Master Bath Update

Good evening! I feel like I haven't blogged in forever. I just wrapped up my first week as a general ed, 1st grade teacher and finally feel like I can breathe. Sure was a crazy week, but I am excited for the year ahead. Figured I would start sharing the house updates! We have FINALLY finished (well 90%) I wanted to start with the Master bath. As you may remember - it was the one with the hideous pink tile and delightful sliding glass "swan" shower doors. Well, it looks like a whole new bathroom now! We did everything we could to update it without having to gut out that tile and take out the sliding doors. We took the wallpaper down, painted it, added a picture, new mirror, new light fixture, replaced the switch and outlet plates, painted the closet door, and hung a shower curtain right in front of the doors to hide them. I think it turned out just beautifully! We are going to add another picture or two, but you get the idea.

Before we did anything. Hard to get the full effect of the awful wall paper though!

After the wallpaper was stripped and we painted.

The final product. New mirror, outlet cover, and fixture.

Before anything

Before anything
 

After we painted, you can KIND of see the swan doors here..

After the paint, new picture, and shower curtain.

Much better!

There is still so much that COULD be done if I were a millionaire, but I think we took what we had and made it work :) I will post a bedroom update tomorrow. I am saving my FAVORITE room, the living/dining room, for a little later on. It is by far the thing that changed the most and I absolutely love it. Have a wonderful Friday my fellow bloggers!

DIY: Chevron Table

Let me start by saying I am not much of a crafter. I am not creative nor do I possess hardly any basic artistic skills -  so this table is my pride and joy. My very first DIY furniture project, and I am pretty darn proud of it! Figured I would share not my so perfect journey to get to this finished product with you guys.

I started with the table below, which I found for $20 at a yard sale a few weeks ago. I decided it would go in the lounge/bar (sunroom) in my new house and that I wanted to make it a little more fun to look at.

To start my project, I had to sand the tabletop down so the paint would hold better. So I sanded away. I've never done that kind of thing before so I had no clue hot to know when I sanded it enough as you will see in a bit. I sanded it and got it taped out, thanks to help and brainpower of my sweet man, David. I then went out to stain it, which was my original plan for the table. However, I did not read the instructions well enough and screwed up the whole staining thing. This resulted in my having to re-sand the entire table and start over. This actually turned out to be a bit of a blessing because I realized I had not sanded the table NEARLY enough the first go around.

The stain. It looks fine here, but because the table wasn't sanded well enough it didn't ever set right.

After I sanded off the stain, and re-taped the pattern.

After sanding for the 2nd time and spending a solid hour figuring out the best way to get this pattern taped out on the table, it was ready for paint! I decided to totally forgo the stain and just paint it 2 colors instead. I chose grey and navy.

Finished tabletop!

I let the table dry and top it was a paint sealer to help prevent chipping. Then I moved on to the legs. I decided on Behr "Yellow Gold" and think it really looks cute. I also decided to distress them a little to give the table a little more character, but you can't tell that much.

Waiting on legs to to dry to put it back together

Finished product

My new table :)

Though this table was frustrating at times, I really enjoyed working on it. Now that I have done one, I know it will make other projects a little easier because I definitely learned a lot throughout this project. I'll be blogging a house update very soon, I start moving this weekend :) Hope you all have a great weekend!

Starting Over

Happy July, y'all! I have not been on in a bit, but I am going to try and change that over the next couple of weeks. I recently got some news regarding my job for this coming school year, and I wanted to share it with my little blog family. I was told around Spring Break that there was a good chance my teaching position (k-2 resource) would be cut in this upcoming school year. I am thankful to have a principal that was so upfront with me from the beginning and keeping me as filled in as she could throughout all of the changes and budget cuts blazing through the teaching community. I had several options as to what I would potentially be teaching this 2012-2013 school year, and seeing that I am dually certified for regular ed or special ed - the options were almost overwhelming because they all were dependent on some other factor. So, since Spring Break, I have been on edge waiting to find out what I would be doing and I finally got my email... I am going to be teaching in a 1st grade general ed classroom this coming school year! I am so excited and cannot wait to get started (but not wishing these last 3 weeks of summer away too quickly :) ) it will be a completely new world, but I have a great team to help me through! If any of you know of any good 1st grade teacher blogs, please direct me that way. I will be on the hunt for lots of ideas over these next few weeks. I will be back again soon with some house updates next week. We are ALMOST finished with everything, yay! Have a great weekend!

Bachelorett Party Mania

Just thought I would share some pictures from the two bachelorette weekends I have taken part of these last couple of weeks. I will be ending this month celebrating the marriage of  Mr. & Mrs. Saunders - so I think it is safe to say June has been a pretty good month!

My little table note for the Future Mrs. Saunders

Free cake for the bachelorette. (The waiter thought it was her birthday..)

Overlooking Hot Springs

Future Mrs. Hehn in New Orleans

Bridesmaids - (and bride-to-be of wedding #3 of 4 I will be a part of :) )

Bachelorette and bridesmaids

Got to experience some delicious Beignets at Cafe du Monde

Heading to dinner on our last night in NOLA

Sure had two great weekends, celebrating two wonderful people. I couldn't be happier for them and am so looking forward to being a part of their big day!

House Update

We have been working on the house a few days a week over the last month, and we are really making some progress. My dad is doing all of the main painting, while I am doing some trim and bookcase painting. We have gotten the ceiling damage fixed in the sun room and living room, the master and guest room/closets/ceilings painted, the hall and full bath walls and ceilings painted, and got the first coat of trim down in the living room! I am getting really excited to see the end result. It is amazing what some fresh paint can do to a room/house. Here are a few pictures I have taken of the work done thus far. Some of the lighting isn't the best, especially the bathroom picture, but it will still give a general idea of what it is shaping up to look like! I will try and get some more updates up next week, but now I have to go get packed up for my weekend in Hot Springs for Katie's bachelorette party. Hope y'all have a good weekend!

Here is one of the before pictures of the full bath

Here is the after of the same wall. No more hideous wallpaper! Will be shopping for decor in the next couple of weeks :)

Before of part of master bedroom

After of part of the master bedroom. The white trim has made the biggest difference in the house!

My First Wedding Shower

This weekend was a very nice, but busy weekend! I had 2 wedding showers to attend for my dear friend Katie. One Saturday, in Covington and one Sunday at the Phi Mu house, which I was a co-host for. I am in two weddings this summer, which conveniently fall 2 weeks apart. This means lots of showers and dates to keep straight, and a lot of double-booked Saturdays and Sundays. I have come to the conclusion that I have just flat out gone crazy. I can't seem to keep it all straight anymore no matter how hard I try!  The two other girls who hosted with me and I decided it would be easiest to just assign jobs that we would each be over, especially since one of the girls lives out of town. So, our out of town friend took care of invites, the other girl took care of decorations, and I was over food. I have never hosted a shower of any sort in my life, and my anxiety was at an all time high! Thankfully, everything turned out just fine and I am pretty sure I can call my first shower a success. Here are a few pictures I snapped of the food and decor. It was all fairly simple because the house is already pretty nicely decorated and we wanted easy clean-up, but it looked great nonetheless.

Food Table and Banner

Cute napkins!

Food Table - Wheat thins, spinach dip , veggies, pinwheels, chicken salad croissants

Dessert - Fruit and homemade fruit dip, cupcakes from Muddy's (They tried to incorporate the bride peacock theme by using pretty sprinkles and making one with that beautiful teal icing!)

Me, the bride-to-be, and one of the other two hostesses.

And while this has nothing to do with the shower and is hard to see - my sweet boyfriend took me to Texas de Brazil for dinner since he knew I had a long, semi-stressful day. It was DELICIOUS as always!

What did you do this weekend?

Paint, Paint, Paint!

     As I stated in my last post, I am currently in the process of updating the house I will be moving into in July. The first step in the updating process is painting. I am almost positive the house has not been painted in and this week I have been picking, liking, hating, maybe liking, loving and everything in between, paint colors. As I shared, the bathrooms were going to be the biggest obstacle thanks to that b.e.a.utiful tile, but they surprisingly turned out to be the easiest to decide on a color for due to the fact that there were minimal options to begin with.The full bath, hallway, and guest room are all going to be the same color. Dining room/living room will be the same color. Master bedroom and half bath will be different (thanks to Katie over at Caught In the Middle With You for the idea for my master bedroom color!). I am uploading a picture of each room as they are now and attaching the link to the color that they are going to be when finished. Some of the colors don't look the same on the computer of course, but you can get an idea. Obviously I will post actual before and after pictures once we get it all painted in the next couple of weeks. 

Master Bedroom - "Dusty Miller"

Full Bath - "Creamy Mushroom"

Guest Room - "Creamy Mushroom"

Kitchen

Living Room/Dining Room - "Antique Leather"

This will be the "dining" side - "Antique Leather"

Half Bath - "Silver Drop"

This is part of "living room" side - "Antique Leather

What do you guys think? Hope you all have a great weekend!

My (soon to be) New Home

     School will be out in 7 days, and I cannot wait to enjoy a couple months of relaxation with some wedding celebrations in between wedding celebrations with some relaxation in between :). Summer approaching also means the end of my lease is coming very soon. I have been bouncing various ideas around in my head for the last couple of months of what I was going to do when my lease ended.

     Almost all of my close friends (roommate candidates) are getting married or they have moved away, so I figured I would be moving somewhere and living alone. Living alone is fine with me, I don't have to worry about anyone else and their mess irking me or my mess irking anyone else. However, I have serious anxiety and tend to freak myself out A LOT thinking that I am going to get robbed, killed, kidnapped, etc and so with my craziness in mind I was going to have to find somewhere I knew I would feel safe by myself. Sadly, I was finding that the only places I found that provided me with what I was looking for were going to cause me to be broke and be forever stuck in my apartment with no funds to do much else. It was at that point that I decided I would start investigating buying a house. I was/am tired of throwing so much money away into something that leaves me with nothing to show for. All of the deposits, regulations, and other trivial things that come along with renting and apartment have worn me thin these last 4 years and I wanted to look into other options.

     The house hunting began. I made some calls, found out an estimate of what I would be able to afford, looked in areas I knew I would like to live, and talked with my parents several times about this whole idea. While I was exploring my "buying a house" options, my grandfather, who was 96 years old, passed away. This was a very difficult time for my whole family, he was such an inspiring man who is greatly missed every day by many people. Through this unfortunate loss, I somehow managed to gain a new opportunity - to live in his home. The house he lived in is a house I have known my entire life. It has been in our family for quite some time, in fact, my parents even lived there the first year they were married. My grandpa left the house to my dad and his 3 sisters. I mentioned to my dad that I might be interested in living there if everything worked out ok. It was in the area I was looking to buy a house and it was a place that already felt like a second home. After a multitude of discussions between my dad and me and his sisters and him, we decided that I could move in the house in July and rent it from them.

     So here I am, back to renting, but I don't feel like I am just throwing my money away this time. Due to the fact that it is my families home, I won't be tied down to a lease (in case something were to happen), required to pay stupid deposits and pet fees, and it allows me to live somewhere more or less stress free to buy me more time to figure out if I will be in Memphis long enough to make buying a house worth my while. Another positive to this situation - I have found a roommate (more than likely) which makes this whole thing even better! I will be spending a lot less money than I would have been anywhere else, I am not tying myself to down to staying in Memphis by buying a house, and what I think is the best part - I get to watch this house transform over the next couple of months. This house is old and it out just plain out-dated. We are going to re-paint the whole house, re-do one floor, and refinish all of the hardwood floors. I am going to try and blog with updates as they come and I really can't wait to see the "before" and "afters" and share them with my little blog family. For now I am only going to put up before pictures of the... interesting... bathrooms I have to work with. I am looking to figure out what color to paint them. We will paint them as well as re-do the wall decor. I wish we could just gut them and get rid of that hideous tile, but that just isn't in the cards right now, so I will have to find other ways to make due. Please feel free to let me know your thoughts!!

Half Bath -  Lovely gray/blue tile wall and floor, with nice baby pink tile outline....

Half Bath - close up of tile

Full Bath : Baby pink tile with brown/red tile outline...

Full Bath

Close up of tile - not perfect depiction of the color, but close enough.

Happy Tuesday, hope you have a great rest of the week!