Pantry Shelving

Last Tuesday I shared with you how we took apart in the inside of the pantry and added some color.  Today I want to share with you how we added some spectacular shelving to our new pantry.

After Joe took out the old broken security system (you can tell it was hard to get out and he was annoyed by the time we were done :0), and I had puttied, sanded, and painted, we added real wood shelves (no more wire racks!  whoop whoop!!)

Joe measured very carefully and cut scraps of 2 x 2 strips to make supports for the shelving.  He painted them the same color as the wall, leveled them, and hung them.

The screws were black, so I touched them up by covering them with a little brown paint.  Finally, We bought white melamine and had it pre-cut by our favorite people at Lowes for the shelving. It just set right in there on top of Joe’s supports. Love it!!

August Begins the End of Summer

As summer winds down to an end, we are back at school, and the weather starts to cool (a little) it is time to take down the patriotic decorations for the 4th of July and change up the porch a little.

My first step was to take down the pitiful geraniums and add some durable, beautiful, full ferns.  I mean how gorgeous are those!?  I also made some new pillow covers using my favorite project-and-trace method (with my trusty ‘ole sharpie). I swapped up the table setting by adding a sweet little bird house that my father-in-law made for me, a bird’s nest (that was already on the ground – no worries – I didn’t steal a bird’s home), and a simple citronella candle. Finally, my absolute favorite part of the August porch is the new wreath.

This wreath is by far my favorite wreath I have made so far.  It is so simple yet so elegant, and I am kinda’ crushing on the color green lately. 

The best part is that this wreath was so fast and easy to make!  I started by purchasing 3 stems of white hydrangeas and 8 stems of green hydrangeas (on 1/2 off sale at Hobby Lobby) and cutting off the bunches at the bottom of the stem.

This would leave a smaller bunch of about 6 – 8 flowers together.  I then took a screw and made holes all along the Styrofoam in three rows. 

I took the individual groups of flowers, added some hot glue to the bottom of the stem, and stuck the stem into the pre-done holes.  I just went all the way around filling all the holes, then took the extras and went back to fill in some of the sparse places.

Finally I took some silky ribbon and added a hanging loop and a bow to the front of the wreath.

This wreath literally took less than an hour from start to finish, and did I mention that I am in love with it!?

Sanding and Painting

On Friday I showed you our new little project chair.  After we took apart the chair, and Joe stabilized it, I worked on prepping it for paint.  There were a lot of scratches, nicks, and dings, so it took a little work.

I used fine grit sandpaper to rough up all the surfaces of the chair.  It was important to make sure all the small grooves were taken care of.

After everything was sanded, I blew off the dust with the air compressor and then I wiped the whole chair down with a tack cloth to make sure there was absolutely NO dust left on the frame.

Finally, Joe got out the air sprayer and put a couple coats of black furniture paint on the frame.

Come back on Wednesday to see how I reupholstered the seat and get a good look at the finished project!

For the Love of Pinterest ~ DIY Floor Cleaner

Dogs….I love them….really, I do….but this….I do not love!

I can not keep my laminate wood floors clean!  This is a spot of the floor right in front of the door to the backyard, so it is dirtier than most, but really…it just drives me nuts!  I sweep every single day and mop at least twice a week.  It’s not the dogs’ fault.  They have to go out, but I wish I could wash their feet before they come in each time. 

My other problem is that no matter what I clean the floors with (Mr. Clean, Pine Sol, Lysol, etc.) it ALWAYS leaves streaks.  Since I have so many windows in my living space (which I love) I get a lot of natural light.  This natural light is like a spotlight on the streaks on the floor.  How frustrating!  I spend hours cleaning and it looks all streaky!!

I found this recipe on Pinterest for a DIY Streak-Free Laminate Floor Cleaner.   I followed the pin to the Nature’s Nuture blog and read through her post.  It seemed like this recipe she came up did exactly what I needed so I tried it out.  I followed Sarah’s recipe exactly: 

Homemade Floor Cleaner

Ingredients

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup vinegar
• 1 cup alcohol
• 2-3 drops natural dish soap
• 10-15 drops essential oil
• Fine-mist spray bottle – 24oz

Instructions

1. Add all ingredients to spray bottle and shake to combine.
2. Sweep/vacuum the floor.
3. Spray cleaner on the floor.
4. Wipe up with a microfiber cloth.

I used an orange essential oil this time, but next time I think I am going to try a Lavender Essential Oil like Sarah suggested.

I mixed it all up, sprayed the floor down, and went to work.  I was pretty happy with the results.  It is not TOTALLY streak free, but it is MUCH MUCH better than any of the store bought cleaners I have used so far. 

It did still have a pretty strong vinegar smell (which is why I want to try lavender next time), but we had company over about 30 minutes after I mopped and they said they only smelled clean.  I am most happy about knowing exactly what is in my cleaner.  With pets, and hopefully someday children, I am starting to become very aware of all the chemicals that are brought into the home.  I am glad that this worked and I plan on using this mixture for all my floor cleaning from now on. 

A First Time Mini Reupholster

We have this really blank spot in the bedroom that we needed to fill.



We have been looking for a small chair and table to add to this space and we finally got gifted a free chair that was on it’s way to the dump.  It wasn’t very pretty, didn’t fit our decor, and was very unstable.  What on earth are we going to with this?  Well, we are going to try a little make-over!



The first step is to take this chair apart (at least the seat – so I can reupholster it).  Lucky for me, the seat just popped right out!  Yay!



Joe used a few screws, some wood glue, some scrap wood, and lots of love to give the chair a life again (and lots of strength so we could actually sit in it).



Lookin’ good…stay tuned for the rest of the project!

What is a Virtual Assistant?

If you remember reading my post about “Why I Blog”, you know that I mentioned  I would like to bring in a small income from blogging some day.  Well that blog post initiated a great business meeting (the best!!) that resulted in me becoming a virtual assistant.  I am super excited about this work, especially because it means I get to work more closely with a dear friend!

Wikipedia defines a virtual assistant as “A virtual assistant (typically abbreviated to VA, also called a virtual office assistant) is generally self-employed and provides professional administrative, technical, or creative (social) assistance to clients from a home office.”

This is a pretty good definition of what I will be doing.  I will be working on creating and managing a blog for WISE EdServices, as well as getting the blog information out onto public platforms such as Facebook and Pinterest.  Hopefully the job requirements will continue to grow as the business grows. 

I am super excited about this opportunity and so incredibly grateful to Amy for giving me this amazing opportunity.

So anyways, I just have to tell you about this amazing business meeting.  Since Amy lives in Alexandria VA, and I live in Gainesville GA, we met halfway in North Carolina at the Ferrington Spa and Inn.

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We enjoyed an amazing 5 star 3-course dinner that was so delicious and also kept us at the dinner table long enough to not only discuss the virtual assistant position, but also family and life. Did I mention that Amy is one of my best friends?  It was so nice to have some girl time during this meeting to catch up.  We don’t see each other nearly enough.  The absolute best part about dinner was the Hot Chocolate Soufflé – O. M. G.!! 

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We spent some time at the little shops on the property, McIntire Books and Dovecoat.  There is nothing better than a small town bookstore!  I picked up this beautiful little Lab to add to our decor at home, some amazing hand soap, and a new book.

 

We finished up our business meeting with a wonderful night’s stay at the Ferrington Inn and then facials at the Ferrington Spa the next morning before driving home.

So what is a virtual assistant?  Someone who gets lucky enough to work with their best friend and have incredible business meetings!!

Eco-Friendly Snack Bags (DIY)

I got in the crafty mood today and picked a project that was just in time for school to start back (which is this Friday!!).  I am always on the look out for small ways to help make a little less impact on the earth.  As school (way too quickly) approaches, these eco-friendly, re-usable, recycled snack bags are perfect!  Not to mention they are super cute too!!

Basically, I turned this….


Into this….



I know right!?  So cute!!  I just made two this evening (one cute one for me, and one simple one for JC’s lunches), but I plan to whip many more of these out in the next couple of weeks.  I won’t re-type all the directions here, but if you are interested in making some of these yourself go check out Happy Hour Projects.  Adrianne does an AMAZING job of spelling out the directions step-by-step.  They were so easy to follow!  This was my first project from Happy Hour Projects, but I will definitely try another because it was true to form and took me about an hour and a half to make both bags from start to finish.