Archive for 2010

Light bulbs.

Yes, I’m going to talk about light bulbs.

This house is loaded with the cheapest bulbs on the planet. They all put off this yellow florescent light that gives me a headache.

I don’t know about you, but I need light. Lots of light. If I don’t have enough light during the day I get depressed. And I hate being depressed.

My mission is to replace the bulbs with brighter whiter light bulbs.

I’m sure I should be buying the energy efficient ones that last like 25 years, but they aren’t white enough. And they take too long to light up. When I flip the switch I want instant gratification. I don’t want to wait 10 minutes for the light to get to its brightest capacity.

So I chose Reveal bulbs by GE.

These bulbs really do put off a bright white light. They make me happy. It’s almost as good as standing outside in the real sun.

One reason I love living in Texas is because it’s sunny and bright most of the year. We have an overcast day here and there, but for the most part it’s sunny. And the level of sunshine each day directly affects my mood. But I also don’t like to be outside in the elements all day, so I want the inside of my house bright and sunny too.

As I’ve been swapping out bulbs, another thing that’s really helped to make the room brighter is to wash the glass shade around each fixture.

I know, I know, these fixtures need to go. I’ll add that to my bucket list of things to do when I’m a billionaire. “I wanna be a billionaire so freakin’ bad…”

Once they are washed I get all the spots off with my awesome Shaklee basic H cleaner (this stuff honest-to-God rocks).

Look how much that glass sparkles now!

You should periodically remove your fixture covers and clean them to keep your house as bright as possible.

I’ve been changing the bulbs in my house as they’ve gone out because these Reveal bulbs are pricey compared to the 6-packs at the dollar store.

I’d love to change every bulb in my house right this very second, but it would cost me $230.11 plus tax. In just light bulbs. Can you believe that?!

I counted up the number of fixtures I have in this house. This is how it breaks down (not including lamps or outside lights):

Needless to say, I can only afford a few a month, so I change them as the old ones burn out.

These flood lights are my nemesis:

They make the room 10 bazillion times brighter and whiter and I love them, but they are $7.97 each!!! Yikes!

It wouldn’t be so bad if the builder of my home wasn’t canister happy. I have a grand total of NINETEEN canisters in my ceilings. There are 8 in my kitchen alone.

I plan to swap a few of these out with other fixtures, but fixtures are on my bucket list as well.

I think I’ve switched out about half the bulbs in my house so far. Maybe just a few shy of half. I’m dreading when the THREE canister flood lights over the staircase go out. Those will be fun to reach!

The funny thing is, there are four places in my house that need fixtures in the ceiling because there isn’t enough light in those areas. I’ve got 8 canisters in my kitchen and 3 in my stairwell, but none in the hallway or foyer?

Looks like I’ll be adding “Electrician” to my list of professions soon. Hopefully it will be an easy task to run some wire and install a few new lights. Famous last words I’m sure…

In November I added moulding and paint to my piano room.

One of the things I did in this room was added moulding around the windows.

It’s easy enough to add moulding around windows, but I had a unique situation that caused quite a bit of drama for me.

All the corners in our house have rounded edges.

If you look at the wall leaving the piano room and entering the foyer, you can see another rounded corner.

As you can see, when the moulding was hung it left a gaping gap between the moulding and the wall.

I knew before I hung the moulding that this would be an issue for me. I actually had been contemplating how to deal with this issue from the day we put an offer on the house.

Eventually I’d love to have moulding around all the windows in the enter house, and these rounded edges really proposed a big problem for me. After much thought and stewing over this issue, I finally decided that the most cost effective solution would be to fill the gap as opposed to covering it with something. At first I was considering framing out the inside of each sill with a thin piece of wood, but that will get pricey and is a lot of work.

Here’s what I came up with, and I think it solved the problem beautifully.

Joint Compound.

If you’ve never worked with this stuff, you are seriously missing out! I love using joint compound.

It has a consistency of whipped frosting and goes on as smooth as butteh’. It dries quickly and is easy to sand. You can paint it. It’s also easy to wash off your hands and tools.

I simply filled the gap around the entire window with the joint compound. I used a putty knife to apply it.

Just blob it into the space and then smooth it out with the putty knife. Make sure to wipe away any excess that gets on your moulding.

Once it was dry I gave it a nice light sanding with a sanding block.

Joint compound will crack if you put it on too thick, and since the space I was filling was rather deep the joint compound did crack in several areas, which I anticipated.

All I did was add a 2nd coat of joint compound and then sand again when it was dry.

It’s not even painted yet and it’s already so much better looking.

When the joint compound was dry and done being sanded I painted over it with the same high-gloss white paint I used on the moulding.

You can see both windows from this picture. You can’t even tell I ever had an issue with the rounded corners!

Pretty impressive, right? This is why I love joint compound. And the entire container was only around $7. I’ve got plenty more leftover to tackle several more windows.

Here’s the room in it’s current state.

Obviously it needs a lot more work (decorating). It’s coming along though. Next thing I need to do is fix the 2nd set of blinds so I can rehang them.

Joint compound is great for lots of different uses. Filling huge gaps in walls is just another one of it’s many talents. I could have used Spackling, but Spackling is thicker and doesn’t spread as easily and fluid as joint compound. Spackling is great for small projects like filling nail holes in walls, but if you have a big project, use joint compound instead.

I HATE paperwork. I hate sorting junk mail. I hate remembering to pay bills. I hate keeping track of it all.

I love my childrens cute artwork they bring home from school, but I swear it multiplies over night like rabbits!

I was blog reading the other day and saw this post by A Bowl Full of Lemons.

I get tons of great ideas on blogs, but usually they stay that way – as ideas. But not this post. I literally dropped what I was doing (reading blogs) and went to the office and collected my supplies.

A Bowl Full of Lemons mobile command center is way cuter than mine, but I used what I had on hand. I may update it with a cute organizer and a fun calendar for the front.

The ONLY part of this idea I can claim as my own is where I write “Ben”, “Allison”, “Travis”, & “Kinsey” on the labels instead of “John”, “Toni”, “Alex”, “Gavin”, & “Abigail”.

All the other tabs I copied straight from her tutorial and pictures.

Hey, I’m all about creativity, but I have NO SHAME in being a complete and utter copy-cat if I find an idea that is already excellent.

I used this label maker to create all the labels on my tabs.

My parents gave it to me years ago, but I’m sure you can still buy something similar at an office supply store.

Here’s the finished product!

It honestly has improved my life. I use to have a huge pile of clutter on the counter. Now I have this easy-to-access file system. Brilliant idea Toni! Thanks!!

As I was browsing her blog for other ideas, I realized I featured her a few weeks ago at my Hookin’ Up party for her other great organization tips for her main file system:

She also has some great tips for organizing your pantry. My favorite tips are to use baskets and drawers.

Go over and say hi! Tell her I’m bragging about her and I love her tips.

If you want to make your very own file system like mine {but make yours cuter, m-kay?!!} …

Check out her step-by-step tutorial HERE.