Okay, it’s Thursday {kitchen and life update}

So, I admit that my scheduled Tuesday and Thursday posting has become a little.. lax over the past few weeks.  With me posting a day late, or in this week’s case not even getting in my Tuesday post at all (despite the fact that I wrote it on Monday).  When I first made my blog schedule, I was still only working as Swiss Chalet, where my work schedule was mostly Thursday through Sunday nights.  Now, at Michaels, I tend to work more during the week, including day shifts.  This does make it more difficult to post on those days, since I only go on the computer when my partner is not home (we don’t get a lot of time together as it is, and so we agree to not be distracted by technology whenever possible). I think that allowing myself a two day period to get posts in should work fine, and allow for my constantly fluctuating work schedule. So, I won’t feel bad anymore if I post on Wednesday, instead of Tuesday, or on Friday instead of Thursday.

Another thing that I have been struggling with lately is the issue of my website: www.sweatereyes.com

(Depending on when you click that link, it may or may not work anymore)

So, my website’s paid for domain and hosting is going to expire *really* soon, as in, next Monday kind of soon.  I had been meaning to deal with it for a while now.. but I never managed to make time for it.  I have been debating whether or not to keep the domain, the possibility of the domain being purchased by someone else seems a little unlikely.  (Who else uses this name?  Based on google search results, no one).  But relying on that idea makes me feel uncomfortable, despite the fact that before I had the website the fear of someone taking it never even crossed my mind.  I know that I do not plan on staying with Yola for a paid domain regardless.  It is not that  I am unhappy with Yola, its just I simply don’t have the time to maintain a paid website as much as I want to, and I don’t intend on making time for it right now.  Since I have been focusing more on this blog, I have been considering wordpress.org, in order to have a blog focused website that allows better “website” features than wordpress.com blogs.  In short, I want my blog to be more integrated with my website (If I am to have a website at all).  For now, I intend on keeping up my Yola site as a free site, meaning that the URL is going to be different. I will probably be taking it down in the next few months though.

Any who, I have been pretty busy this week.  I painted a feature wall in my kitchen, I love how it brightens up the room.  I will be posting my second post later this afternoon, as I will be updating the post with a few more photographs, you will have to wait to see what it is about.

Everyone loves how mixed lighting can be a pain, le sigh. (The most accurate colour is seen in the top left hand corner)

 

Bulbasaur table {finished furniture update!}

Remember a few weeks ago I posted a few WIP shots of a small table I was re-painting?  Well, I admit that it did take me a little longer to finish than I originally anticipated/ hoped/ wanted.  But that is usually how things go.  Technically, I shouldn’t say that it is finished, but for the time being, it is (I still plan on giving it a nice new knob, instead of the poopy old one, but in the interest of me wanting the table done and not being able to find the perfect knob right now, I decided to at least spray paint the old one a bright red).

So here it is:

Oh, and just a quick reminder what this puppy looked like before:

Before!!

I like how the colours turned out, and I’m happy that they matched together as nicely as I had planned.  I like how the “spots” on the side turned out.  I covered the front of the drawer with hand-dyed fabric.  My biggest complaint with the Martha Stewart paint is that it is very “soft”.  No matter how long I let it dry, you could easily scratch the paint off with a finger nail.  I ended up using a clear acrylic spray gloss to protect it, which also gave it a nicer finish (previously the paint was called a velvet?).  It’s not very glossy, but I like it.  Did I mention that, with supplies, this table only cost me $10.44 (tax included!) AND I still have more than half of my purchased supplies left?  Fuck yeah DIY.

I think I will need to take better photos of this table though.  I plan on doing some internet overhauls soon.  My website’s domain expires very soon, and I need to decide whether or not I will keep my website up.  Decisions!

Thanks for taking the time to check out my work.

xoxo

It’s Time to Live {Spring planting and nice weather}

This past weekend, it suddenly became Spring and we were both ready for it.  On Saturday we got the supplies we needed and on Sunday we spent the entire day planting and transplanting.  Our plants were far too crowded in their pots, having grown some over the winter.  We still need a large pot for our elephant ear plant, but for now it is scattered all over our house in smaller pots.  We quite literally have plants in every room of the house now (except the bathroom, but that will be changing soon too!).  It is so nice to wake up in the morning to bright green plants growing by your head.

Without further adieu:

Jerry working hard in the back yard.

The very welcoming entrance to our humble abode.

While Jerry was mostly working at transplanting and doing doctor with them, I got the joy of finding dog poo in our front garden.  I admit, we always neglect the front  sectioned off bit of dirt garden.  My first year here, my mom planted Hostas there, but since I never watered them they died rather quickly (unfortunately this is a less than ideal place for a garden, since it does not get a lot of sun or rain (under the roof over hang).  This year, I decided to try an assortment of wild flowers that were suited to less sun.  Hopefully they sprout up (although this morning I noticed a very light frost on things…. fuck).  I think I will throw some more seeds down in a week or so just in case.

These plants are in the front kitchen window.

This baby pot has some dwarf marigold seeds in it.

We found this cool glass planter at a thrift store, and knew it would be perfect for our ever lasting ever green plant. The photo really doesn't do it justice.

More plants, at our back door.

Another thrifted planter I found. I know that the image has sun damage, but I like how muted the colours are. Plus I love robins!

I failed to take photos of the plants now residing in the bedroom… but when I have another plant update (and I will!) I will be sure to include them.  I also didn’t take photos of the back garden area.  Jerry spent a lot of time edging the concrete pad and sweeping the area.  He planted some peas in one part of the garden, and I planted sunflowers in the other.  I also planted some mystery flower seeds in a hanging basket and in the robin planter.. I hope something grows from them! We moved the plant stand out of the kitchen, which also freed up some more floor space and makes the room feel less cluttered.  One step closer to the kitchen being “decorated”!

After all the work we did, it felt great to relax outside.  We let the kitties out to enjoy the weather too and explore a bit.  They love being outside, but are generally too timid to go outside of our back patio area.

Spring was moving in the air above
And in the earth below and around him,
Penetrating even his small dark and lowly little house
With its spirit of divine discontent and longing.
It was small wonder, then,
That he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor
And said, “Bother!”
Something up above was calling him.

(Segment from La Dispute’s song Seven)

xoxo

Spring Cleaning {year long super purge continues}

This is a quick update about how the house re-decorating, de-cluttering, organizing and losing my mind overall is going.

As you know, I have been focusing my decorating efforts in the kitchen.  I can’t wait for the consistent nice weather so that I can finally paint the doors to the kitchen.  If you remember  from my “before” shots of the kitchen, one area that was in dire need of re-organization before I could even consider what to do with the space was the small counter beside the fridge, seen here:

if you can believe it, I actually tidied up the counter before I took this picture

As you can see, the microwave took up almost all of the counter space; also, thanks to poor outlet locations, we are required to string a heavy extension cord across the window and allowed to just hang out awkwardly in the bottom left hand corner there.  My partner and I discussed the possibility of moving the microwave to the other counter.. but that seemed worse.  So, we decided to try to go a full week without using the microwave, to see if we could do it.  We even taped the door, so that if we forgot, we didn’t accidentally use it (I do admit that we used it once during the week, to use our last pack of microwave popcorn).  After the trial week was over, we moved the microwave out of the kitchen:

Now, there is so much more space!  I am excited about this simple change, it gives me a lot more area to work and forces us to eat a lot more healthy on a regular basis.  I’m still not entirely sure how to decorate the spot, or how I should organize the kitchen to utilize the space as efficiently as possible.. but one thing is for sure: I really don’t miss that big, ugly microwave.

But, being the super crazy person I am, I am not never happy with doing only one thing at a time.  Today I decided to do some super organizing/ purging in the living room.  So far, I have sorted through two storage ottomans, the TV unit, our “coffee table” (which is really just two milk crates staked on top of each other with a tray on top), and now I am tackling one of the worst offenders: the book-case.

Here is my current progress shot, which I am avoiding at the moment to write this post:

We have too many books for the book cases we have.  That is a sad fact that we are hopefully correcting soon (Ikea here we come!), and so I will probably be putting a lot of these books away until then.

I have also been playing around with the Iphone and taking photos again with it.  You may have noticed that my new photos today were both taken with it (hence their slightly funky colorations).  I found a new app to play around with called Photo HDR, although I’m not really sure how well it does high dynamic range, it does offer some fun possibilities.  Here is a photo of my living room, a complete mess, taken with the Iphone:

If you are online, and bored, I also found this website that might eat up all of my free time: http://random-tutorial.com/

It’s a site where you just click a button and you are brought to a random craft tutorial.  However, one downside is that you have to go to the actual blog site and post in order to pin it, which kind of sucks.

xoxo

Bulbasaur Inspired table {Furniture WIP}

Two weeks ago, some of you may remember my post about painting this great little side table (If you don’t, are curious or want to see what I’m talking about, click here).

Originally, I wanted to have the table done by the end of last week, but in my usual fashion, it takes me about a million times longer to do any project than I expect.  In my defense, I still don’t have a new knob, or suitable fabric to finish the front of the drawer.  I am also thinking that I need to put some sort of protective varnish or gloss on it to stop it from scratching (although I am quite a fan of the soft velvety satin finish it currently has, it does seem to be super soft).  I may end up only varnishing the top, and the bottom.

I can’t wait for it to be done!!

Painting and updating a cute entry table {Ivysaur colour palette} WIP

This week I finally started a project that I had known that I wanted to do for some time.. only I didn’t quite know what I wanted to do (colour/ style etc wise).  Last week, I got a great idea that is inspired by my favorite Pokemon: Ivysaur!  (not that I don’t love Bulbasaur, and technically the table will still fit in as a Bulbasaur table any ways)

The table sits against a wall by our front entry way (between our entry way, and the doors to the kitchen actually).  We found the table outside, at some point (a few years ago already).  It is solid wood and generally made well so I’m excited to make it beautiful!  Now, this is the table in question:

Before!!

The paint job was pretty rough, a lot of paint had chipped off.  Plus the colour seemed to be this dirty yellow-ish colour that always looked dirty.

Pre-sanding, showing the inside of the drawer.

The first thing I did was clean it, then I used a sanding block to rough up the entire thing.  I took off the knob, only to have it rip off a bunch of paint from the front (since the knob was painted onto the drawer, le sigh). This actually made the table look cleaner and nicer already, as I had sanded off the dirty old gloss.

Post-sanding, removed the knob.

After I had a rough idea/ plan in my head about how I was painting it, I decided to start on the drawer.  Originally I wanted to paint the front of the drawer, but the damage caused by removing the knob, plus the already damaged top right corner means that I need to be a little more crafty. But, I have painted the inside of the drawer and am pretty happy with how it is turning out.

New plan for the front, first two layers on inside of drawer.

I plan on having the table entirely painted by the end of next week.  I think I will want some type of varnish or gloss for it (at least for the top, possible the bottom shelf and the drawer though).  But I need to learn a bit more about finishes for furniture first.  I also need to purchase a new knob, but I plan on shopping around a bit for it first.

Thanks for checking out my newest project!

xoxo

Kitchen decorating {initial planning and before pictures}

This gallery contains 9 photos.

So, I am continuing to work on my kitchen (and break through my decorating fears and just go for it).  Since I plan on documenting this entire room’s make-over, I thought it was important to post some ugly before pictures. So, there are some things in this kitchen that I can’t change (no matter how [...]