Fireplace Mantle

The fireplace mantle that I picked up at Luckett's back in May is finished and installed.  I have this wall that really could serve no purpose what so ever, so I had painted a magnetic chalkboard for the kids to use and after painting the walls the green just stood out like a sore thumb, so I re-painted it black.  It needed something so I went on the hunt.  I was not expecting to find something like this for just $57.  It was cheaper than hubby building me one, which he said he would do.

Here it is before

I loved the simplistic details

It had a layer of pink, blue, yellow, sea green and varnish.  There was also contact paper on top of the pink on the top of the mantle.

Here is the after

Hub's had to cut a little off the ends, but I still like it.

 

Now I just need some accessories for the mantle. Overall I am very pleased with how it turned out.  Once I discovered the contact paper didn't want to come off I thought it was going to be a long process, but a little bit of stripper saved the day.

See the dark trim in the hallway in the background of the first picture.  I think that may be my next project.

Busy Weekend

I had this wonderful post for Autumn's 6th birthday but go figure my computer would not cooperate in downloading my pictures.  And what is a post without pictures.  Autumn lost her 3rd tooth on Friday night after a mishap of crashing into the couch and loosening it even more with a lot of blood.  So mom did the honor of wiggling it until it came out.  We properly placed it under her pillow in hopes the tooth fairy would make a visit. Sure enough Saturday morning she informed me that she had indeed visited us during the night.

Family made the long drive to our house to celebrate with us on Saturday.  Autumn is tickled that she said goodbye to......

And hello to .........

I asked her if being 6 felt any different than being 5 and she assured me it does. 

After opening presents (and a fight with her brother)

We had some cake (excuse my sloppy icing job)

On Sunday, her actual birthday, we left hubby to some peace and quiet for Father's Day and went swimming in Grand mom's pool. 

It is so hard to believe that 6 years ago on Father's Day I woke hubby up at 8:30 informing him I thought I was in labor.  Leaving the house at 9:35 for a 45+ minute ride to the hospital, but arriving there in 25 minutes.  To hubby passing out on me and holding her in my arms just 20 minutes after arriving.  It is a day that will be ingrained in my heart and mind forever.   

Happy Birthday my sweet girl!

Holy Cow!

I can't believe it's been almost two months since my last post.  Where has the time gone?  Every Memorial weekend I have my yard sale.  This year I was determined to get rid of stuff.  I sat back and thought do 4 people really need all this stuff.  We moved from an old house with no closets to a house with lots of closet space but they are all full.  So I spent a good month pricing and going through everything.

Since it was calling for a chance of rain, I had to place most of the items on the front porch. 

I was tickled pink whenever someone bought something.  That was just one less item I had to pack back up.

All my regulars showed up once again.  I priced the items extremely cheap so they would sell, plus people are extremely cheap.  I ended up only having to load the Suburban once to take to Goodwill versus three. So all in all it was a success.

The week prior hubby and I went to Lucketts, VA to their antique flea market.  I wasn't exactly in the right mind frame when we went as I had pulled my back completely out of whack contorting myself to reach for something in the back seat for the kids and I was in a lot of pain.  I had my camera with me but I didn't snap one single picture.  It was crowded and I just didn't have it in me to really look at stuff and get some deals. I did end up buying my antique fireplace that I wanted to frame out the kid's chalkboard wall.

Isn't she beautiful?  If Autumn had it her way it would remain pink.

I fell in love with the simple details.

But I really fell in love with the back.  Hubby turned it upside down when loading it and we saw this.

How cool is that? 

So even though I was in pain this made the 1 1/2 hour trip worth it.

Rubbish

Garbage has to go somewhere right? My neighbor has 4 trash can's in her kitchen for seperating biodegradable, recyclable, trash and something else.  I just want one.  I have owned at least 10 different trash cans since I have been married to hubby.  

We've owned a couple of these, but someone (me) has a habit of filling the trash can to where this type of lid won't open.  So I've always gotten rid of them.  Why I've bought more than one is unknown to me.  I've had the ones with the flat tops you push on a button thingy and it flips up. I've had the step on kind but something fails and when you step on it it doesn't go up so whats the purpose of that.

I splurged and bought one of these numbers but it didn't hold enough garbage.  Seriously I have better things to do than take out garbage several times a day.  It got downgraded to the laundry room and serves it purpose just fine for lint.

  For some inexplicable reason trash cans do not last long with us.  Our current trash can is broken.  Imagine that!  It is one of those with a flat top that flips up with the push of a button type thingy.  We'll that button type thingy is broken on one side and most of the times the door won't stay closed.

I searched online for trash cans that looked neat and served its purpose.  I want a pretty tight sealing trash can.  In the winter time with radiant heat the trash can heats up and starts smelling which I hate.  So I stumbled upon this

I absolutely fell in love with it.

I'd even be happy with this one. But I can't find it available in the US.  I mean I've spent hours looking online,  I even toyed with the idea of having it shipped.  But I just can't justify that expense over a trash can.  Maybe I can find a similar substitute.

Memorable Weekend

It has been a memorable weekend to say the least.  It was not what I had in mind.  It was raining and just plain ucky outside to do anything productive.

It started on Friday with Autumn waking up with a sore throat and a low grade fever.  Ok, no bid deal I'll keep you home from school and we'll go to the food store as the kids call it.  She rapidly deteriorates while were shopping and has a full meltdown on the way to check out.  She's crying hysterical saying she's tired and wants to go to bed.  Ok, seriously it's 10:30.  She must really be sick.  We get home I take her temp and it's 103.5.  Now the mommy guilt kicks in for even taking her out.  After dinner I look at her throat and now it is fire engine red with red bumps and puss.  Lovely.  Call doctor he says wait until the office reopens in the morning and bring her in.  Friday night she slept maybe 5 hours because the pain was so bad and motrin wasn't helping.  Saturday we get in and the rapid strep comes back negative.  But she had also developed a rash in her groin area which has spread upwards on the rest of her body.  Doc thinks its strep with a scarletta rash, a.k.a. Scarlet Fever.  She said if she feels better tomorrow on the antibiotics that will be the indication that this is what she has.  After an itchy, crying night she finally started feeling better Sunday.

I kept her home today just for good measure and to get some more rest.  Now I'm just hoping Logan doesn't get it.  It was no fun with Autumn I can only imagine how he would be.  And it's awful being a mom and not being able to do anything to make it go away.  You just have to patient and let the medicine kick in.  I am hoping for a better week and weekend.

On a side note the electrician came by on Saturday and installed my new lights and moved the island.  I'll show pics later.

First tooth and Easter pics

Autumn lost her first tooth.  It wasn't the way that I had hoped and I felt awful afterwards.  You see she had me ready to fly to the moon. She had had an attitude with me since I had picked her up at Grandmom's and refused to do her reading homework and kept sassing me.  So off to her room we go and she was getting ready for bed.  I pulled her shirt off and it got stuck on her tooth.  I felt like the worst mother in the world.  Needless to say the tooth fairy was kind enough to bring her $1.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter.  We dyed our eggs on Friday and then they also painted them on Saturday at Grandmom's while mommy and daddy were out getting our free stuff. This was the first Easter since having kids that I did not have to put a snow suit on them.  They had fun looking for eggs.  All in all it was a good day.

Nothing is ever easy

Why is it everytime I make up my mind on something, something always goes wrong?  I won these lights on ebay.

I love these lights I scored one for $39 plus shipping and the other for $29 plus shipping.  One of them had been damaged.  The cord was frayed and the wire had a chunk missing out of it.  Ok, no big deal since the seller had refunded me the money plus shipping so it was free.  How hard could it be to find a replacement cord.  Let me tell you it has been impossible.  I even ended up at a swanky antique dealer that also specializes in antique lights and he could not find this color of cord.  So I settled for white, but the supplier would only sell him 250' worth.  I only needed 20'.  So now I am thinking to just replace the cord without the rayon covering and take it off the other one.  Our ceilings are so high that I won't be utilizing the pulley on it anyways.  I just don't know, I am so depressed over it.

Then to our kitchen countertops.  I thought I was going to go with stainless on our island as I can get it from one of our suppliers at work pretty cheap and the shop forman will weld it, grind it and polish it for me.  But them someone said I will completly hate it and another said it will be too industrial.

I still love the idea of stainless because it will reflect light and with no direct sunlight in the house I thought it would help.  I don't think this picture looks all that industrial.  So then I went back to my drawing board and discovered this at Ikea.

And I love this too but guess what they don't have any in stock at the nearest store nor the ones with a 3+ hour drive.  I wanted to do soapstone on the rest of the countertop than someone made me doubt that decision as well.  I am totally frustrated and in a rut.
I think both would look good in the kitchen with the cabinets painted.

This is the kitchen island.

Here is a picture of the two colors together.

So now I am just stuck and depressed.