Project Update

I know. I know. I know. But in my defense, December was insane. And January is proving to be incredibly productive. So what I'm lacking in blogging, I'm actually making up for in projects. Since I'm not Young House Love (for better or worse), I'm combining all of my projects into one behemoth of a post! But, to make it worth your while, I have pictures!

How about we just back up and I'll do a little timeline for y'all.

As is our tradition, we have 2 Christmases (Christmai?), one with Adam's side, one with mine. Adam's family Christmas was the weekend before calendar Christmas, with my family following the calendar this year. Both were great. Being with family is always fun (well, usually). After Christmas, I had the week off work and seized the opportunity to work on a project I had been planning: the master closet:

(I could never, ever be a hoarder. Having my life like this for just 2 days drove me absolutely bonkers)

I painted both the master closet and the "toilet room" in our bathroom Olive Green (by Valspar). Don't let the pictures fool you, it's a very nice green. I also built and painted my laundry sorter:

I'm about a week into actually utilizing my new laundry system and I LOVE it. I'm doing laundry a little more often, but instead of doing it ALL in a day, only a load or two at a time. Keeps the dirty laundry piles out of the dining room.

I built the sorter basically exactly to Ana's plans. I used 2x2s so I didn't have to fool with the metal angles. Her plans don't actually instruct you in attaching those, so I had to figure that out myself. Not hard if all the pieces are already cut. I painted the interior the same green as the closet and the exterior was primed white and then painted with Sherwin Williams' Snowbound in semi gloss, color matched by Lowe's (I had gift cards, so the total of both area's redecoration cost about $25 out of pocket).

I also re-re-hung (long story) a shelf at the end of the closet.

After having the week off, I went back down to Tennessee and went with my parents to the Liberty Bowl in Memphis. Adam stayed home with Mister (an adventure that ended much better than either of us expected), not wanting to travel a third weekend in a row.

Cincinnati (Dad's alma mater) took on Vandy (on of the schools in Mom's repertoire and a team we all like to see succeed). Mom and I were prepared to root for either team, but ultimately cheered for UC.

(don't worry. The stadium filled in. It was like an hour before kick-off.)

A sign for Pead (/peed/), Cincinnati's lead running back

When I finally settled in at home, I had a few small projects happening around the house (besides constantly moving the laundry sorter. It's in its third and final home).

First, I took some inspiration from Pinterest (here and here) and made a Christmas canvas with my favorite quote from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." I downloaded the Grinch font and typed it out in Pages. The font went way wonky (some letters overlapped, others had huge spaces), so I actually cut everything out and then taped back together. Then, I got some graphite paper from Michael's (in the painting section) and used that to transfer the traced letters onto the canvas. A little painting later and there you go.

Some of you may wonder "why didn't you just use a Cricut for the lettering?" Easy. I don't have a Cricut to do the fancy vinyl transfers everyone on Etsy and Pinterest use. I'd say insert subtle hint for my birthday here, but honestly, I'm not entirely sure I'd use it that often. Sure it'd be handy when I needed, but how often would that actually be?

I also hung a floating shelf in the toilet room. Previously, there was a towel bar over the toilet, but with no sink in that "room" and since it was far from the shower, it served absolutely no purpose. I stole a sunflower from a fake bouquet I got for the fall and love the pop it gives the room. The shelf itself is hung a little high (since I'm so short, I tend to overestimate "eye level" to normal people), but I think some art would be nice underneath it. By the way, I really like the shelf. Last year, I got one from Target for the guest room, but it didn't hang flush against the wall. I was afraid that with enough weight, it would come crashing down. This one is solid and isn't going anywhere on its own.

I have another tiny project/picture, but for whatever reason, iPhoto doesn't want to upload it from my photo stream. For Christmas, my MIL got me a nice set of make-up brushes. I took this idea from Pinterest and put my own spin on it. I was concerned about using actual coffee beans, since I didn't know if they would spoil or otherwise get gross over time. So I used some vase filler marbles (or whatever they're called) instead. I used mostly clear with a few pops of green and turquoise. Super cute and very functional.

Whew! So that's what I've been doing instead of blogging. How about y'all?