State of the Painted Cabinets

It’s been awhile since I’ve filled you in on the state of a project or two so, since I just finished super cleaning the laundry room, it’s a perfect time to snap some pictures before the dust setttles once again.  So, let’s focus in on the cabinets, yes?  Shortly after we moved in, I painted them white.  This was prior to the blog so I don’t have a tutorial or anything but I scrubbed them down and then just slapped some Kilz primer up on them followed by some white latex paint.  (You can see kind of see what they looked like before on our Current Nest page.)  But the thing is, they’re laminate.  Laminate can be tricky to paint.  Sometimes it holds paint well and sometimes it doesn’t.  A lot rides on what paint you use and how you paint, whether or not you prime it first, and what state it’s in before you start.  Our cabinets were in great shape and I’m happy to say that, after almost seven years, they still look good.
There’s no peeling paint to be seen but some of the edges by the knobs are a tiny bit worn with a little of the brown peeking through.  I added knobs to these cabinets three years ago so before that, they were opened and closed by pulling on the lower edges and corners, hence why those areas are worn.

Speaking of the knobs, they still look as good as they did the day I painted them, despite their frequent use.

And, while we’re at it, the mirror I glued toothpicks to gets an A- because it’s missing one toothpick (11:00). I keep forgetting to grab pointed toothpicks when I’m out but someday I will so it can be complete once more.

In other laundry room news, we hung our ironing board awhile back.
It used to just rest against the wall but having it up and off the floor feels so much better.

We grabbed one of these small hooks* to hang it on (this mount* would work if you’ve got a t-leg board).   It hangs on that short horizontal bar between the legs. 
It was centered on that small expanse of wall until I added the tall shelves where we store our shoes.  The diaper box holds all the kids’ shoes until I can gussy it up or find a prettier basket.  The metal trash can holds all of our recycling…I mean, holds it for about two days at which point it overflows onto the floor.  We still have yet to figure out a good organization system for our recycling.  We have a fairly large laundry room but it’s pretty full of stuff (we don’t have a garage so it holds tools and paint too).  Ideas on how to tackle the recycling pile are welcome!  Please!

Also in other news, I nabbed this big basket from Goodwill last weekend.

As you can see, one of the handles was hanging off and the other was just peachy.  So, to even things up, I just cut them both off.

We’ve got plans to build a bigger countertop atop the washer and dryer area so eventually, that basket might hold all of our laundry supplies.  That will free up lots of space in the cabinets above to store tool and whatever else needs a home for the sake of organization.

Per the usual, I’ve got lots of other plans for this room (and a Pinterest board to prove it) but first we’re reluctantly staring down a few other necessary but not-so-fun projects like rebuilding our entire chimney, replacing the collapsed floor in our outdoor shed, and getting our backyard into shape.  Ugh, you always gotta get the work done before the fun starts, dontcha?  It’s okay though because I’m a pro at slipping in little projects between those big, boring ones. 

Stay tuned.  :)

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*affiliate link

Making Granite Out of Laminate

Since the beginning of our master bathroom mini-makeover, seen here, here, and here, we've been tossing around ideas in regards to replacing the dated, cream-colored, laminate countertops.  After shopping around and realizing that nothing we could buy in a store would fit in our budget (or be worth the investment in this house, with this market), we thought we were on track to create some concrete countertops, and then Tuscan Accents from Lowe's came into the picture.  Tuscan Accents is a line of paint products made to give your walls a sort of Italian charm using two different kinds of paint - one as a base and one as a top coat with a cool spotty effect achieved by using a stippling brush to dab on paint, waiting for the paint to semi-dry, and then wiping excess paint from the surface.  You can read more about it and see some examples by clicking here.  We, on the other hand, took the idea to our countertops, thinking that we'd conduct a little painting experiment - if it didn't work, we had the concrete to fall back on and if it did, well, we'd be two happy little jumping beans.  :)

When we decided to paint our tops, we actually toyed with two different techniques before we chose the Tuscan Accents route.  The other idea was to use a spray paint with a stone-looking effect.  So, to decide which idea would win, I tried out both on a piece of backsplash we removed the week before.  First, I primed the entire piece with a spray primer - Rustoleum's White.  Then I went to work using some leftover paint from our living room.  Here's what it looked like when I was done (with a little photoshopping for results sake):       

1 - Stone spray paint - a no go.  We weren't crazy about the colors - speckled ivory with a sort of greeny-beige - and couldn't find another color we liked.

2 -  Tuscan Accents with a semi-gloss white base - I liked it, Anthony didn't.  The lines between the dried, stuck on paint and the wiped off paint were very obvious.

3 - Tuscan Accents with the white primer as the base coat - nope.  I put too much paint on here so that when I wiped the excess off several minutes later, most of the paint was still wet and therefore came off leaving large splotches.  It really wasn't bad but in the end we liked...

4 - Tuscan Accents with the white primer as the base coat - winner, winner, chicken dinner!  Just the right amount of paint was dabbed on, left to dry, and wiped off to create this look.

5 - Tuscan Accents with the white primer as the base coat - nada.  This was actually my first attempt at the Tuscan Accents but I didn't wait long enough to let some paint dry and it ended up just looking like one big smear. 

So, after we decided on #4, I applied a glossy polycrylic finish (more on that later) over the area make sure it wouldn't yellow the TA finish and to see the look of it.  It worked great.  Then came the real test.  I pulled out my curling iron and straightener to test the durability of the future bathroom countertops, thinking they would be it's biggest ransackers.  It passed with flying colors!  Even though the surface became pretty hot after I left the straightener sit on it (on it's highest setting for 10 minutes), the surface was unscathed!  So anyway, on to the good stuff after I just rambled on for about a million words to set the stage...

First, we prepped by removing the sinks and covering all surrounding areas (thank you Catholic Weekly) since we'd be using the same spray primer as on the test strip.

Then I took a hand sander to the top to remove any sheen and build-up and to create a surface the primer would stick to.

After wiping any and all residue caused by sanding, we were ready to prime.  We made sure the window was wide open and even set a box fan in it, blowing any fumes outside.  While I sprayed, Anthony held a large piece of cardboard underneath the front lip of the top to protect the cabinets.  Here it is, all primed and ready to go:

Next up - painting or should I say, stippling.  I mentioned above that the TA look is achieved by dabbing on paint with a stippling brush.  They sell the brush at Lowe's for 20 bucks.  But, I wasn't going to spend 20 bucks for it considering it was basically a glorified scrub brush.  On the tester strip I 'tested' with a scrub brush we had on hand and it worked wonderfully, so why not continue using that same scrub brush, right?  It saved us $20 and now can brag that it's multi-purpose - "for all of your cleaning and painting needs".  :)  

All I did was dip the brush into a tupperware dish filled with paint and dabbed it onto the top.  I worked in sections, dabbing one section, waiting 17 minutes for it to dry, wiping excess paint, then moving on to the next section.  It was hard to get good pictures of the process as the paint we decided on was so light, but I tried... 

Waiting for it to dry:

Right before wiping (see how some of the paint is dry and some is shiny and wet?):

(Side note:  I might be worth mentioning that to wipe, I used an old, cut up t-shirt of Anthony's and also used a fresh, dry piece for each section.)

To do the front face of the tops, Anthony ran a line of tape underneath the lip to protect our freshly painted cabinets:

Here it is, all painted and ready for poly:

For added protection and to achieve the glossy sheen we were looking for we used Minwax Polycrylic.  After searching "painted laminate countertops" on Pinterest, we decided to go with the popularly used, non-yellowing polycrylic over epoxy ($$$) and polyurethane (yellows).  Using our best paint brush, I painted on seven coats over three days, leaving at least 2 hours of drying time in between each coat.  I also lightly (and I mean lightly) sanded down each coat before painting on the next because the poly directions said to and to get a smooth surface (in the beginning, the paint was a little bumpy so sanding each coat eventually leveled the top out).

This is after two coats of poly:

And this is after the lucky seven coats:

We are SO happy we decided to take the painting route.  You'd have to see it for yourself, but we honestly think that you'd have to take a second glance to realize it wasn't quartz or granite.  As for what it cost us:

Primer - already had

Paint - sample size at $3

Scrub brush - already had  :)

Polycrylic - $16.50 at Wal-Mart (cheaper than the same stuff at Lowe's) and we only used about half of the can bringing the total down to $9 

Paint brush - already had

Grand Total = $12

Some other possibly pertinent information:

1.  Our countertop is 18 square feet.

2.  The paint color we used for the top coat is called 'Oatlands Subtle Taupe' by Valspar.  (I had them add only 75% of the color at Lowes so that it was a little lighter but then added more white at home so really it's a custom light grayish-tan color.)

[Three years later, the countertops are still doing good!  Read the update post here!]

Anyway, I feel like I just wrote another ba-jillion word post about diy but I hope you enjoyed our little, muy successful painting experiment!  As I type these last few words, Anthony is putting the sinks back in (muttering "I hate plumbing" under his breath) so I'm gonna skidaddle and help him and then I'm off to play hair dresser and make-up artist for the day for some teens as Homecoming is this eve.  :)  Have a great weekend everybody!  I'll be back next weekend with more diy craziness!

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P to the S:  If anyone has taken on the task of revamping their laminate countertops with paint, please send us pics and tell us how they've fared so far!  We'd love to hear from other peeps who are as paint crazy as us!  If you're contemplating it, we encourage you to take the leap...and then send us your pics!

Anthro-Inspired Knobs

>>> DON’T FORGET TO ENTER OUR CRAFTING TOOL GIVEAWAY!  TODAY IS THE VERY LAST DAY!  THE LUCKY WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED TOMORROW!  <<<

We put knobs on the cabinets in our laundry room.  A boring woo-hoo, right? 
[Left was then; right is now…just to clarify in case the change is too teensy to notice.]

But hold up, they’re not just any knobs.  Nope.  They’re knock-offs inspired by Anthropologie that I spent a small sliver of everyday last week crafting.

 
Theirs are just to-die-for/swoon/can-I-marry-them gorgeous, aren’t they?  The $14 price tag, not so much.  Had we purchased these for our laundry room, our back account would’ve been set back a hefty $84 (six knobs) not including tax and shipping.  Mine cost me $3.  Bean for the win!

Here’s what they looked like before I got all snazzy on ‘em: 
I have actually been wanting to put some knobs on those cabinets for some time because they just get so finger-printed and dirty so I headed out to our local ReStore one day awhile ago and snatched up six of these shiny gold knobs.  I could’ve gone gold with them to get Anthropologie’s look even more, and boy did I want to, but I  just didn’t want the gold to clash with the big chrome rings on our washer and dryer.  I mean, I’m all about mixing metals but this is one time I went matching.  So, silver they became.  

My first step was covering up the gold and getting them all nice and prepped for paint with a few coats of white primer (Rustoleum).

I made sure to leave the screws in the back to keep the paint from getting in and clogging up the hole back there.

Once they were nice and dry, I flipped them onto their faces since I didn’t need silver paint there and sprayed the stems and backs with some Rustoleum silver metallic spray paint.
I used the chrome silver, not the brushed silver, but I’ve found that there’s really not that much of a difference between the two.  The chrome is unfortunately not as chrome as the cap of the can would have you believe.  :( 

So after the silver was even and dry, I taped off the faces of each knob and took them back outside where I sprayed them with some plain white spray paint (Rustoleum…again).

After I sprayed the faces white, I let them dry and made sure to leave the tape on (usually I’d take it off right away to prevent peeling but since the coat of white was so thin, I had no problem with it) because next up was…
 
Yep, nail polish!  After a search through the Martha Stewart specialty paint at Home Depot left me hanging for pearl paint, I did some brainstorming and dug through my polish where I found this pearl color by NailSlicks.  I’ve never used nail polish in DIY and I wasn’t sure if it’d work but there’s a first time for everything, right?

Well, it worked and it worked well.  Here are the knobs after I painted their faces with my pearl nail polish:
It’s a little hard to see in the above picture (I was lazy and used my iPhone for pictures) but they’re not perfect; the coat isn’t smooth and even.  But, that’s exactly what I needed considering the pearl on the Anthropologie knobs is laid in squares and not one smooth layer.  The nail polish was a little difficult to paint as it dried quick, making my desire for the imperfection in it all a little easier actually.  All I did was paint diagonal lines out from the center of each knob.  Here’s a closer look:

Also, I took the tape off each knob as I went because I was afraid, had I left all the tape on until I was done, it’d take the thicker nail polish layer off with it.

Next up, the design.  First I made myself a little stencil…I’m no good at drawing perfect shapes freehand.  Oh no, give me a roller and I’ll paint big Ws on a wall but perfect circles and squares you will not get.  Plus, from here on out there were to be no mess-ups or all would be lost.
  So, I actually just traced the design from the Anthro knob from computer screen to a small piece of wax paper, cut it out, centered it over my knob, and traced it on very lightly with a pencil. 

Then I used a silver sharpie (which I made sure matched the color of the spray paint before I started) to permanently draw on my design. 

Here they are, all designed!!

Last, I spray each knob with several coats of the same spray lacquer I used on the knobs in the girls’ room to give them a nice glossy finish.  This part was a little disappointing.  I found that the lacquer dulled the silver a little and really didn’t even make it that glossy.  The faces of each knob were a little glossier after finished but not what I had in mind.  Either way, the knobs had a nice coat of protection and were ready for use.

So pretty, no?
 

Back-tracking a little here…to figure out where I wanted the knobs placed on each door, I googled “where to install knobs on cabinets” and got my friend Lauren to send me a picture of the knobs in their kitchen.  The general consensus was that the edges should be 1/4 to 1/2 inch away from the edges of the door.  After I did some measuring and marking, I cut out some circles the same size as my knobs from a piece of paper and stuck them on the cabinets to see the placement before the holes were drilled.  Fake paper knobs:

Later, after all the knobs were ready to be up and functioning and I was happy with their future placement after staring at the fake paper knobs for a few days, my main man got out his drill and drilled six holes.  And that was that.

    

So, in the end I only shoveled picked out $3 for this entire project because I had everything on hand but the knobs.  If you had to buy everything for this project (somebody puh-lease make them in gold…pllllease!!), you’re looking at around $20+ (primer, silver, and white spray paint, tape, pearl nail polish or some sort of pearl paint, a silver sharpie, tape, and thrifted knobs) but you’ll have loads of supplies left over at the end to be used for other things.  So, when all is said and done, it’s a pretty cheap project…especially when you think about how much you’re saving by making your own version vs. buying the real things.  :)




So, anybody else DIY-ed some knobs out there?  What about knocked-off an Anthropologie or upscale object/design to save some cash but still get the look?  Or maybe you just save up/splurge for the real thing?  Either way, it’s fun to get some character up in herrr, no?

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Someone say party?!  Yep, I’m cruisin’ in from March 2014 and linking up with East Coast Creative for their week of knock-offs!  Click over to see some pretty amazing knock-offs!

How to Paint Wood Paneling

My fingers haven't been so excited to type out a title for a long time.  It's one thing to be done painting the paneling but it's a whole 'nother feat to get up a tutorial about it - only took me a couple of months...HA!  It's a hefty one with a lot of carefully ordered steps to help you along if you've been thinking about laying a fresh coat on the wood paneling you've inherited.  We are certainly happy we took on the task.  The end result has us heck-yeahing and has our living room looking a bit more modern. 

We've painted painted wood paneling before in our rental, but we've never painted unpainted, stained and sealed wood paneling before so this was somewhat uncharted territory for us.  There are lots of tutorials written out there but I'm going to let you in on a few tips and tricks and everything we learned to show you a really efficient way to unload some paint onto those dated, paneled walls if you've got 'em and want to bring them into 2020.

First things first, like I said above, this is a doozy of a painting project.  It's not just slapping paint on a few walls and calling it a day.  There is prep and more prep involved and it can get tedious, so before you start, search and scroll through the abyss of photos on pinterest or google of "painted wood paneling" to absorb all the inspiration you can.  You'll need all that inspiration to turn into motivation.  Ok, ok.  Maybe I'm making this sound way harder than it is.  It's hard but it is SO worth the effort.  Take it one step at a time.  You can do this!  Here's our after (or so-far if we're including decorating) to add to the plethora you can log into that motivation bank:

Our Kitchen in Print

I love writing this blog.  I love coming up with things and showing you how to achieve the same look/end product for less.  All of that requires lots of pictures tossed out into the interwebs of our nest.  While it’s great fun to get to see our house on a screen on the www, it’s EVEN MORE fun to see it on paper…magazine paper that is!!!!!! 

A few months ago I was contacted by This Old House magazine.  Katelin, the writer of their Budget Redo column, wanted to know if they could feature the kitchen in their October issue and golly gee, I said “of course”!  So, if you’re a subscriber (you can subscribe online too!), check out page 30!

I thought the kitchen’s debut in this month’s This Old House would be a great opportunity to check in on it and let you know how everything is holding up five months later (read the original reveal post here)!  How are things holding up to the test of time?  Well, most things look like they were done yesterday, a few not.

(More) Kitchen Plans

Putting this post together makes me SO excited to get this kitchen started...errr, finished!  We're zooming in on it next!  It won't be a super quick slide into the finish line since we're doing everything ourselves but we're hoping we can get it all in by summer's end, hopefully sooner.  I went into a little bit of detail about how we planned to open it up in the past but that's done and now it's onto the finer details of cabinet colors, counter tops, and a new backsplash.  Here's a peak of what we've nailed down so far:

The Big (Little) Kitchen Reveal!!!

Well, this has been FUN, hasn’t it?  Taking our little rental kitchen from what it was to what it is really had me going…for six whole weeks.  I’ve never gotten an entire room finished in six weeks!  It’s kind of a big deal.  And you know what else is kind of a big deal?

OUR KITCHEN!

Adding Faux Legs to Cabinets | DIY

Sounds exciting, right?  Well, maybe not but over here, I get excited about adding legs where there aren't any.  Dressers, nightstands, and now cabinets.  It just seems to take things up a notch...get it, get it?  Up a notch?  ;)

Last year around this time I found three of these cabinets* at Dirt Cheap for 15 bucks a pop.  They're technically "upper" cabinets but with a little reinforcement, I figured I could use them as base cabinets since they were the perfect size for the kids' little drop zone in our storage room.  They were priced as such because each has damaged backing, nothing major and who will notice that damage anyway?

Not a single human being.  For $45, I'm banking on it.

My then-pregnant self got them from the car to the house with some very careful dragging on a blanket and set them up so I could see what we were dealing with. 

It was a start...one that stayed put for a whole year.  #storyofmylife

One Room Challenge!!!

You’ll never know how excited I was when I found out that the One Room Challenge just started on April 4th!  If you don’t know what that is, check it out here.  Basically, you take on a room (entirely redo, refresh, remodel, whatever have ya) and you get six weeks to do it.  I’ve always seen it come up on Instagram and other blogs but I’ve been always the spectator and never the participant.  Not this year though!  I’ll be linking up and following along with other guest participants here! 

I’ve got until May 10th to take our kitchen from old to gold-winning and ironically, I started ripping down the wallpaper in our kitchen a week before I found out the challenge was happening so I’m right on time.  But *gulp* I’ll need every single one of those six weeks since I’m on a serious budget and I don’t have the luxury to just go out and buy what I need.  I’ve got to find it secondhand, on clearance, or on mega-sale…you know how I do.  Oh yeah, and I have four little kids running around. 

You might be wondering why I’m tackling a kitchen in a rental house.  Why waste time, energy, and money on something you’ll be leaving in a year or two?  Valid question.  Answer?  Because I love doing this stuff.  As a stay-at-home mom, daily life can get a little monotonous.  It’s a beautiful life and I’d have none other, but getting out my paint brush and planning decor is the equivalent to going out and getting my hair or nails done for me.  It’s self-care – getting to expand my diaper-changing and feeding horizons to project beauty onto the space that I’m changing diapers and feeding in.  I think it’s important to love the space you’re living in too so spending a little bit of money to make that happen here is well worth it, in my opinion. 

With that, here are the plans for the kitchen:
-take down the wallpaper
-paint the walls
-paint the cabinets and replace the hardware
-make a pendant to replace the light over the sink
-redo the fan shade
-repaint the rug (maybe?)
-hang a pot rack
-hang a spice rack over the stove
-install some sort of backsplash

The budget:  $150
Total spent so far:  $18

Here’s the a picture of the kitchen I ran in and took one day before we moved in: Too bad I didn’t think to actually step farther into the kitchen to get a picture.

Almost But Not Quite

So, since it’s taking me waaay to long to finish the ‘secret’ nursery project I’m going to just give in and let you all in on a sliver… 

I’ll let you in on the full monty next week but just to tide you over, I’ll spout out a little tutorial just in case you wanna go painting stripes before I get that far.  :)

Before I start, let it be known that it was not my original intention to paint the nursery walls even though the thought of stenciling them or painting them was tempting.  I could’ve worked around the beige walls and thought that leaving them was free made it the right choice…until the diy in me got the best of me AND I saw this on Pinterest: (image found via Pinterest from here)

The stripe-lover in me had to.  I loved the look of the thinner stripes.  I also loved that diy-ing stripes would be relatively cheap considering I had most everything I needed to do it on hand.  So, thin or thick, white or red or blue or pink, here’s how I did it (correction…am doing it):

Step 1:   Decide how thick/thin you want your stripes.  You can make them all the same width, you can alternate thick and thin, you can even do a bunch of different widths, horizontal, vertical, diagonal…whatever gets your inner zebra goin’.  I went horizontal and did a mock-up with Pixlr to figure out how many stripes I wanted.  I ended up with 14 stripes all the same width.  Also included in this step is picking out colors.  Depending on the colors you go with, you’ll probably have to paint your room a base color before you put the stripes up.  I went with the custom beige I already had up and an off-the-shelf plain white in a satin finish by Olympic.

Step 2:  Mark your measurements.  The easiest way is to simply grab a ruler a make pencil marks at every point a stripe edge would be.  You should only have to do this once (if you go horizontal like me) since, once your stripes are drawn on, you can simply follow them around the room.  Since I wanted 14 thinner stripes, I measured the length of my wall, top of the baseboard to ceiling and divided by 14.  Doing that meant that my stripes would be 6.6 inches wide.  So logic would follow that I would make a mark every 6.6 inches.

Step 3:  Draw the lines.  If you’re lucky, unlike me, and have a laser level you can probably skip this step entirely and move on to step 4.  We have a plain ‘ole long level that I used. 

If you don’t have either you could continue marking and just connect your marks around the room.  I started at a mark, leveled up against it, and drew, and drew, and drew…all around the room.  Actually, I did one wall at a time but that’s a moot point.  I also used a pencil for this step because I could simply wipe it off after if need be.  It would be helpful to use a pencil of the same color but depending on how much drawing you’re doing, sharpening it might be pain in the rear.

Step 4:  Tape along the lines.  Make sure to tape a teeny, tiny smidge under or over your pencil line so that it’s painted over and therefore disappears.  I used Scotch, one inch, blue painters tape.  I also stuck a few little pieces of duck tape into the areas I didn’t want paint just to make sure there were no accidents.

Step 5:  Make sure tape is securely adhered to wall.  Meaning, press down hard when applying it.  You don’t want leakage.  Our walls have an orange peel texture making my stripe painting a little more difficult.  To make sure my tape was stuck on good, I put an old sock on my hand and went along every tape line, pressing as I went.

Step 6:  Paint.  The width of your stripes will determine the roller size you use unless you go at it with a paint brush.  I actually thought I’d use what I already had, a small foam roller, which ended up getting a big, fat ‘F’.  I should’ve used a roller with a nap to it because of the orange peel.  I ended up painting one entire wall, removing the tape, and then realizing I needed another coat.  It was back to step one and a lesson learned for me – use the right tools, even if it means you can’t use what you already have.  Thankfully, ReStore had what I needed for mere pennies and it was back to the wall I went.

Step 7:  Remove tape while paint is still semi-wet or asap.  Waiting until hours or days pass could mean taking tape off will also take paint off.  I removed it right after I was done painting.

Step 8:  Do touch-ups.  I had some drippage in a few corners and a few minor leaks under the tape here and there so I just touched up those spots with the extra beige paint I had on hand and a small paint brush.

Step 9:  Pat yourself on the back and admire…or rush back to life with twins, whichever your life situation allows.

Step 10:  Stop in next Saturday and see the final result!  I’ve got one wall to go but I’ll be sure to have it done by then!

Update:  SEE THE REVEAL HERE!

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Cost breakdown:

Paint:  $12 (I used leftover paint from painting our guest bath cabinets plus a purchased quart.)

Tape:  $10 for three rolls (I had one already and probably would only have needed to buy two more if it weren’t for my mistake mentioned in step 6.)

Paint rollers:  $1 for two (I had the handle.)

Things I owned and used:  retractable pencil, a level, and an ipod to keep me company  :)

Total spent:  $23

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Hope to see you next Saturday!

Until then, Ana clued me in on Mary’s thrift store challenge and I’m totally doing it.  It’s right up my thrift loving alley.  Also, Grace, Erica, and Kayla are having another Open to Interpretation partay and I can’t wait to join in on the fun.  And the girls at Fine Linen and Purple are holding a Sunday ‘What I Wore’ link-up that I swear one of these Sundays I’m going to jump on.  As if that’s not enough, Lindsey at The Pleated Poppy has a ‘What I Wore Wednesday’ link-up.  Can you tell I need a million and one excuses to get out of the gray sweatpants and stretchy tanks I’ve been donning for the past hundred days?  Well, I do.  So, look for me next week, the lady with the twins who’s dressed to the nines whilst spending hours feeding and changing diapers and not even leaving the house…all dressed up with nowhere to go…except that’s not me, I’m ‘all dressed up and at home because it’s too much work to leave the house’.  Yeah, that’s me.