Who's the fairest?

Yup, you guessed it. This is a mirror post. Basically, this post will highlight the #1 clutter reducing, good stuff-scoring thing ever: freecycle.

Freecycle has literally taken SO many things we didn't want out of our house. I know you're thinking, "Why don't you just donate everything?" Here's the thing, you can freecycle things you canNOT donate. You can freecycle used candles (people melt them down to make new ones or use in warmers). You can freecycle soaps/bodywashes (ie: things not eligible for individual resale)...perhaps even the soaps and bodywashes left behind by past roommates, in case you happen to have had 9 people live with you in the same house in 8 years. Yes, my house has some semblance of a rotating-roommate syndrome.

In this case, however, freecycle HOOKED me up. You see, I got an email saying that someone was offering a ginormous mirror, something like 2+ feet by 3+ feet. CRAZY. And the best part? Obviously- F.R.E.E. My husband went and picked it up and it was...dusty. So, I cleaned it off with some GreenWorks all-purpose spray cleaner and some paper towels Then, I filled the nail holes (previous owners had just nailed it into the wall and we wanted to go the picture-hanger route) with wood putty, sanded, and taped it off to paint! Sidenote: Super stupid to paint with a new rug...but it was FREEZING so i covered it with newspaper, sheets, and then moved the can away to hammer it closed. I painted this with Valspar Interior/Exterior Gloss. We got it to do the floating shelves I still haven't blogged about we hung in the living room. Supplies: painter's tape, small roller, angled brush, sand paper (for prior sanding)

Yup. This happened.

 This took a BAJILLION coats. It took me 4 or 5 actually. I went ahead and pulled the tape off after 3-4 coats and then went ahead and touched up with the brush. If paint got on the mirror, I used ye ol' razor blade to scrape it off of the glass.

 I like to make the same mistakes twice...and in close-up...and after putting on my paintin' shirt.

 And now, the march upstairs to the bedroom! My husband was still super dressy. I liked it. Please don't mind the hot mess that is a) my dresser top, b) paint swatches stuck on our wall with electrical tape, c) my bed. We centered the mirror over the two Malm dressers that we have in our bedroom (yes, this led to re-centering out entire bedroom...maybe you'll hear about that by next month?)

 My husband changed into more comfortable clothes, put the "hanging kit" on the mirror. We bought one at Lowe's for like, $7? We wanted to make sure it would hold it because this mirror is SOLID. It probably weighs 15-20 lbs. He got a little help from Duchess. #kittyphotobomb

 This is the hanger. Self-explanatory. I still give a caption. I can't help myself.

We hung it and I just, I didn't feel good. I could see some of the hanger, but I LOVE the wire hanging kits because you just have to adjust the wire (as seen on the left side of the mirror). He adjusted it, moved out of the way of the photo (haha), and displayed how terribly off-center my bedroom is, as evidenced by the canvas hung on the opposite wall. Ugh.

 Adjusted, wire clipped and hidden, mirror leveled (the tiny red thing to the right of my husband's head).

 AAAAAAAND...gratuitous smiley self-portrait in the new mirror. Chris likes this because it looks like I'm just doing "victory hands" instead of actually holding the camera. I like that I don't look as tired-drunk as I actually was. I think we hung this at midnight or, as my husband likes to call it, "the project hour".

Budget:
Mirror-free!
wood putty- already owned
sand paper- already owned
angled brush- already owned
roller & cover- already owned
painter's tape- already owned
paint- already owned
hanging kit- $7.69ish? I say "ish" because I'm not sure, not because I'm saying "approximately [this] exact amount"...that annoys me.
Total: LESS THAN 8 BUCKS!!!!! Woohoo! A mirror this size would cost me mucho dollars if I had bought it new, or even from many antique/second-hand stores! Hooray! 

Truthfully, I was so excited this happened because I just needed to stop "collecting" this stuff and actually DO something with it. This year's to-dos are often going to be inspired by John & Sherry's "Dude, Get On That Already" series.

So, my list of "to-dos" now looks like this:

-finish painting frame and hang (FREE!) mirror...and blog about it
-finish bottom floating shelf with wine glass holders...and blog about it (later this week?)
-finish floor transitions (install upstairs & return crappy downstairs ones and buy the correct ones)...and blog about it (this may take awhile, it's becoming a headache)
-vacuum the rug (before I blog about anything in the living room with pictures)
-put away all of the Christmas gifts and clean up!
-blog about the "new" living room (I think we've finally settled on an arrangement-this could be coming soon!)

I'm already making new goals for when these are accomplished. Thanks for those of you still checking in! What are some house projects you're getting accomplished? Anyone thrilled that a quick project was actually...quick? Taking on bigger projects? Leave a comment and tell me all about it! :)

Want more fun (and often, cheap) projects? I linked up today at:

 A Bowl Full of Lemons and Not Just A Housewife

Back Where We Came From...50 Shades of Gray

So- last year we decided to paint our living room.


In 2009, I needed a fresh start. The futon-couch belonged to my ex, I had super old end tables from my parents' house (before I was born), and my living room is super strange. It's long & narrow (that's what she said?) and it was difficult to have the TV on a separate piece of furniture, so I was hoping to hang the TV over the fireplace. 


I decided on some paint colors. I wanted a green accent wall and 3 khaki walls. Then, I picked out a khaki couch and some dark brown end tables. Thanks, Value City. 


Fast forward a little over a year and a half to summer 2011: green & khaki are VERY warm and VERY dark in my living room that gets little natural light. Also, my living room was a hot.mess.hoootttt.messsssss. In that year and a half I had lived alone, started dating again, gotten engaged, gotten married, had a husband move in, had one roommate move in (twice) and out (once), and completed another year of teaching. My living room showed it. Are you ready for this?! 

That TV in the corner? Took me MONTHS to convince my husband we should sell. 

I'm not sure what most of this crap is. This is the "middle" of our living room. What. The. What.

Ridiculously blurry. Ridiculously messy.

Where's the couch?! I DON'T KNOW?!?!?!

Aaaaaand back toward the sliding doors. Whew. Aren't you glad that part is over?!

 Then...I got an offer from Valspar for some paints. What?! Free paint samples?! Yes, please. We ordered a light gray (I believe it was Foggy Mist) and they sent me this whole kit. 

 Then came my favorite part. We painted on some Foggy Mist and also got about 2 bazillion samples from Lowe's and Home Depot. We hung them all on the wall over the couch and left them for DAYS to see the 50 different shades of gray. We ended up choosing Nimbus Cloud by Olympic. Why, Olympic? I dislike the VOCs and I like the $5 coupon we got. Haha. I'm nothing if not cheap frugal. If you ever came to my house, you would have seen these colors...where the paint samples were hanging is where the ladder art currently resides. So, big changes have continued to happen this year!

This is with the lamp light. See how blue the big ol' patch of Foggy Mist ended up? :( 

Anyway, with our Nimbus Cloud all picked out, we went to Lowe's and talked to our favorite paint girl. She has piercings and crazy tattoos and a dye job. And I. Love. Her. She knows her stuff and she's chill and she makes fun of people who ask stupid questions. Luckily, I wasn't one of those customers...this time.


Then...the priming began! No, we could not take the TV down until it was ABSOLUTELY time. We needed to be able to watch HGTV (obviously) while re-painting. Also, we had no AC during this process. That's why there's a fan sitting in front of the fireplace. It was hot in there. Really hot. 

Priming machine. See that rusty looking plant stand with the broom handle resting on it?! That's a new color! Stay tuned to see that awesomeness! (Seriously- I love it.) Also, the back porch with the extra end tables and junk on it? Those are in the shed waiting for redos, the porch has since had a truckload of spare lumber, and now it's clean again. Ahhh, full circle.

This corner was never quite as crisp as I'd hoped. Painting the room all one color made me really excited that I wouldn't be staring at that corner any longer.

...aaaand all the way up the stairs! Our house is narrow...and it's not open AT ALL so I thought one color might lighten things up and make them airy.

Speaking of "airy", we interrupt this painting update to show you what happens when you don't change your air filters regularly. Mind you, our AC was going and "sucking" (literally and figuratively) a bit more, but we didn't change the filter until we realized it had died. This is what we found. 

WWWWHHHAAAATTTTT?!?!?!?!?! HOW DID WE NOT ALL DIE?!

 Back to our regularly scheduled painting update. Cats like drop cloths. Exhibit A:

Going up the stairs was fun and exciting...and exhausting. Also, we have this weird flat hand-rail-bannister-creepy-thing-to-look-over-as-you-go-up-the-stairs. It was gross. I wanted to make sure the paint didn't come off from previous applications. I ended up chipping paint off of it for HOURS. It may or may not have stayed this pukey yellow-brown-off white combo for a few days weeks before we painted it.

Thumbs down for this part of the project. I'm not sure why I took this picture like this...but I did.

Three layers of paint colors later...

 But wait, we're almost there! I painted and painted (and panted-it was hot!) Final product?! Pictures taken in tons of different lights to make sure it shows up as well as it possibly can with a terrible camera?!

 TADAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is purely to express my thanks for "Friends" reruns during home improvement projects.

so grateful for Chandler, Ross, Joey, Phoebe, Rachel, and Monica

This is coming in the front door.

Isn't it so light and welcoming now?! Yes, we took care of the brassy knobs/locks. No, it didn't end up being a permanent fix. Womp, womp. 

Clearly, cleaning the living room was the next step and it was MUCH cleaner for the past year. I was really proud of it. At one point, I sent our friend a picture of something in the floor and he replied, "You guys have a floor in that room?!" I was excited, too.

Unfortunately, there are no "current" pictures because WE'RE GETTING LAMINATE FLOORS. And by "we're getting", I mean, they're sitting in our floor in a huge pile...because we're installing them ourselves. Fingers crossed we don't screw this up! :) 

Now that I'm finally blogging all of these older projects, maybe someday soon you'll get a "final" look at our little hole in the wall...and it might even be with new floors! :) There could be a House Tour page up on this blog soon! :) 

Anybody else made drastic changes with paint lately? Leave a comment and share your color choices!