Paint & Pictures

Oops. I posted out of order. If you're super observant, you may have noticed in yesterday's post that our walls were a different color from last week. That's because we painted the walls & the ceiling! We carried the darker color on the accent wall in our living room up into the whole hallway, and painted the ceiling a nice, crisp white (it was tan before).

Are you wondering about that black frame in the corner? Well, we made a little gallery wall!

See how our new lighting shines right on it, illuminating the fingerprints on the right? 

Here's the low-down on what we framed:

• The flowers on the left are temporary - they're going to be replaced by a print out of my favorite hymn once I make my way over to Staples.
• The sunflower in the middle is drawn by my talented husband. I just love all the detail in it!
• The framed wedding invitation on the right might also temporary. I'm not in love with the colors of it against the wall, so I may either replace it with something else or mat it in a different color.
• The picture of Justin & I in the middle is my favorite picture of us. 
• The drawing on the bottom right is of a little boy pulling a dog in a wagon under a streetlight. This is also drawn by that artsy stud I married and it's definitely staying. 

So what do you think? All the changes in this space lately make me a little giddy every time I walk down the hall.


What changes have you been making lately? Any painting or picture-framing?

What A Wooderful Sight!

Would you like to see something nasty? 

Can I get a collective "ewww" because our carpet is Nasty (with a capital N). 


So Saturday morning, while still in our pajamas, we got sick of looking at the grossness and decided this carpet had to go.


And just like that, madness ensued.

We assumed there would be hardwood underneath because the rest of our house has hardwood, but we weren't sure what kind of condition it would be in.


Justin pulled all the carpeting up while I carried it out to our storage shed. Teamwork folks. 


We didn't take any pictures of how the flooring initially looked underneath because we got to work right away pulling out all those staples. 

That blue nonsense at the bottom of the stairs is me. I told you we did all this in our pj's. . . 


After several grueling hours of pulling out staples, this is what we were left with. (You'll have to ignore the tools scattered everywhere - this is real life people).

 The new view from the living room.

The landing on the stairs has these adorable small planks. I wish the rest of the flooring in our house was like this!

In the last photo you can see that we still have carpeting in our bedroom. Eventually we'd like to replace that carpeting, that's why we haven't finished off the edge. 


So now that the carpeting is up, we have to refinish the floor. We're thinking about staining the wood a darker tone. But since our whole house (except our bedroom) is hardwood, we'll probably start upstairs and then eventually work our way downstairs.  


But oh to have floors like this . . . 

A girl can dream, right?


So what projects have you been working on lately? Have you ever refinished hardwood flooring? Any tips/advice?


ps: image from here

Goodbye Christmas!

It's January 16th and our gorgeous Christmas tree is coming down today. 



But - thanks to that good ole' self timer button, we did manage to finally get a picture in front of the tree last night. 


In completely unrelated news, we've been busy here at the Rothenberger casa. I'm a smidge behind with this whole picture-taking and blog-writing thing, but you should be getting some updates soon! Want a hint?


It's a wooderful sight. 


Cheese much? Yes ma'm.


Have a great Monday everyone!

Super Duper Savings - Part 2

Let's talk about detergent.   

As a Christian I feel convicted to be a good steward of what God has given me. So even though seventh generation makes amazing products that clean very well and smell fantastic in the process, they can put my budget over the edge. It costs $6.99 a box, which isn't exactly highway robbery, but it also isn't chum change. Two idioms in one sentence - thankyouverymuch English degree.


So I decided to make my own dishwasher detergent. I'm a bad blogger and took zero pictures. It's pretty self-explanatory though.


In a large bowl combine:

- 1 cup of washing soda

- 1 cup of borax
- 1 cup of Lemi-shine (we have hard water so I found that using a cup really seems to help, but if you have soft water you may only need to use 1/2 cup)

Keep this powdered mixture out on the counter for several days. Every time you pass by, mix it up. I used a potato masher, but you could use a wooden spoon if you don't have a tater masher. This step is very important because it helps prevent the detergent from clumping down the road!

Then, transfer your detergent to a sealed container. Put 1 tablespoon of this goodness in with your dirty dishes and wait for the magic to happen! I also use white vinegar as my rinse aid, which helps make my dishes sparkle!

I have been using this detergent for a while now and I think it works just as well (maybe even better!) as the store bought kinds. My dishes come out so clean and shiny. It's a win for my dishes and a win for my bank account. Bam. Happy cleaning!

Do you have any homemade recipes you'd like to share? Any natural cleaners you like to use? I'd love to hear about them!

ps: read all about super duper savings part one here

pss: image from here

Lighting Upgrades

You know the final walk through you do the day before or day of closing? When you're just checking to see if the sellers were hiding any holes in the walls with artwork or covering any stained floors with rugs? Well, we didn't find any of those tell-tale deceptive signs. . . instead we found a hanging hall light.

Our realtor explained to us that we could ask the sellers to fix this since it was properly secured when we made an offer on the house, but we figured it just needed to be fixed with a few screws so we didn't bother.

Actually I think our exact words were, "Don't worry about it. We can fix it this weekend. It's no big deal."

HA.

We were right in one sense - it wasn't a big deal at all. But did we fix it that weekend? No. We lived with that sucker hanging down for 6 MONTHS.

This view greeted us as we walked down the hall every day. Real classy.

So it's a new year and we decided to do something about this light. At first we were going to spray paint it like we did to our brassy fixtures downstairs, but instead we raised the bar. While perusing the aisles at Home Depot the other day, we found and bought this Hampton Bay track light. At just under $50, it was a little pricier than we would have liked - but it was pretty and we decided to try it anyway.

I love the oil-rubbed bronze color. And I love that we can position the lights to shine where we'd like. The main reason we decided to get this light was because we can highlight our artwork on the walls once we get around to actually hanging it.

See how the light shines right on the wall? We have big plans for that space. Right after we get around to painting the hall. We've had the paint for about 3 months already. . . so if we keep to our previous schedule you should expect to see this finished space in March.

But hey, it is a new year after all . . . so maybe it'll be done in February. :)

PS: When I came home last night Justin was installing another one of these lights in our living room. He replaced the boob light in the top right corner. Now our lighting matches! I'll have to take an updated picture and share that soon, along with the new piece of furniture that lives in this room!

Has anyone else taken a long time to make a simple upgrade? What do you think of our new lights? Any guesses on what new piece of furniture we have?

2012

Happy New Year and welcome 2012!


We brought the new year in with a bang. A good old fashioned skeet shoot. Justin and the boys played with their guns while I shot pictures with my camera. See those flying orange discs in the left corner? There she blows!

The remains of a good time . . . 

How did you usher in the new year? Was anyone else thinking of this guy the whole time you were reading this post? 

Skeeter image from here. 

Ahh Doug Funny. They don't make shows like that anymore. 

PS: Check back tomorrow to see our first project of the new year!