Mom's Birthday Present

One thing that's funny about my Mom...if you ask her what she wants for her birthday, she'll say, "Oh, nothing. Don't buy me anything." But if you don't ask her and just listen to things that she admires, she's actually easy to shop for.

 I lucked out this year because she actually "assigned" me a project.

Which I figured would be easy. But I was wrong.

She wanted a saying to put on her wall. It's from Conference this year and she just loves it. "Imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. That must be terribly frustrating to him, but he deals with it. So should we!" - Jeffrey R. Holland.

Since I have a Silhouette machine, that should have been easy.

I've made projects with my Silhouette machine...found here....and here.

Mostly little projects. Nothing large. We peeled those stickers off by hand and re-stuck them one by one. Which presented a problem when I started planning this project....no way was I peeling and sticking a million little stickers for a saying. Plus it would definitely look weird and would not be lined up.

First I found the perfect sized frame I was going to use. I thought about doing a piece of wood but I don't own a router and I would have wanted it to have nice edging.

Then I designed in in the Silhouette program. Asked my sister Kristi what she thought because I am definitely not a designer and she has a better eye than I do. I had to make sure it was within the correct constraints and had good sized letters. It took awhile.

Then I had to decide how I was going to complete this project.

I cut out a word (very cleverly seen here as "test") and used the vinyl as a stencil and painted it.

It looked like crap. Also, the stencil was hard to peel apart. Did you ever get those fruit roll ups with shapes cut into them? They were popular when I was a kid and I loved them. The shapes never came off easy, it always stuck to the rest of the fruit roll up and the fruit roll up would stretch and tear. It was like that. It wasn't a big deal on past projects when it was only a few characters and the technique was different, but it was not going to work for this project.

So I do what I always do when I don't know what I'm doing.

I watched some online videos.

The lady on the online video was using actual vinyl, not my cheap-o, short-cut way of using shelf liner (because I'm CHEAP, ok?). So I figured I buy some vinyl.

I my vinyl came in the mail pretty quick, and I cut it out, and ta daaaaaaa.

It just peeled right off. It was glorious. And a relief. No way did I want to fight the fruit roll up vinyl. (Plus, the Silhouette machine says you have to set your cutter to a "one" but it needs to be a "two." Love online videos.)

So I just had to get the little pieces out, and I was almost ready to go. I put my Silhouette machine and vinyl away...and thought to myself I wonder if I should have waited....but everything was cut and ready to go, so I thought nah, just put it away.

Well...I have long maintained that God has a sense of humor. And it is TWISTED.

The large sticker that I peeled off got stuck to my saying, and peeled it back.

Peeled off the part about imperfect people. Very funny God, haha.

So I had to get my machine out again and re-cut it. It only cuts in 12 inch pieces, and the saying was longer than that, so J helped me line it up and tape it together. Love my Handsome Man.

Can you see the three separate pieces? Geez.

Then came the transfer paper. Which I had to buy. Did I mention that I am cheap? I saw online that you can substitute Glad Press N Seal. Which we have. But this is a BIRTHDAY present for my wonderful MOM. So I didn't cheap out.

Luckily this part of the project didn't have any problem. The transfer paper pulled it right up and J helped me center it on my paper.

And it's all ready for my Mom. I hope she likes it. Between the design, the plan, the testing, and the overall labor, this was quite the project.

Only cause I love you Mom.

Watching Lily

Brian and Katelyn had a wedding this Saturday and asked if we could watch Lily. I had plans with my sister, but J offered to help. So when I came home Saturday night, Lily was there, hanging out.

She wanted to jump on the trampoline, so we all went outside. J and I did a little clean up while Lily played.

Lily: Deidre.
Deidre: Yes Lily.
Lily: Watch this big jump!
Deidre: Oh, nice job. What a big jump.

Lily: Deidre.
Deidre: Yes Baby Girl.
Lily: What is this?
Deidre: It's Joseph's garden. Look at the strawberries. We can't eat them yet, they're not ripe.
Lily: Oh, I like strawberries.

Lily: Deidre.

Deidre: Yes Lily.

Lily: Look, I can fit through here.

Lily: Deidre.
Deidre: Yes Baby Girl.
Lily: Can I help?
Deidre: You sure can, thank you.

Lily: Deidre.
Deidre: Yes Little Lily.
Lily: I love you.
Heart. Melting.

Bathroom Remodel

Finally. Finally. Finally. Finally! FINALLY!

When we first bought our home, I knew I wanted to remodel the bathrooms. We have updated so many other things in our house - light fixtures, outlets, fans, paint, finished the office, shelves, the backyard...

We even tackled the kitchen. Pretty much the only thing left was the bathrooms.

Let's take a look at my nasty bathrooms.

This was the master bath. The vanity was old and had water damage. It was gross.

This picture makes it look like it's leaning. Haha. It's so nasty it's lopsided!

We hadn't updated the light fixtures. They're the only light fixtures we haven't touched in the house (other than the laundry room but I don't care about the laundry room). With the pending remodel I just let the light bulbs burn out.

This was the guest bath. It also had double sinks. Which turned out to be a good thing. Only one sink worked in each bathroom.

Look at these nasty faucets. I couldn't ever scrub off that hard water residue.

The countertops were stained and always looked dirty.

That's just gross. And also why the sink was broken - it just rusted out.

I got my performance bonus in February. I found a few different contractors to give me a few different quotes. At first I just wanted to switch out the vanity. A couple of the contractors said they would build custom vanities (which sounded ex-pen-sive - custom vanities?) and another contractor said I would have to find my own vanities but gave me a quote to install them - and a quote to install tile since a new vanity wouldn't match the footprint of the old vanity.

I looked around at how much it would cost to buy my own vanities. And countertop. And sinks. And faucets. Adding that cost plus the installation - it was cheaper to go with the custom guy. Installing tile ended up being pretty affordable. And what the heck, those were the only light fixtures we haven't changed out yet, so let's do that too.

Yes, we decided to pay a professional. There are certain things I would rather pay someone else to do than do myself. And considering the remodel took over a week (it took a full day for the guy just to remove the old tile), I am so glad I didn't have to do the labor.

I wanted to leave the mirrors alone. I got a new toilet in the master because we hadn't replaced that one yet - he had to pull it up to replace the tile anyway so there wasn't an extra cost for labor. Overall, it was very affordable.

We got back from our CA trip Monday, March 25th. The contractor came on Tuesday to start the tile tear out and install the cabinets. It would take a couple days to get the granite fabricated for the countertops, so he put my old countertops on temporarily so that we wouldn't be without a sink for that time.

And the mirror fell down in the master, breaking into pieces. Joseph was thrilled, he wanted something framed.

There was a small problem with the light fixture and minor things that needed to be completed - cutting down the toilet screws, nailing down the wood floor transition pieces, etc. The granite wasn't ready to be installed until the following Monday so we lived in a torn apart bathroom for awhile. It wasn't too bad.

The guest bathroom was finished first, since the master needed new mirrors and we decided to paint.

So here is the after for the guest bathroom:

Beautiful new lights

It's rather hard taking photos of a small room. But I did my best.

Love love LOVE the new vanities. It's just beautiful. Especially compared to the nastiness that was there first.

I only put knobs on the things that actually open. There were some people who thought it would look weird, but I think it looks fine.

The tub isn't new, but just to give you a full view of my little bathroom.

Also not new, but I love the little mirror and the paint color. I really think it looks fabulous.

Joseph is now plotting to cut some molding and frame up the mirror in the guest bath. He's so funny, because he made me promise this is the last house project (although I need another shelf in the laundry room for storage, but that should only be $50 for materials) because he wants to start saving for our "dream home" that he is planning on building in ten years. But I'm pretty sure our house projects are just going to continue in the backyard. I'm ok with that. This might be a little house, but it is almost perfect now.

After we painted and hung mirrors, the master bath was done.

J and I both hate painting. Which is funny, because J has a real talent. He doesn't need to use tape, he can eyeball straight lines. It took a total of 8 hours over two days to paint the stupid bathroom. I am so glad we painted the guest bathroom earlier. J had wanted to wait until we remodeled, but I am very thankful that he goes along and helps me when I make up my mind to do something.

Side note: It is a good idea to smile and be friendly to the people at the paint place. I got a discount and saved $6. Oh yeah.

Here is the finished master bath:

The drawers are larger than my old drawers; I can fit my hair dryer in there now. We have room to spare. It is wonderful.

The toilet room remained the same except for the new tile and the new toilet. The new toilet is fabulous; it has yet to clog. The old toilet would clog once a day.

I am so happy with the new bathrooms. Just in time for J's 30th birthday party.