The Epic Table Project

One of the first pieces of furniture I wanted for my new house was a new kitchen table. We've never had a "real" kitchen table before so I really wanted one. I wanted something cool and a little different, something that could be expanded to seat more people but that would still fit in my breakfast area. So at the beginning of August, my friend Stephanie and I went out to the West Bottoms in Kansas City to check out First Fridays. I found this awesome redone Pottery Barn table at Bella Patina (which happens to be the store of one of my high school friends, Megan!). The table was clean and white with two leaves and just adorable.

So we loaded it up and took it home. As soon as we unloaded it, I noticed that the paint was peeling. So much, in fact, that you could peel off most of the top with a fingernail. Not ideal.

Here's the new table. That I never intended to re-do.

So that weekend, as my husband slaved away on the ceilings (another post for another time), my mother-in-law and I decided to fix up the table. We were planning to strip off the old paint and then just spray paint the whole table. We thought we would probably finish it during the weekend. We were wrong.

Here's what we did. I would like to state a disclaimer that this is not a real true "How to re-do a table" because I don't really know what the proper way is. But here is what we did. It was a long process. You may just want to take a little trip out to Nebraska Furniture Mart and buy yourself a table. Just saying.

We started out by striping the paint off with a stripping gel. You paint it on, let it sit for a while, then scrape it off. Pretty easy but didn't work so well on the legs.

I tried using steel wool on the legs, that didn't work either. Plus, as we stripped that paint down, we found more layers of finish underneath. Soo I made a new plan. I used a small electric sander to strip down the legs as much as possible. And my dad brought over a larger sander and completely sanded down the top of the table. Also, I quit taking pictures of the process in between because I was super frustrated. (Ha.)

So. After the sanding was done, my plan was to stain the top of the table and paint the legs. We were never able to get all the paint off the legs so staining them wasn't really an option.

Before staining the top of the table, I used a pre-stain wood conditioner. It dried within an hour, very quick and easy. Then I did two coats of stain for a really black look. I decided to stain instead of paint because you can still see the beautiful grain of the wood. After staining, I did three coats of a clear gloss polyurethane. 

For the legs, I just did a coat of primer and then two coats of glossy black paint. I really love the contrast between the legs and the top of the table.

(Sorry for the night photo, I work nights now so did a lot of the work on my nights off. And then didn't notice mistakes until the daylight...)

So here it is! Finally hanging out in my breakfast nook. I can see all the imperfections, but I am pretty happy with the final result.

I'm planning on spray painting these chairs. No more sanding for me, thankyouverymuch. But I can't decide on white paint or different colors...

Things I would do differently next time:

-Spend less time trying to get all the paint off the legs, since the primer and new paint covered everything anyway

-Spend less time stripping the paint off the top of the table and just sand it off, which was so much easier and less time consuming

-Paint the legs outside in the daylight! There are a few places where I can see paint drips that I didn't see at night.

-Use a paint on polyurethane instead of spray on. The spray was so easy but I can see places where it is uneven.

P.S. The rug is from Target a few years ago. I love it.

 And here is my table scape. I love calling it a table scape. It reminds me of Sandra Lee and her boozy Food Network show with matching curtains, clothes, cocktails and...table scapes. Anniversary roses (aww), mini pumpkins, and candle in a glass pumpkin.

So that is my table project. It took two months to finish. Which is too long, honestly. Also, have I mentioned that I hate DIY projects? I just want someone to do it for me. Thanks to my mother in law and my dad for helping me out so I didn't actually have to do this all by myself!

Costs of the project:

-Table: $120 

-Materials for stripping and sanding, not including sanders (borrowed from my dad and father in law): $50

-Wood conditioner, stain, primer, paint, and polyurethane: $70 

Total: approximately $240

Not bad, considering most Pottery Barn tables are over $1000. 

Now come over, pull up a chair, compliment my table, and have some dinner. On my new table.

DIY Sugar Scrub

I have something magical to share on this rainy Saturday morning. It's called sugar scrub. Between nasty hospital dry air, cold winter, and drying heaters, my skin gets kinda gross in the winter. So I googled "sugar scrub" and came across this link for homemade sugar scrub.

Here's what I did: took 1 1/2 cups of sugar and 1/4 cup of olive oil, put them in a mason jar, and shook it up really well. That's it. I keep it in the shower and exfoliate a few times a week. The original recipe calls for massage oil to scent it, but I don't have any and I don't care about scent anyway. The olive oil moisturizes your skin and the sugar makes it nice and smooth. I wash off after with my normal body wash so I don't smell like the kitchen.

It hangs out next to my hub's Axe body wash and the clearance shampoo. Keep it classy.

I give it a good shake every time I use it.

I don't use it on my face/neck/chest since I'm a little sensitive. But its amazing for arms, legs, and feet!

Get your sugar scrub on, people!


PS. Happy birthday to my sweet momma! I love you!

State of the House: 2011 New Year's Resolution Recap

Here it is friends, a recap of my 2011 New Year's resolution. To maintain a cleaner and neater household. I would give myself a C+ on this project. I did not excel by any means. I did reorganize our closet, guest room, and office area. The guest room has since un organized itself. I make more attempts on my days off to at least do some cleaning and organizing, even if its only pick things up.

I thought I was doing pretty awesome until sometime in November when I was at work and had a text convo with the hubs about how messy the house was and how he was going to put all my stuff in a pile. (I was going to include the convo in this post but it had a few too many choice words. From both parties.) Then I came home from work and all my stuff that he thought was not in its proper place was actually in a pile in the middle of the living room. And I was super pissed. For reals. Here is the thing. I am messy. It's just who I am. I like things to be clean and sanitary, hello, I'm a nurse. Caleb does not see the dirt. He sees the junk everywhere. So if the junk is picked up, he thinks things are clean. Magical. For the record, he said he gives me a B on my housewife efforts. At least I passed!

I did make an honest effort this year to step up my game. Here is a line up of my fave products that I discovered or rediscovered in 2011!

From left to right:

1. Swiffer dust and shine: perfect for cleaning the coffee table that we use for all our meals and put our feet on and everything else. It smells fresh and the wood looks so pretty.
2.Ajax dish soap in grapefruit scent: Makes the water all pink and happy and costs like 97 cents. And cleans dishes like a rock star.
3. Baking soda: It's cheap and scrubs things better than any expensive cleaner. And deodorizes. I keep one in the fridge, pour it down the disposal, in the trash can, ect.
4. Method Daily Shower Cleaner: spray this stuff on right after you shower and it stays clean and delightful. And Method makes great natural cleaning products.
5. Dyson Ball Vacuum: we bought this with wedding money and it just makes vacuuming easy and not totally horrible. (Fun fact: I lost the school spelling bee in the 5th grade with the word "vacuum." I was one of the last two standing. This is probably where my hatred for cleaning started.)
6. Plink disposal cleaner: throw one down once a week and your disposal smells like lemon fresh goodness.
7. Method Lil' Bowl Blue toilet cleaner: makes your toilets white and bright and makes your bathroom smell heavenly. Toilet cleaning is def my favorite chore.
8. Clorax wipes: Because cleaning my counters with the same gross sponge just grosses me out. They clean and sanitize everything.
9. Glamorous rubber gloves: because these just make cleaning so much better. I got them in Charleston at a kitchen store, but you can get them at lots of different places.

My absolute favorite cleaning tip of the year: cleaning my flat top stove.

I have a flat top stove. As a messy person, I make a mess when I cook and I don't wipe it up immediately. So food gets dried on, burnt on, stuck on. And is difficult to get up. I don't even know who to give credit to, but I found this tip on the intraweb, and it is magical.

Sprinkle the stove liberally with baking soda. Put a bunch of rags in hot, soapy water, wring them out slightly and then cover the baking soda. Let sit for 10-15 minutes.

Scrub all that nasty grime off! It comes right up. Unless your stove is super dirty like mine and you have to do it a second time. But then it's really all gone! Shiny happy stove top! (Then you should wipe it off with a Clorax wipe or something to get all the residue off, unlike me.)

2011, you were a great year. I tried to keep you clean and tidy. The most important lesson I learned was that as long as things look neat, they don't really need to be that clean. And that with every new organizational project comes a trip to Target. I will remember this in my future cleaning endeavors. Here's to you, State of the House. May you live on.

Previous State of the House posts that may humor or inspire you:

The Closet Clean Out
Office Space
Guest Bedroom
Kitchen Clean Up

Holiday Food Goodness: drinks, cookies, general yum

Ok, I did a fair amount of cooking/baking around the holidays. Not quite as much as last year, since being in Kansas for over a week took out a chunk of December. But I still got some done!

I did three kinds of cookies this year:

1. Peppermint chocolate cookies (aka Thin Mints!) I did these last year and they were delish. I never took any pics of the final product! But I did last year, so check it.

2. Pecan Pie Bars (recipe HERE): Caleb and I both thought these were ok, but they were the favorite of all his coworkers.

3. Cream Cheese Filled Snickerdoodles (recipe HERE): These were our favorite by far. We kept most of them for ourselves.

I also made these yummy little turtles the other day. I went ahead and finished them off today because they were haunting me and my weight loss. So eating them was the only rational thing to do. They are so darn good! And super easy.

I learned to make these from a kid I babysat. Here's what you need:
1. A bag of rolo candy
2. A bag of mini pretzels
3. Pecan halves (I got the small bag from the baking section)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Throw the pecans on a cookie sheet and roast for about 6-7 minutes. While they are roasting, lay out the pretzels on a different cookie sheet. Place an unwrapped rolo candy on each pretzel. Bake in the oven for about 4 minutes or until just melted. Immediately squish a pecan half into each rolo/pretzel combo. Let cool. (If you can!) Give them away so you don't eat them all yourself.

Next up, Cranberry Sangria. We had this on Christmas Eve. Really light and refreshing with all the heavy food.

What you need:
1 bottle white wine (I used a really cheap Chablis Blanc)
25 oz sparkling cranberry juice (I used 3 8 oz cans since my Target didn't have any bottles)
1 apple, chopped or sliced
1/2 cup fresh cranberries
1 sprig rosemary

Mix it all up, let it sit for a hour or so in the fridge, enjoy! Pretty sure this would be good with just the wine and cranberry juice.

(Recipe from HERE This blog has much prettier pictures!)

I also made the Pioneer Woman's Cornbread dressing with sausage and apples for Christmas Eve. It was yummy but time consuming.

And I made Simply Recipes' Cranberry glazed turkey meatballs for our work potluck on Christmas Day. Pretty delicious as well, but I would recommend serving immediately as opposed to reheating the next day.

In the spirit of food and Sandra Lee, here is my Christmas tablescape:

Yes, my wedding photo is in it. It just seemed to look good, ok? I am kind of in love with the plaid tablecloth I got at Target. I saw them on sale for 50% off today, so you should go pick one up!

I love holiday food. Which is why the personal trainer killed me with a walking lunge/arm curl combo today. Thanks, Chris.

Stephanie and Logan's Wedding (with lots of DIY goodness!)

Last Saturday Stephanie and Logan finally got hitched! The day was pretty chilly, but everything was gorgeous. I felt a little dumb because my camera ran out of battery at the beginning of the night. But I went up in the morning to help set up, so I got a few "before" pics.

They got married in this adorable mansion called the Chateau Selah. It sits up on a hill and is beautiful.

From the back

And the view. So beautiful. This might be my favorite thing about Tennessee.

I love all the milk glass vases she used for her center pieces. We whipped up those flower arrangements in like half an hour, thanks to Logan's mom!

Dried rose petals hung on every one's chairs to toss at the bride and groom as they walked down the aisle.

Napkins with the menus inside. Stephanie made those menus. Like a true crafter!

She also made these letters for the gift table.

She also hand stamped every one's names and tied them to mason jars for their drinks for the night. Originally, I think the plan was to put the table numbers on the back of the name tags but the wedding wasn't too big, so she just decided to let everyone pick their own seat.

Green straws for boys and pink straws for girls. Helllllo.

They even had a signature drink. Tennessee style.

The head table. Pretty sure she got that adorable banner from Etsy, as well as the vase to hold her bouquet and the unity candle. Perfect. They had everyone sign a framed pic of them as the guest book.

The centerpieces. Ivory linens, chocolate napkins, burlap squares with the milk glasses and votives on them. And yep, Stephanie made those votives as well. Moss + twine. Love the effect.

The cake was beautiful and matched the milk glass vases and the wooden, rustic theme.

They were planning to have the ceremony outside, but since it was so chilly moved it inside and had it in front of this fireplace. There were tons of candles and huge windows that let in lots of beautiful light. I have no pics of the ceremony since I was blanking out on picture taking at that time!

So the ceremony was on the main floor of the house. The cocktail hour was in the basement (adorable). The reception was in a huge heated tent outside. And the bride and groom got to stay in a gorgeous honeymoon suite upstairs. Such a cool place!

Steph bought her awesome wedding dress (and pink Badgley Mischka heels) on Rue La La for a steal. Then she did a costume change for the reception into a short dress with a bubble hem from David's Bridal and some sparkly white Toms.  She also wore white Vera Wang leggings that I snagged for $5 on the morning of the wedding since it was going to be cold!

I wish I had a thousand more pictures and am still kicking myself for the battery running out! I love this one though, of Stephanie and Logan coming into the reception. So cute!

It was a perfect wedding and a great party! Congratulations to Stephanie and Logan Cook! Holla to the newest housewife of East Tennessee!

The Real Housewives of East Tennessee get crafty

There is this super cool website called Pinterest. Oh, you've heard of it? You and your mom and your dog all have Pinterest? I know. It's very fun. And a great way to waste some time, whether it is free time or not so free time. Pinterest is a place where you can store all your good ideas for pretty much anything and see other people's cool stuff as well. So a few of the Real Housewives and I decided to have a Pinterest Party where we brought one of those good ideas to life.

Let me just say, while I consider myself a creative person, I am not very crafty. First of all, my patience for crafting is pretty low. I expect instant gratification with crafts and that doesn't happen very often. (Flash backs to hot gluing ribbons on my wedding invitations and ironing hems on the pink toppers for the reception tables.) Second, I am slightly paranoid that my crafts look like something a talented preschooler could do. Despite this, I was excited to start this crafty goodness, so we gathered supplies and a bottle of wine and got our craft on.

We decided to make wreaths in the theme of our respective universities. I can't believe I was outnumbered by Missouri supporters. Basically, we took a 18 inch straw wreath form ($5 at Michael's) and covered it with yarn. Mine was covered in KU blue. Emily and Stephanie's were covered in black. Which could represent MU. Or death. (I'm sorry, the anti Mizzou jokes just flow from me.)

So we started wrapping our wreaths in yarn. It was at this point when I started doubting this craft. This is progress of about an hour.

But we persevered, watched a little Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and eventually got our wreaths covered. No one on Pinterest mentioned that it would take 3+ hours to cover the wreath in yarn. So I am mentioning it now: be warned!

After we got tired of yarn wrapping, we started making flowers to go on the wreath. The flowers are the fun, quick, and gratifying part of this process. Take a piece of felt (any size), cut it into a circle but make it kinda wavy. Then cut your circle into a spiral with a circle of fabric in the middle. Starting on the outside of the spiral, wind it into a lovely felt flower. If you wound it the right way, the circle will be at the base of the flower and you can use some hot glue to stick it all together. Perfection. You can't even mess these flowers up. It's kind of impossible. They all turn out different and cute. Like people. (Awww...)

At this point in the evening, it was like 9pm, which is totally my bedtime now. So we took a few photos of our progress and hit the road.

There is even documentation of the time, check out the clock in the background.

Emily is pretty cute for an MU grad!

The next day, Stephanie and I decided we needed to do something with the white letters. (Just wooden letters from Michael's, I think they were $2.50 each.) I thought about covering them in red yarn, but I was pretty much yarned out. So Steph got some Martha Stewart acrylic glitter paint. Which we quickly figured out was also time consuming since you have to paint layers and layers to get the color you want, waiting for the layers to dry in between. (See? I am not a good crafter. Not at all.)

I've been working the past few days, so I finished my wreath up this morning. Filled in some spots on the wreath with extra yarn, just hot glued the letters, and made a few extra flowers and hot glued those on as well.

Not horrible, right? And it goes with my KU wall. I am feel pretty darn crafty right now. Thankyouverymuch.

What you need to make your very own wreath:

*5 hours
*patience
*a long movie
*an 18 inch straw wreath form (leave the plastic on)
*a ball of yarn in your color choice
*felt in your colors of choice
*wooden letters
*paint for the letters
*a hot glue gun

So get your craft on this weekend! At least get your Pinterest on, because that is just good clean fun.

Caleb is working this morning and I am catching up on laundry and cleaning and blogging and wreathing. This afternoon we are heading to Nashville for the evening. Tomorrow Caleb gets to go to the Titans game and I get to hang out with my beautiful cousin, Nicole! Holla!

Home Improvement, Part 1

So I've been wanting to put up pictures of our place but I wanted to do it when everything was perfect and decorated and organized. That is happening slowly so I decided to put up what was done: the bathrooms. Thats right, the only rooms in my apartment that are complete are the bathrooms. I work a lot, ok?

So here it is. The rooms that are done.

First up, guest bath. Note the cool sinks and mirrors in both bathrooms.

I'm getting obsessed with candles, I think they are very "fall-y." Also, I'm in love with this shower curtain. 

I put an inspiration quote plaque across from the toilet. So you can be inspired while you...sit. It actually looks better in real life than it does in this picture.

Next, master bath.

There is a clock. Because I have my morning routine down to the minute.

I cleaned the shower for these pictures. Just so you know.

I did have to buy this adorable little storage system because this bathroom is seriously lacking drawers. And if you have ever lived with me, you know I have massive amounts of lotions, hair products, make up, ect.

I've also put together various pieces of furniture. 

This bookshelf probably took me 5 hours. Not even kidding. 

We also put together a desk and matching file cabinet. Which I will post pictures of when I get our cute little office nook put together the way I want. I'm actually really tired of putting together furniture.

I'm trying to be cute and creative and use things that I already have instead of buying new things. So I took all my fun cloth napkins and put them in this cute glass pumpkin. (Fall! Yay!)

Now all I need is some candles for those holders...

I also bought these curtains for the living room. I'm not sure how I feel about them and even more, the curtain rods. Opinions, please. I actually think they will look better when its dark outside. Or even just when the sun isn't shining directly on them.

I like the red. I think it looks good with the dark wood and brick wall.

So that's about it for our apartment right now. More to come, don't you worry. Because I'm sure you were.

Next item of business: these amazing apple dumplings. Here is the story. Last week, I made all these dinners that had hidden vegetables in them. My husband was not happy. So I decided to make it up to him this week with things like steak and chicken and pasta and mashed potatoes. And these awesome easy little apple dumplings. You should make them this weekend. Seriously.

Does that not look delicious or what?

They involved crescent rolls from the tube, apples, butter, sugar, cinnamon, and whipped cream. And the secret ingredient, Mountain Dew. Warning: these are not for skinny people. And note to my bff Kerry, yes I did make the whipped cream myself. With some heavy cream that was hanging out in my fridge. (Note: skinny people do not keep heavy cream in their fridge.)

Here is the link to for life-changing apple dumplings. They take like 10 minutes to make and are really really really good.

I finished them off for breakfast this morning. Right before I did my Jillian Michaels workout video. Balance is what I'm looking for.

Last but not least, a good quality picture of me after I burned my lips on jalapeno. I made this awesome dip, licked my lips, and lived in torture for the next hour.

Ouch. 

Alright, I'm off to a 3 day work weekend. Which I'm sure my hub won't mind a bit since Halo Reach arrived at our house yesterday. (Thanks Mathew Lewis.) Have a beautiful weekend and make yourself some apple dumplings!