Ikea Stuff

My neighbor wanted to go to Ikea. She asked Rebekah and I to come along to help with any heavy lifting.

I always feel so overwhelmed at Ikea so this time I perused the website before we left.

It worked because I found almost everything on my list and only two things that weren't.



This cute, cute terrarium was on my list. 

I styled it in Pottery Barn style with books, a bird and some of Ikea's lacy pots.



It was only $20.00. The sides are plexiglass and a little shiny but I still think it is adorable. 



I knew I wanted one but I wasn't sure where I would put it until I was looking at the website across from the t.v. cabinet and decided it would look great on the media cabinet. 



This little bird came from an antique mall in Fort Worth. 
It is one of my favorites.



I also got a few more Sakrar plant pots and some matching candle holders.
I love them on the mantel.

















Just a few Ikea changes. 
Katie 

Linking with,
French Country Cottage 
 Common Ground

Cottage Bathroom

I am so thankful that I have projects and blogging to keep me entertained during these weeks when Bill is out of town.

 There is only so much T.V. I want to watch!
  

I'm off on Mondays, so I headed to Lowes looking to spend a $25.00 gift card.

I couldn't find what I had in mind but instead saw some bead board paneling.

We used this product in the master bathroom and I thought it would look good in the powder room too. 
I'd been itching to do this for a while plus I'd just read this post by Donna over at Funky Junk Interiors so I was feeling very brave. 

It took three nights to complete. 

Instead of the gigantic sheets of plywood paneling, I got the  packages containing 12 sections of bead board covering 3.5 linear feet.
These are a very manageable size to deal with and they  
were $10.50 each. With tax, my out of pocket was only $9.00. 

The wall behind the potty and the wall with the vanity proved to be the challenges so I did the easy wall first. :)

Bill hasn't shown me how to set up the air compressor and the nail gun so I pulled out the old school tack hammer, brads and nail set.

This only took a few hours even with the tricky cut by the vanity. I had to do that twice. 

My first idea was to make a paper template and trace it onto the wood. Nope! I just decided to measure down and in to get the edge of the cabinet just right. 
It is not perfect but chalk will fix it. 

 I had several flawed pieces that I was able use behind the toilet. 
I wasn't happy about how many pieces had little dings or splits.

The next day when I got home from work, I painted the upper walls.

I mixed a little gray paint with some Glidden white to create a soft gray that leans a little blue/green. It's very pretty and a complete change from the gold that was in here.

I had to ponder the trim over night. 

I cut shims to put above the top of the paneling so the trim could overlap the top of the paneling below. Otherwise I could see the rough edge of the paneling slats.

I primed and then painted the bead board White Duck by Sherwin Williams. 

I put all the same accessories back in the room.

I would love a different mirror but the golds of the mirror frame go with the warm tones of the vanity top.

Bill says I can get the shower retiled but I think I'm going to wait on that for a while. I really have no desire to tear apart another bathroom so soon after doing the master bath last summer.
I love it and I'm ready to try this somewhere else in the house! 

Katie    
Linking with,
The Scoop   
A Stroll Thru Life  
Coastal Charm   
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia   
Knick of Time     
Savvy Southern Style     
Dwellings- The Heart of the Home    
French Country Cottage   
Rooted and Thyme    
Fabulously Creative Friday   
The Charm of Home   
Common Ground

Joy, Sorrow and 1000 Gifts

I've been reading Ann VosKamp's book One Thousand Gifts and have been for a while, a long while. 

I usually can burn through a book in no time but I am soaking this one up. 

I am cynical. Bill is sometimes appalled at the amount of cynicism that can ooze out of me. Occasionally he has been fearful that our car will be struck by lightening because of something I have said and yet, he loves me anyway.

I am not a bandwagon person. I don't usually believe the hype about a New York Times Bestseller. I've lived though many "it" phases as a part of church ministry so I tend to shy away from anything that is going to change my life with a prayer or 40 days of anything.

It was with caution that I read the first pages of this book but her riveting story about the death of her little sister and the indelible imprint it left on her family sent through me a lightening bolt of "that's me".

I lost both of my parents by the time I was 17. 

My mom became sick and fought cancer from the time I was 3 or 4 until she died when I was 10. 

My dad died of an irregular heartbeat shortly before he was to get a pace maker.

Ann relays that when her sister died it altered the family she was born into. 

It, in her words, sent the message "no, grace" and "no, God".  

I remember having the thought when my mother died; "At least nothing bad can happen to Dad." Seven years later he was gone.

It clearly taught me that;

• There are no guaranties.
• Life is hard.
• I've got to do this myself.

I turned to Christianity as a guarantee, subconsciously, of course.  My best chance at making it was to be on God's side even though secretly I struggled to believe in a good God. Anything bad that happened as a normal course of life left me wrestling with the concept of a loving God. A counselor once told me that I needed a philosophy statement of suffering. I took every trial as a personal indictment that I wasn't loved and that He was unnecessarily hard on me. I felt a little like Job when he said; "Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese?" Job 10:10.

Ann Voskamp bravely puts out that her family walked through life as if there was no God.

I've very rarely seen such honesty in a Christian book. Most of the time I have found them too formulaic- you do this and you will get this. I don't get that impression with this one.

She relates the story of her sister but doesn't dwell on it. The subsequent chapters talk about finding joy in life and that the wellspring of joy is thankfulness. She begins the journaling of 1000 small gifts and the lessons learned in the process. 

Since I have mulled on this for a while, I am ready to begin my list. I don't want it to be a trite, "I am thankful for my family or my job" kind of thing. I want it to be a deeper gratitude of things simple and complex. 

  

I woke up determined and purposeful that I could begin the list of 1000 things I was thankful for. Ten minutes later the determination and joy making was already challenged and thwarted. Oh well. 

I'll begin anyway. 

Happy Sunday,

Katie  

         

Roses & Spring

 It is a beautiful day in Texas. A gorgeous 71 degrees. The problem with these types of days is that it feels like spring but it's not.



We usually have a warm up this time of year but then we get hammered again with cold weather. 

It had me thinking about flowers and since nothing is going on outside, I picked these up at the grocery store. 
I plunked them in a large canning jar and this adorable basket from Walmart. The basket was only $2.98. 
They still had them a few weeks ago if you hurry….

I wish I could grow roses. 
I can't.

My yard just doesn't have enough sun. 

I know how to grow them, when to prune them etc. 
I just don't have any luck with them. 

I have some climbing roses in red that bloom once a year. 
I never have to do a thing with them but they only bloom in April.

Growing tea roses? Not so much. 
I do have one bush of miniature roses.
I got a small plant from one of my students years ago. 
I planted it by chance and it has taken off.  

One little tiny flower in a 3 inch pot became a bush three feet tall by four feet wide. 
The roses above were from that bush. 
They are the most beautiful in November when these pictures were taken. 
Such a gorgeous shade of pink. 
I don't know why November blossoms seem prettier than those from the rest of the season. 
Is it because I know they are the last for the year?

We have been hit with some very cold weather. 
(I think I lost my Asian Star Jamine in the Arctic Vortex.)
It hasn't been too bad of a winter but I just love spring. 
  

How about you? 
Katie 

Cleaning the Oven

I thought that when we got our new oven I would feel comfortable using the self clean feature on it.

No. 

When Bill and I were living in our first little rent house we tried to clean the oven. A small fire broke out in the drawer underneath. It didn't do a lot of damage but we did lose the new pot holders that we had gotten as wedding gifts.

 

I have been a little paranoid about cleaning the oven ever since. This oven is only a few years old. I usually can keep the spills inside cleaned up but the glass was kind of a mess.

I saw a pin on Pinterest and that got me motivated to clean my oven door. I like to do some deep cleaning in January after all the Christmas stuff is put away.  

I used baking soda like the pin suggested but it didn't get all the gunk off. I realized too late that I didn't leave it on for for 20 minutes like the pin suggested.

So I squirted it with some Greased Lightening and worked on it with a scraper. I cleaned the front of the door with regular old glass cleaner.

I noticed a big drip on the glass.

It wasn't on the front and it wasn't on the back. 
It was in-between the glass. How on earth did it get there?

I hunted down another blog post about how to clean in-between the glass. 
This is not original to me but I thought I would share. 

There is a great post about it here at Mom 4 Real.  

I tried to do this myself on Friday but I couldn't find a screw driver that looked like my screw. 
I figured different manufacturers will have different screws because it wasn't the same as on the blog.
I decided to work on my grates instead. 

I used the same mixture of Greased lightening and baking soda. I cleaned and scraped until they looked like new and my hands looked worn. I really should wear gloves to clean. 

Bill helped me with the glass on Saturday.

He used just a regular Phillips head screw driver but these were tight so it kind of stripped the screw a little.  

I'm glad I waited for Bill because this job is better with two people. 

It helps to have one person hold the door pieces and one person grab the glass. 
We didn't have a third person available to hold the camera. ;)

It takes two to clean off streaks and make sure the glass is clean from both sides. This very important. We put it back together only to see a streak but we had stripped the screw. He was only able to undo one side. I had to use a back scratcher and a paper towel to clean the streak. 

It definitely takes two to put it all back together. 

I am completely taken aback that a big drip could even get in-between the glass.

Then we vacuumed out from under the oven drawer and out from under the fridge. 
I like to keep a pretty clean house, something that isn't completely possible with the amount of dog hair we have. 
I feel somewhat confident that when a repair man comes into the house he won't be grossed out. 
When the guys came to install the new stove and take out the old I was horrified to see not one but two old hamburger patties under there. TWO! 
I hate to blame my then teens but…
No hamburger patties this time. 

It is such a good feeling knowing that something is really clean. 
:)
What are you doing today?
Katie