SPRING BREAK PROJECTS

Dude.

Last week was our Spring Break (including Michael's, hallelujah!), and we got BUSY here around the house. Turns out I worked myself a little too hard, because I've been flat on my rear end for going on four days now, sick. I wore myself out, working straight through the boys' naps each day and at night after they went to bed (until Friday, when I was down for the count). Despite the sickness and inhalation of Robitussin CF and Sudafed around the clock, we were crazy-productive and I'm THRILLED by how much we got done. I'm posting some pictures and commentary on the myriad projects we tackled.

1) My dad and Michael tiled our laundry room floor (WaHOOOOO!! This has been a long time coming!). There was old, peeling linoleum there before. Take a look at those gorgeous before and afters! Brings a tear to my eye. :)

2) I picked up some tall, scary brass candlesticks from Goodwill a couple of weeks ago, paying $5 all together for them. I wish I had remembered to take a before picture, but just imagine, tacky, gaudy gold. I spray painted them white and hot-glued jute around the base of each one. I'm digging it, especially since I already had the paint and jute string on had, so my out of pocket was only the $5.

3) I finally, finally, FINALLY finished putting new contact paper in our kitchen cabinets. The old stuff was those white geese from the 80s or 90s. Rough. I love opening my cabinets and seeing the new, clean, shiny contact paper, and I love even more that I can FINALLY check this project off my to-do list!

4) Michael and Bennett planted a mini-garden out back with strawberries, cherry tomatoes, and something else I can't remember off the top of my head.

5) Michael and Bennett also power washed the driveway, walkway, and back porch (thanks, boys!).

6) Jasper mowed the grass - hee :)

7) We trimmed our GIGANTIC crape myrtles, and our big live oak, back at the end of February, and even though that doesn't count as a Spring Break project, it was a beast and I had to post some pictures to go with the work - we worked our fannies off to get it done and LOVE the end result (which I don't have pictures of, but you get the idea).

8) Another thing I did that I don't have a picture of is our master bathroom. We textured it (with our friends, the Becks) over a year ago, and I painted the walls, and then my dad and Michael tiled it, but there were touch-ups with the paint and re-installed baseboards that DESPERATELY needed to be taken care of, and I did that last week too, along with touching up the baseboards and door frames in our bedroom, the living room, entryway, and laundry room, and also the back door. Holy Moly, I'm a hoss.

9) I took an old Christmas decor tin can and mod-podged over it with scrapbook paper to use as a dryer sheet holder in our laundry room. I mod-podged ribbon trim at the top and bottom as well. It fits the cabinet space a lot better than the cardboard box the sheets come in, and it looks cuter, too! The project cost me nothing out of pocket since I already had everything on hand, and took about ten minutes to complete.

10) Last thing: I painted our computer desk white, and I LOOOOOVE it!! I really don't like oak wood, which is unfortunate since pretty much every built-in and cabinet and door in our house is that color, but I knew I could fairly quickly and easily do something about our computer desk. What I love most about the way this project turned out is that it really adds a boost to my attempt to lighten the color schemes in our house a bit, AND, it's a cheap little desk that we only paid $100 for several years ago, but I think painting it white makes it look a lot nicer. And all the painting I did this weekend came from using paint we already had on hand, so it only cost about $10 out of pocket for a couple of rollers and a paint brush.

I intended on sewing Easter ties (SOOO excited about this!!) last week for the boys to wear on Easter Sunday, but like I said, my body had other ideas, and I crashed and burned instead. There's one other sewing project that I'll tackle along with the neck ties, and I'll put up the links for the "how-to's" for both of those when I actually do them. And one other project I'll hit in a couple of weeks is a SUPER CUTE box made out of paint stirring sticks! It's ADORABLE, and when I finish it, I'll post the tutorial from the original blog I got the idea from, and a picture of the finished product.

And if you were wondering, because of my eye-twitch reaction to my last BFHP (Big Fat Hairy Project), yes indeedy, my eye sure did start twitching in the midst of all this craziness last week. I think it started twitching in earnest on Thursday, the day before I was pretty much bed-ridden, which should have been my first clue that I needed to take it down a notch. Ah, well, live and learn (and give a nice, fat shout-out to my man, who did half of the projects listed, sans eye-twitch, and then helped take care of me and the boys on his last few days off when I got sick - as I've said before, he's awesome).

In case you can't tell, I'm totally procrastinating on "The Waiting Game" post. Don't really want to write it. Don't really like talking about waiting in general. I'll get there eventually.