My best thinking

I do my best thinking when I'm putting Baby down for a nap and I lay with her until she falls asleep. I get great inspiration for room that I didn't even know needed help.

Leavitt - Makeover - Chair

I'd like to share one of my new favorite cleaning supplies. It's the Magic Eraser. It gets soap scum off tubs and glass. It gets water spots off chrome and metals. It gets crayon off walls and it was the only way I found to clean this old leather recliner. Click on the link to see the images and read the story.

Room - Makeover - Kid's Room

I surprised some friends -turned- clients with a kids - room makeover.

While they were gone on a vacation I was asked to house sit.

I sat and I got bored.

 I cleaned and it got dangerous.

When they came home they were grateful to find some trouble spots of the clutter re-organized and cleaned up. When they were home, I helped to beautify the room that hosts both genders by adding inspirational wall collages.

Click on the picture to go to the Picasa link and see what happened.

Home - Room - Makeover - Baby's Room

Baby's room was a mess and it was really getting to me. I mean, how can one expect to nap with clutter and mayhem going on?

We got her room looking so much better. Here's what I did to it. Click on the picture to go to the Picasa link and read the captions for the full story.

I spent $8 on Ikea mirrors to hang up and that's it. I love that her room came together so well just using the things we had on hand.

Just realized I forgot to take after- pictures. They will be coming soon.

Home - Furniture - makeover

I bought two chairs and brought them home for my matching desks. One is in the bedroom and one in the Man Cave. One has been recovered in drop cloth and one is still pink. Click on the picture to jump to Picasa where you will get the full story.

Ideas from other bloggers.

Here are some cool decorating things I would like to try.
http://www.thriftyandchic.com/2011/04/knock-off-ballard-designs-garden.html
 - Knock off Ballard design mirrors. We have tons of mirrors in our place, but they are so scattered. We have much more light being bounced around, but I think a mirror focal piece like this would be great. I could put it on the wall behind my entry way bench.

My own* idea. I need to get some etching cream and etch a 'Q' backwards to the bottom all my glass casserole dishes. Then I'll etch a 'Q' to our our wine glasses. It will look amazing. I just know it.

http://fullofgreatideas.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-upgrade-your-builder-grade.html
 - All the mirrors in our bathrooms are kinda small and ugly or builder grade. I'm wondering if I can either get permission to do this to the master bathroom mirror from the owner** or make it affix to the wall so it can come down with no damage to the mirror.

http://absolutelybeautifulthings.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-love-circus-tent-bathrooms.html
 -I also need to do some serious something to the other bathrooms. Paint, chair rails, remove the carpeting(!?!), some serious work needs to happen. I'm thinking a beachy Hawaiian theme for the powder room, since we have 300 sand dollars to work into out home somehow, and the circus theme for upstairs. I'm thinking light blue  or grey and yellow. Only because the shower curtain is blue and the towels and Burt's Bee's stuff is yellow. I'm gonna work with what I've got.

~~
* (and you thought I wouldn't have footnotes!) 'Own' here is used extremely loosely. I think I heard about the casserole dish idea from someone who went to church with my mom. You'll never lose a casserole dish at a church function again. I think the idea originator added her phone number too.
** We are leasing so everything I do must be removable / un-doable  or I have to go through a management company to get owner approval for whatever it is.

Moved

We moved from the Seattle, WA area to Austin, TX. Wanna tour through the new diggs? How about the house hunt story first?
Sweet Pea and I flew to Houston while my hubby and his dad caravaned the moving truck and our car. My family in Houston were so great. Thanks! We had good dinners and fun times and my mom drove out to Austin with us and we hunted houses.
I got a recommendation for a Realtor in Austin and he had some time available to meet with us. If you need someone, Jack Horner at Keller Willams is super. He and his wife Kelli took time to personally welcome us to the city and find what worked for me.
We found some nice houses, some real 'fixer-uppers' and one perfect house. I mean perfect.
It was gorgeous. It was in a great location. There was not much room in the bathrooms, but the bathrooms had been recently remodeled. They looked good for next-to-no-storage. As we were in the house another Realtor showed up with a prospective. We were about done so we turned the premise over to them. Then we dashed back to computers to fill out the application and get that house. It took about an hour to get papers faxed to our road warriors and faxed back to us. By the time we were done it was after 5 and the office (the house was listed by another company) was closed.
The next morning Jack phoned the Realtor who was leasing the house. She said we were the only people who had put any papers in.
Oh the relief.
He chatted with the Realtor and mentioned that the garage was full of the previous tenant's stuff. She knew nothing about anything in the garage. Then he mentioned the patio, which is just spectacular. She said the house didn't have any porch.
Um.
We double checked everything and realized we had gone to the wrong house. It was on the same street and we assumed it was the first house we saw with a sign. Our bad.
Really bad.
The houses had the same floorplan, but mirror image of each other. The first one was gorgeous and perfect. The actual house for lease was pretty terrible. The Kitchen didn't have appliances and it was bright orange. While we came to see it there was a guy upstairs painting all the rooms (3 of the 4) bright spanking blue. Not a good blue and it was not a great paint job. Eew.
So we kept looking. It was so disappointing. The amazing house was for sale, not lease and they couldn't lease it for some reason.
Bummer!
We found another house that was very nice and again it was after 5 so we went home for the weekend. Our road warrior joined us and we had a great weekend with my family. Sweet Pea was so happy to see her dad and we had a relaxing weekend watching conference and playing. Monday we went back to Austin and signed the paperwork and got a house. The Management company was super helpful in getting everything run and checked so quick. We moved in that day. About a dozen members of our ward came out to help us move in and we got everything in and we were sleeping on beds that evening. Crazy! Mom was super helpful getting everything set up and livable as soon as possible.
So there you have it. Our little story. I'll be back later with pictures. ;)

Weekly Challange

Toni from A Bowl Full of Lemons is having weekly challenges to help us get organized. I think I may join her for this week's challenge to organize a recipe book.