I put up these two large frames from Bed, Bath and Beyond about five years ago. The photos are completely random. I also included an engagement card from a relative in Germany, a couple postcards with student artwork, and a quote cut out of a magazine. I liked the photos and people always enjoyed looking at all of them. But.

I needed some NEW.

Random Family Photo Collection

Sometime around last October I vowed I would update the frames with something cool that I would design myself – or find for free in the public domain – after Christmas. Well, technically May IS after Christmas and they’re done! And it only cost $9.62!

New Custom Artwork

Once I sat done with the idea of putting some kind of map in the frames I started searching the internet.  I found some images from a Texas highway census website of the county where we went on an epic family vacation with my husband’s family right before we were married. I enlarged it to fit the frames but left a white border so I didn’t have to scale it so large and have be VERY pixellated.

My husband joined me at the computer and we added some text. I love typography so I chose the quote from the souvenir magnet I bought while in Texas. It says,”What a long strange trip it’s been.” I now know that this is a Grateful Dead album but the words just captured the essence of our adventures out there (and I know nothing about the Grateful Dead). Since we were staying in Big Bend National Park, we changed the last work to “Bend” as a little joke. We’re so punny. Hee hee.

I had it printed at FedEx Office (aka Kinkos) on the black and white blue print printer. Unfortunately, the assistant manager did not know exactly what he was doing. On his second attempt  he scaled my images up to 103% and I didn’t stop him. I should have spoke up because I was on my hands and knees that night trimming a centimeter off of all four sides of both prints (which he had already trimmed out for me for free). I hate trimming large pieces. I did so much trimming in collage. I’m done trimming.

Anyway. We like how they turned out. And the price was right.

My son has been obsessed with drums from infancy. For his second birthday I purchased a used child sized drum set off of craigslist for $40 from a nice 7-year-old boy who’s interest changed to the piano. (I’m sure his parents are thrilled!) My son was so excited when he uncovered the drum set. It was even white – just like the drum used by Watts Watson of the Shazzbots, his all-time favorite band. Since we were expecting a sibling in a few months, the drums needed to find a home in the basement/playroom, away from the nursery. Here is where the drums live:

Conference table top into stage!

I thought the best thing would be a hard surface to set it on since it was hard enough for my two-year old to balance on the stool. I had an old cut-up conference table in the garage (just taken up space) that I had gotten for free from a company I contracted for. It had a curved edge and was just deep enough to sit comfortable behind the drums. My Handy Husband and I cut down the ends so that it would fit between the end of the stair case and still have room to open the door to the laundry room (to the far right) and stay symmetrical on the curve. I worked so hard to save and re-use the edging from ends but it has since been ripped off and I have not replaced it yet. Oh well.

I found some images of stage lights on the internet and made silhouetted ceiling fixtures in a design program. I cut them out in 12 inch sections on my Silhouette with black vinyl my dear friend had sent to me. I’d still like to cut a quote for the wall that would help inspire the music making down there, but I haven’t decided on one. I like the lights though.

So, after one afternoon of work and we had a whole stage for free!

I’ve been spending a lot of time on Pinterest lately…Let’s just say a lot and not get into details (it might be embarrassing).

I followed a pin about a homemade cleaner for your stove top. I hate cleaning the stove top. It’s one of my least favorite chores – up there with vacuuming the stairs and mopping. The cleaner was just a mix of peroxide and baking soda into a paste-y consistency. So I gave it a try since my stove top was looking pretty bad.

That's pretty gross.

I may or may not have made a silent vow to keep my brand new stove clean after we replaced the oldest kitchen appliance left last November.  I am so messy when I cook and I cook a lot. Can the making the mess be avoided? That’s not what this post it about. It’s about my homemade solution to the mess I’ve already made.

Much better!

The paste worked pretty well, especially on the tops of the grates. I used a green scrubbing pad and wore plastic gloves. I had problems getting the grates to look new and some spots are still left on the top. I even thought I remembered Martha Stewart saying to leave the paste on for a while and then scrub. Well, the whole process took about twice as long as I had imagined plus all the interruptions.

still counts as clean to me

But overall I’d say SUCCESS. Handy Husband said he noticed, though he was prompted to say something about it.  Those little spots that are left don’t bother me much since it’s so much better than it was.

Now that the bushes in front of the house are gone, it’s time to add some function back to the house. Last fall our gutters stopped draining into the pipes that go out to the street and started seeping into the basement. The same with the sump pump. We bought plastic gutter diverters and flooded the neighbor’s yard. (Oops.) It’s a good time to fix the problem. It’s March.

digging with daddy

My dear husband started digging. It turns out that the first 20 feet of pipe wasn’t very deep and that part of it had been damaged during the bush excavation. Once he dug about half way down the front of the lawn he came to a pipe connection with a root growing OUT of it. Turns out the next ten feet was full of roots. It was disgusting.

the clog in the drain

It’s a monster! No wonder water wasn’t getting through there. My husband was able to salvage all the pipe (sans the one that made contact with the shovel) and place new fittings on the down spouts for about $15.

it's a monster!

My husband and I are thrifty. I am cheap and he is handy. We’ve lived in our 1986 modern home for six years. We knew this home fit us and our style. The only room we painted when we moved in was the pink twin girls’ room that became our office/craft room. A while later we painted the master bedroom and bathroom because I thought the ‘beige’ the previous owner had chosen was too close to ‘flesh.’

Anyway. We love our house and how it has become our home. More recently we’ve tackled larger projects, like the curb appeal. It’s a work in progress. Here are some before photos from google.

Luckily, the photo was taken on a week when we mowed the lawn in the greenest part of the year! But you can’t see the front window because of the over growth and the tree on the far right was demoted to a bush during the wind storm of 2008 when a giant hemlock branch fell on it.

There are plenty of problems. We’ve been talking about removing the bushes for about three years. Then one day, my husband felt ambitious and in a matter of hours they were GONE!

And the realization that all the wood trim around the window was completely rotted. That means another project of the list. Replace all the rotted boards, and most of them are rotted. While the bushes were being removed, my son and I saved as many bulbs as we could. We don’t know which are which any more and they won’t bloom again this year, but we’ll have a surprise bouquet next spring.

favorite part is watering (even though it's about to rain)

As of today (and about two weeks ago) all the window trim and a few of the vertical pieces have been replace and about half of those have been painted.

We’re off to a good start. Still many many items on our new to-do list!