Easy Bathroom Shelves

You know when you walk around the house and all of a sudden you can think of nothing else but getting a project done. I actually got one of those kind of projects done last week.

Our master bathroom area has the toilet in a separate little room. Despite this little room being in our bathroom my six year old comes into my bathroom on a daily basis and tries to talk to me through the door while shaking the door handle desperately. When I finally emerge she asks, “What were you doing in there?” Seriously. It seems to be a mystery to her.

Anyway….we were trying to find a way to get some of our bathroom supplies up away from the ground since they are normally stored under our sink area.

I walked past our little room and instantly thought, “We could put shelves up in here!”

So before I could change my mind, the kids and I went off to Home Depot, bought the wood and had them cut the piece in half and bought some shelf brackets (total $42).

I then came home, poured 3 quarts of left over paint (2 light gray and 1 white) in a plastic container and starting painting the little room. The painting part of this project was unnecessary but it makes me happy and it was free.

Here is the end result:

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Sort of looks like a before photo until you  see the before photo and then realize, “Ahhh, yes..the after is better.”

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My boys were very excited to help with this project. While we were walking up and down the aisles of Home Depot I heard my 13 year old tell the 10 year old, “Well when you stain you have to go with the grain.” I mean, seriously, my heart sang when I heard that.

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My husband and our boys sanded the wood and then stained it using a stain we already had at the house.

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So in the course of 2 days we got a project DONE!

Any areas of your house you just want to tackle right now?

Mermaid Shelf using a Pallet

Last time I shared my daughter’s bathroom with you and today I’m sharing the pallet shelving unit my husband made.

IMG_9028When we completed this project 3 years ago pallet projects were all the rage. At the time I was able to go to our local Habitat store and ask if I could have a pallet. They said sure and I got it for free. Nowadays they charge you for them.

I brought the pallet home and asked my husband to make a shelf for Caroline’s bathroom. After shaking his head and possibly rolling his eyes he got to work.

This was the only picture I could find of it in the building stages – a frame was built and then the wooden boards were attached onto it after being sanded.

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We then used scrap wood for the shelves and bought wooden brackets to place underneath the shelves to hold them up. After that I painted on a mermaid using pink paint.

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I then sanded the mermaid and pallets to add a little character to them.

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And voila, the world’s heaviest shelf is made!

A Little Girl Bathroom – Under the Sea

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This is the bathroom that took 3 years to complete – did we do any major repairs? did we take out the tub and sink? Did we redo the floor?

No. No. And no.

We painted, hung a shelf, and made some art.

3 years people. 3 years.

It’s totally my fault, I hit a wall on the project so it just stopped.

Let me explain.

When we started this project my daughter was three and wanted a Little Mermaid themed bathroom. I knew she would quickly grow out of that so I decided on a whimsy ocean theme.

The plan was to make stripes on the back wall alternating between white and light blue.

My sweet husband worked on this for a couple of days.

IMG_2296 When it was finished I liked it but the pencil lines going across the wall really bothered me as did the raised paint lines. I’m normally not so picky but this for some reason really irked me.

As the painting was wrapping up I was laying out random frames we had – soon after I spray painted them bright yellow.

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I used light weight denim material and covered pieces of cardboard which were the sizes of the frames.

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I found some walls decals on etsy and just printed out the pictures from the listing to create an outline of the sea creature I wanted to use.

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I completed almost all of the art when I came across a problem with the turtle art above – this was the only piece where I used the actual back of the frame to glue the denim to and now the art would not fit back into the frame. I did not have any left over denim fabric since it was left over from another project.

So the project stalled.

For two years.

The stripes stayed and the wall art sat on my bedroom floor.

And there it sat until Christmas time this year and I wanted to get this project -DONE.  I ended up tossing the turtle art and not using him and my husband sanded down the wall and we just put a coat of white paint on the wall. The art wall is white while all the other walls are light blue.

Here’s the final product. I love it.

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Some of the pieces received a little yellow bow.

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IMG_9033I glued on some yellow rick rack to create jellyfish tentacles and some stripes on the fish.

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Next time, I’ll show you how we (read: my husband) made this mermaid shelving unit.

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And to my husband – Thank you for everything you did to make this bathroom so special for our daughter!

 

A Simple & Easy Rug

Due to a rather unfortunate stomach bug that hit our family last year I needed to invest in a new bathroom rug.

I did not want to spend a lot of money because inevitably there will be another bug that will cause several of us to lay on the floor unable to muster the strength required to walk to the bed. Instead we will spend hours on the floor with our pillow and blankets moaning and groaning.

Therefore, we needed a new rug. (Plus the tile gets so darn cold and slippery).

My family and I were wandering the Habitat store one day when I stumbled upon carpet squares for $1.99. We searched through piles and piles of squares to find just the right ones with the pattern I wanted and the quality my husband wanted.

We found 8 tiles that were good so we went home, placed them in a corner of our bedroom, and left them there for 8 months.

I kid you not. That’s sort of our MO around here.

Finally one day we dragged them into the bathroom and started the incredibly tedious and time consuming project of taping them together.

I think it took 15 minutes.

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We chose to alternate the carpet squares so that the pattern would be a little more interesting than just straight lines.

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A new 4 ft x 8 ft carpet in the bathroom.

I still need to add some glue strips, using a glue run, to the bottom to keep the carpet from moving around.

I’m aiming for 2016 to complete that project.

I’m Back & Thankful

Well, I didn’t plan on  being away from here for a week but that’s just how things turned out.

My husband and I were furiously finishing a project I had said yes to (more tomorrow) and only finished about  30 minutes before the completed products were due. Nothing like cutting it close here 🙂

A week ago the awful tornado in Moore, Oklahoma struck and killed so many.

The following day, the meterologists were telling us to expect huge storms with tornadoes a real possibility. Needless to say, everyone around here was on edge.

Before school, the kids and I brought a mattress downstairs and placed it by the tub. We then practiced getting into the bathtub and placing the mattress on top of us. It wasn’t exact but we did the best we could.

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We also gathered bike helmets, important papers, a first aid kit, and a pair of shoes for everyone. We always have our bike helmets handy when it’s tornado time, in case things start to fall on us. It’s probably silly to have them but it always makes me feel better knowing they are around.

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Around 1 pm things started to get rainy. At 2 pm Caroline and I headed over to the elementary school because the wind was picking up and really raining. Apparently, every  other parent had the same idea since it took me until 2:30 to get the boys. By this point it looked like a hurricane outside and my middle one started to cry. He was saying, “The tornado is going to get us.”

In our run from the school to the car we got soaked so everyone changed clothes once we got home. We turned on the tv and ate ice cream. Hey, it seemed incredibly reasonable to me, if the power goes out, the ice cream will go bad. Hence, we must eat the ice cream. After all, no one was in the mood for a frozen tuna patty so we went with next best thing.

I sent the kids to play while I continued to watch the weather reports on tv. All regular programming was ignored for constant weather reporting which just added to my nervousness.

Thankfully, there is no big ending to this story. The weather passed us by 4:30 pm, my husband came home at 5:30 to ask if it had even rained at the house. I will disclose here that I was ready to slug him at that point as my nerves were just about shot. We had frozen pizza for dinner, again ignoring the frozen tuna for something better, and continued on as normal.

Everything was normal except for the fact that my  four year old whining,”I wanted the tornado to come,” and I was busy pricing portable storm shelters online.

What’s Your Scent?

I need a scent.

Usually I emit chocolate and dry erase marker but I’m starting to feel that I need something more substantial.

I often pass women who I think smell good but I am not one to stop them and ask what perfume they are wearing.

And then I pass women who have poured the bottle on them and think maybe I could do without.

The problem is that the few times that I have looked for a scent I always walk away discouraged. I don’t like flowery, I don’t like strong, I don’t spicy, and I don’t like woodsy.

I like light, fresh, vanilla, and citrus.

Maybe I should just skip the perfume and rub a vanilla cupcake with citrus frosting on my  body and call it a day.

But then I came across this Ladies Home Journal online quiz, “What’s Your Signature Scent?” and thought maybe this could help me.

The quiz is a simple 10 question quiz that delves into your favorite type of movie, what you find romantic, and what you like to eat.

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Maybe not too scientific but at this point I am ready to try anything.

I answered all 10 questions and found out I am considered a natural woman.

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I didn’t think the description was dead on and plus, I shave my arm pits, something that I believe excludes me from the natural woman category all together.

So I changed up my  answers to a few of the questions.

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Again, not quite the way I would describe myself but I decided to explore the perfumes they had recommended for me.

I started with Escada Island Kiss….

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Beautiful  bottle, let’s read the description…

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Hmm, I was with them until they  got to “a hint of musk.”

What is musk?

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What the F ?

Just because I checked that I like to eat meatball sandwiches and wear lip balm suddenly means I want to smell like a deer?

I don’t even want to smell like “just a hint of musk.”

I went on to read the descriptions of the other perfumes and think I have found the one I am most interested in.

The  L de Lolita Lempicka Eau de Parfum Spray is currently sitting in my amazon shopping cart but first I’m going to through it out to you my friends.

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Anyone have a favorite perfume they would like to recommend?

(Go take the quiz to find out what your scent is?)

TP

Dear Lord,

Please watch over the men in my life when I die.

Since I am the only one who apparently has the ability to change the toilet paper roll or notice the extra roll has been used they will need your help.

They will be hopping out of the bathroom with their pants down trying to reach the cabinet where the paper is kept. It won’t be pretty but I know you will see that they don’t fall.

It may get a little ugly when they realize the extra toilet paper has been used up and the next best item to use is on the kitchen table.  It won’t be pretty again but at least you will have provided for them.

Don’t worry when this continues on for a week and it still doesn’t seem to bother them. Continue in your good work and they will eventually see the light.

Your faithful follower,

Jennifer

Our Thanksgiving Break

Thanksgiving is a time of family, food, and fun.

We had all of that.

Plus a whole lot of vomit.

Yes, family, food, fun, and vomit – all parts of our Thanksgiving celebration.

And unlike many of you who only had three days of family time, our family was lucky enough to have 9 days off together.

Yes, nine days of being together (sleeping in the same room allowed for a quick response time)

Nine days of food (aka Gatorade and Saltines).

Nine days of fun (My entire next paycheck is headed to Redbox).

Nine days of being thankful for our washer and dryer (vomit, enough said).

And while I am thankful for that time spent with my family, I am hoping the 12 days of Christmas turns out differently.

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Tonight I officially became my parents.

Yes, I’ve seen bits and pieces of them come out before but tonight was the turning point.

I have become my parents.

They went to countless swim practices, swim meets, and bought us endless amounts of swim caps, swim shampoo, and suits.

And tonight, I was reminded that they bought tons of goggles.

Driving home from swim practice with Andrew I said, “I noticed you kept pushing on your goggles right before you would dive in”

“Yeah, those goggles get loose when I dive in.”

“You should wear your new pair.”

“Well, I can’t find those.”

“The blue pair?”

“Yep.”

“You only wore those one time.”

“Maybe I left them at the pool last time.”

“Those goggles cost SEVENTEEN DOLLARS.”

——-  silence from the back seat ———-

“You wore those one time and already lost them. They cost SEVENTEEN DOLLARS.”

Note: My husband and I have been swimmers our whole lives. Our goggles cost $5.00 a pair.  Seems to me that our eyes adjusted just fine to the five dollar goggles. Guess who else is going to be forced to wear the five dollar goggles no matter how they feel on his eyes.

Once home I went into another room and let my husband oversee the tooth brushing.

A few minutes later my husband walks into the room I’m in and announces, “I’m going to the pool.”

“Why?”

“To go look in the locker room.”

“He lost those goggles days ago. They’re not going to be there.”

“He left his swim suit at the pool.”

—– silence from me ——

And now my parents are laughing.