The Last 3 Weeks {In Review}

I can't believe it's already almost the middle of October. 

The past month was so busy and seemed to fly by at warp speed. 

The last few weeks have definitely been an adjustment as I've eased myself into the role of preschool teacher.  It's been a lot of fun, but a lot of work too.  Sadly, the ole bloggy has taken the brunt of my neglect, but I'll do my best to still post as regularly as possible.

Now that I am limited to only a couple days a week to devote to "my projects" I've had to be very deliberate in what I choose to do.  The projects have become less "experimental" and more "necessary".

One of those recent necessary projects was cleaning up a little spray paint mishap that occured in the laundry room.  My washer seems to thrash about during the spin cycle like a caged beast. Well, a couple weeks ago, during one of the "destructive" spin cycles, I inadvertantly left a can of yellow spray paint sitting on top of the washer {you know where I'm headed with this...remember the laundry room light debaucle?}.  When I went in the change the load out, I encountered my {semi} newly painted floors desecrated by the yellow paint can which had fallen from the washer and exploded all over the ground.  I was a little irritated {to say the least}.

I didn't take any before pictures because of the incident because, frankly, it's not an event I really cared to remember. But no worries, everything is good as new now.

Another project on the to-do list was to paint my kiddos's bathroom counter top.  For whatever reason, the little dears have been on a kick of drawing on things which should not be drawn upon.  The following of which include:  their bodies, other people's bodies, exterior brick, walls, doors, floors, clothes and now...countertops.

  Granted, the countertops were hideous to begin with, but adorning the hideousnous with even more hideousness did not negate any of the hideousness...only made it worse.

Chiseling off the tile and retiling or buying new countertops altogether wasn't really an option, so I resorted to my old friend...garage floor epoxy.  It's the same stuff I used on the tile floors in my laundry room.  I decided to conduct a little experiment to see if it would work equally as well on tile countertops as it has on my tile floors. 

So far it's looking pretty good...but then again it's only been three days.  I'll give it a little more time then update on how it has help up. 

Here's the before and after again, just in case you forget in the last three seconds how it looked...before and after.

And since I already had the paint out, I decided that I might as well freshen up the disgusting tile floors.  Just looking at them could easily bring on a severe case of pink eye.

I made it easy on myself this go around and just simply painted wide, horizontal stripes {rather than tape out a complicated/time intensive pattern}. 

I think it turned out great.  Now I don't have to worry about contracting a case of foot fungus if I accidentally step on the floors sans socks/shoes.

The next project just sorta happened by chance.  I came across the steal of the century when I found this gorgeous couch at the store for $279. 

My front room, up until now, has housed a piano, a shelf, two Guitar Hero guitars and accompanying drum set and drum pedal, an unused side table and a couple lamps, several awol Lego pieces and an army of dust bunnies...not the most aesthetically pleasing room in the house.  With my newfound purchase, I was inspired to create a living room worthy of actually "living" in, and not "storing" in.

I spent a little over $100 on accessories, about $50 on window coverings and draperies, and about $80 on frames for artwork.  All in all, I ended up spending just over $500 to completely transform this room.  

I think it has just the right amount of funkiness, freshness and funness, no? 

Can I also just add that the artwork itself cost me all of $2.  I found a really cool art book on drawing animals at the thrift store and simply ripped out some pages I thought were intersting.  The end result:  chic, custom artwork that looks pricy but in reality cost mere cents. 

You should totally try it.  Cause if one of your cute, little darlings happens to come across an awol marker and uses it to "enhance" your artwork, you won't have to "go to your happy place for three days" to cope with the incident.  You can just remind yourself, "hey, that picture only cost a quarter, no biggie".  And that, my dear friends, is priceless.

I don't usually close my posts with a question, but today I'm feeling daring.  Do you ever feel like all of your free time is spent touching up/re-doing projects you've already done?  Or is it just me and my gaggle of crazies.  I certainly hope not.  Til next time...