Meg vs. The Rocking Bench: Sanding, take 1

Monday: Sand the bench.

I did not start the week off with a bang. I had a stomachache, and started sanding the bench with a piece of sandpaper, then realized I desperately needed to make myself a sanding block because it was impossible to keep the paper from crumpling instantly every time I used it. I may even go at it with the orbital sander because I'm lazy like that and it is an old, beat-up, free bench after all. Maybe when I re-attempt it I won't keep having to take 7-up breaks!

Meg vs. Myself: Weekly Goals April 30-May 5

April 23-28
Monday: Weed front planters, clear more in the back if there's room in the bin/time in the day.

Tuesday: Prepare and celebrate John's birthday!

Wednesday: Buy seam tape and plaster, pick up paint samples for the kitchen and paint them up. Price (maybe buy?) replacement doors for the master bed and bath.

Thursday: Scrub/bleach the grout in the front bathroom.

Friday: Clean out toys; pull out baby toys for sanitation and designate toys to donate.

Saturday: Take a look at the rocking bench out back. Tighten up bolts if possible, and start sanding if it looks salvageable.


April 30-May 5
Monday: Sand the bench.

Tuesday: Clear more of the back yard, re-fill the green waste bin.

Wednesday: Spray paint the ugly mailbox

Thursday: Pick up more stain and a protective coat. Start staining the bench.

Friday: Have the hubs help me replace the hook in the ceiling and re-hang the chandelier.

Saturday: Pull down peeling joint tape in the hallway and assess how to repair it. Start re-taping if it looks okay.

Meg vs. the Porch: Trial run for a rocking bench makeover

Saturday: Take a look at the rocking bench out back. Tighten up bolts if possible, and start sanding if it looks salvageable.

Here is the old rocking bench in question. I originally thought it was too wobbly to keep around, but I saw a new one at the hardware store, and it was of a comparable wobbliness. So I thought perhaps I should give this fellow a second shot.

I tightened up the bolts, added a missing nut, and sanded the tops of the arm rests and a few of the back slats, then I got impatient to see how it might look once stained (typical me). A while back I picked up this bad-boy from the mistint section at the Home Depot for 50 cents, and I figured this is as good a time as any to try it out, because I thought this bench would look good stained dark on our front porch.

I originally did a tiny section on the back of the arm rest, but then I liked what I saw so I got even more impatient and did a whole slat and the top of the arm.

I like that it is really dark but you still see the grain really well. Yay! So excited to keep on this project. I'll probably have to go get more stain, but I actually think my 50 cents will go pretty far here.

Meg vs. The Toy Room: Cleaning up and clearing out

Friday: Clean out toys; pull out baby toys for sanitation and designate toys to donate.

 Check! One box of stuff to give away, on basket of baby toys to clean. And yet, the toy room still looked like this...

I went on Craigslist to look for shelves, then I remembered that I still had these wire shelves that my mom gave us for our closet in our last apartment. They were perfect! A bin for all the animals, shelves for books and toys, and another bin for pretend toys. Several times my big guy told me that he "likes our new toy room" and he "likes our books." And bonus--the boys kept pulling new books to read all day. We had been reading the same few over and over again since we moved in. Love!

Meg vs. The Bathroom: Experiments in grout cleaning

Thursday: Scrub/bleach the grout in the front bathroom.

The grout on our front bathroom grosses me out a little bit, but I was hoping a good cleaning might do the trick. After today's effort, I think something stronger or some new grout/grout paint may be in order. You'll see why...

I tried two tricks I saw on Pinterest: vinegar and bleach pen (not together! Poisonous gas alert!).

Here's the vinegar side:

 Better, but I think scrubbing with water could have had a similar result.

Here is the bleach pen side:

More effective than vinegar, but clearly not stunningly white. In fact, not even yellow; we are still at brown.

I also tried baking soda and straight bleach, but nothing was working any serious magic. My next step will be to try a grout cleaner with acid, and if that doesn't work we will consider either painting or re-grouting (the latter might be best anyway; who knows how old this tile is. Perhaps we will rid ourselves of the pink border at the same time!).

I also did my periodic desk-cleaning, cleared a spot and transplanted a couple of pumpkin plants that I couldn't bear to "thin" via plucking them straight out, and watched a dorky movie starring Hermione Granger -er- Emma Watson. Okay, so the last part wasn't much of an accomplishment...I was just feeling moving picture deprived.

Meg vs. The Kitchen: Paint chips

Wednesday: Buy seam tape and plaster, pick up paint samples for the kitchen and paint (tape) them up. Price (maybe buy?) replacement doors for the master bed and bath.

I realized that we didn't have enough of an idea of what color we wanted in the kitchen to actually paint up samples, so I grabbed a pile of chips at the store and we narrowed them down to the ones we liked. We knew we wanted to stay in the green family because our granite has green in it, and weren't even sure we wanted to change the color at all.

The contenders are Asparagus (really similar to the current color),

Mountain Haze,

and Laurel Mist.

We probably won't make a final choice until we also choose whether to do a tile backsplash and have a better look at our options there. But at least our brains are moving.

I also purchased tape and joint compound and a new hook for the dining room chandelier, and took a look at interior doors (nothing struck my fancy, so I'll take my time there). I should give myself shopping assignments more often!  Hehe.

Meg vs. Celebrating: Happy Birthday Hubs!

Tuesday: Prepare and celebrate John's birthday!

I made the piñata with the kiddos, which was nice because (1) it gave us a project to do together, and (2) it was free; cardboard from the garage, construction paper I got on clearance a long time ago, some packing tape (I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to use any of these ingredients, but it worked) and an old wire coat hanger. We filled it with leftover Easter candy.

The only down point (other than when baby brother threw up his Oreos) was that half-way through the day the ceiling hook broke and our chandelier came crashing down. Luckily there was minimal damage, but that will be added to the to-do list a-pronto.

Meg vs. The Front Yard: Weeding (of course)

Monday: Weed front planters, clear more in the back if there's room in the bin/time in the day.

I have lots of excuses for today. Mostly I got sick when I was part-way through weeding the main planter, and that is as far as I got. We spent the afternoon with me curled up on the couch while the boys played and watched Cars, and I recovered enough to pick up John and make a pre-birthday dinner (I am trying to be a good cook during birthday week at least!).

I promise I will try to post something slightly more exciting here soon; I feel like the blog is getting a little pathetic!

Meg vs. Myself: Weekly Goals April 23-28

April 16-21
Monday: Paint a second coat on the door trim. Put a coat on the trim and baseboards in the hallway as well. Take down the blinds and clean around the windows.

Tuesday: Tape and paint the master bedroom walls.

Wednesday: Do a second coat and/or touch-up in the master bedroom as needed.

Thursday: Clean up the painting stuff and put the bedroom back together. Put a final coat of paint on the living room bench.

Friday: Re-fill the green waste bin! Clear as much in the side yard as possible.

Saturday: Plant more seeds with the boys. Work on decorations for the living room.

Not perfect, but not too bad! This week is looking to be another busy one (life seems to be picking up, so I'd better not start making excuses now). I am running out of little projects I am ready to tackle alone that don't involve painting or weeding, but I am trying to mix things up a bit so I don't wear myself out.
 
April 23-28
Monday: Weed front planters, clear more in the back if there's room in the bin/time in the day.

Tuesday: Prepare and celebrate John's birthday!

Wednesday: Buy seam tape and plaster, pick up paint samples for the kitchen and paint them up. Price (maybe buy?) replacement doors for the master bed and bath.

Thursday: Scrub/bleach the grout in the front bathroom.

Friday: Clean out toys; pull out baby toys for sanitation and designate toys to donate.

Saturday: Take a look at the rocking bench out back. Tighten up bolts if possible, and start sanding if it looks salvageable.

Meg vs. The Back Yard: The never ending task.

Friday: Re-fill the green waste bin! Clear as much in the side yard as possible.
 
Someday I will get the side yard cleared out completely. And then I will have about ten times more than than to do around the rest of the yard. The work itself is good for me, right?

Saturday: Plant more seeds with the boys. Work on decorations for the living room.

We didn't get to planting seeds. It is 9pm and still 80 degrees in our house, so we only were outside for an hour or so after dinner, and that's when I worked on weeding. However, if I can count "Think of ideas for the living room" as "Work on decorations for the living room," then that goal was done.

Meg vs. Nothing: I took the day off.

Friday: Re-fill the green waste bin! Clear as much in the side yard as possible.

We had several unexpected things come up today (doctor's appointment, birthday party, arrangements that needed making, surprising heat wave). Also, I really didn't want to be outside in the sun during nap time. Also, I just really didn't feel like it.

So now that my excuses are properly recorded, I have just doubled my work for tomorrow. And I think I'll read and go to bed happy =).

Meg vs. Assorted Unfinished Business: Finishing up

Thursday: Clean up the painting stuff and put the bedroom back together. Put a final coat of paint on the living room bench.

The first half mostly was done because my husband felt bad and did it for me while I was washing a giant mound of dishes at 10pm. The second I did during nap time (the only time I was home before dinner all day!). It is nice to actually have something finished rather than in progress or waiting to be done!

Meg vs. The Bedroom: Done Painting!

Wednesday: Do a second coat and/or touch-up in the master bedroom as needed.

This morning John and I decided I should just touch up the walls and skip the second coat. Then during nap time I got to work, and of course the more I touched up, the more annoying spots I found. It didn't take long before I decided to ditch the touch-up effort and slap a new coat on as quickly as possible. And I finished the whole room during nap time (about 2 hours)! My arms are killing, but I'm glad to be done. I think I'll need a while to regroup before we tackle the next room. I'll post a final photo of our room once things are put back together.

Meg vs. The Bedroom: Still more painting.

Tuesday: Tape and paint the master bedroom walls.

I taped all morning, I did 3 walls during naptime, then the last wall and the hallway after the kiddies were asleep. When I was done at 11pm I still needed to go grocery shopping, as we were almost completely out of milk (with my 3 housemates, that spells disaster). So now, at 1am, I bring you, two fuzzy pictures of the day's work:

My first 3 minutes of work up next to our paint samples. 

The same wall at the end of the day. It is lighter than it seemed like it would be from the sample, but I'm glad because we bought the same color for all of the bedrooms, and it is fairly unassuming. I think once the green tape is down you'll be able to see the contrast better with the white ceiling; in this picture it all looks white.

We are debating on whether to do a second coat. John votes no, mostly because he wants me to be done already. I am not convinced, because I know how annoyed I'll be when I start noticing discolored spots. We agreed to decide in the light of the morning. We'll see how hard or easy tomorrow's goal will be!

Meg vs. The Bedroom: More painting!

Monday: Paint a second coat on the door trim. Put a coat on the trim and baseboards in the hallway as well. Take down the blinds and clean around the windows.
I don't really have much to say about this except that it is done. I even did the dishes today, and started working with the kiddies on getting ready for Daddy's birthday. I am excited for and also dreading two more big painting days and then having my room done!

Meg vs. Myself: Weekly Goals April 16-21

April 9-14  (Spring Break!)
Monday: Catch up on last week's projects. Catch up on sleep.

Tuesday: Buy paint for bedrooms. Paint a final coat on the bench.

Wednesday: Kindly ask hubby to put blinds back up in the living room. Pull out sheets and figure out a plan for curtains.

Thursday: Finish clearing out the side yard. Re-fill the green waste bin.

Friday: Start painting master bedroom.

Saturday: Finish painting master bedroom.

April 16-21
Monday: Paint a second coat on the door trim. Put a coat on the trim and baseboards in the hallway as well. Take down the blinds and clean around the windows.

Tuesday: Tape and paint the master bedroom walls.

Wednesday: Do a second coat and/or touch-up in the master bedroom as needed.

Thursday: Clean up the painting stuff and put the bedroom back together. Put a final coat of paint on the living room bench.

Friday: Re-fill the green waste bin! Clear as much in the side yard as possible.

Saturday: Plant more seeds with the boys. Work on decorations for the living room.

Meg vs. The Bedroom: More Paint

Saturday: Finish painting master bedroom.

This goal was ridiculous. I don't know how I managed to not factor in (1) having to paint the trim, and (2) the fact that I can't do any painting during toddler waking hours. Not to mention that I had to put a second coat of white paint on the ceiling this morning because the stubborn dirty beige was showing through. It is now 10pm, and I am about to start cleaning the baseboards and trim, then I'll paint (surely doing a terrible job) and crash for the night.

My awesome hubby put the living room blinds back up (kind of an ordeal because they had some fit issues with the new windows), and cleaned the blinds before he put them back up, and put up the new curtain rod and my curtains. It almost looks like a real living room! I also put together a little $1 arrangement for our shelf. And the boys and I started a second garden bed in the back yard and set up a makeshift trellis for our growing peas. Aaaand... I can't find the camera again. I broke down and ordered a new battery charger for our original camera so that I could keep the back-up as a back-up. It should be here by Friday. Sigh. Someday I will be able to keep track of my valuable possessions. As soon as I am able, photos will be forthcoming.

Meg vs. The Bedroom: Paint

Friday: Start painting master bedroom.

It is 10pm. I just swiffered my ceiling, and am currently covering everything in this room in plastic in preparation for painting. I will shut down my computer for the night now, but I feel confident pre-emptively crossing this one off. As long as I get even one brushstroke up, I technically started, right?

I hope you all are sleeping already! I'll get back to my goal of going to bed early after Spring Break is over =).

Meg vs. The Yard: More weeding!

Thursday: Finish clearing out the side yard. Re-fill the green waste bin.

This is the project that never ends, since we need to clear about 1/2 of our entire yard. It was a crazy morning and we all fell asleep for the afternoon, so we got a late start, but we definitely re-filled the bin and made good progress on the side yard. John meticulously removed the ivy intertwined in most of the chain-link fence, so now I just have a small section at the end of the side yard to finish so that we can get to cleaning and planting. I also worked on clearing a spot for a second raised bed, since our boys were being whiny and wouldn't tolerate both John and I being secluded on the side of the yard.

We are having guests for lunch tomorrow, so tonight's post-bedtime schedule includes cleaning the whole house and starting to get our room ready for painting. Yikes!

Meg vs. The Living Room: Window Treatments

Wednesday: Kindly ask hubby to put blinds back up in the living room. Pull out sheets and figure out a plan for curtains.

I made curtains today! I had only done so once before, and they were pretty crude. I can't say that today's rendition are much better, but the fact that they came from a sheet helped because 3/4 of the seams were already done for me. The only problem is, the curtain rod we snatched at Ross in a hurry was too short, so I couldn't put them up. Boo! To make myself feel better, I turned one king-size pillowcase into two cases for throw pillows, and they are now sitting on our couch. I can't make anything else for that room in that fabric, or I think I will start to detest it even though I am totally in love with it now.

I did kindly asked my hubby to put up the blinds, and he kindly said that he would... then went off to study. I am confident that they will be put up soon. He has been super pro-active with the house projects this week, so I can't complain! Pictures to come as soon as we get things up and ready.

P.S. More living room news: our correct couches should be delivered next Friday or Saturday. No more borrowed couches with shipping fabric draped over them! Yay!

Meg vs. The Bedroom: Paint shopping

Tuesday: Buy paint for bedrooms (buy paint for ceilings). Paint a final coat on the bench.


Once again, I should have checked the weather before publishing my goals. Last week the forecast said rain for Wednesday, but it was rainy today, which meant a no-go on painting the bench. We did buy another can of spray paint for when things clear up, and picked up some white paint for our bedroom ceilings (did you know that the non-VOC paint+primer is cheaper than the regular stuff? I was sure it would be more expensive, and it is better for my pregnant self. Double bonus). We decided to get one last paint sample since we hadn't fallen in love with any one shade of grey just yet, but the sample was still too dark. So we settled on the one I picked a while ago, which was "Silver Drop" by Behr. It looks lighter on the walls than it does in the picture.

Source: HomeDepot.com

I also pulled out my sheets and decided on a plan for curtains; now I just have to get around to sewing them!

Meg & John vs. The House: Catching up

Monday: Catch up on last week's projects. Catch up on sleep.

To best demonstrate how we did on today's goal, it's time to go back to last week again:

Monday: Clear off our desk and clean our room.

Tuesday: Clear a place to plant sunflowers and put a planter in the side yard. Re-fill the green waste bin!

Wednesday: Put up new smoke/CO detectors. Call to set up final house inspection.

Thursday: Clean out the gutter drain in the front yard. Pull weeds if there is still room in the can.

Friday: Change out the dimmer switch in the master bedroom. Cut up the rest of the branches and put in the shed for fire wood.

Saturday: Start refinishing bench - put on liquid sandpaper, go buy paint and hardware for drawers.




I am happy with all of it. It turns out the drains were fine but the gutters were full again, so I ended up cleaning out the front gutters. We changed the light switch and put in the smoke alarm, watched a movie with our kiddos and took a trip to Costco. I let my awesome hubby sleep in, then he cleaned the kitchen while I took a nap. We'll call it a successful Day 1 of Spring Break.

Meg vs. Myself: Weekly Goals

Time to report on the week!

April 2-7
Monday: Clear off our desk and clean our room. (This may be the scariest goal so far)

Tuesday: Clear a place to plant sunflowers and put a planter in the side yard. Re-fill the green waste bin!

Wednesday: Put up new smoke/CO detectors. Call to set up final house inspection.

Thursday: Clean out the gutter drain in the front yard. Pull weeds if there is still room in the can.

Friday: Change out the dimmer switch in the master bedroom. Cut up the rest of the branches and put in the shed for fire wood.

Saturday: Start refinishing bench - put on liquid sandpaper, go buy paint and hardware for drawers.


April 9-14  (Spring Break!)
Monday: Catch up on last week's projects. Catch up on sleep.

Tuesday: Buy paint for bedrooms. Paint a final coat on the bench.

Wednesday: Kindly ask hubby to put blinds back up in the living room. Pull out sheets and figure out a plan for curtains.

Thursday: Finish clearing out the side yard. Re-fill the green waste bin.

Friday: Start painting master bedroom.

Saturday: Finish painting master bedroom.

Meg vs. Refinishing: Painting the bench and a little relaxation.

Thursday: Clean out the gutter drain in the front yard. Pull weeds if there is still room in the can.

Friday: Change out the dimmer switch in the master bedroom. Cut up the rest of the branches and put in the shed for fire wood.

Saturday: Start refinishing bench - put on liquid sandpaper, go buy paint and hardware for drawers. 

Clearly it has been an off week. But for good reason! My in-laws are visiting (well, MIL got here yesterday, FIL will be here tomorrow). I didn't know they were coming when I planned my goals last week. So after doing more cleaning on Wednesday than I have done since we have lived here, I thought I could give myself a bit of a pass and take it easy. We've relaxed, gone to the Jelly Belly Factory, walked by the bay, and the hubs and I even went on a date (shopping for house stuff--we are hopeless romantics!). Still, some things have gotten done. The weed goal was easy because the can was already full, ha ha! I won't be too hung up if we don't finish all the goals this week because tomorrow we have awesome plans like going to the temple, eating out, dying Easter eggs, and doing some consulting with my Pops-in-law about future house projects. If I don't write until Sunday, I haven't been kidnapped, I've just been enjoying! And for your enjoyment, here are a couple of pictures from spray painting my bench today:

I decided to scratch my plans of painting the old fashioned was and just spray this bad boy all at once. Sometimes taking a shortcut is better than not doing it at all! Kind of a funny note - we noticed that all of the spray cans had pictures of Ikea furniture that they had spray painted. This can has a picture of our old dining room table painted white, and another can had our metal end table painted pink. I guess Rust-oleum doesn't have a very big budget for their cover art! Ha!

After a quick sanding.

After a whole can of primer (clearly I ran out).

After a whole can of paint.

I'll get another can next week so I can add another coat and finish off the parts I missed (the inside of the drawers, the underside of the tabletop, etc. But for not all the visible parts are somewhat presentable. When it is all dry tomorrow I'll take a picture with the pad back on. I am so excited!

Meg vs. Safety: Fire/Carbon Monoxide Detectors

Wednesday: Put up new smoke/CO detectors. Call to set up final house inspection.

It has been a busy day. I have been trying to clean our house--really clean it--and have done everything but the floors and the tubs. That is a lot for me (I usually don't even manage to do the dishes daily!). So when the plug on the smoke detector didn't fit the plug in the ceiling, I couldn't bear to go out and turn off the electricity and re-wire it just before bed time. And good thing I didn't, because the little one decided he didn't want his dinner anymore just as I was putting him in bed, and kindly returned it onto my shirt (and his own jammies). So I gave myself a pass on that one.

However, I did install two combination smoke/carbon monoxide detectors in the hallways, so I didn't completely neglect the goal. My current plan is to do the last one later this week when we also put in the new light switch, since both require wiring in the same room.

Now that my 2-hour bedtime fiasco is over, time to get those floors and tubs and GO TO BED!

Meg vs. The Back Yard: Weeding and more weeding

Tuesday: Clear a place to plant sunflowers and put a planter in the side yard. Re-fill the green waste bin!

Clear part of the side-yard. Check!

Fill up the bin. Check plus!

Un-cover an existing planter that sits exactly in the sunny area. Check Check! There are actually pavers and rocks surrounding the planter, but you wouldn't know it by looking.

Verify that someone actually grew something here aside from weeds once. Checkity-check!  (It was rosemary - only a step above a weed, but I'll take it.)

Clean up the milk spills, dish pile, and crushed animal cookies under the furniture because my awesome mother-in-law will be here in 2 days, followed by my wonderful father-in-law 2 days after that: I suppose I had better get to that.

Meg vs. The Clutter: Cleaning My Room

Monday: Clear off our desk and clean our room.

You wouldn't think this would be an all-day task. That is, you wouldn't think it until you saw our desk:

The rest of the room wasn't much better, but I'll spare you that. Our room doubles as our office, and our desk is the catch-all for everything in the house. It usually works like this: I put things I need to get done on the desk. The boys bring in random things from around the house. John studies and things collect. I try to clean through the stack, and sort things onto the bed, like I did today:

On a normal day, John gets home or it gets late, and all of the piles get unceremoniously dumped back onto the exact same spot on the desk, resulting in a mess only slightly better than it was previously, and a lot of frustration on my part. The difference is that today I actually made sure to finish before that could happen. It really was an all-day event, because it included sorting through papers, finishing tasks, filing, cleaning, fixing, and shredding copious amounts of documents we had accumulated before we got this bad boy from a generous person on FreeCycle.

During the times when my kids could no longer tolerate my negligence, we went in the back yard and started a compost bin with scraps from last week and all the shredded paper from today. I also filled up a good portion of the green waste bin while they played, so I actually got ahead!

The hubby knew I was going to clean our room today, but even so he seemed kind of shocked when he came home to this:

That alone makes the effort worth it (although an ice cream sundae after dinner didn't hurt either).

Meg vs. Myself: Weekly Goals

Time to report!

March 25-31
Monday: Re-fill up the green waste bin.  (Read Mockingjay. Heehee.)

Tuesday: Put up new ceiling fan in master bedroom.

Wednesday: Re-install blinds in the baby room. Shorten the blinds in all the bedrooms.

Thursday: Get paint samples for bedrooms and bathrooms. Scrape damaged paint from living room windows, then prime and paint.

Friday: Organize garage shelves.

Saturday: Plant melon seeds in grow trays with the boys. Watch General Conference!


And next week:

April 2-7
Monday: Clear off our desk and clean our room. (This may be the scariest goal so far)

Tuesday: Clear a place to plant sunflowers and put a planter in the side yard. Re-fill the green waste bin!

Wednesday: Put up new smoke/CO detectors. Call to set up final house inspection.

Thursday: Clean out the gutter drain in the front yard. Pull weeds if there is still room in the can.

Friday: Change out the dimmer switch in the master bedroom. Cut up the rest of the branches and put in the shed for fire wood.

Saturday: Start refinishing bench - put on liquid sandpaper, go buy paint and hardware for drawers.

Friday: Organize shelves in the garage.

I did work on this, but not to the extent I was planning. I didn't have full access to the shelves, mostly because of this recent acquisition:

I am sure my father-in-law will be proud to know we got this sturdy wood dresser for free, and plan to re-do it. (Why do I keep giving myself more projects?!).

Here is what I did get done:

Food storage all together on one shelf.

Paint on two shelves by the work bench.

 Car stuff all on the shelf closest to the garage door.

I know, you are so impressed it has rendered you speechless. I am pretty impressed with myself, too =).