Home Improvement Tips

If you know us at all, you know that we spend many many hours & weekends updating our little house. We love it here, but we can always find something that needs improving. We have decided that our goal is to have everything (mostly) completed by the time the second baby gets here...HOLD ON before you start thinking I am preggo, because I am not currently, nor are we officially "trying." I feel sure though, that we will be sooner rather than later, and we would like to be able to enjoy the two kiddos in this house without always having a new project on the weekends.

Two of our fans are really outdated & are covered in brass (one with white blades & one with wooded ones), so I decided that was an easy fix. Fans are what, $50 a piece? So...I bought one at Walmart, but once I got it home, I realized there was an even easier solution to this problem...PAINT! This is usually my solution to most home-related problems (more specifically BLACK paint is), but I never thought to paint my fans. But I did. And now they look completely different, and I think the total cost for updating two fans cost me $7, because I just needed one can of spray paint (I have a large collection in my garage already). I painted the one in the living room to look like it is brown iron & I painted the blades black. I painted the one in our bedroom black and the blades "latte" which is the color of my walls. Brilliant, right? Before you try this at home, I urge you to spray-prime at least the brass part of your fan with Kilz spray paint primer, so it will stick better. Check out the photos of my new fans (above)! I included some close-ups and some that are not so you can tell which fan goes in which room (phew, I knew you were worried).

I also broke down & finally bought door knobs. Our door knobs are also brass, and even though most people don't notice it when they walk into my house, it has been driving me insane after living here for 3 years! The trend I am seeing in the newer homes is to do everything in "venetian bronze" which is basically a heavy iron look. HOWEVER, my genius sis-in-law, who happens to be in the know of the plumbing/fixtures business, says that the bronze will be out just like brass was...in a few years. So, in her opinion, the safest & most timeless route to go is a silver hue. That leaves us with the following choices: satin nickel or satin chrome. Because all of my bathroom & kitchen fixtures are already chrome, I chose satin chrome for all of my interior knobs. I did go with the venetian bronze for the exterior of my front door, but I only did that because I have a lot of brown iron on my front patio. Anyway, it has taken me a really long time to gather up the nerve to spend a couple hundred bucks on freaking door knobs! Who does that? I sat looking at my cart filled with 15 items on knobsets.com for at least 3 days trying to come up with a more practical, cheaper alternative. No such luck, peeps, and you know what? When I finally clicked "submit order," I felt a huge rush of excitement to finally do something I've been wanting to do for a long time. I never knew I could be so pumped about door knobs, but I am. They are supposed to arrive on Monday, and I can hardly wait! Sad what is exciting to you when you get old.

As we speak, my precious hubby is outside working on his garage/man room. That's right...we're semi-converting the garage to a functional space in our home. We never park there, so it really is just wasted space. Blake managed to hang, tape & float all of the sheetrock completely by himself, and it looks amazing. He is sanding it all down now, so that we can paint the walls, the ceiling and the floor tomorrow & have it complete by the end of this weekend. It's going to be a great game-space for adults/guys to hang out with a couch, a TV, a firepit & of course, Blake has already managed to figure out how to run our in-ceiling speaker system to the garage, so we can have music in there. I'll of course post some photos of the final product when we are finished. The goal is to be done by this weekend (we'll see).

I will keep y'all posted on all of our improvements in the coming months. Some biggies that will be coming up are the master bath, the kitchen appliances, and building an arbor over our patio in the backyard. For now, enjoy the pictures of my beautiful fans. Can you tell I'm just a little smug? I felt like I won, when I returned the $65 fan I bought to Walmart. Good times.

Note: Thank you Katie for inspiring me to return to blogging with subject matter I can truly be passionate about.

Reality TV & Swift at the Rodeo

Okay, so my week starts with lots of wonderful reality TV, and on Monday night, of course, we have the Bachelor. I just want to say that while I really wanted it to work with Stephanie & Jason, it was clear that it was not a match, and I felt uncomfortable every time she tried to make moves on him. So...I am glad he let her go, but let me just say I thought she handled it with such class! I was very impressed! Compare her to that blondie he let go in Vegas, and you really see the girls' true colors.

Moving on to the Biggest Loser...Joelle...Need I say more? Why the excuses? What is she even talking about when she opens her mouth? Nothing makes sense. It is so strange. Then at the end, did anyone catch her reunion with her weight loss partner, Carla? I felt so sorry for Carla. She clearly wanted to clear the air, and Joelle was real weird about it. Just a strange duck. I really can't say anymore about it, except that I am glad she's gone. I wish Bob and Jillian would hook up and have a beautiful, tough-as-nails baby. Wouldn't that make America happy? One more questions that is the subject of much debate in our household: Is Bob gay? If any of you have any light to shed on this matter, please let me know.

Lastly...I have some great news! Blake & I have been invited by my dear friend Sarah (Horn) Anderson who I have not seen since my wedding day to go to the San Antonio rodeo next week to see Taylor Swift! Isn't that grand? Sarah is one of those friends where we never talk, but then when we do, it's super normal, and we feel really fine about still being friends. It's wonderful. Anyways, she got these 4 Taylor tickets for her birthday, and didn't know who to give them to, as most people over the age of 20 do not know Taylor exists. So...she randomly got on facebook and saw that I'd posted one day that I was obsessed with Swift, and she called me out of the clear blue to extend the invitation! Isn't that fun? Please see this clip to see just a few of the reasons why I am a T-SWIFT FAN! (Plus, this clip has Ellen in it too, so it's double-ly awesome.) It's 10 minutes long, I warn you, but it's worth it. Stick with it, peeps - there are 2 parts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZU_XImyTKy8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxJYPxoWv4A&feature=related

Don't you just LOVE her now? She is so darn cute! For those of you who are real fans like Sarah & me, I might, just might get you a goober T-shirt when I go see her at the rodeo. But you have to request it. So...I'll be waiting to hear from you.

My Soapbox

Hey peeps. This is really random, but let's call this my soapbox & let me hop on it real quick. When you get pregnant, suddenly you're bombarded with all of these things that you "need" in order to be a good mommy. First, there's the $800 stroller, which promises to be super light & easy to use, plus it has off-road capabilities & can turn on a dime. You find out in about 4 months, that your baby is perfectly fine & most likely prefers the Walmart "umbrella" version that you could have bought for $15.

Then there's the wipey-warmer. Now I don't want to offend all of my good friendys who use this contraption. BUT...I know I personally never had my wipeys warmed, and I turned out fine. Cash does not even know what a warm wipe feels like, therefore, he is not offended that we do not own a special warmer. In my opinion, a wipey warmer is just one more thing people tell you that you need...and believe me, you don't.

Moving on to the other warming trend...the bottle warmer. By a random fluke, Cash's first bottle came right out of the fridge, and you know what...? He's never had a warm bottle since. Again, he has no idea what he's missing, and I am not stuck searching for an outlet in any public place I go because I have to make his bottle warm.

Diaper genies...they tend to stink, and then your house smells like baby poo. Of course you don't smell it because you live there, but other peeps do. I found these great little baggies that are scented & they are $1.99 for 50 at HEB or Walmart. They have worked beautifully. But no one tells you about this when you're preggo. Instead you're guilted into spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars on items you "have to have" but that we as kids NEVER had. Interesting? I think so.

Finally, and then I'll stop...the nursery...It would be so like my personality to fall into this trap, because I love decorating. However, let me just say that there is absolutely no point in making a fab nursery for your child & stretching yourself to the limit financially in doing so...the baby sure doesn't know or care about the color scheme & the brand of the bed/bedding, and no one ever even sees the room but YOU, mom! Unless you have a special gathering of friends over JUST to see the nursery before the baby is born, the room is kind of a waste. Fun to do while preggo & anticipating the birth of your child? Yes. Economically practical? No. My advice: You go girl & do a cute nursery, but stay within your means. Save that money and use it on a fabulous "big kid" room when your baby turns 2. By then they'll have an opinion & some real likes & dislikes, and instead of sleeping in that room for 2-3 short years, they might use their second room for 10! Just some of my thoughts. Excuse the ranting.

Real Estate Perks

One of the great perks of being a real estate agent is that I have access to finding great homes that are on the market. The problem with this is that I find myself going back and forth between wanting to stay in my house until we have at least 2 children here & moving to a house that is already completely updated so we can stop doing projects EVERY weekend. For instance, since we've moved into our home 3 years ago, we've completely remodeled the kitchen, the guest bath, repainted every wall, added new carpet in the master bedroom & completed a landscaping overhaul. There is still much to do! There are stainless appliances to buy, an awning/deck to build, & a master bathroom to re-do. Again, these are the problems with the real estate world. If I did not see homes on a daily basis that I am obsessed with or that have fabulous updates/decor, I would not know the difference & thus, would be satisfied where I am. Don't get me wrong...I love my house, but it sure would be nice to take a break from home improvement projects & trips to Lowe's on the weekends.

Blogging?

Really? Blogging? I'll have you know that I have refrained from joining this world, as I feel like I have succumbed to all other media-pressures, be it facebook or myspace or itunes or what have you. I even have a brother who will give me a lecture on how self-absorbed it is to blog..."How ostentatious can you be to presume that others would care to read about the daily goings on of your life?" But here I sit...beginning my blog. It is almost 11 PM on a Friday night. I have literally not seen my husband in a week as he has been in Vegas for work. I definitely married up...Blake is so much nicer than I am. I say this because he is currently at our church picking up 9th grade boys & carting them around the city for "Freedom Weekend." Who does that, really? My husband. He is the bomb. My precious, son, Cash is sleeping peacefully in the room down the hall. I truly feel like I am the luckiest mommy in the world...Out of all the babies & all the potential mommys in the world, God chose ME to be Cash's mommy! He really is such a one-of-a-kind...a little show-stopper & my own personal blessing. So...that's a little about me, and it's a pretty good introduction. Looking forward to getting this show on the road!