ikea...how i love thee

Let me count the ways....

Seriously am totally head over heels in love with IKEA now. I didn't get it until I went to check it out. Now I understand... and am sorry if I ever mocked anyone for their adoration. I get it.

Driving up.... I'm getting chills just sharing these pictures. drool...

Inside map while we were in the showroom totally loving it. I could have spent the whole day there and still not see everything. I will be going back. Promise!!

I had to laugh at this sticker that was on a display toilet. Seriously... I would have hated to have been that employee that found the customers 'mistake'.... ewwww.

Look at that glorious aisle of IKEA happiness! And this was only half of the aisle. We had already walked down part of it! I wish I could have taken the entire stockroom home with me.

Us down another aisle. They have so much stuff!!

Our cart of goodies heading home with us!! oh, if you see my kids, don't tell them that the pink and blue circles are for them. They are really cute hanging plush homes. They are going to love them when they get back home!

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I'll share more pictures from our adventure another day.

redoing the playroom 2012

While the kids are hanging with Nana and Papa for a little bit of time, the hubby and I have been enjoying our time together as well as tackling some projects around the house. It's our tradition. Every year we do some house project while the kiddos are away. Keeps them on their toes! 

This year is no different. I am trying hard to declutter my house and life. It has to make things easier with less stuff, right?? That's my hope anyways. The first room that needed major change is the kids playroom. It technically is hubby's home office as well as a playroom but the only part that would make it a playroom would be the toys that were littered all around and the television. Pretty sad playroom. Time to fix that and get organized and downsized. I'm so excited just telling you all about it.

We went to IKEA to purchase some new furniture pieces and have now decided we will be buying everything for our house from there in the future. OMG!! Like seriously LOVE that store. But I digress... we got some new pieces that you will have to wait to see but I am sharing a few behind the scenes before the big reveal in a few days.

This is our hallway wall heading to the kids rooms and the bathroom. We finally got around to painting it to match the staircase that we painted either last year or the previous year. I can't remember. I still have a bit more painting to do down by the kids rooms but it's looking 100% better! The color is Peanut Butter by Behr from Home Depot. We picked it up July 2010. Nothing slow about us.

Here are the boxes from two of the new furniture pieces we put together today. Not as much cardboard as I thought we would have. They were all well packed with no space wasted and very little styrofoam inserts.

And where is all the stuff that we had to take out of the playroom while we were working on fixing it up?? Why it headed off to the kitchen table! Yes there is a table under all that stuff. And we can still get to the microwave! We are now eating downstairs in the family room for the time being.

That's all you get for now. I want to do a big reveal as the difference is so amazing and we haven't finished putting everything back yet!!

start of vacation week

and I was working like a dog today!

My front flower bed. I have a love hate relationship with it. I love it when it is full of pretty flowers and I hate it when the weeds take over and make it downright ugly. The first picture will show you how ugly it can be! I didn't pull a single weed all summer and didn't even bother removing the fall leaves that gathered there. I'm surprised the daffodils managed to bloom through all the junk that was in that bed. This was what I had to work with at 10am this morning. Such a sad looking place.

Poor hubby, he is a trooper. We stopped at Home Depot last night and picked up some new flowers to plant (hoping they take root and are around next spring), some blocks to finish one of the edges, and mulch.

I say poor hubby cuz he was out of town all last week and I know this project was very low on his to do list but he did help me out and planted the eight new plants I bought and helped with the laying of the weed barrier and the mulch. I do hope that weed barrier does its job for me.

Looks pretty nice if I do say so myself. We will be adding more stone blocks at the upper right hand corner and probably get rid of the railroad ties that are pretty gross looking. I am loving the look of the black mulch. We have always used red or brown up there and I think it makes the rocks pop more.

Anywho... hubby and I are both pretty beat. I think I shall call it a night and head to bed. Plus my allergies are in full force tonight due to playing all day outside with plants AND hubby mowing the lawn with me in the bed. Yikes. I'm lucky my eyes haven't fallen out of my head yet. I'll post another picture once we finish up with the blocks.

extra challenge card

From my Facebook Card Challenge group, it seemed that many had gotten done with the sketch in a pretty timely manner and were waiting for the next one. Diana did not disappoint!! She posted the following sketch with the theme, "Baby, It's Cold Outside". Great sketch isn't it??

Here is my take on the sketch. I used my Swiss Dots embossing folder (thanks to my Alien buddy), I cut two sets of mittens and used foam tape between the layers to pop them up. Added a bit of bakers twine since mittens always seem to get lost, these two are together forever!! Thanks again to my Alien for the twine. Snowflake brads from my stash and the 'brrr' are rub ons from DCWV a few years ago. I used some puff paint for the mitten cuffs.

Yesterday I spent some quality time finding my desk. That wasn't the game plan going into yesterday, but it had to be done as I had misplaced a Lowe's gift card that we are in need of. So much gets dumped in this space that sometimes I plop things in places they should not be plopped into! It wasn't so bad until I asked hubby if he had in fact given me the gift card. I knew the answer and he looked a little concerned. He also gave me that, "your room is a pit and you need to clean it so you can find things" look.

So I started putting all my scraps away. Then the projects were removed from the desk and put in a storage folder so I can grab them when I want to work on them and everything is together! The good news is that I have a desk top AND I found the gift card. whew... we are heading to Lowe's this morning to pick up a new toilet for our upstairs bathroom. Poor hubby has tried to fix the one that is there for over a month now with no luck at all. The latest fix has the flapper staying up (or open) so we have to be careful to make sure to follow behind the kiddos when they go!!

Saturday will be replace the toilet day here. I think I will spare you the pictures of that adventure. Maybe the final completed project only. I hate installing toilets. Wondering how the old toilet will look in the yard with some lovely plastic flowers in it??