Week 19: Dinner Calendar

"What are we having for dinner?" is a constant question in our household. In January, we decided to switch off nights (I am lucky enough to have a husband that enjoys cooking!) for dinner. Our system worked well then spring vacations happened and it was hard getting back into the swing of things. I saw some really cute dinner calendars online, which are adorable and cute. But, I wasn't sure if we were going to stick with the whole idea of writing our meals down each month. I wanted a simpler calendar to start on this new organizing adventure.

When I was at Target recently they had calendar wall decals on clearance. So I picked one up and I think that the purple goes quite well as an accent color. Remember: This is a trial. I also grabbed some poster board. (That was Step 1). Step 2: Unroll the decal and peel the paper backing off. Step 3: Smooth out any air bubbles with a Baby Symphony CD0, this is will only work with a Baby Symphony CD... just kidding. Step 4 (not pictured): Cut off excess poster board. That is it so simple. The decal even came with a dry eraser marker for my convince.  

I put our calendar on a picture frame easel that I had from something else, I am not even sure why I had it. I wrote on the top who was cooking each day and what we had going one that would keep up from eating at home. It is working fine but the best part is that it is a guide and I don't have to follow it to a T. Flexibility is the key in our house.

Week 17: Kitchen Chairs

I found some extremely retro 70s chairs at Goodwill (for $4.99 each) a while back when Andy had just finished making the new kitchen table. Now I have to admit that the chairs were pretty 'cool' in there own right but they just didn't go with our house. Bummer. I had been looking for oilcloth for the chairs for a long time, in the stores and online. Nothing really screamed out at me. So in a last ditch effort, because I wanted to use the chairs, I bought some white picnic table fabric from Hobby Lobby. I think a yard was under $4.00 and I thought 'whatever it works for now especially for the price.' I only bought a yard and didn't cover both chairs so I headed back to Hobby Lobby to buy an additional 1/2 yard of the white fabric to finish the chairs and found this black and white damask outdoor fabric. The tag said it was soap and water washable so I decided to give it a try instead of the white fabric that I didn't even care about.

And I gotta tell you am diggin' the last minute change!

The chair with the booster seat on it still has the white table cloth fabric because I thought it would work out a bit better and clean easier for me with the really messy, I throw food on the floor and wipe food every where including these nicely recovered chairs because I don't know the difference between your hard work to recover these chairs and the cool original retro look. When we are done with booster chairs I will finish that chair with the matching fabric.

I spray painted the legs black and first used Zinsser spray primer. It seems to be sticking I am guessing that I will eventually have to do some touch up but to me that is not a big deal. I took off the seat and just used a staple gun to attach the fabric. And for the seat back I sewed the fabric to essentially make a pillow case. It is not permanently attached so I can take it off when we are doing something extremely messy like eating spaghetti or finger painting. I do have to go back and check to see if the fabric is machine washable too or just soapy water washable.

Here are the chairs pushed in with the gray table which are a perfect height for each other and push in so close to the table it doesn't mess up the walkway we were aiming for when we Andy built the table.

Week 15: Another Organized Drawer

I found a fourth basket at Goodwill gave it the same once over in Espresso spray paint and put in my junk drawer. I did first empty out the drawer and "ditch" a lot of priceless items I didn't' need anymore. I love having my pens and one pair of scissors easily accessible and ready to grab at a moments notices. Now I just need the address the issue of why I am a hoarder of pens?!?

Update on Week 4 Challenge

I wanted to give an update on my Week 4: Utensil Drawer Organzation, I found two more baskets to help me stay organized and it is working awesome! I was so happy to find at Goodwill the long basket to hold all of my spoons! And mini basket, also a Goodwill find, for my measuring spoons. No more baskets needed for this drawer. Stay tuned for another drawer organized with baskets!

Week 13: New Kitchen Light

So I told you all about selling our light fixtures to a nice lady from Craigslist here. Well we didn't want a hanging light in the kitchen, it didn't make sense to continually hit our head on it. So we settle for this no frills spot light in stainless steel. Nothing fancy, nothing special but gets the job done. Andy got it up in about 20 minutes and we had light!

Week 12: New Kitchen Table

We bought this solid wood circle table and six chairs last summer at a garage sale. The purpose of the purchase was for the chairs to go with our dining room table after we sprayed them black and the table we would resell on Craigslist. Well Andy and our neighbor talked me into putting the table in our kitchen and removing the tall four person square table we had in there. Well the way the "new" table was placed in the kitchen the chairs we always sticking out. So we generally tried to have only two chairs at the table but with my daycare kids that made it extremely annoying to constantly moving chairs over to the table and back and here and there and this way and that way... see how annoying?

So, I was thinking that we could build a table and put in a bench with a lid that lifted that would also be storage. Andy thought that he could build a table that was narrow enough to keep the walk way to the back door as free as possible and he was thinking that a bench was good too but if we could push the table over the bench when it is not being used that would help with the walking area even more. So we let the storage idea go and used some wood and brackets that we already had for the bench. The whole thing, table and bench, was just under $50!!!

I found two chairs at Goodwill for $4.99/each and want to recover them in an oil cloth, I just have to find a cute one to use, and they will go opposite the bench and push in completely under the table. (We had to use chairs too so that the booster seats would be safe and secure, which wouldn't happen on the bench.) I am pretty proud of my little carpenter, he is really getting the hang of this building thing!

Week 11: Plate Wall

Our kitchen has an angled wall. It is open at the bottom with railings that look down to our family room playroom. It has been blank since we moved in. A while back I saw a plate wall on The Nester and thought I could do that. So I first collected all white serving plates that I had and then kept a look out for a few months at second hand stores. I was looking for plates or serving dishes in different shapes and with various detail on them.

I hung the plates at Christmas, before I decided to document the changes to our house. I had a few fall because of the way I choose to hang them. We lost two : ( So this is the before picture from the other day.

Here it is today. Not bad. I still want another circular dish to go in the top right where the little square dish is and then I will move out the square dish so it is mirrored on both sides. But I figure the wall is big so this will be an ongoing collection and will change many times as I find more. But for now, I am calling it complete!

Week 4: Organizing the Utensil Drawer

I don't think I need to give an explanation of why I thought that organizing this drawer would help out on a daily hourly basis. I do have to admit that I felt a bit like Rachel Ray sifting through the drawer looking for what I needed. I was always amazed, when I watched her show, at hour she was always looking for a spoon. So I decided to tackle the drawer.

Once I got everything out of the drawer I realized that the contact paper that the previous owners had put in had seen better days. I thought about what I had on had. Scrapbook paper, spray adhesive, and mod podge. Let's give it a try.

I laid out the scrapbook paper and cut it to fit the drawer. Then I sprayed the spray adhesive on the paper and the drawer (not pictured) then positioned in back in the drawer.

After all four pieces were in place then I moved on to the mod podge. I applied a really thin layer to the paper with a foam brush and let it dry.

I found this basket at Goodwill for $1.99 and it looked fine like this but since I did the drawer all nice and pretty with the paper I thought the basket should look good too!

So it got a good coat of Espresso spray paint by Rustoleum. Looking good and ready for the drawer!

AHHH! More organized and it feels so good! I am still on the look out for another shallow and longer basket for all my spoons, tongs, ice cream scoop, ect.

Disclaimer: I have no idea if the scrapbook paper with mod podge will hold up. But I figured it can't be worse than what it was before and if it is then I will go and get traditional contact paper.