Brownie Boy

Last Week

I know, you're totally curious where I am week in, week out.

I spent last week here:


Chicago. Always a good time.

Work all day, party all night.

Well, not all night.  I get sleepy around 10.

I came home Thursday, recharged my batteries all weekend, and will soon be off on another adventure.  

Our New Bathroom

Yay, we're finally here!

It took two weeks, several trips to hardware stores, and many hours of work, but we're really pleased with how it turned out.

Sea shells? Gone.


Faucet, light fixture, and mirror? Updated.


Walls? Painted. We were going for gray, but ended up with a blue! But we liked it enough to keep it.


Vanity? Also painted - a chocolate color we have dotted all around our house. We also changed out the hardware to match the faucet and light fixture. By keeping the existing vanity and just spicing it up a bit, we saved ourselves some cash.


See the old towel bar? When we took it off, a big bunch of drywall came with it. I patched it as well as I could, but we felt it might be best to hang some pictures to hide the evidence. I really loved seeing all kinds of ornate fountains when we were in Rome this past summer, and thought some of our snapshots of them would be appropriate in a bathroom.


We've had a lot of fun with this, but are definitely glad it is all done now! It wasn't a super cheap project, but by DIY-ing it all the way and buying everything at home improvement stores, it was really pretty reasonable. And really, not too difficult. It has given me confidence to tackle other bathrooms 'round here.

But I think we're "over" home improvement projects for the next couple of months. We need a break!

The Month of Crazy Has Begun

And by crazy, I mean travel-crazy.

This week? I was here:


Next week? Wait and see.

A Not So Quick (or Easy) Fix

Not all of our house projects go as smoothly as hanging bamboo shades in our laundry nook.

Not surprisingly, our attempted DIY bathroom renovation hasn't been nearly so easy.



We have a half bath on our main floor that desperately needed to be pulled out of the 80's. Check out the ugly light fixture, the dated mirror, and (my personal favorite) the sea shell sink.

We stopped by Menards (I heart Menards) on a Sunday afternoon and picked up a new vanity top and faucet. That night I watched a number of DIY home improvement You Tube videos, and felt confident that we could install the thing ourselves. It just didn't seem too difficult.

And it wouldn't have been, had the vanity top been a quarter inch narrower.

We tried and tried and tried to get that dang thing in the bathroom. And let me just tell you - a 36 x 22 inch vanity top made of cultured marble is HEAVY. We scraped up the drywall in several places, took off the trim around the door, tried a number of different angles, and then stopped.

Uh... maybe we should measure it, Josh said.

It was then that we discovered that our sink was just a leeettle too wide for the room. As in, there ain't no way we're getting this in here.

35.75 inches across:


36 inches across:


Some explitaves may have been spoken that night.

In the world of home improvement, I've learned, there are standard sizes and custom sizes. 36 inches across is a standard size for a vanity top. 35 inches would require a much more expensive custom-made vanity top. And that didn't exactly fit into our budget.

Junk.

In the end, I called a random granite/tile company from the phone book, and the guy agreed to trim the edges. Whew. It did require me to drive across town to bring it there and pick it up, plus $40, but it was worth it.

Now the new vanity is in, and the new faucet works, and at this point nothing is leaking (knock on wood). So we're good. When the bathroom is complete, I'll post pictures.

And here are a few lessons I've learned in this process:
1. Measuring accurately is very important.
2. Home improvement projects will usually take more time than you think they should.
3. Disassembling a vanity isn't difficult. Just be sure you turn off the water first.
4. When you're trying something new in the world of home improvement, You Tube is your friend.
5. I can't wait to pull out the FOUR other sea shell sinks we have in this house.

A Quick Fix

So our washing machine and dryer are on the main floor in a little stretch of hallway between our garage and the rest of the house.

In my opinion, this is a pretty convenient place for the "laundry room" (aka laundry closet without doors) to be - right off of the eat-in kitchen and close to the family room. Perfect for those of us that need to watch TV when they're folding clothes, which in my opinion helps take the edge off of the boring chore.

Due to its' location, the laundry nook also ends up being a bit of a dumping grounds. The dog's leash, my purse, fabric softener, and dirty clothes all seem to collect here, and it is just a bit unsightly.

The solution?  An idea I stole right from these guys.

At $25 a pop these shades are the perfect way to close off this area when we have people over. I don't think it is necessary to hide away the laundry nook completely, but they definitely serve to tidy up our messy nook. Especially important since this is in such a main part of our house. Cheap and easy (they took about 15 minutes to put up) - my kind of project.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pancakes

There's really no special recipe here.

It's just this (made according to directions):


Plus this (chopped up):


And it equals this:

I don't even need syrup or butter for these. They're perfect as-is.

Yes, I love pumpkin-related food just as much as I love apple-related food.

Beyond that, I truly and wholeheartedly love Trader Joe's. Having one within a couple miles of my house is one of the best parts of living in the Columbus area.

... And I'm going to need to stock up on that pumpkin pancake mix while it is still in season. To. Die. For.