Beige begone

One of the more problematic aspects of building was the paint color; builder beige as it is more affectionately known. It's in our whole house and while it's a nice beige, its not what you want to stare at day after day. So on Labor Day weekend we decided to chip away at the beige. We had already painted our living room and part of the front room, but we decided the front room was too dark so we did a redo of the three walls in New Bamboo by Behr. The forth wall we did in Weathered Moss by Behr. Take a look:

I'll be honest, the green is bright. I'm not sure about it. I love the grey, I am considering doing the whole room in that color but I'm going to live with it with the floors in and see how I feel. We also decided to paint our bedroom as well in Pencil Point also by Behr.

I love how the dark grey contrasts with the white furniture, but it's so dark I was scared to do all the walls so I stopped with one and will again live with it for a bit before I decide what to do. I will also take opinions on all of the above, please and thank you!

 

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Project budgeting

Like I said in my last post, things have been busy in the SalTal household. Andy and I decided a few months back to start a monthly project budget. We decided that we would take X amount each month to tackle major projects on our list for the house. This does not include small DIY or crafty projects, which rarely are more than $50. For example things like painting a room, redoing floors, a kitchen backsplash, we would consider a big monthly project. We decided to do it this way so that it didn't seem to overwhelming and it's been working out nicely. We have taken on three big projects since we instituted the budget: the kitchen backsplash, the bamboo floors, and painting two spaces. All of which I plan to blog about in the near future. Three projects may not seem like that many since we have been utilizing the project budget for a little over five months, but we created a rule that we could roll over a previous month's budget to tackle something we really wanted to do. We had to do this with the floor project, which was totally worth it. I don't think that we will always have a project budget every month, eventually the house will be settled and we will only want to take on bigger projects as needed, but for now with so much to do I think this system will work.

How does everyone else tackle major projects? Do you save a little over time or just budget it in each month? Or some kind of combination of the two?

 

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A Bartering Christmas

Obviously this year Christmas is tough for us, with a new house and the cost everything that comes with it we are on a tight budget. Imagine my delight when my genius sis-in-law suggested that perhaps this year we barter for Christmas. I think it's a fabulous idea. So in exchange for them helping us with the new house projects (painting, sewing, moving, etc.) we will babysit the kiddos, so they can have some date nights (or sleep). We decided we will still do something small so we all have something to open come Christmas, but still, much easier. I only wish I could get my family on board with this idea.

Even without my family bartering, I think we did a pretty bang up job for Christmas this year, watching the sales and knowing exactly what we wanted to get each person really helped. As for Andy and I, we also have a limited budget for each other and a challenge to only fill our stockings. It's going to be a little bit difficult but I think it's going to be a lot of fun to see what we each come up with and if there will be any "cheating" involved.

Anyone else having a budget type Christmas? What are you doing?

DIY: Book Mobile Part 2

If you missed it, see part one here.

Once we got the dowels into place we had to secure them somehow, we decided that Gorilla Glue was the best method. I don't have any pictures of this part, sorry (no cookie for the blogger). What we did was force the dowels through the holes and just before they hit the wood we wet both the bottom of the table and the dowel and put the glue down and forced the two together. We then just had to weight it down while it cured. We let this sit overnight so that it was fully cured before we filled the top of the dowel rod holes with wood putty but we could have moved into filling the holes after a few hours.

We just filled the holes with wood filler and a putty knife and just smoothed it out. We had to wait again to let that dry, then after several hours there were a couple holes we had to go over the holes again, then finally we had to sand the entire top of the table with some fine grit sand paper. 

Once that was done we I was too impatient to wait until I painted the whole thing and let it dry to add the casters so we just screwed those in before I painted it. Once that was done I painted the top, dowels, bottom and sides in Glidden Toasted White. 

Looks pretty great, huh? Here is a shot with it holding some books.

I am thrilled with how this project turned out. I have some minor tweaks to work out (like getting the paint out of the metal pieces on the top) but over all it turned out great.

Now the break down of project cost and time:

Project Cost

• Spool- free thanks to Home Depot
• 3/4" dowels- 4 x $3.50 = $14
• Glidden Paint-1 Quart $7.00
• Casters- 3 x $6.00= $18.00
• Gorilla Glue, Paint Bushes, Wood putty and putty knife, sand paper, tools- free, we already had everything

Total Cost: $39.00

Not too shabby, but I must say, I was really picky about what casters I used, if I hadn't been the cost would have been a lot less.

Estimated Time of Project Completion

• Hammer down nails and filling with wood filler- 1/2 hour
• Measure and drill holes for dowels- 1/2 hour
• Cut dowels to size- 1/4 hour
• Secure dowels- 5 hours (this includes glue curing time)
• Fill tops of dowel rod holes- 4 hours (this includes dry time for wood putty)
• Sand top of table- 1/4 hour
• Secure Casters- 1/4 hour
• Paint- 1 hour

Total Time: 11 hours 45 minutes

There you have it, now I am ready to move on to the next project! Just have to figure out which one.

Currently on our DVR

Andy and I have never been huge TV people. Well Andy hasn't, if it wasn't hockey, he wasn't generally interested, I like TV, it helps pass the time and it's cheap entertainment. Currently with our "Reduce the Deficit" plan in effect (which is going smashingly, we haven't eaten out in two weeks!!!) we've been watching a lot more TV because we pay to have cable and a DVR (well I do because I work at night and miss some of my favorite shows). Plus it seems a tad ridiculous to pay $20+ to see a movie when we can rent one out of a machine for a dollar or watch our favorite shows together.

Anyway, currently there are a lot of good shows that we are in to, plus there is the added bonus of the "On Demand" feature which allows you to watch some of the popular shows when you want without having to record them. So what are we currently in to? Quite a few things actually. Wednesday nights on ABC are probably the best shows that we watch jointly, "The Middle", "Better with You", "Modern Family",  and "Cougar Town" never fail to have us laughing. Thursday night is my night with "Grey's Anatomy" and "Private Practice" giving me my chick show fix. Friday nights have "Supernatural" set to record on our DVR. Other than that, I have a few on my own that I've gotten kind of obsessed with "The Event" and "Parenthood" but those I only watch during the day when Andy isn't around and usually because I am bored and have all my work around the house done.

What's currently on your DVR or must watch list?