Sunday, February 9, 2014

dumpster discovery

This may seem weird, but I have loved finding old things in someone's trash and re-furbing them since I was probably 12 or 13. It's free, I can make it custom to how I want it and I love having a basically free project to do to improve a room!
I had been wanting to try out this chalk paint craze and see what was so awesome about it. I have been planning on re-doing the particle board dresser/night stand in one of our guest rooms in a dark gray. Well, driving home from work I found a lamp in someone's trash! I forgot to take a before pic, but it looked sorta like this:





















Perfect for a test project before I tried it on the furniture! Plus, the lamp worked, so if it turned out looking good it would be perfect in our guest room.

I'm not sure if I needed to prime it or not, but I spray painted it with primer first (after covering all the electrical stuff with tape)



I then took a DIY recipe I found here for chalk paint and cut it in half and then in half again.
I took a blanket that I wanted my yellow to match to Home Depot and found a swatch that matched and had them mix in their little $2 test cups.
He's such a handsome model!

Soooo, here's the finished product! I borrowed the shade from our living room lamp, so I'm thinking a darker gray shade will look better against the light gray walls... But anyways, now that I tested it on my FREE lamp, I am going to get started on that little black side table (pictured) and the matching dresser!


Wednesday, July 31, 2013

diy placemat pillows

So, we have needed some color on our porch and I've been meaning to traipse over to Joann's and look at some fun fabric. However, we've had a lot of unexpected expenses come up with the new house so I wanted to figure out a cheaper (free) option. I was organizing some things this past weekend and I found some old place mats that don't really match our dining room anymore! I remembered back to my sophomore year in college when I made these pillows out of place mats, and since we don't use those anymore I was able to use the stuffing!!

 It's super easy! I got out my handy seam ripper and ripped enough of the paisley mats to get my hand inside to stuff with batting. Place mats are perfect because they are already lined, sewn and finished all the way around! It saves a lot of time. You are limited to only a couple different sizes, but I think that they are a perfect size for accent pillows!
Once I stuffed them to my liking, I simply stitched up the small area I had opened! These took literally like 15 minutes to make and now we have some colorful accents on our outdoor couch! I might make a couple more since they are so easy and I have 6 place mats to work with!

-L



Friday, July 26, 2013

diy dropcloth curtains

I'm always looking for an opportunity to design, create, or build something for half the price of what you can buy it outright for. It gives you a sense of accomplishment and saves you some mula! Pretty good feeling I'd say... Well Rod and I both loved Restoration Hardware's linen curtains. But guess how much they are a panel... anywhere from $200-400!! And after doing some more searching, curtain panels and hardware in general are just expensive! So, I took to my good friend Google and did a little search for DIY linen curtains and this turned into a search for Drop Cloth curtains which I found a good tutorial here.

I bought our drop cloths at Lowes because I liked the color of them better than Home Depot, however Home Depot sells a 2 pack for $10 of a 6x9 panel and Lowes is a 1 pack for $10... But, because our bedroom windows are smaller I was able to get one panel for the living room and one for the bedroom out of 1 pack! That's $5 a panel basically!!!

Since the 4th of July weekend was rainy it gave me the opportune time to spread out in my in-laws living room and sew all weekend (thanks for letting me turn your living room into a craft explosion for a few days...)

I washed on hot and dried all of the panels to make sure they shrank, which they did, about 4". And then I got to ironing the wrinkled mess, measuring and cutting. This process takes a while to get everything just right, but it's part of it and in the end I am so pleased with how they turned out! I ended up hemming all of the edges. On a lot of the tutorials they say you can leave the pre-hemmed edge from the package, but mine were already fraying so I hemmed them to tuck that away just so it wouldn't get worse if I ever washed them.

We have 36 1/2" wide windows in our living room so my finished sewn panel was 42" wide. I left them a little long at 93" to hang 6" above the window and drape on the floor a bit. What do y'all think?!

The curtain rods are so simple and a little stroll through Lowes I probably would have thought of this myself, but another google search led me to electrical conduit for the curtain rods!!! $1.93 for a 10' length. My awesome husband and father-in-law helped me cut them down, sand them, prime them and spray paint them! BIG thanks to them!! We spray painted them Rustoleum's Oil Rubbed Bronze and they turned out fabulous!! I did take a stroll through Lowes on my own and find wooden finials in the wood/stair-building? department, I attached them to old wine corks and we spray painted them and they slide into the ends of the conduit rods!!

So total costs for FOUR windows (16 panels)

(4) 6'x9' drop cloths $40
(2) 10' long 3/4" diameter conduit $4
(4) 2 pack of wooden finials $12
(8) wine corks FREE
(2) cans of spray paint  $12
Mounting Hardware (L brackets & Conduit clamp) $8
8 sets of ring clips $70

The ring clips were the most expensive item, Ikea has them really cheap, but we don't have one close by, so I had to splurge on those at Lowes...

TOTAL:
$146 ($36/ window for everything!!)
Total Time: One weekend

Next crafty project is to paint some artwork to add color to our living room!!





Thursday, July 11, 2013

homeowners

So, it's been a while. Rod and I have been immersed with learning all about Birmingham, being swamped at our awesome jobs, meeting new friends and deciding to buy or not buy a house. We rented a cute (or quaint?) little blue house in West Homewood. The house was perfect for us except the kitchen was TINY. Think washer, counter, sink, counter, dryer and that's it! No pantry, dishwasher anything. I would often use the top of the dryer or washer to prepare food on!! As we neared our year mark in the house, we looked at about 12-15 houses from brand new all the way to foreclosures. Nothing ever worked out. We decided we were going to rent for another year and start looking next early spring. Until I was just browsing one day and decided we should go check out 2 more houses. Just had to be sure, ya know?!

The first house was a bust, we liked it, but it would take a TON of renovations and now as we have even seen the expense of time and money that a farely "new" (1989) house takes, I am SO glad we didn't try to tackle a reno. The house we chose is a cute house tucked away in a "newer" neighborhood with 3 bedrooms, 2 baths and a 2 car garage! This is rare for Homewood which is where we wanted to stay because it is SO close to everything and in Birmingham there's 280 traffic and I-65 traffic and "ain't nobody got time for that"... Most houses in Homewood were built in the 1950s or before or else totally demo'd and rebuilt and will run you about a bajillion dollars, so we felt we found a gold mine, a newer home, in our price range and in our location!

Just yesterday I found out about an awesome development plan that the City of Homewood is doing in our neighborhood!! I can't wait to see it pan out. Check out the link: http://westhomewoodplan.com/

We will post before and after pics of the inside of the house soon!! Our DIY curtains are almost hung (I will post on this later as well) and the wall colors, that Rod pretty much picked out I might add, look great!!! Big thanks to friends who've helped us paint and we will be having a house party soon, don't worry!

xoxo-LB






Thursday, October 4, 2012

honeymoon: days 2-7 (long awaited, I know)

I know you all have been sitting on the edge of your seats awaiting our next post about the honeymoon...  Well let's just say we have been really busy!! Rod started his new job at UAB and has been working 7 days a week since, we are swamped at Fravert Services (my job) and basically we come home from work, walk to the dogs, eat dinner and go to sleep and repeat. Wooo...  This past weekend gave me time to catch up on a lot of things, including this blog! So here it goes:

Honeymoon: Day Two, August 20, 2012

We had to wake up around 9:30 am to make it to our transportation company's meeting at 10am. The guide was so funny!! He told us about Mama Juana, a "special" Dominican Republic drink. (Just Google it, I won't go into detail about the history of it here) He also told us about all of the different tours we could take! We chose the Truck Safari. It seemed like it would be a trip where we'd get to see more of the country and learn a little about the natives and their culture.

We then grabbed a delicious coffee (they just don't do coffee in America like they do in Central America and the Caribbean) and headed back to get ready for a beach day!

We relaxed by the beach and pool all day. It was so nice. We kayaked for a while on the ocean and put on my awesome goggles and got to see an area of coral reef! It was beautiful. We met 2 couples while we were out there, they were from Utah and were pretty cool. It seemed like a lot of people at the resort came in their own groups so it was nice to meet people for a change. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool and then headed back to get ready for our steakhouse dinner.

The waiter didn't understand what "Cabernet" was, haha, but after I said "vino rojo" he brought us a decent red wine for me and "vino blanco" for Rod. I was surprised at a lot of the Spanish that came back to me on this trip. Mrs. Dawn Hager (Beck) would be proud! I ordered a ribeye that was HUGE and Rod had a sirloin. The sauces we got with the steaks added a lot. They were amazing! Rod tried the cheesecake for dessert and I had an apple pie. Both were great!

We walked around some to some of the over-priced souvenir shops on the resort and then played on an oversized set of checkers!! It was a perfect day of total relaxation!

Honeymoon: Day Three, August 21,2012


Truck Safari day!!! We met in the lobby at 8 am and hopped in the back of a large pickup truck that was covered and had padded benches on either side. We met people from Canada (who were originally from Egypt!), people from New Jersey as well as Colorado and Iowa! Our guide "Eddie Murphy" (or Sweet Eddie) was awesome!! Our driver's name was "Scissor"... haha

We rode all throughout the gorgous Dominican Republic countryside. Mountains began to appear in the distance! Our first stop was at a horse ranch where we each got on a horse and got to ride along the beautiful deserted beaches! Rod's horse was the fastest!! He actually galloped way ahead. I thought at the time that Rod wanted him to do that, but apparently he just wouldn't stop. Finally there was another tour group up ahead that caused Rod's horse to stop. Scary!! We got back to the ranch soon after this. There was dogs and cats everywhere. There was a dog chewing on a chicken foot!!! NASTY! Our next stop was after another long ride up into the countryside in the mountains. Eddie talked about how a new political party had just been elected. He talked about how they are trying to keep the kids in school until 8th grade and to prevent them from turning into beggars. He told us not to give any money to the kids. He talked about Haiti which is connected to the Dominican Republic and how Haiti is a lot worse off than them. Haiti cut down all of their tress and have no regulations so there are mudslides and deaths. There was a hurrican in 2004 that killed over 1000 Haitians and only like 70 Dominican Republicans because they have regulations on how many trees can be cut down. He talked about how architects and engineers will hire like 20 Haitians and 10 Dominican Republicans to work on constructions because the Haitians cost like $3/ day and the Dominicans cost like $12/ day!! Crazy... Everyone is so happy though, on so much less. It's such a lesson to learn!!
We learned about the different types of pal trees. One has very strong wood that a lot of people use in building houses and one is called the Silver Palm. This is what the city Puerto Plata got it' name from. Christopher Columbus thought he saw tons of silver on the land in the distance. It ended up, however, that it was just the underside of the palm leaf reflecting in the sun.

He talked about the aboriginal people and how when the Spaniards tried to colonize the area they introduced all kinds of new diseases so the "doctors" at the time combined herbs until they came up with Mama Juana. It contains 8 different ingredients and you mix it with sweet red wine, honey, and rum. He told us of theses trees with spikes on the bark that the aboriginals used as torture for the Spaniards.

We arrived at the natives house made of the strong palm tree wood. Here we learned about the cocoa and coffee making process. He described the process of the cocoa plant and how when the shell turns red it is ripe and you  have to crack it open and remove the cocoa beans, dry them, roast them, and then grind them either with a mortar and pestel or with a hand crank grinding machine. The process is similar with coffee. We walked through the family's house which was basically two rooms, a separate kitchen and outhouse. There were two beds in one room with one dresser and just a few outfits and shoes hanging up. They had a propane tank which Eddie said was rare. They had just a couple of lights which often have black outs so they have to rely on gas. We tried a delcious hot cocoa drink along with some STRONG coffee! We also had some amazing fresh fruit and Mama Juana!! It was good, didn't seem "magical" or anything though, haha. We bought some of the vanilla extract as well as a couple things of coffee to take back with us!

 We then rode back down the mountain into a rain forest area where we had a traditional Dominican lunch. Rice, beans, pinto beans, beef, chicken and random, Spaghetti!! We ate and watched a man roll cigars! We both tried one and got to take one for later! A shop was set up next to it selling paintings and wooden figures. Rod liked this elephant but the guy wanted $200 for it!! he gave me a wooden figure that means happiness as a gift. Rod found a smaller elephant and we got the guy down from $80 to $20! We then walked down to play in the river. We didn't wear our suits so we just walked around on the rocks while the others swam. Our last stop on the trip before we headed back was at the famous Catholic church "Basilica de Higuey".  This is a very important monument to Dominicans. We made one last surprise stop to a beautiful public beach where we just viewed it from the distance and we also stopped at a convenient store to buy some Brugal Rum. It is much cheaper than what they were selling it at the resort. It's rum made in the Dominican Republic and it is very good!

This tour really made me have a passion for helping this country. It also renewed my love for Spanish as I had to use it several times! We learned so many interesting facts about the country and got to see a lot of different parts of the country! 

That evening, once we were freshened up, we headed over to our reservation at the Japanese restaurant. We enjoyed some Sushi (it was no Kyoto from Decatur, but that's really hard to beat. The hibachi was delicious!! Our chef formed the fried rice into a heart and made it "beat" with the spatula.. He was funny. We walked around the resort after this, but then headed back and crashed because of the long, eventful day!

Honeymoon: Day Four, August 22, 2012

We slept in!!! It was awesome, and then we laid out at the beach and played in the HUGE waves. They had gotten a lot bigger and stronger since Monday because of Tropical Storm Issaac. He tried so hard to rain on our parade! The kayaks were put away because of this :(
We still swam around in the water and enjoyed a couple more of the Elegance Club's private pools. Just a pretty relaxing day all around! It was great! 
Rod's tooth began to hurt that afternoon. He had just been to the dentist just before the wedding and they didn't find anything wrong, but he was in so much pain!! The rest of the evening was spent together in the room watching old Friends episodes. It seems lame, but it was so nice to just have down time together where we had NO responsibilities at all. We did go down every so often to check flights because several people on Delta's flights were just totally cancelled up until September 5th!!! We were ok with our US Airways, but we still prayed for the next couple of days that we would get to head home on Saturday, especially with the pain that Rod was in!

Honeymoon: Day Five & Six, August 23-24, 2012

Rod was in even WORSE pain! I ran around all morning trying to talk to the pharmacist in to finding medicine "mas fuerte" than tylenol! She didn't have anything. She kept telling me to give him that. All she spoke was Spanish. I know it's their country, but you would think in a resort you would have a pharmacy that could speak at least a little English just in case there was an emergency! 
Anyways, I found the doctor on site and he was VERY helpful. He sent me to another pharmacy on the other side of the resort. She also didn't speak English, but had set aside "Oxaforte" which helped his pain a lot more than the tylenol did, but not much more. I felt so bad for him! However, Friday night we were able to  make it to the Circus Show at the resort. It was so much fun!! They did all kinds of cool tricks, poses, trapeze stunts, etc. It was great!
We didn't really miss much on Thursday because the weather was so bad, so we were thankful for that!! It would have been a lot harder if it was sunny outside! Friday I did go swim in the pool for a little while. Once again, it sounds uneventful, but it was fun taking care of my husband and it felt so good to be able to do that and share that with him. I can't wait for many more years of caring for him!!

Honeymoon: Day Seven, August 25, 2012

Today was the trip home! We walked around to a few shops while we waited on the bus. I attempted to weigh our bags on a scale in the resort gym... It was about 5 lbs under at the time...
Well, we load up the van about 1 pm and rode 30 minutes to the airport. We met a couple who was from Birmingham but lived in South Carolina now. They were nice! Kept talking about football to us..haha. The husband was an Alabama fan and the wife a South Carolina fan, so they were pretty interesting. They invited us to their tailgate if we ever made it over to Columbia. 

So we get unloaded and get up to the baggage check, and the lady tells us we cannot carry-on straighteners, wood, and a couple of other things, so we had to put those in our checked bag. This means, that that 5lbs under quickly turned into 5lbs over! So we had to remove clothes and other supportive items that were keeping our bottles of rum and other breakables from breaking and had to put those in our carry-ons! UGH! So we got to worry about rum and vanilla being splattered all over our suitcase if it broke on the trip home. Gotta love airports and flying...
As we are boarding our plane, which we have to do so outside, a bee KEPT chasing me. I had just sprayed on Marc Jacobs Daisy perfume in one of the duty free shops, and I guess it really does smell like a freakin' daisy, because this bee would NOT leave me alone. I have never been stung before, and I believe it is due to me frantically running around waving my arms every time one gets near. I did this and got several funny looks from passengers. I even frantically handed my coffee to an airport employee thinking that would get the bee away from me... Nope.. Well, finally we boarded the plane and the bee was gone, thank God, right along with mine (and probably Rod's) dignity. haha
Our pilot made it to Charlotte very quickly!! We experienced some rough patches of turbulence (probably the worst I've ever been in) but we landed safely in the US and it felt good! We then had a decent layover, but a quick flight back to Huntsville where Rod's dad picked us up!

And that's it!! We had a great, relaxing week. A perfect week spent together. And hey, since Rod was in pain most of the trip that just gives us a good reason to go on another trip soon!! But that week was a perfect end to a chapter in our lives but also a perfect beginning to a new chapter of being married and growing, caring, and supporting each other no matter what, and I can't wait for the many more memories to come!

xoxo-L

Thursday, September 13, 2012

thank you


As we wrap up our thank you cards we want to reiterate on our blog how thankful we are for everyone that pitched in, helped plan, support, and celebrate with us! Our day was perfect and we wouldn't have wanted it any other way!

A HUGE thanks goes out to our parents. So many things happened because of you guys and they wouldn't have happened otherwise. The time, effort, money and sweat that went in to making our wedding happen meant so much to Rod and I. 

From the flowers, fixing up the Camaro, building the arbor, enduring allergies to cut and drill sycamore branches, to an absolutely PERFECT rehearsal dinner we would like to thank the Blacks, the best in-laws a girl could ask for!! I am truly thankful to have such an awesome second family that has been there for Rod and me through so much. We thank y'all for all of the support, advice, sushi ;), and time that you have invested into our lives. We love y'all!!

From the moss covered letter "Bs", just as I imagined the pine tree slice centerpieces, burlap table runners, travel time, and moral support we want to thank the Meagher's! Rod and I are truly thankful for all of the time you guys invested in our special day. The look and the feel of the wedding was complete with the items you guys helped make. We love y'all and are so thankful for you guys and all of the support you guys offer to us each and every day. 

I would like to especially thank Rod's groomsmen for getting up early on Saturday (after a late night Friday) to help set up all of the awesome decorations. You guys made my dream come true and everything looked absolutely amazing and I am so thankful for you guys. Rod and I both are thankful for all of the time, effort, traveling and patience you put into our special day. I know Rod had an amazing Bachelor party and is so thankful for each and every one of your friendships. We love y'all too!! :)

My bridesmaids... you guys are awesome! Rod and I are so thankful for all that you guys invested in our special day, from traveling to planning showers and the bachelorette party, everything was so perfect. I am so thankful for each and every one of you! I'm sure Rod is too for you guys keeping me sane a lot of times :-). We thank y'all for being such great friends and for being so helpful and supportive. We love y'all!!!

Andy Grant, our officiant. We thank you a ton! You came out after a stressful week at work and did such a great job and we are so honored that you were able to marry us. It meant a lot to me as you being a close co-worker for the last 3 years. We are so glad that you were able to share that moment with us and we will treasure it forever. Thank you!!

Now, last but CERTAINLY not least, probably one of the biggest thank you's goes out to Sheila Nobles, Rod's aunt and our day-of coordinator. You were perfect!! You made the day go without a hitch and we definitely could not have done any of it without you. You implemented all of my dreams and ideas perfectly and kept everything running so smoothly. We are SO thankful and can't even put into words how much we appreciate the stress and time you put into our day. A big thanks goes out to Eric and the girls as well because I know they were running around helping a ton too! You guys are awesome and we love y'all so much!!!

Monday, September 3, 2012

honeymoon: day one

We got to our hotel at The Westin after the wedding at Bridge Street Town Center in Huntsville. The room was perfect and we couldn't be more thankful to Steve and Danielle, Giselle, Lauren Ploetze, Lauren McCaul, Danica and Jackson, Jenn and Nick who pitched in to give us that stay at The Westin!! We loved it! The view was perfect and the stay was definitely NOT long enough, because we had to get up at 4:15 am to make our 6:10 am flight! Booo

We made it through security and everything ok. The guard made Rod throw away the can of bug spray he had in the carry-on. We think he didn't realize it was less than 2 oz..but oh well. We then had breakfast and waited on our plane! We landed safely in Charlotte, NC and then walked through the huge airport to our connecting flight. Rod began to feel a little sick, but we got some Dramamine. While Rod slept, I just read a magazine, listened to music and reminisced of the wedding day. Our friend Cherish took an awesome photo that Rod and I saw just before taking off of my dad walking me down the aisle and then Rod and I walking back down the aisle. I swear I stared at it the entire flight pretty much. Haha

We arrived at the Punta Cana airport around 1pm. It was made out of a thatch roof with huge ceiling fans. There were locals right outside of customs playing some music, caribbean of course! 
Customs was easy, we paid $40 to enter, got our bags, and then got bombarded by guys wanting to help us with our bags. We continued walking, however, checked in with our tour company "Prieto Tours". They were so nice and we boarded a bus and waiting about 10-15 minutes and then we were on our way! The bus driver would honk his horn at everything!! (it was mostly to let people know he was there) The roads were all paved which surprised me after visiting Belize a couple of years ago. He drove so close to several guys on dirt bikes. Some of these dirt bikes had 3-4 people on them!! No one really followed traffic laws at all.

We soon (about 30 minute drive) arrived at Majestic Elegance Resort, our resort! The entrance had beautiful flowers and manicured bushes everywhere. It was so pretty! The resort was huge. The lobby has these huge eccentric metal chandeliers with ornate woodwork and decorations all around. 
We had to check our bags and then were introduced to Dario, our butler! He walked us around and showed us everything. We went into a private check in where he put these nice brown braceletes on us that said Majestic on them. These were so we could enter private pool areas, certain rooftop bars, and the elegance club lobby. He had us wait in the Elegance Club lobby because they were fixing something "with the computer" with our room. We really think it was because they were decorating our room for us! We also got an upgrade with our room. It came with a rooftop area with a jacuzzi tub outside! Dario walked us up to our room and on the door was a honyemooner's banner. The room had a huge king sized bed, a seating area with champagne. There was a fully stocked fridge with beers, waters, Dominican chocolate and sodas along with different kinds of liquor on the server. 



Rod and I let everything soak in and then we walked to the Sea & See restaurant which sets on the beach and had gorgeous views. We ate a snack and came back to the room to find fruit and a letter addressed to Mr. & Mrs. Black!! It said we were going to be provided with a bridal breakfast and romantic dinner on the day we choose. 

That night we ordered room service spaghetti and went to sleep early. That getting up at 4am was no fun!!