1,215 treats later...

Happy Halloween!

This year, the Man and I were prepared.  We've been stockpiling all September and October long..

We had a blast with the trick-or-treaters last year.  But we ran out too soon.

This year, we were able to keep the porch light on for about 2 hours.

We gave out over 1,215 treats...

in two hours.

That's over 10 treats per minute. Whew!

Yeah, we're the awesome house on the hill...at least Iron Man/Thor/a random TMNT thought so.

Hope your Halloween was full of fun, stocked with spooks, and coated in chocolate!

Thankfully we remembered to save a few treats back for ourselves....

... beware Mr. Reese's cup.. your time is up!

spraypaint a thon

A few weeks back, I decided to have a little spray-paint party.  I had a collection of thrifted and yard sale frames and mirrors, as well as a lamp and light fixture that were all in need of a facelift.

After taping everything off with my favorite Frog tape,

I spread everything out on some cardboard in the garage.

And went to town with primer,white gloss, and brushed nickel paint.

One thing I need to remember, anytime you paint in a closed space-- even with ventilation-- overspray is always an issue.  Thankfully the Man was very forgiving when he saw the white "dust" all over everything in the garage.

very forgiving...

Next time, I'll spraypaint outside.  I promise.

brassy to classy

I'm not a big fan of brass.  Our bathroom light fixture was all brass. Granted the bones of it were pretty, and somewhat similar to the style I liked for our kitchen.  The Man knew as soon as I asked him to remove it, that I had plans for it.. although I reasurred him that we were saving money!

I taped off the fixtures with my favorite Frog Tape.

I used two coats of spray primer, followed by two coats of Rustoleum Universal Satin Nickel.

We replaced the globes with some rejects from our kitchen cieling fan, and the Man mounted the light upside down (by my request). It had previously been hung with the globes facing down, however that would make the mirror frame a bit tight-- and I wanted to emphasize what little height we have in the bathroom.

This picture is a little dark, but I had to turn the light out to get a somewhat decent picture. 

Not too shabby for a $7 fix.

Have you spraypainted a light fixture before? Any tips?

**Edit: The Man wanted me to remind everyone that spraypainting the "screw holes" could lead to extreme frustration to the installer, and to make sure and not mess up the threads.

Yes, sir.  I'll try to remember that next time.. :)  You'll be amazed what a silver sharpie can fix, just sayin'.**

a cabinet conundrum..

The other day, I was walking through the kitchen and noticed something alarming.  I believe my exact words to the Man were "Honey, I think we have a problem..."

One of our cabinets had come loose.  It was barely hanging in place about two inches from the wall. 

I didn't take any pictures at the time, because I was so stunned. 

We instantly cleared all the dishes and glassware from the cabinet, the Man grabbed his screwgun and went to work.  A few minutes later, things were much more secure.

The next day, our cube cabinet started doing the same thing.  I had about 30 cookbooks in it, and I guess that was just too much for the screws (which once again, must have missed the studs) to handle. Surprisingly, the cabinets have held for almost a year. After the Man attacked this with about 10 more screws, we had the ultimate quality tester give it a try..

Our 20 pound Loki-monster decided the empty cabinet was a perfect hang-out spot.

He seemed pretty happy, but I'm hoping to find a lightweight storage solution that won't strain the cabinet like my 30+ cookbooks did.

We finally got him out the cabinet, but I'm glad the Man's fix kept our cabinets on the wall.  Even with the cats exploring every nook and cranny. I'm so grateful that it didn't turn into a larger repair.

Have you had any surprising repairs recently? 

towel bar trouble

In been prepping to paint our guest bathroom, part of the fun (between the taping, sanding, re-caulking and hole-patching) has been removing our lovely towel bars.  I'm not a fan of the spotty chrome that's flaking in places and hope to replace them with something more our style.

It doesn't help that the previous owners globbed paint around the edges.. which led to prying the towel bar off the wall.

And there's more!  Along with the gloopy paint ridge, I found remnants of more wallpaper..

How lovely!  Hunter green, pink, mauve, navy, cream, and gold... for some reason this makes me think of the "Fresh Prince" mansion.  Why?  I have no idea.

Other than a few surprises, it was really simple to remove the towel bars.  I was pretty unsure where to start, but I followed these steps and it took maybe 5-10 minutes to remove three towel bars:

1. Find the teeny hidden screw at the underside of the bar mounts.
2. Unscrew using a teeny precision flathead screwdriver (and if needed use a razor-blade to cut through gloopy paint) slowly work the towel bar mount loose from the wall.
3. Once the bar is removed, use a phillips head to remove the mounts from the wall.
4. Patch holes and sand smooth.

Pretty simple.  In my case, I had to soak a sponge in HOT water and use the barely moistened sponge to loosen the wallpaper adhesive.  It took a few minutes before I could carefully peel the wallpaper off.  I made sure to let things dry out before patching and sanding.

I'm hoping we can find some cool towel bars on clearance somewhere that are more our taste. 

This Fontaine set on Overstock looks pretty neat.. but is expensive!

  I'm also drawn to the "Preston" by Moen.  I found these at Home Depot and they're closer to our price range.

For now, I'll keep my eyes open for a good deal... hopefully I can cling to patience and my stubborness to not spend more than my budget allows.

going batty..

With all that's been going on around the nerdy nest, it would seem like there wouldn't be time for crafting.. oh no..not so!

I continued the tradition of girl's craft nights with some of the awesome ladies from the office.  This time around, it was decided we were making yarn-wrapped wreaths or wreaths adorned with felt flowers.  I was determined to add some fun to my Halloween decor, so I went with a lime, purple and black color scheme.

I really like the way the colors play off the papercut I made for last year's Halloween mantle.

I also took some glittery foam bats ($1/pack at JoAnn's), remaining yarn, and lots of hot glue to make a garland while we finished off some of the potluck goodies and cracked up while watching "Bridesmaids." That movie is hilarious!

For a final view of the mantle, you can see where I added in some spiderwebs, my vintage ceramic haunted house (made by Dear Mother) during her ceramics phase, our "House on the Hill" papercut from last year, the Man's favorite skull candle, and a few Target clearance headstones from the 80% off bin last Halloween.

 

The tall black candlestand (on the bottom right) is just waiting for a funky white pumpkin, a simple orange pretty, or maybe I'll finally cave and buy one of the glittery ones from the Dollar Spot at Target this week.

I still have a few things to add to our decor outside-- like a giant fuzzy purple spider, some tombstones, and hopefully a pumpkin or two, but I'll save that for closer to All Hallow's Eve.

For now, I'm doing good to not raid our stash of Halloween candy.  We've been stockpiling this year in preparation for the onslaught of little goblins like we had last year.

Have you any tricks or treats going on at your house of haunts?

Are you feeling a bit batty this time of year?


I linked this up at the Halloween link up party over at Eighteen25.

another weekend gone..

This weekend flew by in a whirlwind, as weekends often do. Here's what I managed to cross off my weekend to do list:

Saturday:
+ get oil changed
+ take car to dealership to replace super special can't find anywhere else wiper blades
+ take books/cd's to Hastings to sell
+ try not to spend any money on books at Hastings  (FAIL! I did only spend part of the store credit I recieved from selling my used books.  I found two used books by one of my favorite authors Jen Lancaster. She's hilarious!)
+ run by the library and drop off magazines for the free bin (and maybe a quick visit with Dear Mother)
+ check out a few thrift stores for some CHEAP books (to prep for down time since I'm getting my wisdom teeth out next week) I found some awesome chick lit books for about $.50-$.75 each, and three wedding planning books.  Yes, I'm that type of girl.  Guilty as charged.
+ go out to the Dad's place with the Man to help him clean out part of his shop
+ start attacking the PILES of laundry I finished 2 of the 5 loads Saturday night!
+ fix my Halloween wreath where the ribbon fell off, again I forgot to do this one.. and it was bugging me when I left for work this morning!
+ chill with the Man

Sunday:
+ finish the laundry I still have one more load to put away.
+ wash dishes
+ clean kitchen!
+ attack the rest of the house with a cleaning vengeance! Yeah.. apparently I wasn't feeling too vengeful Sunday...
+ attend a Willow House party hosted by one of my favorite B's
+ try not to spend too much $$ at said party Okay, so I bought something.. but it's versatile, and pretty.. and I'll use it all the time!!
+ meet up and tour potential wedding venue Done and LOVE!!
+ maybe figure out a meal plan for the week Close enough to a plan.. ish.
+ prep for the work week.. yay!


So I got a lot done, but I have so much more to do this week before I'm out of commission for a while.. yay wisdom teeth.. :-/

See how everyone else did over at MyHappyHouse.

oh weekend..

I heart you.

I thought I'd play along with the Weekend Planning blog hop and try for a quick belated weekend planning post.  Here's what I'm hoping to accomplish this weekend:

Saturday:
+ get oil changed
+ take books/cd's to Hastings to sell
+ try not to spend any money on books at Hastings
+ run by the library and drop off magazines for the free bin (and maybe a quick visit with Dear Mother)
+ check out a few thrift stores for some CHEAP books (to prep for down time since I'm getting my wisdom teeth out next week)
+ go out to the Dad's place with the Man to help him clean out part of his shop
+ start attacking the PILES of laundry
+ fix my Halloween wreath where the ribbon fell off, again
+ chill with the Man

Sunday:
+ finish the laundry
+ wash dishes
+ clean kitchen!
+ attack the rest of the house with a cleaning vengeance!
+ attend a Willow House party hosted by one of my favorite B's
+ try not to spend too much $$ at said party
+ meet up and tour potential wedding venue
+ maybe figure out a meal plan for the week
+ prep for the work week.. yay!

That's just a few of the specifics on my to-do list for this weekend.  I hope everyone is having a productive and at the same time relaxing weekend.. if nothing else, the weather here is a-may-zing! So enjoy it!


Don't forget to link up with the blog hop over at MyHappyHouse.

a bit of nerdy news...

A week ago, on October 4th, the Man and I celebrated our third anniversary of dating. We went to Olive Garden for dinner as we do every year, somewhat recreating our first date. Plus, who doesn't love a little Italian food, those breadsticks, and the best little mints I've ever met?

We always have a good time together, and that night was no different. It was a perfect evening and I thought it couldn't get any better. I was wrong.

The Man surprised me, as we walked up to our front door, by getting down on one knee and asking me to marry him.  I was a mix of shocked, stunned and completely thrilled.  I still am and couldn't be happier.

Not only was his proposal perfectly us, but so is the story behind it all.  I'll save you from the sappiness. But I know I wouldn't be your typical (albeit nerdy) bride to be if I didn't include the requisite ring pic.



I think he did alright. ;)

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