Our House "To Do" List (& would like to do)

So a long while back, I made a house "to do" list. I wrote down a bunch of the things the Mr. and I needed to do and some things that we would like to do. I also broke them down into price categories: cheap, modest, and expensive because that's how I roll I figured it would help us prioritize things correctly. Things in progress are highlighted. Things already done are in red and are crossed out. Anything in black is left to do. So, without further ado, here is the list:

	Things to Do in House:
Free	·      Prime & Paint doors/trim in house
Free	·      Paint & Put down shoe molding where needed
Free	·      Hang rest of pics in house (yes, we’re very late on this)
Free	·      Sand & Paint stools
Free	·      Sand & Paint window panes
Free	·      Paint garage (use leftover paint?)
Free	·      Keep siding clean with Clorox spray and water hose (Spring)
Free	·      Spray paint bathroom fixtures
Free	·      Fix closet doors so they don’t stick
Cheap	·      Finish fixing gate (both sides – they’re wompy jawed)
Cheap	·      Print wedding pic (8x10 – bc we still don’t have one up)
Cheap	·      Print 4x6 pics for window panes & hang in house
Cheap	·      Make a shelf over the washer/dryer to give some counter space
Cheap	·      Put light fixture in laundry room
Cheap	·      BASKETS, BASKETS, BASKETS! (Ikea?)
Cheap	·      Paint front door and shutters black
Cheap	·      Get 2 tall buffet lamps for buffet
Cheap	·      Paint desk and chair for sewing table
Modest	·      Make coffee table into bench (make pad, paint, wood)
Modest	·      Stain end tables
Modest	·      Build Shelf for TV
Modest	·      Backsplash in kitchen
Modest	·      Get cheap frames and prints for Gallery Wall
Modest	·      Paint living room/rooms/bathrooms
Modest	·      Get electrician – wiring for wall switches is wacky
Modest	·      Get white electrical outlets and switches – currently a cream color
Modest	·      DIY Headboard for our bed
Modest	·      Thrift 2 chairs for living room
Modest	·      Slipcover other furniture in living room?
Modest	·      Thrift & Paint one more dresser
Modest	·      Get another bookcase?
Expensive	·      Get/Build 2 pub stools for bar
Expensive	·      Change out bathroom faucets in both bathrooms (to nickel)
Expensive	·      New carpet?
Expensive	·      Put fans in house
Expensive	·      Vinyl Tiles in kitchen and bathrooms
Expensive	·      Refinish hardwood floors? (way off in future)

So, like I said... there's some things we NEED to do on the list, and there's a whole lot of things we WOULD LIKE to do. Obviously, this list is constantly evolving. We'd love for you guys to follow along with us as we attempt to mark things off our list.

Tootles!

On the road again...

Okay, okay... so I'm a horrible blogger. I haven't done very well lately keeping everybody updated. The truth is... I'm worn slap out. I feel like the Mr. and I are constantly on the go. Our schedules have been evolving over the last month or so since the Mr. got a new job. Don't get me wrong... I'm not complaining -- I feel so blessed that the Mr. is gainfully employed... I'm just worn out. Since the Mr. got a job closer to where I work (which is at least 30 minutes away from home when there's zero traffic), we're trying to save gas money by riding to work together when we can. Now, we have to LEAVE the house at 6:30am in order to get the Mr. to work by 8:00am (durn traffic!), and then I drive to work from there (which only takes about 10 minutes). Phew. Then I try to leave work by 4:45pm to pick up the Mr. at 5:00pm, and it takes us until 6:00pm or so before we're home. What a day. I'm sure this is a normal commute for a lot of people who live in bigger cities, but this guy and gal from smaller towns just aren't used to it. Needless to say, by the time we get home, cook dinner, and get everything ready for the next day , I'm pooped. I don't even have kids -- I just don't know how parents do it. They must summon some incredible amount of energy from somewhere deep down, or they're just tired all the time (my guess is the latter). I can't imagine having to throw baths, homework, and putting kids to bed into my already tight schedule. Props to all the parents out there. I don't know how y'all do it.

Just when we get used to this crazy schedule, it'll change again since the Mr. will be starting seminary. Instead of me dropping him off at work and then picking him up, he'll have to drop me off -- which means I'll be at work from like 7:30 to 5:30. Crazy, huh? Let's hope the change goes smoothly.

Also, the Mr. and I have been traveling quite a bit on the weekends the last two months. With Easter, Mother's Day, and the Mr.'s first sermon (he did great -- but I'm probably definitely prejudiced), we've been hitting the roads hard. As a matter of fact, due to an accident, we spent 7 hours in a car one way the Friday before last -- the trip should only take about 3.5 hours. BLAH! I haven't had much time to work on the house or anything else for that matter. The only project I've devoted any time to is couponing, which is coming along slowly. It's saving us money -- but I'm sure I've got a ton more tricks/tips to learn.

Even though we've been spending countless hours in the car, it's always great to see family. They're so encouraging, and seeing them gives me that little boost of energy that I need to get through the next week. Even though it's a short week, it's also a busy week for so many -- including us Hightowers! Here's hoping you guys have a wonderful rest of the week!!

What we've been up to lately....

Ok, so I admit it... I'm a really bad blogger.... like.... REALLY BAD. I read so many awesome blogs where they post once a day or so. How do they do it? I don't even have kids, and I find it hard to post once a week. Anywho, I just wanted to give y'all a quick update on what the Mr. and I've been up to lately...

1) The Mr. got into seminary!! Whoop Whoop! We're excited to start this journey to fulfill God's calling.

2) We're still priming and painting our little hearts away. We actually ran out of primer this past weekend, so we'll need to get some more before we can really finish up the trim & interior doors. This is possibly one of the biggest undertakings we've done so far just because it's so time consuming. I'll be so glad when it's finally over!

3) The Mr. and I are running three days a week now using the C25K program. It's tough just because I'm so out of shape, but I know it's good for me. We're on Week 5 of the 9 week program. We should be on week 7, but we got a little off track for a couple of weeks... whoops.

4) I've started couponing! I've found some great websites like savingwellspendingless.com which are definitely helping me. I'm definitely a newbie at the whole thing, but if I can get good at it, it can save us a lot on our grocery bill. I've even made this binder to hold all of my clipped coupons (Thanks to Kim, a lady at our church, for giving me this idea first).

So nice and organized... I love it. Sorry the pic is bad. The Mr. took it at night on his phone.

5) I'm still working on the whole sewing thing. I've bought some fabrics that I hope to make something out of soon. So far, I've only sewn lines on an old t-shirt... so actually making something should be interesting.

Confession: I'm notorious for starting something and not finishing. I get bored easily and have to change up the routine. Also -- I'm a perfectionist (yes, I know, it's not good.... but I am.) I do think I'm responsible when it comes to work (aka when someone is counting on me to do it). However, I find it a bit harder to finish things I'm doing for myself. I just easily frustrated, lazy, or (like I said before) just plain bored. So, since I've acknowledged that I have this problem, y'all should know that I am making an effort to remedy it. Therefore, I'm hoping posting this for the world to see will encourage me to finish/stick with something, be it couponing, sewing, running, whatever. Hopefully, I can stick with all of it.

Another thing I'm working on is trying to get up earlier, you know, so I have more time to ease into my day and not always be so rushed getting out the door. Needless to say, I'm failing miserably at this one... What can I say? This girl likes her sleep. But seriously.... I'm gonna need to work harder on that... ;)

I plan on posting a list that the Mr. and I made of things we'd like to do around the house. Also -- I plan to post pics of the house from before we moved in (aka in its original state). That way, you guys can follow along as we try to mark things off our list and spruce up our home.... it should be interesting...

Hope you guys are having a great day! :)

Seriously!?!

Ok... so you guys are NOT going to believe this. It's actually pretty ironic...

Someone hit and broke our mailbox.


No, I'm not kidding. Someone really did hit and break our mailbox. We thought it was pretty ironic since we had just posted about finally painting the hose clamps that were the "quick fix" in the first place.

One Thursday evening, the Mr. and I went out for a run in the neighborhood. A car passed us, headed down our street, and immediately came back out of the neighborhood. As we turned the corner, we realized our mailbox had been knocked down, completely broken off the post (which, in case you don't remember, is iron). The actual mailbox was dented up a little so that it didn't close completely, but whoever hit it was nice enough to set it in the grass behind the post.

After we realized what happened, the Mr. and I headed out to Lowe's and bought some more hose clamps. After using 4 more hose clamps, we managed to get it up so we could still receive mail, but it was definitely not sturdy. Unfortunately this is the only pic I got of all the hose clamps we had to use. I didn't even get pics of the mailbox all broken and on the ground... I was a little too ill to think about doing that at the moment.

At first, we thought we'd have to buy a whole new mailbox & post to the tune of $305 (as quoted to us since they had to custom build it... blah). But luckily, we squirmed our way out of that.

The day after the incident I told my boss about it and showed him a pic of the once standing mailbox. He realized the ornamental iron on the mailbox was a design that his grandfather made at an iron foundry in town. He still knew the owner, so he called for me. Sure enough, it was a design his grandfather had created. The iron piece was originally $8, but they gave it to me for free. I brought it home and the next weekend, the Mr. and I went to Lowe's and grabbed a $20 mailbox. We also grabbed some primer, glossy black spray paint, and a few more hose clamps. Then, we had to reconstruct the mailbox....

We started by unbolting the mailbox from the iron decorative piece. You can see how it was attached in this picture. 

It was attached to what I call a "t-bar" type of piece of metal, which was then attached the iron decorative piece.

 Since we didn't have the materials to make the little "t-bar section" that holds mailbox, we had to reuse the original one by prying if off the old broken decorative iron.

 
 You can see what it looks like once it's pryed off. It was simply two separate sections that were welded together.

Once we got the two pieces separated, and since we could't weld it all together, we used small hose clamps to hold the "t-bar section" to the decorative iron section as you can see below. 

Then the Mr. took our new mailbox and drilled some holes in the bottom of it so it would sit nicely on top of the "t-bar section." In this pic, he was using the pre-drilled "t-bar section" as his guide to drill holes in the new mailbox.

Then we used some nuts and bolts to hold the mailbox on the "t-bar." 

Then we used some more hose claps to hold the decorative piece the to mailbox post... as mentioned in this post. And then we primed everything.

Lastly, we sprayed it all with a glossy black spray paint.

And now for the big reveal. (Yes, I blurred our house number...)

(Ignore the icky fingerprints we left on it... they washed off in the rain... lol)

Not too shabby considering this what it looked like after we fixed it the first time.

It's all quite humorous looking back on it. It's a good thing we didn't go ahead and buy a new one when we first had problems with it. We're also praising the good Lord that we got a break by getting the ornamental iron piece for free. Small world, huh? So, all in all, we spent about $30 fixing it this time, and hopefully, there won't be a need to fix it anytime soon....

P.S. Our new neighbors actually just knocked down and broke their mailbox... we gave them some tips on how to fix it, but I guess it's just something about this neighborhood...

Update: Mailbox Quick Fix

A while back, I wrote about our mailbox suddenly falling of the post (read all about it here). Instead of paying out the wazoo to have it welded back on or to have it replaced, we used simple hose clamps to hold it all together. Surprisingly it worked well, and it's still going strong! We haven't had any problems at all with it. But as you can tell from the pic below, the silver clamps weren't blending well with the black post.

So, this past weekend, the Mr. and I finally picked up a can of $0.96 black spray paint. After a few minutes, we ended up with this:

Viola! A mailbox that's looking as good as new for about $5 buckaroos! I do think we should have used a gloss instead of a matte paint, so I may grab a can of that soon and just go over it. But for now, it's definitely looking better. Not to mention, I like the $5 price tag a lot better than the estimated $200 quote they gave us to fix it. Moral of the story: ALWAYS see if there's something you can do to fix it yourself before shelling out all that money! :) Hope you guys are having a great week!

Yes, I know...

I'm a horrible blogger! I haven't really kept you guys updated on anything that's going on, and that's because honestly, there's not much going on. The Mr. and I have been spending all of our "crafty time" painting ALL of the trim and interior doors throughout the house. Oh yes, ALL of it (read all about that here). And since our trim paint was oil-based, we're having to prime and paint it as opposed to just painting it. Blah! It was a huge undertaking, but I know that it will be worth it in the end (of course, that doesn't mean that I don't moan and groan the whole time... I'm sure the Mr. loves that part...). So far we've managed to finish the kitchen, living area and foyer completely (meaning primed and painted). We've also been able to prime the guest bedroom and the guest bathroom, so now we just have to paint that. BUT we still have the garage, office, the master bedroom, and the master bathroom to go. Phew.

I'm looking forward to the day when we can focus on wall colors instead of the trim! I will say though, that the trim is looking 100% better. The Mr. and I agreed that the cream colored trim made everything seem dingy and dirty. The white trim makes everything look refreshingly clean. Is there anything a good coat of white paint can't make look better? I'll have to post pics of our progress soon. Hope you guys are having a great day!!

Praying for Japan

I'm sure all of you know of the deadly earthquakes and tsunami that Japan has experienced. They've suffered tremendous loss and still have many more hurdles to jump. My heart goes out to all the Japanese people and to people in all countries who may have friends/family in Japan. Though we may not understand it, I fully believe that God has a plan and a purpose for this. God Bless You All!

The image says: "The nation of Japan needs our help. Lend  a hand. Say a prayer. Give support."