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Rain Rain go away!

THIS is the only kind of water falling on my head that is acceptable....


I'm a bit sick of this rain...rain is putting it nicely i suppose...more like daily tornado warning!  For my friends up north, who laugh off tornado warnings because of the mountains and hills that keep them from being much of a reality..... This was what our weekend looked like in Kentucky.....



I learned pretty quickly that when the weather man tells you to get in the basement and take cover...he means it.  We had a nice break in weather yesterday but we are expecting more this week. 

With all this moisture in the air it's hard to do any projects that are going to require paint or stain to dry.  I have an end table that is begging to be stained so it can match it's partner and a bench that I REALLY REALLY want to refinish, but it has a laminate top on it and a lot of detail on the front so I'm going to take my time and research some things before I dive into that mess.  I really haven't had much time to breathe lately, I'm working full time at UK, going to grad school full time, just picked up a part time case work job and I have a votre vu show this weekend. 

We have some great mothers day packages by the way :) You should check it out! http://www.votrevu.com/sites/angiem


I guess I better stop blogging and finish working on the presentation I have to give tonight!

Boutique me !

Well, I think it's finally spring! It actually felt more like summer today, the high was 85 in Lexington today, which means we are probably due for a snowstorm next week.  Since Kalen was out of town all weekend I found it a lot harder to sleep in.  I was up pretty early on Saturday.  The best of the Bluegrass was this weekend.  The Best of the Bluegrass is basically a weekend full of events that celebrate Kentucky  It was opening weekend at Keeneland Race track, the first weekend for the farmers market, Maker's Mark had a bar crawl, there was a chili cook off, free concerts by local artists etc . . . despite the storms we had Saturday...what a great weekend for it.  I went to the farmer's market early Saturday morning, then stopped by some local boutiques that I've been wanting to check out. . . but neither of them were open.  It was 11am, so I can't imagine what kind of hours they have if they weren't open by then.  It's no wonder they all go out of business. Anyway, I went to a friends later in the day to help she and her hubby lay down some laminate floors. . . aka hold their sweet baby girl and keep her entertained while they laid down their new laminate floors :).

I now have more respect for baby mama's .... I was SO tired and my back was killing me after just a few hours of entertaining that sweet little one. I can't imaging doing it all day!

Old red Couch, New Blue headboard

This is what happens when Kalen goes out of town and I have homework and cleaning that I need to do. I find a project to tackle.  For Christmas this year, Kalen and I bought ourselves some new living room furniture.  Out with the old and in with the new! We gave one of our couches to a friend who needed one, and the other couch had seen better days so we decided to just get rid of it.  To get it out of the way, we moved it down into our storage room on the first floor, where we could just take it out the front door, load it up in a friend's truck, and take it to the dumpster.  Well, as we normally do, we've procrastinated a bit and that couch has been sitting in our storage room since then.  And I'm tired of looking at it, although is has been useful in a sense because Kalen decided that we should use the cushions to block off the doorway and keep the dog out of that room. But other than that, the couch is just in the way, and has to go. SO instead of hauling it down to the dumpster....I decided that I'll use it! For what? A headboard! Yea I know what you're thinking.... How is the heck  is that going to work?  That's kind of what I was thinking before I started, but once I get it in my head that I am going to do something....it gets done :) So here we go!

This is what I started with. The old red couch with no legs.

I took off the slip cover and saved it for the next piece of ugly furniture that comes our way.

Next, I flipped that bad boy over and went to town tearing the bottom and fabric off.  If you've ever wondered, couches are held together by staples....thousands of them!

I wasn't sure what to do with the springs, so I left them alone

Moooooore staples!

Lilly was my little helper.  She also felt the need to prove to me that those cushions do not keep her out of that room. She just hops right over them.



This is the back part of the couch, and most likely what I'll use for the headboard.  I also saved the fabric that was stretched across it because it was pretty sturdy.

Something else that couches are made with . . . GLUE. I had to chisel the old glue off so that I could pry the pieces apart.  The wood was old so most things that I pryed ended up in pieces.

.....did you really think I'd get through this without bleeding? This would later require a tetanus shot because when I woke up the next morning, my knuckle was was swollen and didn't want to bend.

So maybe I made a little bit of a mess .....

Break time! After all the blood and sweat from getting that stupid couch apart, I decided I needed some 3 cheese Nachos from Qdoba!

Now for the easy part....stretch and staple! I took the old foam padding from the couch and stapled it to the frame of the headboard to cover up the old staples that were sticking out. Then I stretched and stapled the fabric I saved over the frame.

 I found these curtains at IKEA years ago in the "as is" bin and got them for $4 ! Over the years this fabric has come in handy and I love that it was so cheap! I'm kind of an IKEA freak.

I couldn't decide which way I wanted the stripes to go.  I ended up going Vertical because I didn't want so much green in it. 

Same as before, I just stretched and stapled the fabric to the frame. . . and Lilly had to be right in the middle of it all

FINALLY done!

Now I just have to figure out of I want to anchor it to the bed frame, or to the wall....overall I'm please with the outcome.  However, I would not recommend taking a couch apart if you want to make a headboard...go get some plywood and it won't take nearly as long, and there will probably be less blood.

At least this tetanus should cover me for the next ridiculous idea that I have :)

Projects

I love my projects! I haven't really started on any good ones this year, unless you count painting some flower pots and replanting and planting some flowers. Some things on my agenda this year are to, finish re staining my dresser that I started last year. I did the side table, and the drawers, but the base was too big for me to get downstairs, and the weather go too cold to keep the windows open so I had to wait.

This is the finished product of my side table

Another thing I was all about last year was painting!  Since we can't really do much to our townhouse, because it's rented, I thought why not paint :) We subleased from friends that had already done a fabulous job of coloring our humble abode but I just wanted to make a few changes.
I stared with painting our Mexican restaurant orange kitchen wall.....

Rita and Stephanie came through with the assist since there would be plenty of priming to do before we painted it the new color that I picked out.

After what seemed like FOREVER we finally got the orange covered up! Now for the new color :)
GOLD! Surprisingly most of the guys that had seen the wall before preferred the orange to the gold, BUT...they don't have to live in the Mexican restaurant so their opinion doesn't matter :)

Viola! The finished product! To appreciate this yellow you must know that the wall adjacent to it, in our living room is a deep teal color. The yellow really warmed it up and made the contrast less bold. Now I don't feel like I should be eating Taco's for every meal :)

When the previous tenants moved out, they left us all the left over paint that they had from their various projects around the house.  SO....when I got bored I'd take what paint I had and well....start painting things!
One of these spur of the moment projects was my bedroom. I decided I needed a green wall!

It was a rather compulsive decision but I LOVE my green wall! Since then I've refinished the furniture in the room and made it darker, I found a nice little wall hanging with candles that hangs over the bed, and I've covered the bed with a chocolate comforter.

This room happens to sit on the sunny side of the house, and boy does it get warm in there in the summer!  I went to a place called Two Sisters in Mt. Sterling, Ky to pick up some cheap curtain rods and curtains.  I wasn't a fan of Two Sisters at all. It was disorganized, no one was willing to help, and everything in there smelled like smoke.  I'd heard of another wholesale place just down the road called Rudy's.  I like this place a lot better.  They didn't have as much junk, and what they did have was quality stuff.  They do require cash or check payments though so if you plan on going on a shopping spree bring some cash!  They have comforter sets, and curtain rods, and curtains, and furniture, and jewelry boxes, and all kinds of wonderful random stuff!

I got these floor to ceiling double lined curtains and the extra long curtain rod for $15 at Rudy's! How exciting is that! Pretty exciting...

Another random project that I decided to do because I was bored and had a little extra paint left over from the living room walls was my little white kitchen stand.  I've had this thing forever, I think it came from IKEA once upon a time.  I've used it as a kitchen stand, a microwave stand, a TV stand... you name it.  Right now it's in my kitchen, and it's white, and starting to get scratched and ugly...SO....I decided to Paint it :)

I painted it with a brush first, and where it has a laminate finish, and i didn't sand it down before i started it left brush marks. So...and easy solution to that was to dab it with a paper towel to give it some texture and get rid of those lines.

Little Lilly even got in on the action  :)

I am pretty happy with the finished product.  Since it wasn't sanded or primed the paint scratches off pretty easily but that's OK. The next stop for this stand is the dumpster anyway.  I figured I'll use it until we move again and make it pretty while I have it.


Along with attempting to grow things I can eat, those were my projects last summer.  I'm sure there will be plenty more this summer if I can find the time.

Sunday Funday

Sunday Funday ... This is probably the most productive thing I've done today.  Actually that's not true, I did some laundry, took the dog for a walk, went to the grocery, planted some forget-me-nots, replanted some Hyacinths (my house smells like spring now:) ), and unintentionally took a very long,  my phone rang 3 times and i didn't hear it when I woke up I wasn't sure what day it was...nap.  Don't you love those?  SO I guess I did get some things accomplished today.  Oh, and I killed a giant centipede.  If you get the heeby jeebies abt bugs now is when you want to stop reading.  For the longest time I thought  this nasty thing, was called a silverfish.  They were all over the old house that I lived in when I was in college.  Imagine taking a shower, and seeing one of these bad boys come out of the drain and scurry toward you.  And by the way, they have 15 pairs of legs as an adult, so they aren't exactly slow.  With four girls in one house, and these things popping up whenever they felt like it, you can imagine the screams that came out of that bathroom.  At first we were pretty sure someone was being killed.  Then it just got to be a normal occurrence.  I have not had to deal with these little ass holes since I moved out of that house thank goodness.  When Kalen and I lived in Cleveland, our house was on a large lot, with a field behind the property.  We had HUNDREDS of roley poley bugs that crept in through the foundation. HUNDREDS.  They were annoying, but weren't really threatening because if you came near one, they just rolled up in a ball and played dead.  Then there were the wolfe spiders.  Big, freakin crunch and bleed when you step on them if you can catch them spiders.  Lets get one thing straight...I DO NOT LIKE SPIDERS. Not at all.  But given where we lived,  I had to deal with the fact that they were around, and learn not to leave anything on the floor that I didn't want a spider in/on.  These spiders weren't aggressive, they were just huge and hairy and scary looking.  I still didn't like them, but I made my peace with them because they ate all of the smaller spiders, and weird little bugs that came out of that field and made it into our house.  So after I saw one of these nasty centipedes today, I decided to google them to see  what purpose they serve.   They basically serve no purpose.... I mean they eat other bugs and stuff too, but there are plenty of other creatures that have that covered, so I really thinkg their sole purpose is to freak me out. For Real. I HATE them.  They are so fast, and if you can catch one to smash it...it's legs twitch....all of them....UGH. EWE.  I know this is a random post but...whatever no one really reads this anyway :)

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt! 

 They just put a new one in close to my house and it could be DANGEROUS! Absolutely love this stuff! For those of you who haven't been, it's all self serve, soft serve yogurt, in  every flavor you could want, with every topping you could want! Just don't load it down too much! You pay per oz.!

Old Pictures

I love coming across old pictures! It's amazing how different (or the same) people look sometimes! Not to mention the wonderful memories and stories that go along with them

Bachelorette Parties

Ok girls... can someone get divorced and get married again so we can have another party in Nashville? Or 4th street? Or maybe a beach somewhere next time ? I love some time with my old married ladies, and my soon to be married old married ladies.  Nothing like a good old fashioned girls weekend before someone takes the plunge!

THIS PUPPY !

If you know me at all you know I'm a little obsessed with my 3lb bundle of furry fire! I never thought in a million years I would ever want a yippy, hyper little chihuahua (mix), but boy has Lilly proved me wrong! I found she and her sister online almost a year ago and when I went to visit these 1.9lb babies, her sister didn't want anything to do with me, and this little rascal just crawled up on my shoulder and tucked her head into my neck and that was all she wrote...I had to have her! 

Photography ( my own)

Jereme Stephens introduced me to the wonderful world of photography! I started off as his model and now i'm loving being on the other side of the lens!

Dave Matthews Band

I can't explain it. He's weird and I love him! I've seen them in concert for the last 12 years in a row...and if I don't get to see them on the Caravan tour this year...I. MIGHT. DIE.

My friend's Children

Real children, and furry children alike. . . I can love them, and spoil them, and then give them back :)

VERY cool tattoos

NO I wouldn't get a tattoo of this nature....HOWEVER, I do think it's extremely cool, and the artist is pretty amazing! I love watching Tattoo Shows just to see some of the amazing work that they do!

COPS!

Bad  Boys! Bad Boys! What'cha gonna do?

This show provides endless entertainment for me.  It's amazing to me how stupid some people are!