Airing Dirty Laundry

I have a confession to make. There is one room in the house I absolutely hate: the laundry room. It is uncomfortable in the extreme, plus it tends to be the catch-all for everything that has no place of its own. Random magazine? Laundry room stack. Empty votives? On top of the washer. Loose change? My pocket. It was a mess. And the sad part is, I really had no place to organize anything.

Then one day, a friend of mine posted on the social-site-with-faces that she managed to fit her behemoth washer and dryer combo against the far wall, freeing up a lot more room for her to actually open the doors of the machines without hitting her legs, and making it possible to fit her laundry sorter against the wall, where she has always wanted it. Well, I have behemoth machines, too, but I had my doubts as to whether they would fit in the same configuration. But I had hope, so I fetched the tape measure and ZOMG!!! I had about a foot leeway!!

My laundry room before:

Yeah….not very pretty. And before y’all cast any stones, that was the worst shape it has been in since I moved to this house. But it is very bad…awful…OMG I hope my mom isn’t seeing this. Anyway, I told Hubby of my plan to transform the laundry room, and he was more than happy to help me. It was the fastest way to Skyrim™, I’m sure!!

And laundry room after:

LOOK AT ALL THAT SPACE!!!!

We bought a restaurant rack and I managed to fit and organize everything with shelf area to spare. Even the kids are excited about doing their laundry. I’m not sure how long that will last, but I’ll milk it as long as I can 😀

I May Need an Intervention

As y’all know, I’m still working on Eldest’s room. Furniture has been repositioned, shelves readied, and knick-knacks are done and ready to be displayed in the manner I know should be done. But there are some things still being worked on, and she has been slow to purge her childish things, so we are still moving at the speed of galoshes in quicksand.

Nevertheless, I have been busy being creative, as well. Boy, have I been having fun making new things out of random crap old stuff I find. I had this cheese dome, bought foolishly at a home party, just collecting dust in a kitchen cabinet and taking up precious space better served by my Lolita™ glasses. I’m making it into a bell jar for her room, complete with a skull.

Like this, just not as cute.

No one can say I am NOT a cool mom.

In the course of making last minute adjustments to her stuff, I have had to go in periodically to the local home improvement store. I was there last weekend, asking about a light kit. The young man who was helping me was interrupted by an older gentleman:

Gent: Can you tell me where to find a filter for a pitcher?

Salesguy: Hm…not sure, but I think you can find them in the kitchen supplies section, right next to the paint section.

Me: No, they are in the plumbing section, far back wall, right past the kitchen appliances and before the salt for water softeners.

Gent: (looking strangely at me)

Salesguy: (looking strangely at me)

Me: I’ve been in that section recently…

Salesguy #2 walking by: Hey, Ms. Aggie*. Haven’t seen you in a couple of days!

Me: (sighing)

Salesguy #1: You should work here.

I’m seriously thinking about it. But I get the feeling my paycheck would just revert to the store anyway 😉

Industriality

Well, since Eldest still hasn’t finished purging her room of the unwanted, I thought I would share an idea I got from the Lowe’s Creative Ideas site. It came out so cool, I will make another for Son’s room.

You’ll need:

• Amerimax Flex-a-Spout in white
• Utilitech 6′ Incandescent Rope Light
• Strong scissors to cut through plastic

The original link said to use a 12″ LED rope light, but guess what? Lowe’s no longer carries it. Also, in my opinion the 12″ would have been too short (shut it, people), as you will see.

First, take the Flex-a-Spout and cut off the square part. I chose to cut it off right where the flexing of the tube begins.

The directions at the link tell you to fold the light in half and place inside the tube, then bend the tube into the shape you wish. But I found it easier to bend the tube first, and then push the folded rope light through. Once done, you have this:

BEHOLD THE AWESOMENESS!!!!

The total cost for the light was less than $20. And Lowe’s gives the military a 10% discount, so it came out to less than $17.50 with tax. I think it goes well with the whole Steampunk vibe in her room, plus it gives her another source of lighting without breaking the bank, since the lamp I originally wanted was a whopping $90.

I love my kid, but there are limits.

Hopefully she will be done this evening, and the furniture moved and situated the way I want it where it needs to go. If not, I will treat y’all to a food hater’s recipe. Or bad Youtube videos. Whichever strikes my fancy and drowns out the gnashing of my teeth 😉

Do-It-Yourself: Steampunk Accent

It is amazing the stuff you can use to give a room a Steampunk vibe. So far I have concentrated on the Victorian side of Steampunk, and now I will show you an easy tutorial on how to add a large Steampunk accent.

Because with Steampunk, you have to have presence!!

You will need:

• PVC pipe, 4 inch wide, 5 feet long
• PVC 4 inch coupling
• PVC 4 inch 90* elbow
• Rust-Oleum Universal Hammered in Copper
•  Two corks
• Sharpie™ marker
• E-6000

Set up the pieces of PVC on a tarp in a well-ventilated area.

Once you wipe them clean of dirt and dust, apply a thin streak of E-6000 to the inside of the coupling and the elbow, and connect the pieces. Allow them to set for about 30 minutes.

Do-It-Yourself: Old to New

Note to self: I will NEVER undertake such a room makeover again. At least until next Tuesday.

One of the items Eldest needs in her room is a small bookcase. It was a piece we acquired in Germany, solid wood and unfinished. It took a beating and kept on…. holding books just fine. But it didn’t really fit in with the look she wants.

Nice, plain, utilitarian… boring. But really, all it needed was a nice coat of paint and something that made it pop. Her room furniture is a nice espresso color, so I went with Rust-Oleum Universal in Espresso Satin, which is a very close match. Just painting it wouldn’t give it the Oomph! it needs to stand out though, but I didn’t want to put decorative pipes and stuff on the top, when she needs to use bookcase to hold her lamp as well. And then it hit me: decorate the inside of the bookcase!!

And so, I did!

I found a backsplash option that was bronze in color. The backsplash is sold in sheets, and fortunately made of flexible plastic. This was the second most expensive item I purchased at about $20, but since it was going to make a big impact, it was worth it.

And yes, I did adhere it with E-6000, but you can use any silicone glue made for it.

Total work time was about two hours plus curing time, and total cost of the redo was about $26. I had a few pieces of the façade left to fashion part of her wall display. It was a bit more money but well spent, and now I’m thinking of redoing the other unfinished bookcases in the same manner.

I just hope I’m done getting stuff at  Lowes’. They already know me by name 🙂

Do-It-Yourself: Chapter Two

Yesterday, I showed you the faux mercury glass I made for Eldest’s room makeover. I admit I went a little overboard, but like I said, I had other stuff to do, so it was best to get it out of my system so I could move on to the other accoutrements. Doing these went a lot faster, but a couple required curing time.

Which is just as well, since Eldest STILL hasn’t finished her room.

*Grumble, grumble*

First up, I have to let you in on the secret of my success:

This stuff glues glass!! AWESOME!!!

It glues fingers too, so be careful. E-6000 is my go-to glue for the stuff I never want to move again. Anyway, while at my neighbor’s estate sale, I noticed they had a small bell jar for $1. Hey, the Victorians were notorious for having specimens in those, right? So, I did the next best thing, because there was no way I was trapping a bunch of insects.

I simply punched out butterflies out of different colored cardstock, embossed them randomly, hotglued a small stick to the bell jar base, and then hotglued the butterflies onto the stick. DONE!! And no butterflies were harmed in the making of this bell jar display.

I also acquired a round silverplate serving dish for $3. Admittedly, I was actually going to use it for serving, but then I got a better idea. Monogramming became popular in large Victorian families, for obvious reasons. It was popular with my youngest sister too, until she remembered that all of us had the same initials. Eldest had a small block letter laying around the floor in her room, so I decided to put it to good use.

For the monogram sign, I painted the letter black, then adhered it to the dish with the E-6000. After curing for about 24 hours, I adhered the ribbon with more E-6000, reinforcing with duct tape. It looks so nice with the patina, which is great because that meant I didn’t have to polish it.

One thing I didn’t purchase was a gorgeous hurricane candle holder. It was way out of my price range, and I just couldn’t justify it. But it did give me an idea to make my own itty bitty little hurricane!!

I bought a round votive holder and a small candlestick at Dollar Tree™, and used E-6000 to glue them together. After curing for a couple of days, you have either a small hurricane to show off small pretties, or a wine glass, which is why I adhered the rose to the glass. No chance of using it for imbibing.

Total cost of these: less than $10, including the random stuff I had around and the E-6000. One tube of that will take you far, trust me.

And so will the fumes, so use it in a well ventilated area 😉

Do-It-Yourself Fun: Chapter 1

Well, I know I was supposed to have pics up of Eldest’s room today. Unfortunately, she was ill on Friday, which meant “convalescing” all weekend, and by “convalescing” I mean playing Skyrim™ with her dad while her mom finished off the projects.

*Grumble, grumble*

Anyway, one of the things she wanted in her room was mercury glass. I myself love mercury glass. It is so pretty and old fashioned. But there was NO WAY I was going to pay $80 for a small vase at Pottery Barn™. Not. Happening. I thought about scouring the thrift stores, until I saw this tutorial at Katie’s Rose Cottage Designs, and I thought to myself, I can make that!!

You’ll need:

• cheap glass vases, votives, or whatever you can get at the Dollar Store.
• Krylon Looking Glass Spray Paint™
• spray bottle with a one-to-one mixture of water and vinegar
• paper towels
• well-ventilated area and plenty of coverage for the workspace

First, make sure you have cleaned the item well. I wiped them down with alcohol on a paper towel. Next, shake the paint vigorously, and apply an even coat, or as even as you can, onto the outside of the glass. I had tried doing the inside, but I didn’t get the old shiny results I wanted. After spraying the paint, just spritz the item lightly with the vinegar/water solution, enough to let beading form. Wait just about a minute, and then take a paper towel and gently blot the bubbles and beads of solution. Voilá!! The spray prevents the paint from adhering! Keep spraying paint and solution in as many layers as you wish. I did only two layers for the results I was wanting. This was the bottle before:

Those pretty bourbon bottles sure came in handy.

And this is the same bottle after:

I have plans for this….

I shall update the post with a pic after the Sun decides to make an appearance. Oh, and don’t think I stopped at just one glass bottle.

Can you say “Christmas decor??”

I didn’t go overboard. I just decided to do all of that particular project at once, so that I could concentrate on the rest of her stuff without distraction. All in all, I spent less than $5 on the spray paint, and had plenty of random glass stuff waiting for a ride to Goodwill, so the total expense of this project was well below $10, which is far better than one small vase for $80.

Best part? It was very therapeutic, sitting out in the hot sun, spraying, blotting, spraying, plotting…. 😉

UPDATE AS PROMISED!

Trash to Treasure

My neighbors are moving, and decided that their new abode would never contain the amount of furniture and sundry stuff they owned, so they decided to have an estate sale. He fixes and collects clocks, so you can imagine the bounty he had.

Also imagine being inside the house when ALL THE CLOCKS STRIKE TWELVE.

After the ringing in my ears subsided, I made my way over to the crafting room, which in truth is a detached garage. MORE CLOCKS!!! But boy howdy, did I score!

LOOK AT ALL THOSE GEARS AND COGS AND GOODIES!!!

Just the thing for a collage for Eldest’s room. Oh, and they had a small table that, with a bit of care, will fit right in. Time for me to jet, since I still have to turn my Dollar Tree™ finds into Victorian Steampunk masterpieces. I’m pretty sure I’m more excited than she is, but I don’t care. As long as she leaves some of it behind when she moves out 😉

Thursday?? What the…??

I was so busy yesterday, I completely forgot to post fluff. Let’s face it: this blog is just fluff, but sometimes that’s what you need because there just isn’t enough Calgon™ to go around.

Anyway, yesterday I decided to go around town looking for cheap junk items of small value to alter for Eldest’s room. As y’all may recall, she wanted me to Steampunk the whole thing. Well, that’s hard to do when she keeps it looking like Hurricane Ike hit it.

And that, my friends, is a VAST improvement over what it was like only two days ago. Because you can walk around the room!! Yes, that’s a strip of duct tape on the corner. And she does write on the little mirrors. By the way, I warned her I would be posting a pic of the DMZ room, so this won’t freak her out. Much… Anyway, today I get to paint PVC pipes, cut up corks and foam insulation board. Oh, and do some fake mercury glass, because I am NOT paying out the nose for that stuff when I can easily fashion my own.

I can’t wait to finish her room, and then I will be waiting impatiently for her to move out so I can take it over 😀

Pinterhell

I swear to all that is holy, I had to have been a magpie in another life.

A lot of my friends have Pinterest accounts. I don’t. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t access it. Anyone can, and it is made easier by the addition of sections, such as “home decor”, “foods”, “posters”, etc. A friend of mine posted a really cute idea for a table centerpiece, which necessitated I click on it, which then took me to a board called “Miscellaneous crafts & DIY for the home“.

Three hours later, I awoke from my daze. Two hours after that, I returned from the local craft and hobby store after getting supplies for numerous projects: felt flowers, “mercury” glass, paper flowers, tissue canvas project, lamp re-do, etc. The best part: I already have so much crafting crap, I didn’t need to buy a lot!

Courtesy of The Shabby Creek Cottage.

I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. Every single time I have good intentions on cleaning up my mess upstairs, something like this happens and all my plans go out the window, which is where Hubby wants to throw most of the mess, anyway. Seriously, y’all remember this, right?

From the mess upstairs that I still have to clean up before Nomstress arrives. Well, guess what? After Pinterest, it miraculously turned into this:

This Pinterest does not bode well for me, I can tell. On the other hand, it does inspire me to create new things with stuff on hand, and gives me ideas for gift-giving. This may be the cheapest least expensive Christmas season ever!!

I just hope no one in my family catches on 😉