I Heart Free Art

I suspect I've been flagged at Lowe's.

I've been doing some projects around here, with one central theme:  free.

Thanks to Pinterest, I've discovered that the best material for free art supplies is paint chips.

Here's what I've made with paint chips + mod podge:

 

We have this terribly awkward wall in our kitchen.  It's a walkway + has stairs on both sides.  And just for good measure, the thermostat was hung with no rhyme or reason.  But these (heavily inspired by some at World Market), help.

  

The folks over at Young House Love did something akin to this.  We've got this guy hung near our TV.  You know I got the frame at the ol' GW.  Excuse the awkward angle...the sun was producing a glare.

So if you need me, I'm the crazy lady squirreling away paint samples from Lowe's.

Also?  These are terrible iPhone pics...my computer recently decided to start rejecting my camera card.  Awesome.

Vintage Bow Skirt

When I was home a few weeks ago, my mom got a new dress coat.  It was high time, since I'm pretty sure she'd had the last one since I was born, or at least very small.  I'm 28.

I'd seen this one, and knew I wanted to copy the idea.

Here I am, modeling this totally awesome coat:

I know, right?  I should have just left it as a coat.

It really was an easy project.  I just cut a panel of the coat, added some darts here and there, a high waistband, a zipper, and then, of course, a bow.

I even used the existing lining.  Here she is:

Perfect for church!

Chalk it Up to Goodwill

Have I told you about the Goodwill stores here?  They are amazing.  I hated the Goodwills where we used to live.  They were skanky and gross and expensive.  But here?  They're still skanky and gross, and sometimes expensive, but they've got good stuff.  What kind of stuff?

Well, for one, Target donates all of the clearance items that don't sell.  Yes.  You read that correctly.  It's amazing.  So the kids and I swing by the local store at least once a week.

When we first moved here, we didn't have any of our furniture.  Still don't, actually.  We're {patiently?} waiting for our house to sell.  We lived for 27 days {not that I was counting} in the 'resort camping' lifestyle.  I'm not a fan.  We now have a king-sized bed and a lovely new sofa.

Before that lovely sofa arrived, I wanted to DIY some type of coffee table.  I decided that I'd know it when I saw it, and headed off to the old GW.  That's what the cool kids are calling it these days:  GW.  I came home with this beauty:

MacGyver did not share my vision.  Also, that is not our lovely new sofa.  That is a crappy Ikea thing we got years ago.  And a lawn chair.  Ah, memories.

But I knew she had good bones, and decided to make the top a chalkboard.  I knew the adults kids would love it.  I scampered off to Lowe's to grab some chalkboard paint and nearly had an aneurysm.  $25 for an itty-bitty can?  No thanks.  I decided to try Martha Stewart's method for chalkboard paint.

 I very much suggest using a throw-away container for mixing.  The obvious choice for mixing would be a paint stick.  I didn't have one, so I used both a straw and a plastic spoon.

Since I really wanted the actual look of a chalkboard, I went with a classic gray color, but you can do any color you want.  I bought the 94-cent carton of grout, and a little $2 trial size of gray paint, so this was a pretty cheap project.  For the legs, I decided to add some color and go bright yellow.  I had a coupon for a free tester from Benjamin Moore, so I scouted out the local Benjamin Moore retailer for that.

The whole project was pretty easy.  Here's the finished table:

The verdict?  We all love it.  The Sunbean loves drawing on it, and we think it will be great for keeping score while playing games with friends.  The space still needs some serious work, but we're happy with what we've got so far.

Here's a cost breakdown for you:

table (Goodwill):  $10
grout (Lowe's):  $.94
gray paint (Lowe's):  $1.94
fresh foam brush (Lowe's):  $.98
yellow paint (Creative Paints):  free
supplies:  already owned

total:  $13.86

Winning!

Master Bedroom Re-Do

We had quite the lengthy list of things that we wanted to get done before Little Dude's arrival.  On the top of the list was figuring out a plan for our master bedroom.

We live in an 80's ranch, which is to say, we have small bedrooms and small closets.  It makes planning any sort of decor difficult, because so much of the space is taken up by dressers/nightstands/beds.

When we got married, MacGyver's parents gave us a beautiful bedroom set.  Dark cherry wood, a sleigh bed....perfect.  It had two nightstands, a dresser, and a chest of drawers.  Just one problem:  it really didn't fit in our room.  With the headboard, footboard, and the rest of the matching pieces, we could barely walk in our room.  Not good.

Then we started the whole "Less is More" philosophy, and committed to loving every single thing in our home.  If we both didn't love it (or use it!), it was gone.   While we loved the idea of our bedroom furniture, it just wasn't working in a house our size.  And since we don't have plans to move in the immediate future, that left us with one choice:  get rid of the furniture.

This actually worked out well.  MacGyver's parents wanted to use it for their master bedroom.  That made me happy.  So here's a 'before' picture of our room.  It's not totally accurate, because we'd already removed the headboard and footboard.  Also, we are not pigs.  It's trashed because we didn't think the snap a picture until we'd already starting taking all of our clothes out of the dressers.

We really didn't have a design scheme going on.  We prefer modern decor, and our bedroom set was a little more traditional.  We were stumped trying to come up with a good balance between the two.

Then I saw the bedroom renovation that these cute people did.  It sounded perfect for our needs, so off to Ikea we went for some stand-alone wardrobes.  Rather than using any type of dresser, we planned to use the wardrobes for all of our clothes.  Instead of getting the pricey doors, we opted for some curtains (also from Ikea).  Behold, the finished product:

MacGyver added a header at the top of the wardrobes to make them appear to be 'built-in', rather than big ol' white boxes (I trust him, but I'm not gonna lie.  I took Tylenol PM for a solid week before I believed the header wasn't going to come crashing down on me in the night).  We love the paint color in our kitchen so much that we just brought it into the bedroom.  We already owned the bedding and artwork, so that was easy.

One big change was adding the crown moulding.  This is the first room we've done that to, and I love it.  I can't wait to continue it through the house.  I thought it would make the ceiling look short, but we love to paint our ceilings a color other than white, so I don't think it shortened it at all.

Here's a view from the foot of the bed:

I love how soft and romantic it feels.  I made the headboard out of some MDF and canvas.  Super simple and it cost less than 10 bucks.  Every single piece of clothing we own is in our wardrobes.  We have some drawers and shelves, as well as hanging space, so everything fits well.  We do have a closet in the room (to the left in the picture above), and we keep longer items (dresses, tunic, etc), shoes, bags, and our laundry basket in there.

Here's a shot of the other side of the room:

We'll have to come up with another plan for that corner after Little Dude starts sleeping in his crib.  Maybe a parson's chair or a large mirror?  Or some type of plant?  For now our (homemade) bassinet fills the space nicely.  I DIYed the art on that wall with Photoshop, personal mementos, and family pictures.

We really love our new room.  It is really easy to keep clean with the wardrobes containing all of our clothing, and it just feels light and airy.  With the floorplan of our house, just about everyone that comes over sees our bedroom, and now I'm proud to show it off!

Our Pockets are Heavier and Our Step is Lighter

Today is a happy day over here at our house.  This morning, I'm running the best errand ever.  In just a few hours, we'll be debt-free for the first time in our marriage.

Okay, except for our mortgage.  I don't really count that.  And except for that dark cloud of student loans, but we've got at least a year to worry about that.  So I'm not letting those rain on my parade today.

Here's our story, just in case it helps someone out there.  We both brought a tiny bit of credit card debt into our marriage.  Since we were both students for that first year, we just paid the minimum payment (we had consolidated onto one 0% interest card).  We had every intention of paying off the card (less than $1,000) with our first few 'real' paychecks.

And we totally could have.  But when we moved home and both had 'real' jobs (I was a social worker...that barely consitutes a real paycheck), we bought a house, furniture to fill it, and then financed a car.  Whoops.  We knew the credit card would still be there, and we weren't paying interest, so we just kept putting it off.

When we moved home, we set up our finances with the local Chase branch.  They went ahead and linked two new credit cards to our account 'just in case' we would overdraw on our account.  Fine, whatever.  We didn't really pay attention, because we weren't going to use them anyway.

And that wasn't the only thing we didn't pay attention to.  Despite having some fantastic financial role models in our life, we really didn't pay attention to our bank account.  We didn't go crazy or anything, but we didn't watch every penny.  Remember, we had those two credit cards linked to our account 'just in case'.

Just in case we didn't balance our checkbook.  Just in case we were stupid enough to fall into the bank's trap.  And, of course, we were.  It was amazing how quickly a $25 overdraft here and a $50 overdraft there added up.  In just one year, we took a step back and were somehow thousands of dollars in credit card debt.

And we never even carried those cards in our wallets.  We never once intentionally used them to make a purchase of any kind.  It was all bank fees.  Totally our fault, because we didn't pay enough attention.

Thankfully, we finally came to our senses.  I'm not sure what exactly kicked us in the pants, but I'll be eternally grateful that it did.  We look a long, hard look at our finances and realized that we just couldn't do it.  I was only working part-time, and we'd just found out we were pregnant with the Sunbean.

I heard an ad for a non-profit agency that works with you to overcome debt.  I made an appointment for the next day, and that was the best decision ever.  They helped us negotitate interest rates and monthly payments with the credit card companies.  We also sold the car that we had financed, and paid cash for a older car.

For the next few years, we scrimped and saved like you wouldn't believe.  We are essentially a one-income household (I only work 5 hours a week), so it got really tricky.  Here's an example:  we fed our family of three for $20 a week.  Can anyone say pasta?  We didn't have a budget for entertainment, and we just didn't spend money.  Unless we came up with some extra money (via my business or odd jobs), we didn't grab lunch on the go, stop by Starbucks (so sad), or go to a movie.  The only thing we paid that wasn't essential for survival was the 10% we tithe to our church.  And we consider that essential for survival, anyway.

That's why, less than four years later, we're making our final payment.  I wanted to blog (and facebook) about this, just in case our experience can help anyone out there.  I know we aren't alone in falling into this trap, and we want people to know that there is a way out.  We've learned a few things about money.

We now bank with a non-profit credit union.  We've tried banking with both Wells Fargo and Chase, and didn't find either putting us first.  Duh...they're in it to make money.  We love our credit union, and have found the restricted hours and other random inconveniences are well worth the benefits we recieve.

We're never, ever financing anything ever again.  Except for a house.  And the last few months of MacGyver's education.  We've learned the hard way that the only way to buy anything is with cold, hard cash.  We have a plan in place to save up for a newer car when we need one.

Crawling out of this hole was so hard, and I'm not being dramatic when I say there were many tears shed.  Despite that, though, I'm so thankful for this experience.  I'm so thankful that we could learn our tough money lessons while we are young, and before things got ridiculously out of control.  I'm thankful that we paid 100% of our debt back, because that means we're never going back to that place again.

So if you see either one of us this weekend, we'll have our perma-grin on.  And you can bet we're going out for dinner!

Our Free Ikea Couches

Our house is going through a major reno, and the family room/living room/only large space in our house was one of the first places we started.

See, we have a three-bedroom home.  We have 1 (and a half) kids, and a home-based business.  So, we've got a kids' room, an office, and our bedroom.  Translation:  no place for guests.  We actually have guests come pretty often.  My mom watches the Sunbean for me on Wednesday mornings, and so she spends the night on Tuesday nights.  We used to have a twin bed in our office, but I booted it out in favor of more space.

I was making my poor mom sleep on the sofa every time she stayed, and MacGyver and I ended up sleeping on the sofa or floor if we had other guests.  Really not ideal.  We bought a basic sofa bed at Ikea a few months back, and it took us exactly 10 seconds to realize it is N.O.T comfortable.  It looks great in the office, which is a plus, but you couldn't pay me to sleep on it.  Back to square one.

We really needed a decent sofa bed.  By this time, MacGyver was so sick of me lamenting about our need to have space for guests, that he told me I could do anything as long as it didn't cost money.  In the words of Barney Stinson, Challenge Accepted!

Four years ago, we bought some decent microfiber sofas in a neutral color.  They were ultra comfortable, and never stained.  I really loved them, but lately I'd really been wanting white furniture.  With children.  Call me crazy.

I got the crazy idea to list our perfectly-good sofas on Craigslist, just to see what they would go for.  I listed them at $100 less than what we paid 4 years ago.  My jaw dropped to the floor when they were gone 48 hours later.  Seriously?  I'd just sold 4-year-old furniture for just $100 less than what we'd paid.  Hollar.

That left us with one giant room and nowhere to sit.  The Sunbean was seriously excited.

That very afternoon, we loaded up MacGyver's mom's minivan and made a pilgrimage to Ikea.  Our sofa money netted us lunch, dinner, 2 Starbucks trips, gas there and back, new dishes, AND new family room furniture.

We got this fabulous fold-out sofa and a simple parson's chair.  Both have slipcovers that can be removed and washed, so I'm not totally stressed about staining them.  The bed is ultra-cozy (we both like it better than our own mattress) and the sofa is great, too.

We do have limited seating, and we plan to get a few more chairs when we have more money.  You know, when we win the lottery.  Or some unknown rich uncle dies.

I'm LOVING the new look.  The best part?  Totally free.

Less is More

We've been undergoing a transformation around here.  It all started with the idea that every. single. thing. we own ought to have a place.  Like, a designated spot where it belongs.  And I'm not talking 'it goes in the junk drawer' or 'toss that in the linen closet'.  I'm talking this-is-exactly-where-this-thing-belongs.

At first, I thought we mostly had that covered.  Boy, oh boy, was I wrong.  The deeper we delve into the project, the more I realize just how much crap we've accumulated in roughly 5.5 years of wedded bliss.  I try to think of simpler times; when we lived in our 500 square foot apartment with one teeny-tiny storage closet.  Then I remember that back then we did not have children or a home business.  Still, though, we have too. much. stuff.

And that's what it is:  stuff.  Junk.  Things we're just never going to use.  And we're not even the hang-on-to-this-'cause-we-might-need-it-in-25-years types.  We're pretty open to just tossing, selling, or donating.  But still, somehow, we have junk in this house.

I think it started when we purchased this 1,000 square foot mansion.  Believe me, when you double your living quarters, it sure feels like a mansion.  Back then, we had a spare room (aka:  dump anything and everything in there and just shut the door) and an office, but sans home-based business.  Talk about space.

Our home, circa 2006.

Well, when you have space, you just fill it, you know?  Boy, do we know.  We are really good at filling space.  And we have generous families.  They gave us new furniture as gifts and really great used furniture they were done with.  Pretty soon, we had tons of furniture.  Nice furniture.  Furniture that traditionally, we'd hang on to until we're dead and then our kids would have to deal with it.  These pictures make us look like hoarders or something.  We're not!  We started as fairly organized people, I swear.

The garage in Phase 1.

Enter my new philosophy:  less is more.  Let's keep less things so that they mean more to us.  It's radical, it really is.  I've been working on this since January, and I'm barely scratching the surface.  Case in point:  I've made it my goal to go through my house and fill one {giant} bag to take to Goodwill or sell on Craigslist (mostly Goodwill....I don't have time to mess with Craigslist!).  Every day.  Every single day I do that.  And guess what?  I haven't missed anything yet!  Is that not sick?

The office, right before I filled 5 (yes, 5) garbage bags full of stuff we don't have anymore.

This new approach to living has caused some major changes around here.  I'll post the improvements to each room.  I'm super excited about the way things are starting to look and feel.  I came across this phrase from the Lucky Shopping Manual, and I think it captures what I'm hoping to achieve:  If a piece doesn’t work, look at it this way: You paid for it once in cash, and now you’re paying for it in valuable closet space. If it’s not right for you, bite the bullet and let it go.

So we're letting it go.  And guess what we've found?  We have a home that is totally big enough for us, with plenty of storage.  We're organized, we're happy, and our home feels calm and inviting.

Less really is more.