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.

Ikea Mackapar Hack

I’m baaaaack!!  But still not unpacked.  Ack.  It’s ok though because we’ve done a hack and hung a rack.  So hopefully you’ll give me a little slack. 

Ok, ok, I’ll stop before you feel like you wanna whack me.  ;)  The girls and I have been doing rhyming in homeschool…

Ahem…

We have a situation.  Our back door is our most used door and therefore, where we keep all of our most-used shoes…haphazardly (usually) set on this little shelf (previously a bookshelf in Sebastian’s old room).

It looked a mess because it was kind of a mess.  Our closets are small and lack space for lots of shoes plus I like the idea of shoes being near a door for easy access so this was our situation.  I feel like entry ways should always be clean and uncluttered since they’re the first things you walk into when you come home.  They could make or break a mood, ya know?  When ours is cluttered and messy, it really makes me happy to be home.  So inviting.  Like, welcome home to your peaceful abode…ooh!  Watch out for that little shoe!  *trip and an ankle twist*  Ok, so maybe I’m being a little too dramatic but really, first impressions do count, right?  That can somehow apply here.

Anyway, the wall next to the door was begging to be a functional one so we had to come up with something.

Slow Moooovin’

Well hey there!  *she waves*

I wish I was popping in today to show you our latest and possibly greatest diy feat of all time but N O.  That idea is laughable at the moment.

What’s also laughable AND cryable is this moving-in thing we still have happening over here.  I never imagined it would take me this long to get us unpacked and settled but yet, here we are, still not settled and still not completely unpacked.  All of that is due to the fact that we moved from a bigger house to a smaller house and I’m still trying to figure out what actually has a place here and what we need to bid adieu.  It’s been quite the experience, one that’s perfect to go through during Lent, lemme tell ya.

Doors ‘O Color

Well, I guess the fact that this post is up is proof that we survived our move.  Hi.  Yep.  We’re alive and living in another house.  But what it’s not proof of is the fact that moving after you’re already moved with kids once is NOT easier.  We are still living amongst boxes (being almost a week into the actual move) and let me tell you, that is hard…for me.  I thrive in organized environments (even if they’re a little messy), where everything has a place.  Clutter drives me crazy (unless it’s out of sight…hello all those extra picture frames I stockpile in an extra closet…that drives Anthony crazy…hehe).  Anyway, while I’m busy doing the box + razor blade dance, let me divert your attention from our chaotic, unorganized casa to Crystal’s beautiful house:

Two Things We’re Glad We Didn’t Buy Full Price

*Sigh*  This is a sad tale about a rug and a table and also, let it be a cautionary one.

If you follow along with us on Instagram, you may have seen the story I posted a couple of weeks ago about the $20 mid-century modern table that I scored at my fave, Dirt Cheap.  Ever since I spotted this table:

…a Project 62 beauty only sold at Target, I craved it.  Those legs had me at first click.  We bought our current dining room table and chair set at a thrift store shortly after we were married 10 years ago for $100 and it was the price we loved, not so much the design.  But, it served us well and is still going strong but gosh, a girl can dream about better, right?  At $400, the Project 62 table wasn’t in our budget so I just said a prayer that one would trickle in to Dirt Cheap in the future and kept my eyes peeled there.  And guess what?  One did.  Actually, they got six.  (For those of you not fortunate enough to have a Dirt Cheap by you, they sell lots of things from lots of retailers and one of those retailers is Target.  The Target stuff they sell is new – clearanced stuff that never sold, damaged stuff, and customer returns.  In one word, it’s amazing.)  Anyway, they had six of these tables and they were all pretty beat up on top.  Scratched, stained, dented…usable but very imperfect.  They had them marked down to 50% off the original price.  So, $200.  Still too much for us, especially in the condition they were in.  Our plan was to scrap the top and make something better.  Anthony and I made a deal to ourselves that we’d watch them and grab one if they ever came down to $30-40.  Honestly, I figured they’d get gobbled up long before they ever got that low but once again, a girl can dream.

So the first time I spotted them at Dirt Cheap was about two months ago.  I go there almost once a week and you bet your bottom buck, I counted how many were left.  A month ago, one got away and there were five.  And there were five up until a couple of weeks ago.  The way that pricing works at Dirt Cheap is by percentage…things come in and they’re marked anywhere from 30-50% off the original price right off the bat.  Then, what doesn’t sell gets marked off by higher percentages every so often.  I’ve scored a few things there for 90% off so I was just waiting for that number to reach those tables.  Well it wasn’t, at least not fast enough, and so I casually asked one day how much they’d give me one for considering they were still there and had little interest.  Well apparently, a girl with four small kids and a husband looks like she needs more than one (slash they were really desperate to get rid of them and free the space) because they told me I could have one for $50 or all five for $100.  Ha!  What would you do?