the latest addition

As we were discussing plans last week for our next "Monday of Projects," Scot decided that he'd tackle a simple one like, oh, painting the garage.  I figured I'd pretend to help a little on that one, but my focus sat on The Cabinet.  The Cabinet has been sitting in the garage for maybe 2 months now-I saw it in a garage sale down the street while on a run so, after I did my laps around the block, I swung by as the guy was closing up shop and offered him $5 for it.  The Cabinet was a hell of a lot heavier than I thought it would be (turns out it was real wood) but I managed to lug it 4 houses down to home.  I bought it mainly because of how freaking UGLY is was, thinking surely I could give it a new life.

Anyway, Scot bought some cabinets to replace the teetering, sagging shelving in the garage and built and installed them by about noon on Monday.  I did help a little, especially when he got to the painting part.  The garage looks so fresh and clean-I'm actually impressed we got so much done in one day.  I mean, we spent 3 months renovating each bathroom and now we've completed 2 big projects in 2 weekends!  Big accomplishment for sure!

As for The Cabinet, it got its makeover from me between the shifts I was helping out in the garage.  I wiped it down and cleaned it up and actually used paint stripper and a real electric sander to clean off and smooth out the top.  The whole project took me about 8 hours to complete but here's what I did:

-Sanded down the rough patches and dirt that just wouldn't come off-this thing had 2 coats of paint on it from before
-Doors removed, spray-painted main cabinet Heritage Red, 3 coats.
-Sprayed a light coat of the Hammered Dark Brown spray paint we bought for the back porch swing (that was a whole 'nother project!) on the screen fronts of the cabinet doors
-Used olive paint from the can we used on the house exterior to paint the doors and the inside of the cabinet.
- Used Minwax to stain the top of The Cabinet, wiped it down 20 minutes later, and sprayed it with a clear gloss coat
-Mixed up glaze I used from the Cheery Cherry Chairies and glazed the cabinet and doors.
-Replaced knobs and hinges.
Price Breakdown: Cabinet... $5
                            Heritage Red paint... $4
                            Hammered Dark Brown paint...already owned
                            Gingko Tree Exterior Latex...already owned
                            Minwax...already owned
                            Glaze and paint mix...already owned
                            Knobs and hinges...$10
TOTAL: $19 for a beautiful piece of furniture!

 BEFORE

AFTER!

OH!  And a detail on the purple vase there- it was an old frosted while light globe cover from the hallway light!  I spray painted it a glossy purple and I think it looks awesome.

key lime dream

Scot turned 31 earlier this month (I know, I'm next, shut up) so I surprised him with a weekend down in Key Largo.  I used my Trip Advisor app on my Kindle to plan the whole thing, from where to stay to where to eat and what to do.  He still insisted on driving-there were doubts as to whether or not my car would make the trip and back alive- so I just plugged the hotel into the GPS and we were off.  6.5 hours later, after an unintentional scenic route through Miami (stupid construction!) we made it.

The first evening of our stay, I'd booked us a sunset sailing trip on a pirate ship.  Turns out, no one else had booked that evening so we got a private cruise for ourselves!  We got to help hoist the sails and steer the boat and maneuver all the sails and lines around-it was so cool!  It was interesting to get back in to "learning mode" because learning to sail a boat is what I think about when I get a little burnt out on flight instructing-when I think about how my students know just as much about flying as I do about boating, it reminds me to take care in my instruction and explain everything simply and clearly.

As the sun set, we got to blow the conch shell (pronounced KONK).  Traditionally, you blow it to signify the end of the day and to drive away any bad spirits, similar to the way you'd blow a trumpet.  It sounds a lot like a boat horn, low and loud.  Youtube it sometime, it's pretty cool.

The next day, we set out for some snorkeling.  At the same dock our boat left from, the actual boat used in the move "The African Queen" was being kept and refurbished.  I had to grab some pictures, because I adore that movie, starring Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart.  The African Queen herself looked amazing- I remembered that pesky boiler that Charlie Allnutt fought with the whole way through the movie, the tiller that Rose handled to steer them through the rapids and falls, and the newly replaced canopy, no longer tattered but a pretty red stripe.  I was in heaven!

Snorkeling was fun, of course.  The water was a chilly 77 degrees but we managed to hit 3 sites along America's only coral barrier reef.  We were 10 miles off shore and saw tons of amazing tropical fish and beautiful corals.  We also saw what's known as the "Christ of the Abyss"-a Jesus statue about 20 feet underwater, intentionally sunk for your diving pleasure.  So cool!  We got seriously sunburned on the hour-long ride back to shore because we, uh, kinda forgot about the need to reapply sunscreen after swimming in the ocean.  My legs are burnt so bad I can't even bend them to put socks on.  It's pathetic.

Upon arriving back at the hotel, all I wanted was a shower to get all the saltwater off.  Not happening, since the water pressure was gone!  Apparently the hotel was working on the pipes so we just went down to the pool to trade seawater for chlorine.  By the time we got back, water pressure was back up and we were able to get ready for dinner.

After a delicious meal followed by the best key lime pie EVER at Mrs. Mac's, we headed to a bar called the Pilot House, which has a glass floor.  You can totally see the water below and even feed the fish through a hole in the floor!  I had a key lime martini which was basically pie in a glass.  Freakin' awesome ya'll.
Sad to say we had to leave the next morning but we managed to purchase some key lime chocolate and a baby key lime tree on our way out of town.  I officially have a new favorite vacation spot, though.  And soon I'll have the homemade pie to take me back...at least for a brain-cation when I need it!  Enjoy some pics :)

 The African Queen!

 Sunset sailing

 The sign reads "Watch for falling coconuts"

 Feeding the fish at the Pilot House.  They eat oatmeal

 Snorkel friends

   Chillin' with Jesus

no gnomes allowed

It's garden time again!  Early last month I picked up some new veggie sprouts and seeds to give agriculture another go.  Last year I had a hell of a time battling with squash bugs (yes, that's what they're called) and diseased tomatoes after a good first batch.  Let's hope I learned something because this year we've got the following:
Squash
Zucchini
Tomatoes
Green beans
Corn
Bell peppers- green, red, and orange
Herbs

So far everything looks okay, I even picked my first squash off the plant this evening.  Nothing around to cook for dinner so it looks like I'll be having a squash.  And another glass of Keel and Curly Winery's Tangerine Tango Zinfandel.  If you're here in Florida, go get a bottle from Publix.  I'm usually not a red wine drinker (Lakeridge's Sunblush is as dark as I'll go) but this stuff is awesome!  It's like juice, only better.

Back on track now...

About the squash bugs- I've sprayed enough chemicals on those plants to kill every bug on the block, let's hope it works. 

Oh!  I also dug up my strawberry plants from last year and moved them to a box inside the screen.  Turns out the only reason I wasn't getting any berries at all was that the birds were getting to them first.  Admittedly, I only really get about 1 or 2 a week but they're a nice suprise and, after a quick shot with the garden hose, I eat them right off the plant.  We also planted a pineapple in a large pot.  Whether or not this is going to work is TBD because we bought one, ate it, and planted the top part that we cut off.  No Google research on this or anything but we're hoping in 2 or 3 years we get a result.

The herbs are in good form, as usual.  My rosemary plant is turning into Audrey II and that stupid mint I planted last year and then dug up because it started spreading and taking over the whole right side, has found its way back from the dead and started sprouting in the herb box.  Note: If you want to plant mint because you're like, "hey mojitos are awesome and now I can make them whenever I want!" STAY AWAY.  Or plant it in a pot where it can't get out.  I've been trying to track down some sage because I think it's sophisticated and plus I saw a really good looking pork recipe on the cooking channel that I want to try and I need sage.  Haven't had any luck finding plants though.

Anyway, here's a look!

Other than this, we've been crazy busy painting the house and relandscaping.  That'll be my next post, so until then... :)

cheery cherry chair-ies

We had Lowe’s come in yesterday and put new carpet in ya’ll.  After living with the old stuff that had been there since 1995 (it was dated on the bottom when we pulled it up!) I tell you what, the feeling of walking on new, clean, stain-and-weird-stray-hair-free carpet is almost indescribable.  We’ve adopted a no-shoes-on-the-carpet policy that we both keep forgetting about but are trying hard to stick to.  Next step is outfitting the entire house with new window blinds.  All the windows are kind of oddly-sized so we’re getting blinds custom-fit.  They’ll be those 2 inch plantation-style blinds that will lend a really nice updated feel to the place.

On to more DIY though!

The 2 chairs that Scot had sitting at the kitchen counter were a $5 yard sale find from an infinite number of years ago.  They were this icky yellow/tan color-poorly done with paint streaks along the bottom.  After my chandelier project, I was dying to paint those chairs red and use a chocolate glaze on them to give them an antique-y feel.  I bought a can of Rustoleum Satin finish in Heritage Red and a bottle of clear mixing glaze, found the can of primer I used on Chandy was still in the shed, and got to work.

Note: if you decide to take on a project similar to this, just know that it takes 3 cans of Heritage Red spray paint, not just 1.  And it takes 2 cans of primer.  I could move a lot faster through these projects if I only got all my crap together first.

Each chair got a coat of primer first.  I didn’t bother trying to sand them down, just sprayed on the primer and let it dry for an hour or so.  I was already thinking the chairs looked pretty darned good in flat white, just because the yellow-tan was so hideous.

After that, I used up a can and a half of red spray paint for each chair.  I was out in the shed (I guess it’s my new workshop!) bending and twisting all around trying to get every millimeter of chair covered.  It took probably 3 coats, and when I pulled the chair out into the sunlight I found even more bare spots.  I decided to let it sit overnight and dry before glazing.  Later that evening, I noticed in front of the bathroom mirror that the red spray paint had tinted my blonde hair a cheerful, pink hue!  Scot heard me shriek and came in to see what was up.  After studying my new look for another minute, I decided that I look totally…punk.  3 rounds of wash/rinse/repeat took care of that problem.

The next day I found some MORE bare spots on the chairs and spritzed with more red paint.  Glad I let it sit overnight.  I moved the chairs out of the shed and onto some newspaper on the pool deck (newspaper!  See, I’m learning!)  Mixed the glaze according to the directions on the bottle, brushed it on with a paintbrush, let it sit for a few, and wiped it off.  Glaze, sit, wipe.  Glaze, sit, wipe.  The more you do it, the darker it gets.  The longer it sits, the darker it gets, but it also gets stickier and is harder to wipe off smoothly.  I seriously had NO clue what I was doing during this process, but I crossed my fingers, let it all dry and I think it came out beautifully, don’t you think?
Chairs: Free (already owned)
3 cans Spray Paint: $15
1 can Primer: (already owned 1) $3
Glaze: $17 (yikes!)
Brown Paint Sample for Tinting Glaze: $4
TOTAL: $39 for 2 new chairs (So-so. I'm still annoyed at the cost of the glaze but I didn't even use half of it so at least if I need it I won't have to buy it again)

      

a painted chandelier

The DIY network strikes again!  Ever since we finished the floors (Okay I’m lying- ever since I first SAW it), the old, yellow lighting fixture just off the entryway hasn’t looked quite right and I’ve been dying to replace it.  Come on, seriously, tell me I'm lying.

I scrolled through the offerings from Lowes, Home Depot, and a couple local lighting stores with out much luck- everything I kinda sorta liked was a minimum of 200 bucks.  And I still didn’t see anything that just, you know, spoke to me.

I was poking around the Habitat for Humanity ReStore place down on

Colonial Drive

looking for a large oval mirror on a stand that I could fix up when I saw IT- a shoddy, unassuming, downright fugly little glass and brass chandelier sitting on a bottom shelf.  No price tag, wires hanging out; I wasn’t even sure it worked.  I paid $9 for it and took “Chandy” home with me, where it sat in the garage for 2 weeks.

The interwebs are an amazing resource for DIY projects.  So here you go- my tutorial on painting your own brass chandelier:

TAKE MORE THAN ONE “BEFORE” PICTURE!!!  Not just so you can brag to your friends over your amazing finished project, but so you can remember how to put the damn thing back together!

(I would know.)

(Shut up.)

Okay, so I got this thing into pieces and Scot and his brilliance hung it up with string in the shed so I could get it painted.  I taped up over all the exposed wires and put Scotch tape over the tops where you’d screw the light bulbs in.  I’d taken the white plastic “candle” part off (they just slid off real easy) so I just put blue tape around the wires underneath.  I used Rustoleum primer, shown below.  Check the nozzle before you buy it so you don’t buy an effed up can and have to take it back for a new one.  Again, trust me.

Chandy’s little screw-on, decorative parts were too small to hang so I stuffed them with newspaper, balanced them on wooden skewers, and stuck them in the yard.  Lay out more newspaper so you don’t unintentionally spray paint your grass white.  Ooops.

Do probably 2 or 3 coats, waiting 20-30 minutes in between.  Let the primer dry for like, 2 days.  Seriously.  Especially if you’re in a high-humidity area, like Florida.  I got busy with work and poor Chandy hung out in the shed for almost a week before I got back to her.  The paint I used for the final coat was Rustoleum Hammered Finish in Dark Brown.  I didn’t take a picture of it because that paint it a pain in the ass.  I went to spray the chandelier and as soon as I squeezed the trigger, paint shot out sideways and coated my left arm and then started dripping out of the can and coated my right hand.  After a few choice vocabulary words, I kept spraying.  The paint kept shooting out and running down my right arm now.  I had to keep spraying though because as it dried it sort of glued my whole hand to the can of paint.  When I could no longer move my fingers and Chandy was pretty well covered, I peeled off a layer of skin with that stupid can and used up half a bottle of nail polish remover trying to remove the spray paint from my body.  An hour later, I went back out to try to get a second coat on her, wrapping my hand in a Wal-Mart sack as protective gear.  It doesn’t work all that well, I’d suggest elbow-length dish gloves from the get-go if you want to try this nonsense.

After 2 coats of spray paint dried (on my skin!), I went back out to the shed just before sunset and sprayed a clear gloss enamel on the chandelier.  And then I painted my fingernails pink to cover up the brown spray paint.

The chain holding up the chandelier was downright gross and I surely didn’t want to try to paint the wires and the individual rings so I sewed a sleeve for it.  I just got a half yard of dollar fabric (way too much!), cut out a long rectangle and sewed up the sides inside out.  I flipped it back to slide down over the chain and scrunch into place.

Chandy hung in the shed for another week til I could get back to her.  I swung by Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon burning a hole in my pocket the next Saturday.  I couldn’t decide what else to add to my project- little crystals or rope trim?  Shades?  It looked like it needed something, I just couldn’t figure out what.  Lo and behold, I found the last 5 PERFECT mini lamp shades at the “Lobby” and the truly magical part was that they were 50% off!  Deep red shades with some fun trim would be the perfect accent to a lighting fixture that I wasn’t even sure even worked!

After putting it together and taking it apart 3 times before I figured out where all the pieces went (remember, pictures!), I put in new bulbs, popped the shades on, put on my wire cover, Scot fastened Chandy up into the ceiling.  One drumroll, a flick of the light switch and TA DA!!!!!  I felt like Clark Griswold at Christmas!  Beautiful, magical light!  What a glorious display!  There may have been a happy dance involved.  Anyway, I love it and I’m excited to share it with you!

Total cost for this NEW chandelier:

Chandy- $9

Primer- $3.50

Hammered Finish paint- $7

Clear enamel gloss- $2

Fabric- $0.50
5 mini lamp shades-$15

TOTAL- $37 for the WIN!!!

 

party/chick (see what i did there?)

We threw a Mardi Gras party last night, a subject I’ll just lightly touch on because, well, apparently I don’t remember the second half of it.  I love to cook and had a ton of friends over for jambalaya, red beans and rice, shrimp-stuffed pistolette rolls, cheese sausage puffs, Cajun bbq chicken, crab cakes, bacon-Nutella brownies, and a King Cake.  It was a TON of fun.  Over the course of 5 hours, I had exactly 2 drinks (okay, so they were Hurricanes made with a splash of Bacardi 151, but it wasn’t much.)  This is where I found out that, although I am now 30 and have the appearance of a 24 year old (so I’m told), I have the insides and recover-ability of a 40 year old.  It turned into one of those nights a girl needs a hair clip in the bathroom, if you catch my drift.  This morning, after sleeping off and on until noon, all I could moan was “What happened?  I used to be able to do this!”  Not cool.  But, if the success of a party is dependent on the number of friends who crashed in various rooms of your house (3) and the amount of glitter on the floor, we totally rocked it.

Also, in new news…our neighbors have chickens.

This was discovered yesterday when we heard the cat going absolutely batty outside and looked through the pool screen to find a baby chick peeping at her and it was royally pissing her off.  Scot grabbed Bella and I squeezed out the door (it’s a little-used door behind the swing) and grabbed the chick.  I started next door to return it and found another one a few feet away, and another one a few feet after that.  After capturing all 3 (which looked exactly as you think it would- I was bending over, arms outstretched, waddling after them going “heeeere chickie chickie”) I knocked on the neighbor’s front door.  First time meeting the neighbors.  Nice lady, she only speaks about 60% English but we managed to get the chicks back into their little cage she had on her back porch.  Then she said “Uh oh, dere eees one more…” We went back out the side gate and found the 4^th chick, which was heading over towards our screen door.  Back in the cage he went.

This afternoon, we heard the sound of the chicks “peep peep peep”-ing again.  It was louder than usual (we can hear them from the yard next door in their cage), so we went outside and what do you know, there they are again, all 4, taunting the cat from the screen door again.  I told Scot to grab the cat and meet me outside with some twisty ties, then I went out the door and waddled around capturing chicks.  Again.  They almost got away from me, running under the bushes this time, but I managed to scoop them up just in time.  I went straight into the neighbor’s back yard to return them to their cage, waving at Diana through her living room door.  She came out, apologizing and laughing, and we put the chicks back in the cage.  Scot came through the gate with the twisty ties and I wired the cage shut.  The little doors on it were just spring-loaded and did not lock, which means that those 4 freaking chicks were either super crafty or flat-out bionic to push through it.  And the fact that ALL 4 of them escaped every time means that they ALL pushed through the door one at a time (or, as Scot suggested, they came up with a plan to intentionally taunt my cat and one held the door open and the others all used team work to climb out, “Mission Impossible” style or something.)  I do expect fresh eggs in a few months, because these chicks owe me their lives. 

note to self: buy socks with the little grippy things on the bottom...

Here’s my pitch to the DIY network for their newest show: “Scot And Maggie Renovate A House” (title is up for negotiation).  “This reality show follows a central Florida couple as they watch Youtube for instructions and then tear things apart and attempt to remodel their home.  Previous projects include 2 bathrooms and 2 guest bedrooms.  The first episode has them ripping up carpet and busting up floor tile to install 900 square feet of wood flooring- Scot leads the way and Maggie ends up injuring herself every half hour, which through the magic of television looks like every 3 minutes…”

On second thought, the show would warrant an “MA” rating for strong language and probably end up on Showtime at 11pm.

But anyway, this was the big project we’d been planning for!  It took 9 days and we used up every single piece of flooring, save for ONE.  How’s that for calculations?  We broke a hammer, a screwdriver, wore holes in 2 pairs of gloves (then tried to duct tape over those holes but just ended up taping our [meaning, MY] fingers to the gloves), and on the home stretch of the project, Scot finally broke the tapping block.  If you’ve ever put in a wood laminate floor before, the tapping block is kind of a VERY important tool and the damn thing broke on a Sunday night at 9pm.  Tools and I don’t get along very well- I beat myself up with the mallet and never did get a handle on that pull-bar thingy that you beat with a hammer to snap all the pieces together.  I’m really good as supervising and sweeping, ok?

We had some great friends to help us out along the way- Doug came by to assist with the demo: moving furniture, pulling up carpet and padding and busting a bajillion square feet of really grody tile.  For 4 days, the fridge and stove were occupying the living room and we were both really sick of take-out by that time.  Our friend Justin came by on the second day to help us chip away all the mortar from under the tile because apparently whoever lay the tile thought they were icing a damn birthday cake and it was so thick all we could do is tap a chisel into it with a hammer for 8 hours straight.  After that, I was back at work and Scot worked all day at the house putting down the actual floor.  When I got home, we kept working.  And the next morning, we did some more.  And the day after that.  And the day after that… Good god when did 900 square feet get so big???  Then I realized- yeah that’s bigger than my old apartment.  This is actually really HUGE project.  There was so much dust in the air that all I did during the week was *cough cough cough hack cough cough.*  It sounded really pathetic.

Finally, yesterday when I got home from work- it was magical!  Like walking in on a surprise home makeover show!  While I was at work all day, Scot finished the entire project- floors done, baseboards done, furniture moved off the back porch (oh just ASK me how ghetto THAT felt to have everything on the patio for a week!) and everything was swept clean and dusted, with a scented candle burning to top it all off…AND...AAAAAAAND…Dinner in the oven!!!!!

I love this guy J

So we’re living with it now and it looks fantastic!  The cat is still adjusting, it’s pretty funny when she tries to run and slips and can’t quite make the sharp turns she could on the carpet.  Heh heh.

Anyway, I’ve got a couple decorating projects lined up so check back in a bit!