Young House Love Book!

I got my copy of the Young House Love book today in the mail!

I’ve only wasted a little time perusing it’s pages and I’m so happy! (I did manage to get a coat of stain on our back porch today.)  It’s got some super great ideas, including some about projects and problems I’ve recently been thinking about.  Yaaaaay!!!  One of my favorite blogs come to book form – and all their hype was right on. It’s not just a rehashing of their blog, but it’s just as good as their blog! It’s an idea book, and it’s just what I was hoping for! (Don’t you love all these exclamation points and excitement! I do!)

Be back in a bit with more mantel updates!

Finishing the Fireplace, Part 1

Oh man, this fireplace project may actually becoming close to completion.

Remember this?

Oh yeah, it has definitely looked like that for months. It’s not that I wasn’t working on it at all, but I was partaking in the tedious job of applying layers of drywall mud to the surrounding wall, trying to make everything look smooth and not patchy. I’m no expert mudder, so it took a while and I hated every minute of it. :)

Then I did not feel like dragging out priming and painting supplies for such a small paint job.

But I finally did it!

First the primer. I used Zinsser’s FastPrime.

Then the paint.  I bought another gallon of Benjamin Moore’s Sail Cloth to match the existing living room paint.

I was so excited that I went right out to buy materials for the mantel!

Little did I realize what a project that would become.

I had always planned to build the surround myself, since it’s relatively simple and our fireplace is sitting up higher than an average fireplace so most kits wouldn’t really cut it. But I did plan on buying a pre-made mantel shelf kit at Menards.

Luckily, while I was at Menards, I thought to call Brandon to double check my measurements before I bought anything.

And yup. It turned out that the 6’ mantel kit I planned on buying was an inch too long for the wall. I guess once my layers and layers of mud went up, my measurements ended up being off. Womp womp. The other mantel kit available was only 5’ long, which would end up being 2 inches too short to span my tile. Double womp womp.

I panicked for a minute. Then I looked closely at the mantel kit and some of the other fireplace displays at Menards, and thought, I can just build this myself. I’m no woodworker, but whatever. What else was I gonna do?

So, here’s what I bought: 2 – 8’ sections of this decorative (fluted?) MDF trim, and a select grade 1” x 8” x 6’ board for the surround; and a select grade 1” x 4” x 6’ board, a select grade 1” x 8” x 6’ board, and an 8’ piece of pine crown molding for the mantel shelf.  I also got a couple different tubes of construction adhesive – something I don’t often use, but I figured would come in handy for this project.

What’s awesome is that all the materials for the surround and mantel cost around $75, (including my construction adhesive) which is less than just the mantel shelf kit which started for around $100 with the surround materials costing another $35 or so.

Boy, was I excited! Stay tuned for the rest of the project!

Happy Halloween!

I did a little pumpkin carving today. I haven’t carved pumpkins in a very long time.

I guess I’m still sort of a jack-0’-lantern traditionalist. I’m surprised I didn’t carve both pumpkins with triangle eyes and noses. I must be getting adventurous.

When I was done, I rinsed off the pumpkin seeds in a colander, dried them off a bit, and spread them on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet to roast!

I coated them with some olive oil and a lot of salt and baked them at 325 degrees for 20+ minutes. I truthfully don’t know how long it was, because I totally forgot about them and went out to the garage to work on the fireplace mantel (pictures coming soon!) and when I got back inside, my timer was beeping. But they came out a pretty golden brown and are oh-so-tasty!

(Thanks, Janis, for the fruit basket!)

And lastly, for laughs, here is a picture of Brandon and me dressed up for a Halloween party last weekend. He was Al Capone, complete with bootleg (well, homebrew) beer and I was Mr. Rogers! Haha, it was a good time.

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood! ;)

Happy Halloween!

Windy Sandy

Luckily, for us here in Indiana, the effects of Hurricane Sandy are a lot of gloom and a lot of wind. Nearby Lake Michigan has been experiencing 20 foot waves! But so far the the nuttiness is confined to the actual lakefront, so most of Chicago and Northwest Indiana are fine.  I’ve been spending the morning trying to check up on my friends in New York and New Jersey who haven’t had it so easy!

The wind here is nuts. Our house feels like it’s going to blow away. Our willow tree looks like it’s going to.

The chimney in our fireplace always amplifies the wind noises and is the scariest sounding, but I think it’s just being dramatic. :)  However, speaking of the fireplace, I've finally got some fun updates in that department coming soon! Stay tuned!

New Short Hair

I cut my hair really short.

My awesomely nice friends say it’s chic.  I definitely did it because I am lazy.

Why should boys have such an easy time with their hair? I wanted a piece of that.

It’s an especially big change for me considering that in July 2011 (so just over a year ago), my hair was pretty long.

That’s my friend and stylist, Pam, looking through a short hair styles magazine before we did the first big cut.

Since that day, I’ve looked roughly like this:

And now I look like this:

:)

Halloween Cuteness!

Halloween is not my favorite time of year. I love it for the mounds and mounds of bite-sized candy, but I hate it for the scariness. I am scared of everything. 

My friend Pam just threw a little Halloween party, however, with the cutest details! I had to share. Cute Halloween stuff makes me happy. (It distracts me from the scary stuff.)

First, here’s Pam and her cocker spaniel, Merlin, dressed up as the Black Swan and an Ewok! :)

Great costumes, right? Let’s just stare for another moment at the Ewok!

I couldn’t get over his level of cuteness.  And she made both costumes herself!

Then, of course, Pam had a great spread, very colorful and all Halloween-themed.

Complete with awesome details.

(I think she said the stickers were from Martha Stewart!)

And let’s get a closer look at those yummy cupcakes, shall we?

My favorites were the pumpkin ones with tootsie rolls for stems!

Even her beverages were Halloween-themed.

So fun, right?! More Martha Stewart stickers!

What a fun way to start off the Halloween season! Thanks, Pam!

Book Report: Of Thee I Sing, The Princess Bride, and The Witness for the Prosecution

Here’s a quick rundown of three short books/stories I’ve been reading.

I’m still in the middle of William Goldman’s The Princess Bride, but let me tell you, the book is every bit as good as the movie that we’ve all seen. Reading it, I totally know why they made it into a film…it’s almost written as one! Quickly paced, full of love and adventure! I think it’s a fun, must-read for many ages!

 

I just got Barack Obama’s children’s book, Of Thee I Sing, from Amazon, after listening to the audiobook from the library. It is amazing and much better than I expected. The illustrations are fantastic and the story is a cute, uplifting mini American history lesson, with a bit about various Americans like Georgia O’Keefe, Jackie Robinson, Sitting Bull, Billie Holliday, Helen Keller, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Neil Armstrong, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington, woven into a tale of being unique and loved. A fitting children’s book to be written by the President of the United States. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it myself, and I feel like I’ll be reading it and gifting it to every kid I know!

 

Just recently, Brandon and I watched the 1957 movie version of Agatha Christie’s The Witness for the Prosecution, directed by Billy Wilder, starring Marlene Dietrich. It was really good, a true classic. It prompted me to re-read the short story, which is one of my favorites, with its stunning twist ending.

Happy reading/watching this weekend!