my favorite pictures.

This window hangs at the bottom of the steps.
I etched on the panes the "Love Home Family" from Mary Engelbriet. I used some magnets I have as the guidelines on how to draw it out and used contact paper. The pictures are just taped onto the mirror (they are 5x7).

I love, love, love this wall. Each kid in was about 3 years old when the picture was taken. My favorite red transferware surrounds them.

This picture is displayed in a glass front cabinet.
This is our wedding day. (July will be our 2 year anniversary).
Hubby was bringing Little Man to the family, I was bringing the two girls.
It was very important to us to include them in the ceremony as much as possible.
We decided to include a "family" toast and had glasses for all of us with our first initials etched on them. I just love to see all their faces and their little hands in this picture.
The glasses are displayed beside the picture.


To round out the picture category is one of my favorites.
This display holds a dress that I and each of my girls wore.
Beside the dress is a picture of one of us in the dress.
Oldest daughter is on top, me in the middle, youngest on the bottom. I had a plaque engraved (you can see it below the dress) with each of our names and the year we wore it.


The next category is "other kinds of hanging stuff"
These do qualify as "mass produced" but they made the cut because they have a funny story. Hubby and I were at an auction and I literally turned my back for like 2 minutes and he had bought a bunch of junk posters. When I turned back around he had the funniest look on his face and it took me a few minutes to realize he had won something. I was all "You bought WHAT?? Seriously, WHY??" These poster things are kind of cool and I think if that story everytime I see them.

I love me some vinyl. I love because it is simple and sweet
and believe it or not I am a woman of few words.
(Sure my miles long posts would say otherwise, but I really am.)


The "C" is from dailydropcap.com The birds were blue, I just cut them out and put red paper behind it. I didn't plan the spacing very well so I couldn't center the "C" in the frame, but I kind of like the "off-centerness" of it. Again, "strangely interesting" works here. The crowns are a private family joke
(I am referred to as "The Queen" I just let hubby "think" he is the king.)
They lead into my next section called:

Every Home Needs Some Humor:
Before you get all "who does she think she is" this was BOUGHT FOR ME. I did not pick it out.
Again, Hubby bought this for me. He started this whole queen thing, don't blame me. Like the picture above...I didn't ask to be the princess or the queen...

Finally, the truly "strangely interesting" part of my house:

Here lies Baby Bird 1 and Baby Bird 2.
Little Man rescued them (a little too late) from Toto, our dog.
He brought them into the house to show me. To which I shrieked.
And them proceeded to carry them around a good part of the morning yesterday.
We finally had a birdie funeral yesterday afternoon complete with one verse of amazing grace. You can't see it very well, but daughter #2 donated one of her "Silly Bandz" (airplane shaped mind you...anyone else find that interesting? I did, but she didn't) to the grave.

In this box is a baby bird the neighbor rescued then gave to Little Man.
He brought this in the house too. I shrieked again.
What is sweet about this picture are the cracker crumbs and spade thing.
The kids asked what to feed the bird. I said
"You have to chew stuff up and spit it in the bird's mouth."
I thought I would hear "Ewwww." I heard "Okay!"

Yikes. I should have thought a little longer about the response.

The spade was where they caught worms and tried to cut them up for the bird.
Little Man held the bird while the girls tried to feed it.

That process was not so helpful for Baby Bird.
I checked on him this morning.
His funeral will be later today.

BTW, when Little Man was walking around with those baby birds I warned him to look out for the momma. She will get mad if she sees him with them and come peck his head. He now freaks out a little when he hears bird squawk.
(Is it demented that I am still laughing about that?)



That does is for Q Week. You've seen more of my life, would you consider it "strangely interesting or strangely pleasing?

Q is for Quotes

You didn't think I could do it did you? When you read about me doing Decorating A-Z you thought, "Sounds like a neat idea, but I bet she has to skip Q, X, and Z."
Well, little naysayer, here I am:

Q Week and I have a post!

I love a good quote. In most of my papers (for my undergrad and master's classes) I manage to squeeze in a good quote. I sprinkle them into conversation from time to time.
One I used just the other day:

"If you don't have something nice to say...come sit by me."
spoken by the one and only Truvy from Steel Magnolias.
(she and I must be kindred spirits. I am sleeping in her beauty shop!)

I'm not completely sass and meanness. I also like to use quotes to inspire from time to time.

I have been known to recite "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." when I want my students or my kids to keep going.
(That might qualify as sass and/or meanness, depends on your point of view I suppose!)

I could fill my classroom with quotes, if I had a cricut
(cricket? criket? how in the hey diddle DO you spell that thing) I probably would.

One of my favorites, I couldn't wait on a cricut for, I painted on a canvas and it hangs in my classroom:

Another favorite quote is painted on the wall in Little Man's room:


You can see how I did it here

I also love vinyl and have been looking for the perfect quote for my entryway. I was going to paint the verse about the Lord knowing our comings and goings, but I decided to search for the same quote in vinyl.
It took some time, but I found it and am now anxiously awaiting its arrival.
This is not my entryway, this is the picture from the website.

It was less than $20! I found it at www.stickywords.net
Granted I would have preferred the "non-KJV" version, but I still love it.


Stephanie over at Under the Table and Dreaming is having a great give-away from Wonderfully Wordy. I am going to link up to her because I think this post fits in perfectly! Wish me luck, cause I already have an idea where to put the prize!!


It is also time for Ms. Jenny and her Alphabe-Thursday.


I'm not making any promises, but I just MIGHT have another Q post later this week.
I know, I'm amazing. It's a curse :)

P is for Printer's Box

Last post of "P" week:

I have mentioned that I have a hoarder in training. My youngest collects EVERYTHING.
Acorns, paperclips, you name it.
She also has the most incredible ability to find the tiniest thing in the biggest place
She is my little treasure hunter...except she wants to keep every.single.thing.

She used to pile everything on her desk, or any other flat surface she can find. Which drives me insane. Then I remembered something.

When I was younger, my next door neighbor's mom was an antique fanatic. My friend had a printer's box in her room and she kept all kinds of little happiness in the tiny squares.
I always wanted one.

Truth be told, my youngest daughter is just like me. I had collections of all kinds of junk too. I really loved those little shaped erasers, oh and little cute Barbie doll shoes, and Smurfs.
Yeah, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

After a few stalking sessions at my local Flea Market, I found a printer's box. Of course you also know that I am really not a big fan of wood so I painted it--
sur-PRISE, sur-PRISE, sur-PRISE (spoken in Gomer Pyle voice).

It has all kinds of nooks and crannies for all the wonderful treasures little chick hauls home.

Little puppies that won't pee on the floor will fit inside


Cute little miniature maracas from Mexico. Okay, so I picked those out.
I am still drawn to little tiny things.
It's a disease, kind of like birds and toile and hating wood and finials.


Little shell thing she got on a trip to the ocean with her dad.


What princess's printers box is complete with some bling?



So much better; however, I'm a little scared of how many printer's boxes I will have to find for this girl. She is finding more treasures...daily!!

Linking up with Ms. Jenny: