Odds and Ends

I don't have any big home make over projects going right now. In fact, I'm in the brainstorming mode. There are a lot of different things that I'm researching and trying to figure out what to do.

Today is the first day of spring so I'm starting to think outdoor things. I will do a post soon about ripping up old pushes from the front yard and my starter landscaping that I did two summers ago. However, I want to add to this year with building it up higher and also adding more flowers to it. We also received a really awesome outdoor propane fireplace/pit as a wedding gift last fall. We were unable to use it before it got too cold, so we're excited to use it this year. It is on our back porch which is where I think it will stay. I do want to do more in the backyard as well. I have plans to trim back the trees and maybe remove a couple of scrubs. One by our bedroom window always has birds in it and they make so much  noise and also then sit on the window sill and peck at the screen and have made holes in it!


We also have a new mailbox that I want to install in front of our porch. It still is a little cool out to be doing anything but I'm thinking, planning, and researching what I want to do.

There are a few interior projects I'm also thinking of. I've been wanting a new kitchen table for some time and I think we may have finally found one. The spot for our table is small and it is difficult to find one that fits well but we may have found a small affordable one. It is not high quality but I think for now it will do. I also have been wanting to replace our portable dishwasher with a kitchen cart. The dishwasher does not work so other than a great counter top next to the stove it's useless. We are missing out some great storage space due to this. My plan is to build a kitchen cart. 

The problem with this is I have no tools and no experience! That is where Pinterest, Home Depot, and friends/family come in. I found a style that I think would work very good in that space. Here is what I hope to make:


I love that there are shelves so I can store things such as containers of flour, sugar, etc. It looks like it could be pretty basic and not difficult to do. The problem I am having is getting a good drawing down with measurements. I can paint pictures and do colored pencil landscape drawings but for the life of me I can not draw a darn kitchen cart! 

Hopefully I'm able to make this work somehow, some way soon though. 


I'm also still hoping to finish off the spare room/Dan's room. We need a large shelving unit hung, light fixture install and either an old English D painted directly on the wall or onto a canvas. It will baseball/Detroit Tigers
themed room. 

There are a lot of other big projects (redoing the basement) I'd love to do but those may not happen this year.

Cord/Cable Organization!

Hi there readers! We have not had internet for about 5 days at home. I've been having issues with Wow Cable off and on for a few months now and after calling, having technicians come out on different occasions I'm hoping it's finally fixed. They ran all new wires outside.

That's not what this post is about though. This past weekend I didn't do any big projects regarding home makeover but I did do some cleaning and organizing.

I have a TV in the bedroom and due to the layout of the room and plugs, I've had a power strip and the cords just laying on the floor. My husband has to navigate his way around these cords and sometimes has almost tripped over them!

I found this really great product on Amazon called a Cable Corral. It comes in two sizes (large/junior) three colors (black, white, silver) and also they have two models. They have one that screws under your desk but they also have what is called a 2 way that allows you to choose to screw it under a desk or onto a wall.

I chose the white two way model. With the exception of the TV stand that you can see a little of in the photo, my furniture is white. I do have plans to possibly sand and repaint that one day so that's why I went with the white color. I chose to screw it onto the wall just to have it up and out of the way because there is nothing in the corner anyway.

Here it is hanging! It was super easy to install. It came with a little sticker thing and 4 screws. I only needed 2 screws since I used it as the wall mount. The sticker part you put onto the cable corral where you put the screw and then stick it on the wall and just screw right through the sticker. This way you aren't trying to line up the holes or holding one end while doing the other. It sticks onto the wall (without the power strip in it) allowing you to just screw it to the wall.

Now my husband won't be tripping over wires and they are out of the way! I am planning on buying the large size one to bring into my office at work. We have had floods a few times and I always worry about my power strips being on the floor.

I highly recommend purchasing one of these! I think they are also sold from Cableorganizer.com and Techdekproducts.com

Painted Front Door

My house is about 50 years old. I think the door may be the original door. It is a heavy duty wood door. It has always been a dirty off-white color on both the inside and the outside. In certain areas the paint was cracked and even was peeling off a bit.

This of course gave me the idea that it would be fairly easy to strip the paint off and repaint it. Due to the areas of cracked and peeling paint, I didn't want to just add another paint onto it. I researched and found Citristrip Paint Remover had good reviews and the fumes were not as toxic as other paint removers. Since it was my front door and I knew I wouldn't have time to do it all at once, I decided to leave the door on the hinges when I first started off. I applied it to the interior of the door and let it sit.

After about 30 minutes it started to bubble up. I was able to scrape off the paint pretty easily. It was a tedious process and it did take a few applications but it was not too bad.

 I then started on the front of the door. Woah, what a disaster! The Citristrip did NOTHING. It barely bubbled up. It turns out that the front of the door had many layers of paint and due to being exterior, the sun baked the paint on for years.

I went back to Home Depot and bought Klean-Strip which is a stronger paint stripper. This required wearing a mask as the fumes were strong. Gloves were required for both Citristrip and Klean-Strip but with Citristrip I didn't wear them. With Klean-Strip if it got on my skin it burned. So definitely wear thick gloves if you ever use that product.

After a lot of layers of paint stripper, a lot of hours of scraping, I was asking what I got myself into and regretting the choice to do this. It was definitely a lot worse than I thought it would be. It was also a mess using both products. The paint becomes wet and almost gummy. Nothing I seemed to do worked well and since it has the panels, getting into the corners and grooves was very difficult.

Finally I was able to borrow a sander from a co-worker. We took the door off the hinges and while wearing a mask so I wouldn't be breathing in dust, I got to work sanding it.That is what did the trick and finally got the paint off.

Once all the paint was off, I was able to prime it and paint it! That was the easy part. I also decided to replace the old door handle and got a  more updated door handle as well.

Now for the final picture. I chose teal for both the inside and the outside because I wanted a pop of color. The inside of my house is very neutral with beige walls and beige and black furniture. The teal brightens it up.

Looking at the photo, I realize this was taken with only one coat of paint on the door. It did require a second coat and looks much better and even. Here is a closer view with two coats of paint. From a distance it looks nice. I am a perfectionist and just could not get some of the old paint up completely in the grooves so if you look closely in person you see the imperfections but I'm learning to not focus on those.

Spray Painted Bookcase

Ever since we took down the Christmas tree we have had a big empty spot in the corner in our living room. Before the Christmas tree was up we had a smaller TV and would put our papasan chair in the corner. However, now that the TV is bigger the chair doesn't fit so well there. Plus we had to always pull the chair out to be able to see the TV.

Every time I walk by it I would just think "something needs to go there!" I started to look at smaller decor type of chairs at Target and realized that I did not want to spend $200 on a chair that will only be sat on if we have company over which does not happen often.



One of our spare rooms is sort of our library/catch all for junk or various things. I have two large book cases with all my books, we have a few DVD cases/stands and then there was a smaller book case that just had junk piled on it in the corner.

It is wooden but for the living room, most of the furniture is black (black and glass coffee/end table, black glass TV stand) or beige (couch/loveseat). So the wood doesn't really fit. A couple of Sunday's ago after spending a couple hours watching TV, I realized I had to do something productive. I could not lay around in bed watching TV all day.

I ran to Home Depot and picked up some Rustoleum Black Spray Paint. Now I will be the first to admit that this project was done on the lazy side. Due to the type of bookcase and the laminate veneer on it, it really should have been sanded or primed. I wanted this book case in the room by the next day so I skipped that part.

If you really want a nice long lasting finish, don't just spray paint it. Definitely lightly sand it and then prime it. If you do not, the paint will scratch off easily.

Here is a before picture of the book case. As you can see, just a normal bookcase.

Here is the after photo. I still am trying to figure out exactly what to put on it. This is just with various things I had around other rooms to put on it. I do love the wine bottle though. It's from Vino Florida Sangria and it was their Halloween label. We got the bottle on our honeymoon.

I know this isn't the best picture, but I like it because our curtains look purple due to the sunlight. They are black but it makes me want to add purple to the room for some color.

So there is my very short weekend project! I promise the next time I redo furniture I will do it the proper way. I plan to redo my nightstand but I'm waiting for warmer temperatures so I can sand it outside in the garage.