Summer Plans

Five days from now I will be in Houston with Hubs and our fur children! To say I'm excited is a bit of an understatement. To pass the time we've been apart I've come up with a pretty hefty to-do list for us to complete while I'm down there. I'll be able to spend a little over three weeks, so I want to get as much done as possible. Here's a mostly final list of what I want to accomplish:

Master Bathroom ·         Remove medicine cabinet- I really dislike medicine cabinets. Although this will remove pretty much all of Will's bathroom storage, we'll find a way to make it work. ·         Remove towel rack above tub- perhaps replace with a pretty glass shelf or two? ·         Patch wall ·         Prime ·         Paint- I'm thinking about a light grey color ·         Remove paint from around tub/cabinets- when the previous owners painted the bathroom teal, they left little specks of paint all around the edge of the tub. Hopefully these will come off with the assistance of a razor blade. ·         Hang one/two glass shelves ·         Add some apothecary jars for bath salts ·         Line drawers and cabinets ·         Move towels to under Will's sink- they’re currently in our bath closet. I’m thinking of moving Freska’s litter box in there and I don’t like the idea of having clean towels on the shelve above that ·         Buy long shower caddy- the shower head is up pretty high, so our little one is almost too high for me to use ·         Spray paint hardware- this will be a big project we eventually tackle for the whole house ·         Add film to window- right now it has blinds, but I like the idea of having the natural light coming in at all times but we definitely need the privacy. You can see into some of the neighbor’s windows when you’re standing in the shower (yeah, I made that mistake the first time I took a shower there. I finished up pretty quickly). Living Room ·         Picture frames in living room- I’m going to buy six big frame from Ikea for a collage wall ·         Make faux-Roman blinds for back door- there were blinds on the back door when we moved in, but Will did something and they broke. I really want to incorporate some fun and colorful fabric into the room since it’s pretty much all grey, black and white at this point, but I’m not spending the money on throw pillows right now. I’ll need about a yard of fabric for this project, but I think it will add a lot of visual interest to the room. Kitchen ·         Canvas in kitchen/living- I picked up a huge canvas at Michael’s last month. I’m not positive what I’m doing with it yet, but it will go on the blank wall behind our breakfast table. ·         Label jars in pantry ·         Back of pantry door- shelves- I haven’t 100% decided if I want to do this or not. I like the idea of putting all my spices in a shelving unit on the back of the pantry door and clearing up almost an entire cabinet. But I also like having spices handy and right by the stove. Also, at this point we don’t NEED another cabinet (but I suspect when we have kids we’ll need the extra space ·         Hang some cork tiles in cabinets Outdoors ·         Potting bench ·         Paint front door/ shutters- we’re doing them black (we have white trim) and I want to paint our house numbers on the door, as well. ·         Take out boxwoods/plant something- this may or may not happen. My dream is to have two or three hydrangea bushes growing in front of the house, but I still haven’t figured out if they’ll grow down there. Plan B is to take out the boxwoods and plant a regular flower garden. However, it may already be too hot to plant something, so this might have to wait until the spring ·         Hanging plant on deck- we’re not spending much money on landscaping this year, but it would be nice to have a plant or two on our deck. ·         Rain barrel- We have been really lucky so far and haven’t had to water our grass yet. However, if it’s anything like last summer we’ll have to within a few weeks. ·         Compost pile- this is something Will’s in charge of. I wanted to just get a few pallets and build a box that we have to turn, but Will did some research and discovered that compost piles can get extremely hot (hot enough to start a fire) and vetoed the wood idea. He is also against using a plastic bin because he worries it might melt. I haven’t really told him about everyone else who uses plastic containers for compost, so we’ll see if this actually happens. I would like to get it started now so we have some dirt for planting next spring. Dining Room ·         Rolling cart- I found an awesome cart at a thrift store last month and I can’t wait to turn it into a drink cart for our dining room. It could be a little tricky though, and needs quite a bit of TLC. Office/ Craft Room ·         Paint- light blue? I really have no idea what color I want to paint ·         Hang curtains ·         Paint desk ·         White cubby- getting this from Ikea ·         Generally put it together- this room is going to be travel themed since we’ve acquired so much stuff from our travels that doesn’t necessarily fit in with the rest of our house. For instance, we have no wood or brown colored stuff in our whole house (I’ve never really liked brown very much), but a lot of our souvenirs and some pictures we have are brown, so we’re going to embrace it for the office and bathroom that it’s connected to. Laundry Room ·         Hang ironing board rack ·         Touch up paint- my little brother helped paint this room, and as much as I love him, he’s not much of a perfectionist and I didn’t have time to fix it over spring break. ·         Art in Laundry room ·         Rug in laundry room ·         Glass bottle for vinegar (we use as laundry softener) Garage ·         Hook/baskets to wire shelves Guest rooms ·         Hang ledge shelves ·         Add some décor ·         Make them pretty Master Bedroom ·         Make headboard- already bought the foam for this ·         Finish sunburst mirror- just need Will to help me saw off some of the ends that are too long ·         Spray paint hardware- again, they’re the nasty gold ·         Replace switch plates ·         Paint chair- I picked up a chair from a thrift store a few weeks ago. It’s not a permanent solution but it will work for now and can be moved to a guest room later ·         Hang 2 pictures above night stands Other Ideas: ·         "love more" sign for above front door ·         Make laundry soap ·         Video tour of home- this and the photos are for insurance purposes ·         Photograph and document house ·         Foreign coin and cash display- for the office ·         Toilet paper roll flower

Whew! That's quite a list. I but since I'll have only spent four weeks over about six months in my house, I have to make every second count. Plus, Will will be working all day so that gives me plenty of time to work on projects and still spend time with him in the evenings. And let's face it, although Will is AWESOME about doing all the little honey-dos I ask him to do, decorating and "froufing" a house and going to Ikea are not his favorite things to do and sometimes it's a little easier if I can do them myself without having to worry about him. I'm so excited to get working on some of these projects (I've been planning for months!), but most of all I'm just excited to be with my family again. We have some fun dates planned and I'm planning on milking all of our time together for all it's worth.