Chic on a Shoestring Decorating: January 2012


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How to Stain Stair Railings and Banisters

Hello, friends!!  We finally stained our stair rails and banisters!!  

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy
Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy

how to stain stair railings

I am SO excited to finally have this project finished! After 2 and a half years of looking at it's ugly-ness everyday I am so pleased with how it turned out. 

We started with a very dirty looking oak railing and banisters.  When we moved in 2 and a half years ago we put in dark bamboo floors which made the dirty oak look even dirtier. 

After the floors were installed we did a lot of research on staining railings and everything we read said it would take several coats of stain with lots of drying time in between.  With 2 small children and unavoidable stair use every day no time was ever a good time to start this project, how were we going to keep their hands off of it after always telling them "hold the railing so you don't fall" ten times a day.

Two and a half years passed in a flash and Mr. Chic finally had enough of it.  He found a way to stain it in only 2 coats!  And let me tell you, it looks a million times better.  Seriously, a million!

The best part was that my awesome hubs, Mr. Chic, did the whole thing!  Since he's the expert (and the real writer in the family) I'll let him tell you all about it, take it away Mr. Chic!




A few weeks ago, Mrs. Chic wrote about how many projects are on her “to do” list. She just casually mentioned that a lot of those projects were on LAST year’s “to do” list.


I’ll translate: “I’ve been asking Mr. Chic to get this stuff done for two years and I’m now going to embarrass him in front of all my friends so he can feel guilty be inspired and motivated to get something done.”


I guess to be fair, she did mention my 4-month sabbatical from doing much of anything other than munching on Fritos and riding a scooter at work.  Yeah. I went to work and endless meetings on this thing:


Kneeling scooter for people wearing walking boot casts.


Plus, I’m a yard guy. When my foot’s not broken, I’d much rather be making perfect criss-cross marks in my lawn (I mow about every other day), shopping the local garden store, or planting new hydrangeas than doing anything inside.


Anyway. Mrs. Chic asked me to write this post about refinishing our stair railings.


I put off the work because I couldn’t figure out how to paint or stain the underside of the railings without taking off all the balusters (aka. spindles). But we had to get it done – the stairs and railings are one of the first things you see when you walk in our front door, and….they were gross.

how to stain stair railings
The dirty oak banisters and railings looked terrible with our new dark floors (and pretty much everything else).
Ugly railing trying to be prettied-up for Christmas.  I ended up taking off the too small bows.

I’ve never really stained anything before – so I learned a few things along the way.


1)      Sand. I used medium grit sanding sponges, then a light sanding with some fine grit. Some DIYers have done this project without sanding, but our railings were so filthy (from the previous owners) and the finish had worn off in several places, so I really had to just sand it all down and start clean.


After sanding... see all the fine dust on the floor near the top of the photo, huge mess!

2)      Wipe. Sanding made a terrible mess, and it’s important to get all the sawdust off the railings before doing any of the finishing. I used tack cloths and a dry, clean 3” paint brush to dust out the hard-to reach spots. I missed a couple spots though, and I can feel the dust under the poly.


3)      Tape. I used blue painter’s tape to tape off the areas where the posts met the carpeted stairs.


how to stain stair railings
Note the painters tape at the bottom of the stained banister.  And, what a difference in those railings!



4)      Test. We used Minwax Polyshades in Bombay Mahogany Gloss.  It’s a stain and poly mix, which means it colors and protects at the same time. We weren’t sure how it would look until I tested a small corner upstairs where nobody could see. Glad I did…we figured out we’d need 2 coats of stain to get the color we wanted.



5)      Go. I decided to take off one of the railings after all. It was a pain…but this railing leads directly into our kids’ bedrooms, so I had to get the railing stained quickly and back on while the kids were in bed and before they tried to bungee jump from the top of the stairs the next morning.



That worked well, until we tried to get 28 balusters back into the holes in the floor and the railing – at midnight while our curious 6 year old slept 5 feet away. Not so chic, but it worked, and it was worth taking it off. The other railings were not coming off though.


how to stain oak stair railings




Before you start staining Mrs. Chic wants me to tell you to open the windows, she couldn't believe how much this stuff stinks so make sure the area is well ventilated.  I stained the tops and sides of the railings first, using a 2” paint brush, being careful not to leave brush strokes. I also had to watch for drips which were easy to fix if I caught them in time.


The bottoms of the railings were a pain. I bought a really big plastic drop cloth…for about a buck…and intertwined it with the balusters to keep stain from dripping on the floor.


To stain the bottom of the railings, I used an old rag. The pros would probably say I should have used a rag for the whole job, but it didn’t let me put the stain on as thick as I needed it for the color we wanted. I found I could control the stain better on the bottoms of the railings with a T-shirt than a brush.


Instead of brushing on the stain like I did with the tops and sides, I put a little on the rag and “dabbed” it on – avoiding the balusters as best I could. It was frustrating work, and I only put one coat on the bottoms, but you can’t really tell.


Finally, once I had 2 coats on all the railings, we felt like the finish was just a little too shiny, so we went over the tops and sides with a low-shine poly. That seemed to dull the finish just enough.


Overall, the work took me about 6-7 hours total over two weekends, and I think it turned out nice.


Now…if you’ll excuse me…I have more projects to get done before Mrs. Chic calls me out again.






Didn't Mr. Chic do a fabulous job?!  What a difference!!  

Death and Taxes

Hello there friends!  I have some awesome projects to share with you very soon,  I can even cross something off my Home Goals 2012 list already!!  And it's still January (barely)!!! Woot, Woot!!
I just have to take some really purdy "after" pictures so you can see the fabulous improvement.  The weather hasn't been cooperating, the sun needs to be shining to make my pictures purdy so I'm on hold until the weather cooperates. 

In the meantime, let's talk about some of our favorite subjects, (insert sarcasm here) death and taxes.  Ok, I'm kidding about death, we're going to talk about taxes.  Fun, Fun, Fun. 

Wait! Wait!!  Don't click the X in the corner to get rid of me, this is going to be good (as good as a discussion about taxes can be, that is.) 

Anywho, you've probably heard the old quote "the only two certainties in life are death and taxes."   Ben Franklin said this over 200 years ago and it still holds true.  (for most of my life I thought my dad made it up!)

Tax time is coming up quick and we have to pay them (unless you're a mob wife or involved in some other illicit activities that surely my readers do not partake in).

We had an accountant prepare our taxes for us the first several years we were married. We both worked at the time so our budget wasn't as tight but mainly, neither one of us knew how to do it.

After becoming a stay home mom the check to the accountant for tax preparation was a little bit painful to write.  What mysterious knowledge did they have that they could charge so much money just to file our taxes.  I always came away with the same thought... this isn't brain surgery, it's tax filing, everyone has to do it, how hard can it be?

I was fed up with the accountant costs, each year it went up (sort of like taxes) with extra fees for this or that.  I started to research the brain surgey-esque procedure that is self tax filing.  That's when I found Turbo Tax.

It was cheap and supposed to be foolproof, (even for me??)  I was going to try it and if I couldn't figure it out I'd head back to my pricey accountant. 

The first time I was really scared.  What if I did it wrong and the feds put me in the pen for cheating on my taxes!? 

"But I wasn't cheating your honor, I'm just a grown woman who has no idea how to file my own taxes!", they'd never believe me.

Ok, that's a bit of a stretch but I really was nervous, what if I screwed it up and got audited... or worse, what if I screwed it up and got less of a refund than I deserved?! 

As I started filing with Turbo Tax I realized that everything was going to be ok.  It was a detailed, step-by-step program that walked me through it.  It was amazingly easy.  The best part was the little running tally in the top corner that showed you what your refund would be (or what you owed).  The best part was typing in your deductions and watching that little refund number grow.  Cha-ching!

Besides being easy, they guarantee that it will be 100% accurate, your biggest refund and that your information will be secure. 

I'm recommending Turbo Tax because I'm a satisfied customer.  I've been using it for the past 6 years and I'd never go back to my accountant.  It's just too easy and I actually get some satisfaction from filing them myself.  Something that used to scare me is now easy-peasy. 

They have a free edition and several upgrades that are very affordable (especially compared to what my accountant was charging me). 

If you've been considering filing your own tax returns, click the link below and check out Turbo Tax.  It's not brain surgery.






Disclosure:  I am part of Turbo Tax affiliate marketing program.  All viewpoints are 100% mine.  I only recommend services and products to my friends (aka readers) that I have used myself.

Flaunt it Friday 89!

Hey there!  Happy Friday! 

It's already time to party again!  Show me what you got... :)

Being Organized Can Save You Money! No, really!!

Hello lovely friends.  Have you fallen off the organizing and decluttering bandwagon yet? 

I hope not because there is much more to do.  This post in my Organizing and Decluttering for Unorganized and Cluttery People series we'll discuss one way being unorganized can cost you money.

What does that even mean?!

Let me clarify with my story that maybe you can relate to...

I was at the grocery store the other day and realized I didn't have the coupons that I needed.  I had a few things on my list that I remembered seeing the coupons for but had no idea if I even cut them out.  I probably could've saved myself $7 or $8 bucks, darn! 

I realize $7 or $8 is not a ton of money to many people but I'm cheap, I don't like to spend money for things I don't have to.  Coupons to me are like free money, why not take advantage of it and why havent I been?

Now don't worry, this isn't going to become a post about how I paid .12 cents for $350 worth of groceries which are mostly tubes of toothpaste and cans of generic energy drinks. I will never be an crazy person"extreme couponer". I don't have the time, energy or storage space for that much toothpaste (don't those people know that toothpaste expires!! you will never use 250 tubes of toothpaste within 2 years!) I know some of those folks are using their couponing "hauls" for good and donating the excess products to charity, that's great, more power to 'em!   It's a great way to stock your local food pantry.

Anywho, back to why yours truly hasn't been taking advantage of coupons... first, I forget to cut them out.  I always grab the coupon inserts out of the Sunday paper and stick them in a drawer.  Six months later when I can no longer shut the drawer, I go through the coupons, find that 90% are expired and throw them in the trash.  I'm lucky if I find 3 or 4 that will work and stick them in the black hole where they are never to be seen again my purse.

The second reason I don't take advantage of coupons often is that I forget to bring them with me to the store.  This would seem to be the easiest part, duh.  But, I forget them all the time because I don't have a consistent place to keep them or carry them, they are stuck in that drawer I was talking about earlier, just waiting to expire. 

Forgetting my coupons is costing my family money.  I never really thought of it before but this money adds up over time.  If I am an average coupon user (as opposed to the the crazy people extreme couponers seen on the show of the same name) I could save an extra $8 (or hopefully much more!) each time I go grocery shopping (3 to 4 times a month).  This is almost an extra $400 (or more!) a year!  And this is estimating low!!

The last reason I haven't been taking advantage of coupons is that many of the coupons that come in the newspaper are for junky stuff or things I don't use.  Check out this one from the Sunday paper. 

Seriously??

1985 called and they want their wigs back.

You, too, can look like you stepped right out of 1985 by wearing one of our fine $30 wigs... ;)

This kind of stuff mixed in with a few useable coupons have turned me away from being a coupon clipper over the past few years. 

As part of my organizational goals this yearI've decided to get my coupon system organized so I can and will use it.  This goes along with my organization goals of being more intentional with spending, meal planning and less waste (unused food)... which will be a future blog post.

So, I need some kind of simple system for couponing. I've seen people carrying around huge 3 ring binders in the grocery store full of coupons.  Uh, that ain't happenin'.  I'm not interested because I know I wouldn't keep up with such a complicated and time-consuming system.

I've come up with a little uncomplicated system to help me stay on track.  For me, it can't have too many steps or be too complicated because I know myself, I won't take the time to do it and then I'll give up.


Here's the system:

PAPER COUPONS: 
  • Remove inserts from Sunday paper and cut them on Sunday or Monday... if I don't do it right away I never will.   Print online coupons (see below for more info. on online coupons)

  • Add uncut coupons to my "uncut coupons" file.

  • Put coupons to be used this week in my coupon holder of my grocery list notebook,


  • Add clipped coupons for future use to small accordian file.



ON-LINE COUPONS:

This is a whole other money saving opportunity that I haven't been taking advantage of until just recently.  I've decided to add some coupon resources on my blog to help myself (and you) use more coupons.  These are sites that I use and trust, (click the buttons below to visit the sites).









Coupons.com:  Free printable coupons for namebrand food and mostly grocery items.
Redplum: Free printable coupons for namebrand food and mostly grocery items.
Cellfire: Loads E-coupons onto your grocery store rewards card (includes many grocery chains)
Ebates:  Earn cashback when you shop online at hundreds of major retailers (a money making opportunity for things your buying online)

Again, don't worry, my blog is not going to become a couponing blog, it's not my thing.  I just know that when I go to some of the couponing blogs I am overwhelmed by all the deals on everything under the sun, the majority I don't need.  

I just want coupons for food/cleaning products/TP, etc. on brands and items that I'll actually use.  All the ones I picked have these types of items and you don't have to sign your life away to print them. 

I hope I have given you an idea of how to organize your coupons and save money in a way that will be easy to use and stick with.  I'll let you know how it works for me. 

What are your tips to make couponing easy?

Read all of my organizational posts:

organizingbuttona_zps87622db8
Linking: Tatertots & Jello

*Disclosure:  I am part of an affiliate program with the coupon sites listed above.  However, I only included the sites that I personally use and trust and feel my friends (readers) would benefit from.  All opinions are 100% mine and I was not paid to write this post.

Flaunt it Friday 88

Hey party people!  Happy Friday!

Before we get to partying I'd like to welcome back my newest old sponsor Willow House with Nanci!  Willow House has lovely home goods and has just branched into a beautiful jewelry line.  You can even shop their outlet online for big bargains!



Check out this dreamy glassware... doesn't this just make you long for spring...

via Willow House

Now, it's time to party... link 'em up!! :)

Valentine Burlap Banners

Hi there friends!  I am in a Valentine's Day decorating slump.  I feel like I just put away my Christmas decor (because I did, duh)

But I just came across these super cute banners and it got me all excited for Valentine's Day decorating!

Aren't these just darling?!?

Plus, you know I can't pass up a good deal and this was just too cute and cheap not to share!

Groop Dealz has these caaauuuuute Valentine's Day banners up for sale right now but they are going fast!

Auntie Lolo Crafts

Auntie Lolo Crafts
Both photos via Auntie Lolo Crafts

I know what you're thinking, I thought that too....

Oh, I can just make that!  Then I thought, well... I don't have any burlap and I don't have the right kind of paint and I don't have any stencils to make the letters nice and neat and I don't have the jute rope to hang it on and I don't have any time.... wait, maybe I do have the rope?...

It would cost me more to buy the supplies to make it than this deal!  I picked "love" because I was too cheap for "be mine", I know, I'm totally cheap, $4 stinking dollars but whatevs, it's $4 dollars I saved. :)

They are going very fast so I hope there are some left by the time you see this post!

Click the buttons below to go to Groop Dealz and get your banner!


 Click on this one for "Be Mine"

Click this one for "Love"


*Disclosure:  I am part of GroopDealz affiliate network but all opinions are 100% mine.  I'll only share great deals on cute stuff with my friends(readers) and this is one!  I bought it myself!

How to Organize a Medicine Cabinet

Hey there!  Welcome back to another installment of my series:


I'm going to share with you another hot mess cabinet makeover.  I actually did this makeover about 2 years ago and the system is working wonderfully, it is still clean and organized!  The best part is that it's simple so it's easy to keep it organized (and of course it was cheap to do too!)

First, where are you keeping your medicine?  In the medicine cabinet in your bathroom?  That would make sense since it is called the "medicine" cabinet.  However,  did you know that it's a very big no-no to keep medicines in the bathroom? 

So why do they put the medicine cabinet in there??  I have no idea?!

This is a more serious no-no than you might think. 

""The medicine cabinet in the bathroom is the worst place (for medicine to be stored)," said Selig Corman, director of Professional Affairs at the Pharmacists Society of the State of New York.  Most medicine should be stored at room temperature, between 68 and 77 degrees, and kept away from moisture. Because the bathroom is prone to high temperatures and humidity, it is a poor place to keep drugs.
"An egg kept at an extreme temperature of heat becomes cooked and that could happen with tablets, with certain gelatin capsules, and that could alter the chemistry of the product." Corman said. "Something as simple as aspirin ... when aspirin reacts with moisture it becomes a different chemical ... something that is sold as a corn remover. You wouldn't want to ingest a corn remover."" 

Yuck! I had no idea a bathroom could do so much damage to medications!

Thankfully, I do not store medication in the bathroom but wanted to make sure all of you lovely folks are storing your drugs safely too. 

Now that you've got them in a safe place let's get them organized! 

Go through all of your meds and make sure to get rid of everything that is expired or wasn't properly stored and could have turned into corn remover.  Ummm, gross!

Then get rid of everything that doesn't belong with the medicine.  This will vary depending on how much space you have.  We have a large enough space that our medicine cabinet includes band-aids, hand sanitizer and a small safety kit. 

I am SO completely embarassed to be showing you all this picture of our medicine cabinet. I was very tempted to straighten it up a little bit as to not scare and disgust you but I wanted it to be real, no editing. This is what it looked like at it's worst... those with faint hearts and weak stomachs look away!



Holy cow, we look like druggies!


Keeping it real up in here with that photo.  I'm blaming the mess on Mr. Chic, (sorry babe!) :) I tried to organize it when we moved in but he never quite got the set up (which wasn't very good anyway) so if he needed something he would just start rifling through it and it would end up looking like this. Nice, huh. :)



I went to the Dollar Store and got me some fancy plastic baskets. I then made sure they fit in my weird size cabinet... to my shock, they did! I then prettied them up with dog tags and ribbon...






and Waa-Laaa!






I made 3 baskets like this and one smaller one to fit in the weird leftover space in the front. Kid's Meds, Adult Meds, and Band-Aids, etc.  The small one in the front has everyday meds like vitamins, some chapstick, and a few band-aids for easy access. 

The end result is lovely but the lighting of my picture is not, it was a cloudy day.




And, it's actually stayed like this for two years!! Sweeeeeet!!   It works! Even the insides of the baskets are staying pretty neat, amazing! I feared that hubs would revert to old bad habits but he puts everything back in the right basket, he loves organization. Guess I need to organize more often! :)

Is your medication organized?  Did you know you're not supposed to keep them in the bathroom??

How to Organize a Command Station (Junk Cabinet)

Happy weekend, friends!  Welcome to another post in my organization and decluttering series:


When we moved to our current home I was excited to have extra cabinet space and room for a little command center.  We didn't have this luxury at our old house so we had to keep much of this stuff in our office which was upstairs.  Imagine having to walk all the way upstairs to get the camera.... oh, the agony! 

Having never had a commands station before I had no idea how it should be organized.  My method was "stick it where it fits".  I'm sure you'll notice in the picture what a great job I did.  NOT.

Please do not judge.
Notice that I made this picture pretty small because I'm totally embarassed! as to not burn your eyes out with the hot mess.  The cabinet became a catch-all because it was never properly organized. 

You also may notice there are a few good ideas in here.  No, seriously.  The back of one cabinet door has a dry erase board on it and the other has a bulletin board.  There are also two little open face containers on the bottom left for things men people lose, like car keys.  One for me, one for Mr. Chic.  I'd like to take credit for these smart ideas but these are all  Mr. Chic's bright ideas.  That man shoulda been a professional organizer I tell ya.

I started trying to organize this cabinet 2 years ago which is when that scary picture was taken.  It got a little bit better but never good enough to share.  I think I've finally figured it out after a lot of trial and error. 

I took everything out of the cabinets and purged.  Everything that had no business in the kitchen went away.  Lots of junk went in the garbage.  This helped a ton but I still needed something to organize the stuff that was staying. 

I went to the dollar store and picked up some square little baskets.  They are not the cutest but hey, the price was right.  I used some leftover ribbon and tags from a previous project to make labels. 




 The baskets have helped tremendously because everything has a spot.  We keep usb cords, label makers, coupons, etc. all in their own basket. 

The open face blue bins are also from the dollar store.  We have his and her baskets which works wonderfully.  They allow easy access for things like car keys, phones, business cards, etc.



Mr. Chic bought an appropriately sized bulletin board and dry erase board that fit on the back of the cabinet doors just right.  He attached them using short screws to the thickest frame part of the cabinet door.  Make SURE you use short screws or you will drill through the front of your cabinet door.




We keep some important info on here all the time, emergeny info mainly for babysitters.  We also use it for a weekly grocery list, phone messages and notes on the lower half.

 

He used the same method for the bulletin board.  I hang the school lunch menu,  a paper calendar (this one happens to be haaauuuuge but it was free and it's of Ireland which I heart) and other important stuff here.  It keeps the fridge from being covered in magnets with random papers. 

The final project turned out like this:


The bottom right has a little paper filing holder for incoming and outgoing mail, stamps and envelopes.  Also, a cozee full of dry erase markers and permanent markers (out of reach of the kiddos) and my day planner.  The books on the top left are all cookbooks that we use which is why there are books in the kitchen. 

Those dollar store baskets made for a big improvement!  It's not perfect but it's working for us.

What are your secrets for command station organization??

Check out the rest of my organizational posts here:
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Linking: Someday Crafts

Flaunt it Friday 87 and my thoughts on Snow

Hello there party animals.  Happy Friday!

It snowed today for the first time this winter.  Here in the Midwest it should've snowed a long time ago.  I'm not complaining though.  We've had a streak of warm weather (by warm I mean in the 50's) for about the past 2 weeks.  It felt like spring!  I was pretending it was March!  No, seriously, I was.  There was even a tulip bulb starting to sprout in my backyard!  Then a darned snow storm outta nowhere. 

Usually I enjoy the first snow of the year, this time... not so much.   For those of you living in the no-snow-zone there are 2 kinds of snow:  Good Snow (oxymoron?)  and Bad Snow.

There are certain criteria for Good Snow:

1.  "Good Snow" is snow at Christmastime, meaning anytime from Thanksgiving through December 26th.  Christmastime snow is a big magical don't ya think?  It's my favorite kind. 

2.  "Good Snow" good snow get you out of school.  Well, it used to get me out of school... now it gets my kiddos out of school which is just about as good as it was when I was a kiddo myself. 

3.  "Good Snow" should also be good packing snow for snowballs and snow forts, skiing, snowmobiling, good-time-having snow.  This snow does not include windy, blizzardy type snow.  It also must be clean and pretty.

"Bad Snow" is pretty much everything else.   Doesn't get you out of school, comes way after magical Christmastime snow.  Bad snow isn't enough to get you out of school but messes up the roads enough to slow you down.  It hangs around too long and gets dirty and gross and slushy which then makes your car and garage a yucky mess.  It's too cold to play in and it blows back over and drifts in your driveway 15 minutes after you shovel it.  It sticks in your hair frozen until you walk inside the store where it melts and makes your hair look awesomely bad.  I could go on and on. 

The snow is here, wish it would've come sooner.  Even though I don't consider it a "good snow", the look on my boy's faces this morning when they saw the snow covered ground was priceless.  If only it would've been a snow day...


Home Goals 2012

Hey there! It's home goal setting time again.

Guess what?? 

This is the same exact list I used last year!

Seriously?!

Yes.

Awesome!

My Home Goals 2011 list was an EPIC FAIL.

I got lots of stuff done, just nothing on the Home Goals 2011 list.

Oops.

Actually, we did get 2 things done on the list but I never shared them on my blog.  I'll just keep them on the list so I will be able to say I got at least 2 things done at the end of 2012. Sneaky, huh?!

So here goes my Home Goals 2011... er, 2012 List.
Let me just warn you that the pictures below are awful, I feel like I'm airing all my decor dirty laundry... it's kind of embarassing. I'm hoping everyone has projects and stuff like this in their home... but my list seems so stinking long! Geesh!
If this happens to be your first time visiting, please go look at another post for some good stuff!

So here we go, my home project goals in no particular order:

Goal #1: Paint the boys bathroom. We've lived in our "new" house a year and a half, we've had the paint since the week we moved in, it's never been opened. Nice.

We painted the inside of the entire house when we moved in so needless to say we got a little (or a lot) burned out on painting. No one really sees the boys bathroom so it's not a priority to paint it. But now it's really bugging me. I already have the paint and supplies, no more excuses.


Boooorrriiiing

Goal #2: Fix up my office/mom cave. A while back I did some posts about fixing up my mom cave to win a HomeGoods gift card. Unfortunately for my office (and my bank account), I didn't win. (Did the judges even look at my room to see how bad I needed that gift card?! look at this pic, the room is awful!!) Yeah, I'm not bitter or anything. ;)

Needed for the office: Paint, window treatments, light fixture, accessories, organizational supplies, paint desk, new desk chair.

You can still see the goop left on the wall from the border we removed...yuck.


Goal #3: Re-do my big boy's room. Different colored furniture and a poor choice on paint color make for a hodge podge of a room that could (and should) be really cute.

Needed for re-do: Paint for walls and furniture (ugh), new bedding.



Goal 4: Finish crown molding in family room. This is the hubby's job but it's making my list because I'm sick of looking at it. :)



Goal 5: Finish trim on island. When we got our bamboo floors installed the island trim was ruined when it was taken off. It's about time we put some back on.

Needed: just a little bit of trim and me to glaze and antique it.



This makes me crazy! It looks completely unfinished.

Goal 6: Pretty up the master bath. Ideally we'd like new tile on the floor and the tub surround (and a new vanity and sinks for that matter) but it's not a necessity and it would be costly. I am going to work with the white and neutrals and make them work for me. 

Needed: Some decorating inspiration, maybe paint (oh my, every goal seems to include paint!) cheap decor and new towels.


I love my damask towels but the dark brown is just too much for the white tile in my opinion.

Goal 7: Organize my business decorations. Since starting a decorating and homestaging business I have started keeping some inventory. Ok, kind of a lot of inventory that has quickly taken over a corner of my basement.

Needed: More shelving, large bins, patience.


This is all I'm showing of my little disaster. :)

Goal 8: Staining the stair banisters to match our floors.

Needed: Stain (which we already have) Time and patience, this could take up to 3 or 4 coats. We'll also need to do it when it warms up a bit so we can open the windows, will be a stinky job (in more ways than one).


Dreading this one but it will make such a difference!

Goal 10 (New for 2012): Fix up the boys playroom to make it more functional and cute. It is too messy to even share a picture right now. Just imagine a room with trains, hotwheels and monster trucks all over the floor and boring undecorated walls. 

I could've gone on and on with this list but some things seem too trivial to be a "goal" (and I didn't want to set myself up for more failure! ;)

Have you made your 2012 Home Goals list? C'mon, share your embarassing pictures with me, it will make me feel better about myself.

Linking to Nesting Place Home Goals Party

My faves...

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