in the fall i was anxious to re-stain and repair the deck in our back yard.

it was peeling and pretty nasty and warped in some places. our toddler was in constant danger of getting splinters or tripping and falling on her face.

however my husband convinced me to hold off, and said that maybe in the spring we could just tear out and redo the whole deck instead. that deck had seen many happy days, but it was time.

over the next few months our idea of building a new deck morphed/snowballed into building a flagstone patio.

the main reason was that we figured that if we were going to invest time and money, then we might as well make it something that would be low maintenance and that we wouldn't have to redo again in 10 years.

so in february we started demo. i fully anticipated relaxing on my stone patio by the end of the month. at least by march.





everyone helped with demo, and it was disgusting. pics of a cute toddler are much cuter than pics of us at this point. why is dirt only cute on babies?

when we found tons of rat poop and spider eggs underneath the deck, i was more happy than ever that we weren't putting up a deck again. the underside of those things are a magnet for nasty apparently!

we also found that part of the deck was built over a concrete pad. this meant that we would have to lay the flagstone a couple different ways on the concrete vs the ground.



the dogs were confused.



we needed lots of breaks.

the demo alone was a tone of work. then the next step was digging out the area on the ground where we would be laying stone.



by now it was march, and the texas spring weather was not working in our favor. this was just a weekend project for us, and some how every weekend seemed to get rained out.

once we dug out the area we wanted, we then filled it with a couple inches of decomposed granite and rented a tamper to flatten it down.

we thought we were done with the hardest part.

ha!

next we had the stone delivered, pressure washed everything, and then dry laid the stones. it felt like the home stretch.



all that was left using some cement to stick down the stones that were laid on the concrete, and then we'd fill the cracks and seal everything.

however, i forgot that i was married to a perfectionist. sticking down the stones and laying them in the perfect place where they would be perfectly level and perfectly sloping away from the house required hours of measuring, placing, and the pulling up the stones and doing it all over again if it wasn't perfect.

this was our life for a month. if i had been the project manager on this part, i would have just eyeballed it, slapped it down, and call it a day. in the end i'm glad my husband took the time to make things look professional, but at the time i was so over it! notice i forgot to take pics of this step. i think i was too traumatized.

that seemingly simple step of sticking down the stones ended up being the most complicated part of the project, so after that we could actually see the finish line!

we filled all the cracks with concrete sand, and then sealing the stones and cracks.

tadaaaa!




by mid may we were enjoying our patio. yes, i said MAY!!
i never thought that day would come.



i got a steal on some comfy patio furniture via craigslist, and we were ready to finally enjoy this thing!



this definitely took the prize for the most exhausting diy of all time. it was back breaking, and never ending. but worth it? now that we're on the other side of things i think i can say yes. i can also say never again! lol.




we've certainly been living it up in the backyard since we finished!

this patio was also a part of my husband's dream of creating a backyard theater, so we're planning to really make the most of all our hard work!



i thought i would be burned out on doing yard work/diys for the rest of my life after that one, but now i'm actually feeling inspired to tackle some new projects. stay tuned...one of them has to do with that big black thing against our exterior wall.



we'll have lived in this house for 5 years next month, so it feels good to give it a little bit of sprucing up in honor of the occasion. hopefully now this patio will last even longer than this house, because we are so done with this project! :)

i would be a pathetic home diy blogger. first of all, i'm posting this about 6 months late, and secondly, i'm completely horrible at taking in progress pictures when i'm working on any kind of project.

when we bought our house almost 5 years ago, it was a flip that had been sitting on the market for a long time that we got a great deal on in a neighborhood we loved. however, since it was a flip, a lot of the finishes and upgrades weren't something we would have chosen, but it took me awhile to feel justified in ripping any of it out since a lot of it was new.

but this dark granite tiled fireplace had been glaring at me ever since we moved in. it was the first thing you would see when you walked through the front door, and it felt like it sucked the light out of the room.



sorry, i forgot to take a before pic before i started demo. but another thing that always annoyed me was that the tiles were off center! ugh! i just couldn't wait to get started!

one day on an impulse i just started ripping off tiles with the hope that there would be some beautiful brick underneath. alas, there was brick, however it was covered in gunk and not really salvageable.



so plan B was to put a better looking tile on the fireplace. we picked a light split faced travertine to kind of brighten the room and to tie in with travertine that's in the kitchen. also since part of the charm of split faced tile is it's imperfections, it was a good kind of a good easy medium for my husband to learn tile installation. he got the fun of fixing my impulsive demo job!



but in the end it was completely worth it! for about $100, this was a high impact project that really made the house feel so much more like our own.



ok, enough pics mom.

home decor blogs have long been my guilty pleasure, and pinterest is a more recent one. so i thought that this time around i would take on the challenge put out there by some of my favorite home blogs and actually turn some of my pinspiration into reality.

there are several things in our house that aren't exactly my style, but they're not horrible either, so the reality is that i'm probably not going to invest much money in changing them.

one of these such items was our dining room chandelier.

it was your basic builder/box store sort of unit. nothing horrible, but definitely not a show stopper. and when you put an oil rubbed bronze fixture up against the back drop of a reddish brown wall, you're not doing it any favors. the thing just blended in.



you'll have to pardon my crappy photo shoot. i'm having to use the phone camera at the moment...and i was too anxious to get going on this project to wait to take a daylight shot.

but anyways, i had been browsing pinterest for some cheap updated ideas...preferably something that didn't involve paint, because i wasn't really in the mood to bust all that out...and i ran across this:



a diy rope knock off of a $1500 restoration hardware fixture.

so i decided to give it a whirl.

i just picked up $2 worth of jute twine from home depot, grabbed my hot glue gun, and got to work.



i was a little lazy for this project, because i didn't even take the chandelier down to work on it. my arms got tired, so i just worked on it whenever the mood would strike, or during baby nap time.



i'm quite pleased with the result though. not bad for a $2 upgrade. now it really pops out against the wall, and ties into all the other natural fibers i have going on in the room. i may try to figure out a way to accessorize it a little more in the future, but for now it's much improved.



so i'm pretty happy with how this little pinterest challenge turned out.
now to tackle some of the other bajillion things i have pinned...

one home related improvement i've decided to tackle in 2013 is to finally do something about all the shiny brassy hardware in our house. it's definitely not my favorite look.

all of our door knobs look kind of like they stepped right out of 1993.



however, i'm too cheap to buy new hardware...and i kind of hate replacing something unless it's worn out anyhow.

but changing the finish on all our knobs is going to be a lot of work...that's why i've just been staring at them for almost 4 years now.

these days i've been hearing about brass making a comeback though...which makes me a little nervous. i'm hoping it's not the case...but if it is then i'd like to know for sure before i expose myself to hours of work and chemical fumes! :P

right now the options i have in my mind are to spray the hardware all oil rubbed bronze like this:



most of our light fixtures in the house are oil rubbed bronze.

or the other idea i'm playing around with is trying to remove the lacquer from the brass to get an aged brass look like this:



what would you do?
has anyone successfully attempted any of these things?
has anyone else heard rumors of brass making a big comeback?
if you wait too long to update something, is it better to just wait until it comes back in style? ;)

home decor blogs are my guilty pleasure. i like to breeze through them in the morning while i sip my chai.

so when a few of my favorite blogs (YHL, Bower Power, Style by Emily Henderson, and Making a House a Home) joined together to issue a Pinterest Challenge, it inspired me to make practical use of my pinning. :P plus, me and my friend Laurene had been talking about actually doing some projects for awhile.

we have lots of boob lights in our house...thanks to it being built in the 70s. and i have been on a mission to be rid of them. i got rid of one earlier this summer, and now i was on a mission to be rid of the one in our hallway. our hallway was in need of a little excitement for sure.

i love the capiz shell chandeliers that are so in style right now...but they're kind of pricey if you plan to buy one. fortunately though, there are about a million tutorials on how to DIY a wax paper version all over pinterest and the internet. i won't go into the details of how i did it since the formula is already out there, but i pretty much followed these directions, except i used and old busted out lamp shade as my frame, and i used a circle puncher to make all the wax paper shells. no way i'd have the patience to cut a million circles with scissors. oh, and i used fishing line instead of thread.

to hang it i just used 3 mug hooks, and since it was pretty big i just hung it directly over the boob light and didn't even bother to take it down. i figure protecting the wax paper from any heat coming from the light is probably a good thing.

anyways, our hall way is now officially fancy! (sorry, i forgot to take before pics..but who hasn't seen a million boob lights? i'm sure you can imagine. :P)











i love how it adds some texture and height to the hall.
this project cost a grand total of about $5...and some time.

ok, maybe a lot of time. but once i figured out how to make it work, and got into a rhythm, it probably took about 6 hours. of course those hours were spread out across many days though.

realistically, this is a very busy time of year for me, and fun DIY projects should have been the lowest priority on my list. but once i started it was almost therapeutic. it became my late night obsession, and my way to unwind after a busy day. almost every spare second i had (or didn't have) was spent working on this baby, so my husband will probably be glad to have me back now.

so...2 boob lights down, and one to go. any ideas on what i should do with the last surviving boob light in the entry way?

when i was in like first grade, i remember my teacher telling my parents that i might end up being an artist or something, because i was artistically ahead of most of the other kids in my class.

i was also taller than most of the kids my age.

but then they caught up to my height. i think they probably caught up to my artistic ability as well.
while i used to enjoy painting and drawing, that is sadly something that i haven't done in ages. any minor artistic inclinations i have now only get a chance to come out when i'm working on some kind of graphic design, or maybe decorating my house.

but lately i'd been itching to paint something. in fact, i even went out and got a canvas a couple months ago on a day when i was feeling particularly inspired. but then alas...i got busy, and it sat collecting dust in the corner of my office.

the other day though i ran across a picture that totally inspired me, so i determined to make myself sit down at some point this weekend and finally get to painting!

the inspiration:



is that not totally rad?!
it had me at hello.

so anyways, like i said...my artistic skill didn't advance with me too far beyond grade school... but i thought i'd take a stab at ripping off a watercolor world map...and maybe adding a bit of personalization! ;)

i have lots of friends from around the world. and my husband and i are from opposite sides of the globe, so a world map has a nice significance to me. and i thought i'd also add something to mark those places that are special to us.

so how did i make my creation?
i kind of cheated.

i printed out a rough graphic i had of the world. taped all the paged together to make a poster. exactoknifed that baby up. and then laid it over the canvas like a stencil.



if all turned out well, my hope was to hang my new piece of art over our fireplace.

no pressure!

i really needed it to turn out decent though, because my mantle was in need of a serious switcharoo.

when we moved into our house (2 years ago!), i just put up the same stuff that we had over the mantle in our apartment. which was much smaller.



so it looked a little dwarfed above the fireplace, and blended into the wall a little too much...but alas, i hadn't found anything else i really liked, at a price that i liked. :P so there it stayed.

i'm not good with mantles. i wish i was one of those people who changed it out every season...but that's never happened. at best it just gets some stockings added at christmas.

so anyways. enough mantle babble. are you ready for the grand reveal??!

don't get too excited.

seriously.

lower those expectations.

it's not that impressive.

but...it was fun. that's what counts, right?









ummm. yeah.
so it definitely looks better the further away you get! :P
but i don't hate it.

did you like the little hearts on texas and india?!
i thought it was a romantic little touch! ;)

my husband can't get past the fact though that you can't properly distinguish the state of gujarat in india. but hey let's face it. there's a whole lot of stuff that can't be properly distinguished! you get the basic idea though. i would advise you not to try sailing around the world using this map as your guide. let's just call it an artistic interpretation. ;)

not bad though for a grand totally of about $15 and a couple hours time.

if i had it to do over again, i dunno if i've add all the splattering...it didn't quite achieve the whole effect i was going for. and i'd also blow up the map a little bigger so there would be less white space.

but for now. i say good enough.
i guess it will have to wait until i have another wave of artistic inspiration! ;)

 i finally figured out what to do with a bunch of leftover hanging candle lanterns from my wedding...that was 4 years ago...



take a $1 solar light from dollar tree...unscrew the top...guerilla glue it to the top of your candle lantern...and viola!



hanging solar light!



not bad for a nice backyard glow...the price isn't bad either. :)

ever since we moved into our house (almost 2 years ago!), i'm a little ashamed to say that our outdoor back porch light fixture has not worked!



the home inspector told us there was nothing actually wrong with the light...it was just that the bulb was burned out...and the light is so old (original to the house probably) that they don't make the bulbs anymore. i looked around a bit for the bulb, but then gave up. the light was ugly, rusted, and very 1971 anyhow.

there are things i love about the 1970s...the music rocked back then...but i'm afraid that home design did not!

i dislike most outdoor fixtures anyways...why do they always have to be so boring? and why do they usually look like boobies? seriously now.

anyways...i've seen a lot of people make lights out of crazy random things lately. and i dig it.
so i decided to make a little light fixture of my own.

so i snagged a cheap basket at hobby lobby for $2, and the cheapest light fixture i could find at home depot for $5.



i cut a hole in the bottom of the basket, and it's held up there with the fixture. hopefully it's not a fire hazard. :P if you know anything about that, then please do share. all the wires are all clamped up though and up in the ceiling, pretty far away from everything else.

ok, can i just say that those baskets are tougher than they look?? man, that took a loooooot of cutting! it's not perfect, but i'm happy with the finished product!



i love how its not your typical outdoor light, and how you can see it from the deck! it castes some nice shadows in the dark too.



question...do you think the handles should stay or go? i couldn't decide so i left them for now.



i love the view of it from our deck. and i love this picture.
mostly just because i get to show off the cute little elephant planter that my hubby got me a few weeks ago.

i kind of have a thing for elephants...so it's a good thing i married an indian...
not that they all have elephants over there or anything...though i have seen a few. :)

anyways. creative and cheap solutions make me happy!
i love it when a diy project actually turns out the way you had envisioned it!

happy ending.

so this past weekend, staining the fence and deck seemed like a good idea.
staining is just like painting, right? yeah maybe...at least what painting must be like in hell!

the deck stain was all worn and splintery, so since that definitely needed done, we just decided to do the fence too while we were at it. sure, why not? one thing i've learned since being a homeowner is that fences are stupid expensive, and we didn't want to have to replace ours anytime soon...even though it's already on the old side. so it's better to just take care of it and squeeze as much life out of it as possible.


i quickly discovered that the difference between staining and painting is that staining requires loooots more wood prep! the first step was stripping. (the wood, not us!) this was like toxic death. we used a chemical instead of a sander, and that stuff was intense! i small splatter flew up and hit my cheek, and burned straight through my skin! fortunately only the deck required stripping since the fence had never been treated... i would have quit right after the deck if the fence had needed it too! the stripping then required scrubbing the old stain off with a rough brush...creating a serious mess!

the next step was just the overall wood prep to kill mildew and get rid of the worn parts of the wood. this required scrubbing both the fence and deck with another chemical.

seriously toxic job. a few brain cells were lost. and my arms are still feeling it.


this pic was taken at about the super low point. crrrrazy rough. we're covered in liquid fence mildewy gunk. some of us more than others...hmmm....

but everything actually looked kind of awesome after this phase. i was half tempted to just call it a day. but then i would have cried in a few months when everything looked funky again.


the wood on the right is how the wood looked all prepped! it's like a miracle! it took years off the fence! (i forgot to take a pic before we started staining though, so just ignore the other part!)

so then we stained. and stained. and stained some more.

but finally...5 days and many sore muscles later, we made it! at least mostly. don't ask me about the neighbor's side that we haven't gotten to yet...i might cry. i'll think about it later when i'm recovered.




i must say that i'm truly happy with the outcome. it's like everything is brand new!
but never again people. never again.
i'm just praying that next time this needs done we'll have fallen into some money and can hire someone to do it. because seriously... i can work hard. i'm a texas girl... but that was rough.

so please admire.
and i'm sorry. i love you... but i won't help you stain yours!