Win FREE Coupons!

Are you a member of How To Shop For Free, yet? If not, you ought to become one:

http://www.howtoshopforfree.net/exciting-news/be-a-better-person-sunday-coupon-insert-giveaway/

How are you planning to be a better person? Enter this give-away for your chance to win a flat rate envelope full of Sunday coupons!

A break from the usual "home improvement".....

After spending a bunch of time improving my house, then taking a much needed sabbatical to enjoy the holidays, I have momentarily turned my attention to another kind of "home improvement". I scored this doghouse from a fellow FREEcycle-er about a month ago, when the cold snap occurred..... being the "cat lady" I am, I was concerned for the well-being of the stray cats I take care of during this extreme cold. When I got it, it was woefully evident that it was in very rough shape, but it had potential.....a "fixer-upper", if you will. :-)


So, I set about it.... I realized that the first thing this cat house needed was a decent roof.... the one it had was hardly ideal. I scored some FREE shingles from my boyfriend's mom, who had just had her roof repaired from storm damage a few months ago. After some cutting, nailing and gluing, it is looking more and more like a respectable home, especially after removing the astro-turf flap that stood in as a makeshift door; although, what the astro-turf was covering wasn't really THAT much better. @@

In the process of roofing, I also learned just how badly the wood sides needed replacing. The boards are so rotted that you could just about poke your finger all the way through them, completely scrapping my prior plans for covering them up with something pretty, like polished river stone, mosaic, or cat house-sized siding. Thank goodness for my pile-o-scrap wood! This week, I cut new side boards and make a template for a new front, to fit the cat door I bought.

(Okay....so it's not EXACTLY "free", anymore....I am into this project by about $30.00 so far, including the cat door, roofing materials, and the cute little birdhouse I bought with the same roofline, and I haven't even started to make it pretty, yet; but sometimes, a girl just has to create! And, to prove just how crazy I am, I have included a picture of one of the beautiful kitties I am laboring so hard for, who is already beginning to take to her new digs:

WIN THIS!!!!!

Dylan and Jo from thecartbeforethehorse.blogspot.com is giving away these cool pretties!!!


Sign up to win at http://thecartbeforethehorse.blogspot.com/2009/08/200-posts-and-giveaway-or-two.html by October 1st!!!

A giveaway from Isabella & Max Rooms!

I have never won a blog giveaway before, and have entered many, but I was cruisin' RateMySpace.com and, being a fan of Janell Beals' posts, I clicked on one of her RMS posts and discovered that she had a blog; and, best of all, she was doing a giveaway! You can see it here:

http://isabellaandmaxrooms.blogspot.com/2009/06/celebrate-summer-with-my-first-give.html

And, here's what she's giving away:



I love this look, and can really visualize it on my newly painted patio tables, and painted and stained deck and siding!

By the way, here is a peek of the newly rehabbed mesh table that was left behind by the previous owner, along with the new chairs I purchased to go around it. The table was battleship gray, the same color as the old deck paint. I picked up two cans of Rustoleum textured black paint and now, it looks like it was meant to be a set:



Sorry..... I forgot to take a "before" pic of the table..... just imagine it gray! :-)

There's a lot of deck left to refinish! We have sanded and pressure-washed, and looked at dozens of color options in both stains and paints. I want to use something that will last a long time, but still look nice and be user-friendly. We looked at non-slip sanded paint chips as well, which would be great for the steps and deck floor, but Tim questioned its cleanability..... and from what I've learned, our deck, rocks, and driveway are going to need to be pressure washed at least once a year. The leaves and pollen make for a huge mess, and I would love for cleanup to be as effortless as possible.

As for the deck chairs, I know they're not mesh like the table, but I tried the mesh wrought iron chairs out in the store, and found them to be most uncomfortable, even though they were cheaper. Even with a chair pad, they didn't make you want to linger very long. In contrast, these chairs were amazingly comfortable, even without a chair pad. I could have bought two wrought iron chairs for every one of these I bought, but in the end, comfort won out over frugality. The other big plus was that these chairs will stack, making winter storage easy. Aside from that, they still look nice with the table, giving it a more contemporary, if not ethnic look.

In other news, the outdoor clock and lanterns I had been eyeing at Walmart last week were marked WAY down this week! The clock, originally $35, was now $10; the lanterns, originally $25, were now just $9 each! And for $6 each, I grabbed up the last four brown and cream zebra pillows; I love a touch of animal print. ;-) I am contemplating going back for more today.

The Master Bath, revisited......

I lost my motivation over the fall and winter. The master bath stayed in suspended animation until this past week, when I finally got my mojo back and got back to work:

The chair rail molding from the hall project became the frame for around the mirror, and along with the shelves from the old house, were given a few coats of mahogany stain. After I hung all the shelves and made many large holes in the walls, I conceded that it looks too cluttered, now...... damn; I wish I would have known before. I might try it without the baskets, but I really needed the extra storage. I hate the cultured marble countertop, but have to say that with the framed-out mirror, it definitely looks much better.

The hall project....

Too bad I had already removed the wallpaper border above the chair rail; it was a magnolia floral, and really set off the taupe and cream stripes of the wallpaper below the chair rail. Okay, it wasn't that bad, but just not our style. Chair rails seemed to go south somewhere in the 90's, and are too traditional for our tastes, anyway. I disliked the jarring feeling that accompanied the walk down the hall, when I "noticed" the chair rail there. There were so many reasons why it had to go, first and foremost, the Feng Shui aspect of it. I was dying to remove it, but Tim was adamant that it stay put. I compromised; I told him I would not bug him to remove or paint the paneling in the living room for a whole year.

Our hall runs down the center of our home, and for Feng Shui purposes, it really needed to be yellow. This is better for the health of the female occupant. I really could use any help I can get, whether medical or esoterical.




Here is the "after": I have since hung my beautiful collection of oil paintings of the French Quarter by a Chicago artist I discovered on Ebay. We changed out the hall light fixtures to something a bit more modern, and ditched the 80's country dome fixtures made to resemble cut glass. I am very unimpressed by the orange-y color of the woodwork that is all the same in this house. I intend to improve it, either by staining it a rich mahogany, or painting it.... something. I would like to get some nicer doors down the line; these look old and bland to me. I did this paint with Eddie Bauer paint in satin Pecan, then glazed over it lightly with a combination of mocha and ochre. It seems to have affected my health, already. I feel calm and subdued walking down the hall, now, and I'm glad the strobing effect of the vertical stripes no longer effect me.

Master bath makeover.... so far

The top photo is the before, before we bought the house; the second is the after.

I am planning to stain the rest of the woodwork in the Mahogany, frame out the vanity mirror with the demo'ed chair rail molding from the hall project, and add crown molding. And, of course, hang some art on the walls (not sure what in my stash I"ll use, yet). I replaced the old-fashioned cut glass knob pulls with satin nickel ones; did a venetian plaster treatment on the walls in a warm Tuscan yellow; refinished the worn and dated 80's vanity in an exotic Mahogany; hung new satin nickel towel rods, and finished by adding a toilet paper holder where it should have been all along (within easy reach), instead of having to reach around behind. We also replaced the cheap brass vanity bar with a beautiful satin nickel/frosted glass fixture (only $19.99! My bargaining prowess never rests!). Take a look:

There is more to be done, but there it is, thus far!