Family Room Console Table DIY

When we moved into our house, we had an ugly problem in the family room.  The city water meter was just hanging out, in the open.  Yuck.

At about the same time, behind the couch console tables (or shelves) were all the rage on Pinterest.  I showed Josh my idea to cover the meter and he agreed that he liked it.  Fast forward 8 months and we finally started working on it.

We didn't follow a plan at all, just built a top, two legs, and supports.  Except for some minor engineering help from me, Josh made this on his own.  It only took a few hours with staining time.  Super easy, looks nice, and covers the meter.  Win!

Wool Dryer Balls

When I purchased my microfiber cloths, I also purchased two other things.  Sticking with my saving money and being green trend, I purchased wool dryer balls and reusable produce bags.

Puppy cuddles

After getting used to the initial shock of the balls rumbling around in the dryer, I really like what they do.  They do seem to make everything dry faster and more efficiently.  I have heard of people adding essential oils to the dryer balls to give a nice scent.  I only have lemon essential oil, so I will have to invest in another scent to try that one.

If you are looking for a way to improve drying efficiency and time, I would recommend testing these out.  I believe you can get them from Target and some other stores as well as Amazon.  Verdict is still out on the produce bags.  Our meal plan this week only required us to buy cheese and lettuce.  Hooray for pantry shopping!

Hiatus and Budget Cleaning

I have taken a bit of a hiatus lately.  I wasn't having a great time at work and thought that any posts would be a bit of a downer, so decided to just skip it.  A lot has happened since my last post.  We have been doing some projects around the house, attended a few weddings, went on a trip to Hawaii, and my Dad has had coronary bypass surgery.  Whew!

We won the ticket lottery to see Book of Mormon

Things are going to be changing around here.  Josh has always wanted to go back to school to get his MBA, and he is taking the first step towards that this month.  He will start his GMAT prep course in a few weeks and is also attending an information session at Carlson School of Business.  With oodles more debt looming in our future, we are looking for some ways to cut the budget.

Happy ready to support her Uncle Chase

I have been tossing around the idea of making our own cleaning products for a while, but we have had a HUGE stockpile of cleaning products since moving out of our apartment in St. Paul.  While we are working on that, I am doing some research on things I would like to try.

Shave ice in Hawaii

One thing I do know is that we will go back to making our own laundry detergent.  We tried it a while back and loved it.  It is super easy, cost effective, and smells good.  This is the recipe we used last time and will use it again.  We already have all the ingredients and I liked the results.

Cutie pie

Something else I have been considering for a while is not using paper towels for cleaning.  I have been trying to cut back on our paper towel use.  First of all, they are expensive.  Second of all, throwing away all that waste is not good for the environment.  When we got married, we registered for cloth napkins.  We were really good about using them, but since we moved, have fallen off.  I am going to add some cloth napkins to my Christmas list to bulk up our supply and try to get back to using them.

Wedding

Also, after being invited to a Norwex party but not being willing to spend that much money on something, I ordered some microfiber cloths from Amazon.  So far, I have used them one time and like what I have seen.  I like that you don't need to use cleaning solutions and that once you make the initial investment, there isn't much more to spend.

Puppy love

I will keep update with how this is going.  Let me know if you have any secret tips for cleaning on a budget.

August Goals Update

1. Fix dining room table.

2. Paint dining room table.

3. Recover dining room chairs.

4. Get budget back on track.

5. Start additional retirement savings.

This month was a bit of a bust!  We did get our budget back on track, but everything else needs to wait until we can borrow some tools.  Hoping to get them this weekend, and then we will work on the table!  Hopefully we will have better luck in September.

House Update: Outside

Back yard with a view of the garden

Patio with our new lounge chairs

Grill and new hose box

New fence section

Side door

Flowers

Hydrangeas in the front yard

Front of the house with a puppy model

Eventually we would like to stain our fence a dark brown like the wood on the house.  We also may expand and change our garden next year.

Weekly Cleaning Update

A while back, I posted about my weekly cleaning schedule.  This was in our old house, which was much smaller.  I wasn't sure this was going to continue to work in the new house, but we gave it a try.

The old schedule:
Monday- Dusting/Pickup
Tuesday- Bathroom
Wednesday- Floors
Thursday- Kitchen
Laundry- 2 or 3 loads/week (throw them in before you do the other task)

Avery waiting for Josh to come home.  She is so excited to see him and have him vacuum up her hair! 

We had to do a bit of updating to make this work for the new house.  Here is our updated cleaning schedule:
Monday- Bedrooms
Tuesday- Bathrooms
Wednesday- Floors
Thursday-Common Space
Laundry- 3 or 4 loads/week

On Mondays, we put clean clothes away, change sheets, and generally tidy the bedrooms.  On Tuesday, we clean the bathrooms.  This usually means cleaning the toilet, sink, and mirror.  We use daily shower cleaner, so we do a deep clean of the shower/tub once a month.  On Wednesdays, we vacuum all floors and steam mop the wood floors.  On Thursdays, we tidy up the common areas (kitchen, living room, family room, and dining room).  I have gotten in the habit of doing all my loads of laundry on one day.  We have a fancy new washing machine which completes a load in 35 minutes, so this is pretty easy for me.  When we had longer load time, I was trying to do one load per day.  Either way works well for whatever works better in your life schedule.

I am the first to admit that there are MANY days and sometimes whole weeks that this doesn't get done.  Fortunately, you can jump right back in and it is easy to catch up since it is essentially only tackling one task at a time.  So kick back and enjoy the nice, summer weather while we still have it!

House Update: Dining Room

Next up we have our dining room.  If you have been to our house, I'm sure we have told you that we do not have a dining room.  Instead, we have converted the bedroom just off the kitchen and living room into one.  Since we have 4 bedrooms, this works pretty well (for now). If we are still in this house WAAAAAY down the road, it may be another story. 

Overall view of the room.  The projects we have done so far include hanging curtains and replacing the light fixture.  We have a few things that will be changing soon.  We are going to fix up the table and paint it to match the hutch, recover the chairs, get a hook so we can hang the light fixture properly, hopefully find a rug that is actually big enough, and paint the "bar" to match the table and hutch.  Lots of "little" projects.

This is the hutch that we found at the occasional store near our old place.  It was a great find and we are so happy to have it.  It is wonderful to be able to display our nicer dishes and other glassware.

See, it is a bedroom.  Our dining room has a closet!  Right now it stores jackets, shoes, and some extra "china" type things.

Our "bar."  We are trying to collect crystal decanters so we can eventually switch over to having everything in them.  Fancy.

This is one room you will be getting an update on soon (I hope!).