Never ending (bathroom) story

It was supopsed to come closer to an end today, but FedEx has mucked up our plans by not arriving in their 6 hour window they gave us.  How do you miss delivering within a 6 hour window?

I digress...  We painted the downstairs half bath after patching holes but we haven't hung the shelves or the mirror.  Since these pictures were taken we've added wainscotting, crown molding, patched holes and repainted small sections where paint pulled off with the tape, painted our countertop and replaced the light fixture, faucet, and vanity hardware.

The wood for the floating shelves and stain to match the cherry vanity are what we wanted to get at Home Depot, but Bryce has something coming for his car that he has to sign for and since FedEx didn't come between 10 and 4 we're still sitting here waiting instead of heading to Home Depot to get closer to finishing the never ending bathroom project.

Here's how we did the paint job.

 Bryce's snack in between taping and painting.

You can see how we stopped the pattern and then painted the bottom section prepping for detail molding.

with the tape off:



We painted the entire bathroom the base color in eggshell, but once we started taping and realized that covering every wall in this pattern from ceiling to floor could end up being a bit much.  We decided we would make more work for ourselves and do wainscotting to match our entryway and put up crown molding to match as well.  Good idea because it looks really good, but bad idea because of the work and one late night running short on patience making dents/holes in our wall with the molding and getting upset and walking out on the project.  I won't tell which one of us did that. :)

I do really like it and I'm excited to finish it so I can share the final product with you too.  The molding and everything looks so good in there.  We're like pros. 

Savannah, Ga

A friend from work got married on Tybee Island a couple weekends back and I decided we should spend some time in Savannah since we'll probably never be down that way again.

I was excited in particular about three things:
- seeing Spanish moss hanging in trees
- eating some good seafood
- the history of the city and all the squares  The cemeteries are supposedly pretty cool, but we didn't go check them out.

We woke up at 5:00 am left the house a little after 6 and drove 4 hours to Savannah, Georgia.
The route from here to there takes you through Macon where Bryce lived and worked in a past life so we decided to drive by his old apartment there.  He didn't recognize the place at first - they've upgraded it a bit and there's a really nice shopping center/strip mall across the street and they've added more roads.  He thought it would still be all trees and fields just like it was 7 years ago.

It was Bryce's lucky day because we had somewhere to go and we'd be driving back on Sunday so there would be not time to shop at the cute shops...

We checked in and walked through City Market to scope things out and then headed down to the cobblestone 'Riverwalk'.  There's a neat replica of a pirate ship and we watched some ships come up and down the river.

We just barely missed the wiener dog races (bummer) but decided to stop for lunch at The Cotton Exchange.  Awesome food.  I had shrimp and grits and Bryce had talapia with noodles, shrimp and scallops on top.  We also both had our first fried green tomatoes.  Delicious.  I started to take pictures of the food, but I couldn't make it not flash so then I was embarrassed and Bryce was probably even more embarrassed so I stopped.

We decided to walk down to Forsyth Park and so we grabbed some gelato from City Market (spotted on the first walk through) and on the way hit a couple of the smaller squares that are scattered through Savannah.  One we walked through had a Bride and her Bridesmaids getting their pictures taken before the guests arrived to sit in the pretty white chairs by the fountain.

Forsyth Park is very pretty.  It was the first park created in Savannah and styled after Paris with broad boulevards and has a fountain that's a copy of the one in Place de la Concorde. The fountain was placed in 1858.    The park was 10 acres set aside by Oglethorpe as a park and is the only bit of land (from which I understand) that was set aside for this purpose in the early days of settlement and has stayed the same and hasn't been broken up or rezoned.

Plus the houses around the park are really cool too.

I really liked the feeling of the historic district. 
We walked through the design district and then happened upon a street of shops so we wandered around those on the way back from the parks.

That evening we headed out to Tybee Island to the oldest lighthouse in the south (the first one built in Georgia since it's at the mouth of the Savannah River) and watched my friend get married on the beach.

DIY on clothes?

I haven't ventured into this world much, but I have a pair of pants I need to transform. Looking through this blog I am a bit inspired and it almost makes me want to go to goodwill or salvation army. Get past the china move and look at her older posts titled, "Granny chic." Some are impressive.  Or click the DIY button on the right side.  http://cottonandcurls.blogspot.com/ I feel like you have to have a gift to see something cute when faced with some of these befores.

I do have 2 pair of pants I'm going to transform for fall now that I have a better picture of how to do it.

What's wrong with this picture?

Let's see who finds it first!

Now, I know you're probably asking, "Yeah, I see the hair, but did you still eat the yogurt?"

Heck yes!  But I had to refrain from licking the lid.

I actually thought about not eating the yogurt, but I wanted it and the hair was only on the lid. 

So, I took a picture in case I got sick for proof. 

I did not get sick and now I get to share it with you! 

Lucky.

This is all leading somewhere...at least I hope.

 piles of dust EVERYWHERE

 first coat of paint on

 Can't tell there was ever a mirror glued to this wall.

 Even Jama's not sure what do with the mess and the 'construction'

We're almost there - should finish tomorrow!  Excited for the revealing of the paint job. 

There's still the final touches to go like the toilet paper holder, light fixture, pictures getting hung.

Oh yeah, and a mirror. :)  What started all this mess in the first place!

Treat yourself

This is how Bryce and I treat ourselves.  It's healthy right?!  Look at all that natural peanut butter in there!

mmm...

Say What?!

The lottery is now a necessity along with milk, eggs, and bread.

The sign is hard to read and I can't zoom.  But the message part says Milk Eggs Bread Keno (which is a new lottery game.) 

The commercials here in Georgia have a goat named Kevin who eats the lottery ticket and then farts fire.

Business or Personal: Solved

Well, partially solved.

Here's a glimpse of the office before and after.

5 years down - eternity to go

(not so good phone picture)

The man buys me flowers (which in theory I'm kind of against but really kind of liked it when I got them) and tells me I can still buy a pair of shoes too. :) 

It's crazy when I think back on the 5 years - how many moves and transitions we've both made.  Glad we're together.  These 5 years have been good to us and I'm sure we'll find a way to enjoy the next 5.

Business or Personal?

I've had my  office now for 6 months at work and I've wondered what to decorate it with.  It's bland, cream wall paper and some filing cabinets and desks and a computer.  I feel like I should be able to put something in there to make it a little prettier to look at.  After all I do sit in there for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.  But at the same time I wasn't sure what to put in there.  My boss is a huge Red Sox fan and served in the military so he has neat memorabilia and sports clippings and pictures up. 

Me?  I don't have any real passions like that I guess and I don't really want personal pictures all over the place either.  My office is still public domain for visiting vendors and other office personnel. So, What options do I have?

I finally figured it out a little bit.  I been using existing holes in the wall to hang promotional flyers and notes to myself so when I was offered an old used and discolored bulletin board I accepted and thought, I'll cover it.

I had the batting at home and with a long perusing session at TJ Maxx I found a table runner (I was hoping to find a twin flat sheet) with a pattern I liked and some picture frames.  Nothing too crazy.  Hobby Lobby's ribbon was 50% off so I bought that and some decorative brads and covered the bulletin board.  I pushed all the staples in by hand so probably 40-50 of them.  It's nothing fancy and I figure out how to do the wrap job since the table runner was a little lot skinnier than the bulletin board.

The table runner was definitely the most expensive part of this, but not too bad still.

bulletin board   -   free
badding            -   free
table runner      -   $10
ribbon              -   $1.50
brads               -   $4 - set of 12 (not on sale)

Bad pictures from my phone because my camera battery died and I am too lazy haven't had a chance to charge it.

Next dilemma, what do I put in the picture frames?
I decided on pictures from the trip to Paris - mostly of buildings - not of people.  So, I printed them in a kind of tinted gray scale - not stark black and white, but not sepia tone.

More bad pictures.

(left to right) signs outside the Musee d'Orsay, Paris skyline with la tour Eiffel, Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, and a hallway at chateau de Versailles.

I'm not anything close to a very good picture taker - see I don't even use the word photographer - but I think these are pretty ok.  Some of the ones I remember thinking looked good on my camera's display screen ended up not looking quite as good bigger or some were blurred.  LOTS of room for improvement;  I blame the camera for now. :)  But these will work.

I'm not one for the quotes, but I found this framed quote at TJ Maxx that I actually already tell myself it sometimes so I thought it appropriate for work and life in general.  I think one of the talks at General Conference when I was in YW used it and this quote is what I remember from it.

In distribution we try to do a Days Work in a Day so I thought it's not too much of a stretch to make that connection either.  This should cover me for now.  I really like the creams and soft grays, brown, and yellow in the material and the gray coordinates with the photos and the cream is in the quote background.  And it leaves me with room to add some more yellow for color. A little subdued, but still  not bland.  Personal, yet work appropriate? 



Wait 'til you see what fun Bryce and I got started today on a home project!