Cereal 4 Supper » household

15-Minute Projects

jnanevans — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 12:36:27 +0000

I’ve been having trouble lately getting motivated to tackle house projects, so I thought I would try a new approach.

I took all of the projects and broke them down into small geographic areas in the house. I will spend 15 minutes at one project per day. I thought posting on the blog would also give me some motivation.

Here they are:

night stand June 16, 2010
bassinet June 15, 2010
hall bath closet
top of desk June 26, 2010
my basket on the desk
E’s basket on the desk June 26, 2010
top of dryer June 26, 2010
top of marble table
boys’ clothes July 5, 2010
top of boys’ dresser June 26, 2010

Here are larger projects:

boys’ toys
office
garage June 25, 2010 (W gets all the credit for this one)
countertop

I don’t even want to talk about these.

Bathroom Reorganization

jnanevans — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 23:32:36 +0000

We have plans to totally gut the bathroom and start again……in the meantime though I have been wanting, for some time, to improve matters in this rather small space.

A $4.00 purchase and about an hour later the room looked much better.

Bathroom Before

Notice all of the stuff around the sink, the makeup on the back of the toilet, and all of the products on the window ledge. It was next to impossible to open the window.

Enter the $4.00 Bread Basket/Makeup Container

Minus two nasty tubes of lipstick that I trashed, everything fits perfectly!

The Very Nasty Medicine Cabinet

I took everything out and wiped the cabinet down. There was one disgusting can of Tinactin that expired in 2003! Don’t think I want that on my feet (if I was the one with feet problems).

Making Progress

Notice there are two shelves in there now and some of the stuff from the window ledge made it into the cabinet.

Looks Good

One Final Area to Conquer–Under the Sink

This area was so bad that I didn’t even take a “before” shot. You will just have to trust me that it was a mess. Take a look at the result.

The Totally Reorganized Bathroom

Ah now, don’t you feel better? I certainly do. Actually, it looks really naked. A change of paint color would go a long way!

Dining Room Mood Board

jnanevans — Wed, 19 May 2010 00:48:23 +0000

Wow! I just found another amazingly fun time suck–Polyvore. I’ve been wanting to redo the dining room set and love this farm table made from reclaimed wood. It is fun to shop when price is no object!

Dining Room by jnanevans on Polyvore.com

Items in this set:
Cottage Style Faux Bamboo Bench – Layla Grayce, $1,055
Carolina Cottage Vera Antique Black Dining Chair – 575-AB, $50
Walmart.com – Canopy Faux Silk Interlined Energy Efficient Curtain…
Farm Table
Firjustan – Ruby by Tufenkian Collection

The Small ThingsI

jnanevans — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:11:23 +0000

Just a quick post….

The main roads are clear around here, but there is still quite a bit of snow up at the house. So, I took advantage of both kids actually having nap time at the same time today (a rarity) to make some small adjustments in the kitchen.

It’s striking how just changing a few things can make a difference.

I cleaned out the drawer with the pot holders in it next to the stove. Why do I have 20 pot holders??
With the extra space in that drawer, I moved some of the utensils that were in a container on the countertop into the drawer.
I put the blender in the pantry since we don’t use it everyday.
And then shifted the toaster over to where the blender was.

Voila! It feels like I just doubled the size of my countertop.

I also reorganized the pantry to make room for the baby food. Since there really wasn’t a designated space for it, the jars just kinda oozed around and messed the other categories up.

Sun Room Redo

jnanevans — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:06:00 +0000

After several weeks of having various samples of yellow painted on the sun room wall, we (actually W) painted the room. The new Behr paint with primer in it is awesome.

This is the first wall that you see when you come into the house via the side entrance (the one everyone uses). Kinda blah even with the new yellow paint. Ignore the couch cushions that still need to be recovered.

I got 11 x 14 prints made of these photographs and hung them above the couch. This picture really doesn’t capture how great they look. The two landscapes are from our trip to Kansas, and the flower is one we found on a walk behind our house. I love them. Isn’t that what making a house into a home is all about?!

This Box

jnanevans — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:56:00 +0000

I had forgotten but quickly remembered why this box has been sitting in the office for the last two years.

It is full of photographs–random photographs. You know, those one or two photos that someone sends you after an event or school pictures of family members. Honestly, some of the pics could be tossed, like the ones of old boyfriends. I mean really, why do I need those?

What do I do with the rest of them? I could scan them in and toss the originals. I could scan them and keep the originals as is. I could put the photos in an album.

I even drug the box upstairs, so it would be in my sight. Sadly, I think it is just going to go back downstairs unresolved. It requires too much energy to deal with at this time. Lame, I know.

Entrances

jnanevans — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 19:14:00 +0000

Entrances to homes that is…should be clean and clutter free, right?

There are four major entrances to our home. Strange, I hadn’t really thought about it until I started this project.

Entrance #1
Technically, this is the side entrance, but it is the one everyone uses. All those glass panes were what started this all. I have been wanting to clean them for some time now, so I did today…and swept, and convinced myself that what it really needs are some flowers and a welcome mat.

Entrance #2

This is the front door. Only delivery people and others who have never been to the house before use this entrance. It is really too bad because we have quite a nice front porch except that the spiders had totally taken over. They were none too happy when I whacked them down with the broom.

Entrance #3

Door from inside the garage to the house. This is the entrance that still needs the most work. I wish I had before pictures though because it was Much, Much worse.

Entrance #4
This is the back door. Many little fingerprints covered these glass panes, and the dirt loves to settle here by the door.

There you have it; at least for one day all four doors are clean.

Twelve Days and Counting

jnanevans — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:24:00 +0000

Twelve days until I go back to work.

I know about pregnancy nesting. There must be “going back to work” nesting as well.

So far today I have:

wiped down door handles and door frames
cleaned the glass in the patio door
made bread with LM
organized the spices
cooked a new recipe
added additional tags to photos

Yesterday I organized the kitchen utensil drawer and shredded a lot of old files.

New Mom Necessities

jnanevans — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:59:00 +0000

I have been writing this post in my head for the last eight weeks. The title New Mom Necessities is a bit of a misnomer, really. Obviously, the only absolutely necessary items for a baby are some type of covering and food.

These are things that I have found extremely helpful that may or may not be on the traditional baby check list.

In no particular order:

laptop/wireless–countless hours nursing, need I say more. Having the ability to work on photos, check email, and surf the web have kept me sane during numerous nights of nursing.

Shout–honestly this stuff is amazing. I have no idea how it works, but all I know is that it gets out every stain a newborn and active toddler throw at it. I could seriously do a commercial for it. I see also that they have introduced a Natural Stain Remover. I wonder if it works?

gas drops–I know there are some people who say that babies don’t really have gas pains. Perhaps there is something I am missing, but what I can tell you is that with both LM and FH, these gas drops work, eliminating a writhing, crying baby in the middle of the night.

cloth diapers–not so much for diapering the baby but for everything else–wiping up spills, catching projectile vomiting, and removing disgusting boogies. When the babies are grown, they can be used for dusting and other household projects.

hand pump–This is probably TMI, but with both of my children, my milk came in very quickly. Let’s just say that one’s breast should not be rock solid. Thank goodness my sister knew what to do. She whipped out the hand pump and saved me from excruciating pain. I am eternally grateful.

dishwasher–We did not have a dishwasher when LM was born, so clearly this is something with which I could live without. However, sterilizing all of those bottles by boiling is just a pain in the a**. As FH sits in his bouncy chair sound asleep, the dishwasher apparently is quite a good white noisemaker as well.

bouncy chair–When we went to the beach (a six-hour trip), this was the only baby apparatus that we took. No play pen, no swing–but we had to have the bouncy chair.

Things that I have found to be totally worthless or at best not helpful:

baby bathtub–We used one of these for the first couple of weeks with LM, but it was terrible. He was so slick and wet, it was difficult to keep him in place, and the thing was bulky in our tiny house. We ended up just putting a hand towel in the bottom of the tub and running a smidge of water. Worked much better.

wipe warmer–maybe I am cold-hearted, but this just seems like overkill. I don’t think five seconds of a cold wipe is going to cause any lasting damage.

baby monitor–With both kids, they slept in a bassinet next to our bed until they would no longer fit into it. In both houses, our room and the kids’ room are extremely close to each other. I find the white noise of the monitor extremely annoying when trying to sleep. I hear the slightest thing anyway, so we ended up stopping using it with LM.

TV Volume

jnanevans — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:56:00 +0000

All I can say is “it is about time.”

SRA Develops TV-Volume Leveler. I absolutely hate watching commercials, and I cannot stand how much louder they are than the television program.

Also, why is it that all of the channels go to commercial at the same time? We have 100+ channels, and all of them seem to be on a commercial simultaneously. What’s up with that?

In popular culture, I know it is the man who is stereotyped as being a channel changer–not in our house. If I am watching TV, I am following at least two shows if not three or four.

W and I have been together 15 years. In those fifteen years, I have never understood how he can just sit through a commercial. He just sits there calmly like there is nothing wrong in the world. I, on the other hand, am literally twitching to change the channel.

Very rarely do we watch TV together (big surprise). Actually, very rarely do we watch much TV at all. If it wasn’t for the sporting events, I think we could cancel the cable subscription.