I Lost an Hour, How About You?

This weekend was another busy one, but not at the house.  Landon and I took the weekend off and went back to Lexington for a quick visit.  We had a blast catching up with some of our friends there, taking in a Kentucky Basketball game (the Wildcats beat Florida), and getting some wedding stuff done--we finally registered at Kohl's.

When we got back yesterday afternoon, we spent the evening doing our taxes.  It was our first time filing as a married couple and we had enough "major life events" happen in 2012 to make things complicated.  We got married, both of us lived in two states, and I went back to school.  We finally got it all sorted out (and we'll get a nice refund) but it took awhile to figure out how to do it all correctly.

Because not much went on at the house this weekend, I don't really have much to share with you.  I did finally take down the Valentine's Day Table decorations and replaced them with some Easter Decorations, but that was about it.  I can't wait to get a new table and finally be able to make some fun tables runners, but I'm not going to spend time on that now since I have no idea what the dimensions of the final table will be.  Still, I think it turned out okay.

And, yes, I went with balls of yarn again as part of the center piece.  I just like that I've finally found a use for all the tiny bits of yarn that I dyed with Kool-Aid a few years ago.  There isn't really enough of any of the colors to do anything with, but they make pretty little center-pull balls that look good in my white bowl.  Maybe one day I'll use the yarn for something, but for now, they can decorate my table.

Also, since this is kind of not a real post, I figured I'll end with a picture of Malcolm enjoying the new cat hut that we brought back from Lexington in order to try and relieve some of the congestion at the old cat pyramid.  So far, it seems to be working.

Framing the Issue

Now that we are starting to get the furniture settled a little bit, we can begin hanging some things on the walls.  Since Landon had a grand total of one thing hanging on the walls at his house in Lexington, despite living there for several years, it's been mostly up to me to figure out where to put things.  Luckily, a few weekends ago my Dad and Step-Mom came to visit and, while the guys were working on tiling the floor of the master bathroom, Kathy and I hung up some frames.

The one wall that I was having the most trouble figuring out what to do with the stretch of wall in between the craft room door and the first door to the family room.  It's in the foot path to the kitchen area, and so we can't put any furniture there, but I wanted something there since it's one of the first things you see when you walk in the front door.

While I was showing Kathy the collection of frames that we had, she mentioned the idea of doing a whole grouping of frames on that wall.  And we went to work.  We started with the one piece of art that Landon had, a photo he took in Maine, and worked off of that.

We added a poster I was given as a high school graduation gift many years ago as well as a framed score sheet from a game of hearts that was a college graduation gift from my church group.

Once we had the three major pieces, we tried to find some things to work with them, but there wasn't really anything that fit just right.  I went a few days later and got a new frame for my lighthouse poster as well as a square shadow box frame for and a regular 5 x 7 picture frame.

I found a photo I had taken in Charleston, SC for the small frame and balanced it out with another frame the same size that we already had in which I put the score card from a game of mini-golf that Landon and I played on our second date.

As for the square frame, I decided to use a project idea that I got from the Young House Love Book--Project 124 "Whip up some Custom State Art".  I found an outline of Kentucky online and downloaded it and sized it to the dimensions I wanted.  Then I printed it out and traced it onto some scrapbook paper I found at JoAnn's for $0.69.  I used some blue scrapbook paper as the background and then mounted the outline in the center to get a really nice (and coordinating) piece of art that cost about $15--nearly all for the frame.

I was the perfect thing to finish off the grouping and now I love looking at my wall of art when I come home every day.

We may eventually add more to the bottom, but for now I like it.  And, since it's nearly the only thing we have hanging on our walls at the moment, it makes things feel a little more like home.

A Little Slice of Happy

So while we've been easing back in to doing major work on the house, I've been working on a few little projects.  One of those projects was over hauling an organizer that I found at Goodwill back before Christmas.

It was $4 and at first I thought I might use it in the entry way to catch the mail and hang keys on, but once I got it home, I realized it was a bit small for that.  It was also a bit beat up so I knew I was going to have to paint it.   I also wanted to cover the cork board with fabric to make it look nicer and while I was searching my fabric stash for something to use, I realized that it would work very nicely in my craft area to hold notions and other small things that tend to get lost in my drawers of crafting supplies.

In order to paint it, I first took it apart as much as I could.  Thankfully there were screws on the back that were easy to access and allowed me to disassemble it rather easily.

I also managed to remove one of the two shelves.  They were both screwed and glued, but one came lose with a little nudging.  The other wouldn't budge, so I left it.  Then I sanded everything down.  I thought I might have to use wood putty to fill a few scrapes and notches, but as it turned out, sanding took care of them.  Then I used some left over trim paint to paint everything a nice, glossy white.

I also managed to remove the cork board from the backer using a butter knife to loosen the glue.  I laid it face down on my fabric and cut out a piece just a bit bigger than the board.

I then wrapped the fabric around the board and used hot glue to secure it in place.  Once the paint was dry and the glue had a chance to harden, I reassembled everything.

I decided after this to paint the three knobs green, but I had to wait a few days for the weather to warm up a bit so I could spray them outside.

As it is, it looks nice and will match the knitting needle holder that I'm in the process of sewing with the rest of the fabric.  Not bad for a total of $7 in supplies ($4 for the organizer and $3 for the spray paint).  Hopefully it will be useful, but if not, at least it will be pretty.