As you probably now if you’re following our adventures, we spent an abnormal amount of time perusing the games section at Goodwill last weekend in hopes of finding a Scrabble game for our Pinterest Challenge art. Of course we did not find Scrabble, but we managed to come home with two Bingo games. TWO. At the bargain price of $1.99 each. While it is certainly not as fun as the live version (since there are no daubers or jackpots or screaming ladies in glittery tops involved), Bingo does come in a boxed edition. Were we just delirious from all of our shopping and the lack of working air conditioning in our car? We definitely were, but that doesn’t explain our purchases. While suffering from heat stroke, Dain actually had the brilliant and crafty idea to take the little Bingo cards and turn them into coasters. He is an art major you know.
All posts tagged How-to
Pack it Out, Pack it In.
Let me begin. Can you guess what we packed out and packed in? The contents of our garage of course. One of the compromises we made when choosing our house was the fact that we do not have an attached garage. Which is kind of a bummer for us in Minnesota, where we have to brave below zero temps and biting wind just to get in our car (which may or may not start) during the winter. However, we are lucky enough to have A garage even if we do have to walk ten feet to get there. It is a small space. We call it a one and a quarter. Since we are still saving up for our mopeds or smart car, we currently use that spare quarter as our dumping ground for our growing crap heap. It is not actually all crap, but it sure looks like it when you store like we have been doing for….oh….a year and a half. As in the whole time we’ve owned said dumping ground. I finally snapped last weekend after tripping over one too many things getting in and out of the garage. And Dain was obviously obligated to join in. Marriage code or something. Since I certainly did not put it all in there myself.
A Pinterest Challenge? Why,Yes. We Accept.
Not only are we bloggers (albeit newbies), but we also follow a few other blogs. One of our favorites is Young House Love, which is how we found out about this challenge. Sherry (and John by proxy) over at YHL teamed up with Katie from Bower Power, Lana from Making a House a Home, and Emily from Style by Emily Henderson, and the ladies threw down a challenge. A Pinterest Challenge. And we have accepted. The parameters were pretty wide open to let the creative juices flow. The idea is to act on all of that eye candy we peruse for hours on end by creating something inspired by Pinterest. In full disclosure, this is only our second attempt at making something that we’ve seen on Pinterest (the first being our brickends). So thank you to our fellow bloggers for giving us a much needed kick in the pants. We owe our crafty new wall candy to them.
Custom Art to Cover the T.V.
We’ve gone to a lot of trouble to have a t.v. in our living room. Which is laughable because we currently get 10 channels. By choice (or at least that’s what we tell ourselves in our quest to be more productive and less Bravo obsessed). As we mentioned yesterday, the first problem was the lack of a working cable outlet which necessitated the installation of a cable hanging out the side of our house (which we finally disguised here). Another obstacle was where to put the t.v. in our relatively small dining room/living room since we did not have room for a console. We ended up hanging it on the wall thanks to an affordable wall mount from Monoprice. That only left a need to hide the black beast. Not really a need. More of a desire. Of mine. That Dain indulged. The end result being a custom piece of art perfectly sized to disguise our television.
Disappearing (Cable) Act
You may recall an unsightly black cable sticking out of the left side of our house on the yard tour we posted a few months ago. It kind of fit in with that whole side of our house since we have done nothing over there in anticipation of a big tree removing, retaining wall installing, and fence building party that we hope to plan this fall. Well, thanks to Dain being bred for his skills in magic, he made it disappear. It is an incredible improvement that came in at a grand total of under 2 dollars. Holla.
Toilet Talk
We can’t help from sharing our latest bathroom addition. Don’t worry, it is nothing gross or unpleasant. It is actually very green. A dual flush converter. Say what? A dual flush converter. Or a d.f.c. for those in the know (slash those of us who just assume others use that acronym for the sake of blog brevity). A d.f.c. is essentially a kit that transforms your normal toilet into a dual flush dynamo. With the installation of it, your toilet has two flush modes: one quick flush for liquids and one for solids. This allows you to use up to 70% less water on the quick flush and to save thousands of gallons of water every year. Let us introduce you to ours.
DIY Chalkboard Bottles
Nobody loves a free project like we do. And this easy repurpose was 100% f-r-e-e thanks to a few bottles we had lying around and a little can of chalkboard paint that we’ve been hoarding for a fun project. I got the idea last weekend while we were at Gertens, a local garden center with a cutsy gift shop inside. While perusing the wares, I noticed chalkboard bottles for sale, and one had the word “menu” painted at the top. They were around $20 so I did not reach for my wallet, but it did get me thinking…..that I could make them at home. So we did. And we’re busy crushing on them.
Frame it. Hang it. Love it.
Well, we had an exceptionally productive (and late) Tuesday night. Cutting our cable down to 10 basic channels has actually had that effect on us….we do stuff instead of loafing on the couch (since we only get seriously horrible shows now). So with the All-Star baseball game on for background (yah Michael Cuddyer), we made some serious progress on our frame wall. We shared our idea with you last week in this post, but essentially, we have a vision of a gallery of frames hanging above our couch in the living room like the ones we’ve been seeing everywhere lately (blogs, Pinterest…even our local Pottery Barn). And we knew we would LIKE it, but after hanging a template and a few finished pieces, it is LOVE. And we are OBSESSED.
How to Clean an Air Conditioner
Yes, you can do it yourself. It is not quite as glamorous as calling a professional for a tune-up and watching them work their magic, but it gets the job done. Most days you wouldn’t even think that we had central air as you start to sweat upon entering our house on a hot summer day. We’ve lived in our house for 557 days, and I estimate that we have used our air conditioner about 7 of those days (5 of which coincided with having company over last summer). We hadn’t touched it this year until Sunday, when the heat and humidity got the better of us. So Dain cleaned our a/c unit outside and inside, and we entered the cool lap of luxury.
Up and Dirty
If you have ever owned a home, you know that it comes with a lot of maintenance. Some of which is exceptionally unpleasant and downright nasty. Our example of the day: cleaning the gutters. YUCK. It’s no wonder there are so many products on the market to “guard” and “shield” your gutters……..from the seriously rancid gunk that builds up in there over the year. But since we have not made that leap yet, we are left with the old school method. Schlepping a ladder around the house and scooting around the roof while using a broom to unclog the heaps of rotting leaves. Or at least that’s how we did it.
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