Flooring

Last Thursday I posted a comment on FB about an investment I made for the house as well as the boy's health, and ours too come to think of it. I hired Rachel Norred's brother, Adam James, to install laminate flooring everywhere downstairs save the foyer that was already hardwood and the kitchen remained linoleum.

He met me over at Floor & Decor in Morrow that evening to pick out something that best matched what we already had as the hardwood and even loaded it in the Explorer for me and met at the house to unload it. He and his partner in business, Luke, came over starting Monday to install it. Luke just happens to be married to Shellie, one of our favorite nurses in the NICU at Southern Regional when the boys were born.

They did an amazing job and finished up everything by Wednesday afternoon, just in time for me to clean up so I could host my first Thanksgiving at our house. It looked so good, like it was always there, that the family didn't notice until I asked them how they liked it today.


Dining Room Before & After


Foyer & Living-room

If anyone has any handyman jobs or otherwise that they need assistance with, let me know and I will give you Adam's number. He said they do everything from floor installation, to painting and even cutting grass.

Autumn Wreath

Although we're almost halfway to winter, I felt the need to make a wreath for our front door. I took a Christmas wreath from my grandparent's old house and removed all indications it was for Christmas, then wrapped it with some dried berry and flower garland and some silk oak leaves (all found on clearance at Target) and added a bow made of wire edged ribbon from the Dollar Tree. I's not fancy by any means and a lot of the pieces might blow off at the first storm it sees, but it only cost me $7 to make and it made me happy.

Polli was very curious why I went outside, as you can see in the lower left of the picture. :)

Upcycling for storage

Silly maybe, but totally served it's purpose. When the Ikea bed frame we bought broke beyond repair and we knew we weren't going to try to get it replaced, I decided to maintain the headboard just make it freestanding since it matched and helped support the bedside tables and keep the other pieces that didn't split for eventual shelving in the garage.

It's been well over a year since that, but I was finally able to install the shelves and it couldn't have come at a better time. I also used pieces of the side rails to make feet for the so called "freestanding side tables" but that's been a while back now. We used to store all the bulk storage/paper products in the hallway closet but since we got the new entertainment center, the games and movies have taken over that closet. I sawed the foot board in half and attached it to the wall with L braces I bought back when I originally had the idea. Though it can't hold much weight (lovely hollow structuring from Ikea doesn't make it very sturdy), it totally served it's purpose. It's right by the door from the kitchen to the garage too, so it's convenient and out of the way. Now I just wish I did it a long time ago :)

Swiffer

I totally need to make this...

Little Stonehenge

My last week of work, I purchased a pallet of seconds of Celtik wall with intentions of building a firepit in our backyard. The day I was "forced" to take my maternity leave, my boss brought the rest of them to our house after work and they had been sitting there ever since...until this past weekend. We had been watching a lot of DIY which probably helped motivate up to finally get them out of the garage at the very least. After we got it as high as we wanted it, we stacked the remaining pieces for seating that we can put a throw pillow on for comfort when we go to use it - I'll have to make some with weatherproof material. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out especially for it to be out of seconds. Mostly though, I'm glad it's gone from the garage - now I can start to park the car in there while it's getting colder and at least won't have to take the boys into the elements to get them into the car. Yay!