Shop: Sweet Salvage November

You remember Sweet Salvage, right?

Of course you do.  We talked about their Wicked event last September.

Tonight was the Comfort and Joy preview party.

Joy? Immediately.

Comfort? Only after a glass of wine to quell my bubbling excitement.

It is the season of giving.

But tonight I was thinking only of myself.

My wants.

My needs.

Because by way of a Christmas miracle, I won 15 glorious minutes to shop tomorrow morning before the doors open at 10 AM.

Myself and 4 others winning the golden tickets to enter a Wonka worthy alcove of decor magic.

I hope I don't end up like the pudgy, glutenous kid from the movie that can't handle himself and floats off in a river of chocolate.

Augustus Gloop?

I'm sure that the greedy-kid-river at Sweet Salvage is made up of glittered pine cones and gilded frames.

Honestly, I'll likely end up in the powder room area.

(Suitably decorated as Christmases past, present and future.)

Where I will weep tears of joy while calling the bank to raise my credit card limit.

So that I can buy this entire corner display.

Gold tree.

Silk dress.

Couch.

And mirrors.

Stop. I know I'm not getting all that.  Don't burst my bubble.

It is only 15 minutes in the morning, but I still have a whole night of Sweet fantasy.

Bling the Halls

The holiday boutiques have started, and my theme for this year is Bling the Halls.

My showpiece? Sequin aprons. Yep, my life is complete.

You get first dibs on Etsy.

And free shipping because I ♥ you.  Use code: SEQUINSHIP

Ready, Set, Red

LBDish Me Up Some of That

Green Me the Right Way

Tuesdays with Isaac: Nap the Vote!

Jolly good day.  This is Isaac.

I voted today.

Did you?

I even napped right up to receiving my ballot. To make sure my mind was sharp.

I voted for the candidate that represents more ice cream in my future.

More arts and crafts throughout the world.

Someone that I am pretty sure loves to hug.

Because that's what our country needs more of.

That and more bow ties.

Operation Listing: Repair and Refresh

Where were we?

Walls

Flooring

Declutter

Store Crap

Ah yes...repair and refresh:

Some things needed straight up replacement.  Like cracked face plates.

We washed all the plates that were still good and put them back up with the best ones going on first, covering the most prominent outlets.

And then bought new ones to replace the cracked ones.  To go over the empty outlets that were hidden behind furniture.  I thought about switching them out so the fresh covers were in the spotlight.  But my true inner Heidi said, "You have to be f-ing kidding me." 

So I didn't.

Maybe because I knew I still had to refresh the doors and trim with Glidden door and trim gel paint in bright white.

They completely popped after. (In the good way.)  Perhaps because I followed the This Old House door painting guidelines, but likely because that gel paint is magic. 

We're talking so much magic that Anthony kept checking on me in the garage to make sure I hadn't passed out from the fumes.

Oh, and it dried perfectly too.

Faucets. We ended up replacing every one of them in the house.

And by 'we' I mean Anthony.

The bathroom faucets all looked similar to this one:

Photo from David Wirth who also shares a great replacement tutorial.

Curse words wafted through our house during this stage.

Every set of pipes had their own issue. Rusted threads, broken shut off valves.  

No, I didn't do the swearing.  I did the stifled giggling from the couch and plumber googling.  Anthony toughed it out and finished each one.

Glacier Bay - Variety 1 (shown above)

Glacier Bay - Variety 2 in the other bathrooms

I'll be honest.  We would have purchased four of the same, but Home Depot only had two of each and we aren't patient people. And by 'we' I mean I.

Toilet Seats

We replaced all three.

Yes, they needed it.

I did them all myself.

And yes, you are going to see another toilet picture in a future post.

And finally, the thing that didn't really need replacing:

Baseboards.

The second we started talking about selling, I turned into a rabid tornado.

What can I start?Can I sledgehammer something?Would it be helpful if I took all the windows out?Can I rip up the baseboards since we need to before new carpet?

But we didn't too.  And didn't realize it until I was about three quarters of the way through the main living areas.

This is what they were before:

and after:

Did Anthony do an amazing job installing the new ones?  Yes.

Did it result in the purchase of an air compressor? Yes.

Do I understand that I need to chill out and be more patient sometimes? Yes-ish.

Halloween Fail

When my niece Kseniya asked me if I would make her a Nya Ninjago costume for Halloween, I asked her to repeat herself three times.

Until I finally just said, "Nia Ninjagaroo, sure. Let me talk to your mom quick."

Photo from Brick Brown Fox

Using her clothing sizes from some items from Old Navy, I got it put together in time for Disney World, and their elaborate Villains Halloween Party.

Even without her face mask (which made it hard to breathe in the heat), she made Gaston look under-dressed.  (Why Disney hasn't learned to temperature and humidity control their parks yet, I do not understand.)

But that was just from the front.

The back showed the truth.

That I had failed to fully compensate for the lack of stretch in the fabric.  And should have taken measurements, not used some random Old Navy items.

When I was helping her get dressed I took the tiny scissors from my back pack and cut straight down the back to get her into it.

The pants miraculously forced themselves on.  And when the crotch did rip out later in the evening, we weren't too worried about it since the top offered full coverage in the front and back.

Until she mounted the horse on the Magic Kingdom Carousel.

And I dove to reposition her top whilst simultaneously saying a prayer that any Disney predators were hovering at the It's A Small World ride.  At least her knees were still covered.

Luckily, I had a chance to correct things and send them off in time for today.

I cut straight down the back and added binding tape and extra ties so she could just slip it right on.  And gave her a little more room in the pants. With a velcro front and tie.

Which allowed for a little more room to wear over South Dakota appropriate clothing.

So no, not a complete fail.

More a fail and quick fix.

Fail, quick fix and mental note that for her wedding in some 20 odd years she may be getting her second crotchless Nya Ninjago costume.

Tuesdays with Isaac: Trick.

Good day.  This is Isaac.

I have to be honest.  I was apprehensive about this 'Fall' thing.

And by apprehensive I mean that I hated it.

I thought that it meant getting my naked body shoved into cold sticky squashes. Not OK.

After giving my mom and Heidi a lengthy spiel on the importance of a bow tie and a snappy pair of chestnut colored trousers, I tolerated the pumpkin stuffing.

 And the Frankenstein stuffing.

But today, apprehension turned into love.

And excitement.

Thrilled by Heidi's stories about kids going door to door collecting candy gratis.

And knowing that I can hide by her door with my gas guzzling lawnmower and chase after them in a trail of pollen and smoldering oil.  In the fashion of Jobe from the 1992 hit Lawnmower Man.

You know you saw it.

And enjoyed it.

Happy my 1st Halloween.

Operation Listing: i-POD-ed

Our garage disarray is from operation listing.

But our neighbors? Their garages continuously look like this because of Operation: Lust for a basement.

Garage in Arizona = basement in Minnesota.  

Cars in the driveway. Couch, tools, fridge, gym, tan, laundry: all in the garage.  Our weather only supports the habit.

We couldn't leave it like that for listing though.  Stonewalling potential buyers from visualizing their future game room, quilting chamber, or oil stained alcove for guests.  Oh no.

So we ordered a POD.

I was painting our front door lain out on sawhorses when it was delivered.  (The door was lain out, not me) And when I saw the wheeled legs drop and the man using the attached remote to drive it off of the flatbed, I shrieked for Anthony.

Get the camera! This is fascinating!

I guess I never really stopped to think about how it would be delivered. Stork maybe? Forklift?

Not only is it a genius business idea, but it is genius drop-off engineering.

It took maybe 10 minutes.

POD delivery, pick-up and storage for one month:  $225.17
POD re-delivery to new house:  $85

The convenience of not having to drive back and forth to a storage unit? Priceless.

Well, actually not. $400 was my limit before driving back and forth didn't seem so bad.

Yes. Now that is more of an appealing garasement for buyers.

Sorry Norm. Of course I meant Norm Abram fantasy suite.  My bad.

Hakuna Ma Ta-tas

Pardon my desertion.

I got sucked in by a dazzling set of sequins.

And by delicacies with ears.

Marshmallow ears.

That slaughtered my willpower.

And by my personal mission to shove one of my sweet nieces into the embrace of imagination and magic.

That first face full of fur is always the most gratifying... and intoxicating.

So sucked in that I may have forced the nose of an 83-year-old mouse into my bosom during our excited squeeze.

He had no words.

Just a white glove over his mouth accompanied by some giggle shakes.

Probably not his last Disney motorboat of the day.

Operation Listing: De to the Clutter

Paint walls - Check

Replace Flooring - Check

Declutter? - Checkish...

I mentioned that getting new carpet in 90% of our house meant the pain of moving everything to the kitchen, bathrooms and garage. 

But, I left out the amazing advantage.

Our house was magically 90% decluttered.

Only the necessities got to come back in.

That meant just a bed, dresser and side table for the guest room.

And only the clothes we really needed for the closet.

So while clearing out the space for carpet, I bagged up most of my cloths and donated most of Anthony's to make more room.

I kid, we each had our own mini cloth mountain to donate.

Wanna know what's crazy?  I had another donation mound when I was putting clothes back in.  

So much I don't need or wear.  It felt gratifying to purge.  Twice.  In my closet.

Don't get the wrong idea though.  There are still two garbage bags with my clothes and shoes in the garage.  I didn't go completely Tibetan monk on you.

But it did reveal that I really do wear the same few outfits all the time.

Almost every day in:

An Old Navy Vintage V Tee  (I bought 6 different colors when they went on sale for $5 and I had a 15% off coupon.)

and Lucy pants (which I recommend buying only via two scenarios:

1. the clearance items are another additional 25% off [happens every few months]
or
2. Black Friday when the whole store is 30-50% off.)

An article I read said that you should be able to space your hangers two inches apart when staging your closet. OK.

And a rule that I've decided is that once we list, I start folding all the clothes.  I have needs, and one of them is symmetrically folded clothes piles.  Judge me if you will.

Another need is to still get joy bumps when I walk into the closet.

That means the $30 Banana Republic sequin dress stays in peeking out seductively behind some cotton dresses.  And the giant black Seattle hat hangs proudly, unconstrained, on the wall.

What is that saying again?

It is the kitchen and the sequins that sell the a house?

Yes, that's right.