Author: Staci

Staci blogs about travel at TheVoyageer.com.

Five Days… With Pictures!!

Despite a really, really awful week at work last week, progress inside the house is getting made.

  • Put up the Christmas tree
  • Do “something else” with the fireplace (paint or replace items inside)
  • Purchase a rug pad for diamond jute rug in living room
  • Purchase a rug pad for zebra rug in guest room
  • Clean off the guest bed so it’s sleep-able
  • Generally make guest room ready for guests
  • Do a little more festive Christmas decorating
  • Decide yes or no on outdoor Christmas lights
  • Get a shower curtain (right now we just have a liner)
  • Curtain clips for the dining room
  • Hang higher curtain rod in guest room
  • Do a little kitchen re-organizing
  • Buy groceries (so they don’t starve while they’re here! Our fridge is usually a big cold empty box…)
  • Liven up the white wasteland that is the hallway (halfway there!)
  • Hang pictures in guest room and master bedroom
  • Frost window on kitchen door and in bathroom (I want to try this)
  • Paint front-door dresser and move cold-weather accessories into its drawers

This weekend saw a few minor updates, we are still working on digging out the guest bedroom… we’re quite close, actually and I’ll be able to post pictures sometime this week! I crossed off a few less-urgent items, even after all my prioritizing by making things bold last week. Isn’t that always how it goes? We picked up a couple of curtain rods for the guest room and hung them–they look magnificent :) Elsewhere in the house we have dark bronze but since the paint is so dark in the guestroom we decided to go with brushed nickel and I really love it.

My Christmas decorating is officially done, except for a project I have in the works to use for the I Heard A Lion Christmas party which will be at my house this year. I’m not going to start working on it until my parents have come and gone, though, so no more hints on that :) Here’s what I have so far…

We set the tree up the weekend before Thanksgiving (heresy, I know) since it was our last free weekend until the New Year, more or less. Busy busy!!

Saturday we swung by Hobby Lobby and got in a knock-down drag-out brawl (okay, not really) with the middle aged ladies in the faux greenery aisle but came out victorious with some more-or-less matching “pine branches” which were easily slipped behind the big photo frame and instantly gave the mantel the little “something” it had been missing.

Oh, and here are the curtain clips we bought a few weeks ago. I like the interest they give at the top–before the wall of curtains was a bit too “heavy,” I think. Since adding them, the curtains have the opposite problem than before (when they were too short), they drag on the ground a little more than I wanted them to. However, Doug suspects they’re helping avert a chilly draft so for now they’ll pool on the ground slightly. The nice thing about these rings is that it makes the curtains wayyyyy easier to open and close. Before they were getting hung up on the parts where the curtain rod joins together. Now they slide freely. So that’s good :)

So, looking at these photos gives me something else to add to my to-do list… steam curtains? Man they’re all really wrinkly!

To-Do List Revisited

With only 8 days until my parents’ arrival, and this weekend approaching, it’s time to re-visit that ole to do list. Picking out the most important items and conquering this weekend will make me a happy little clam. Wait, I don’t think they have clams in Kansas….

Well, I crossed off the “done” and made the 5 most important items bold, for some self-guidance.

  • Put up the Christmas tree (did it this weekend!)
  • Do “something else” with the fireplace (paint or replace items inside)
  • Purchase a rug pad for diamond jute rug in living room
  • Purchase a rug pad for zebra rug in guest room
  • Clean off the guest bed so it’s sleep-able
  • Generally make guest room ready for guests
  • Do a little more festive Christmas decorating
  • Decide yes or no on outdoor Christmas lights (we have no outdoor plug so improvisation will be necessary)
  • Get a shower curtain (right now we just have a liner)
  • Curtain clips for the dining room (so the curtains won’t look so much like high-waters)
  • Hang higher curtain rod in guest room
  • Do a little kitchen re-organizing
  • Buy groceries (so they don’t starve while they’re here! Our fridge is usually a big cold empty box…)
  • Liven up the white wasteland that is the hallway (halfway there!)
  • Hang pictures in guest room and master bedroom
  • Frost window on kitchen door and in bathroom (I want to try this)
  • Paint front-door dresser and move cold-weather accessories into its drawers

It looks like I’m about one-third one. Breaking the list into thirds is not a bad strategy, I guess. Some of these will probably not happen, but the guest room MUST be prepared. I’m trying to avoid the cop-out solution of “stick everything in a box and move it to the basement,” which is an option but I’d rather go through, organize, and put stuff away in appropriate places instead of hiding it downstairs where it won’t be seen for the next 5 years.

What I wish I could do is get a proper curtain bar for the guest room. Proper fixtures really can transform a room! Currently the curtain rod is a flimsy light metal that sags in the middle and does not cooperate with the fabric of the curtains. I don’t think they’ve been opened since I put them up. It’s a shame because I love the way the guest room’s color pallet is coming along–much more than the master bedroom! I may have to move down the hall!

Guest Post: Grout Cleaning

Those of you with tile countertops in your kitchen or bathroom will be kissing my feet (okay, my mom’s feet) for this useful and handy tip. I have one-piece counters so I can’t complain… but I think this will definitely work on problem-ridden areas of my floor tile too (when it’s warm enough to banish the pup to the backyard, that is! Safety first!)

That said, yes this is my very first GUEST POST written for facebook by the woman who brought me into the world and taught me that dishes can [almost] always wait until later. I’m sharing it with her permission!

How do you clean your grout, tile and
hand towels all in one project?

This is not a riddle.  A few years ago, when Clorox introduced the bleach pen, my daughters, Staci and Stephanie and I went to work on the grout in my kitchen.  I have a 6 x 6 foot island with offwhite tile and white grout.  It was quite a chore, but the grout lines were improved.

Now it is time to clean the grout again, but I didn’t have a bleach pen and was too lazy, busy, unmotivated, (whatever adjective you want to insert here) to go to the store, so I looked around to see what might work.  Hmmm.

I spied the tub of powder Oxyclean sitting on my washing machine, so I decided to try making a paste and using that on the grout.  Now to find my grout brush.  Couldn’t find it.  So I looked for a small brush that could work, but the discarded toothbrushes were too wimpy.  I asked Randy if he had a brush attachment for his Dremel tool, but he was afraid that would ruin the grout.  I spied my worn out and unused electric tooth brush.  Voila!

Armed with my somewhat dissolved Oxyclean and my tooth brush, I began the project.  Oxyclean worked really well to get rid of the dirt in the grout lines, but left a residue.  Paper towels were useless, so I grabbed an old dish towel.  I wiped off all the extra with the dry towel and then grabbed another old towel and dampened it to wipe up the rest.

Randy told me the counter looked like new!  Later in the day, the counter dried a little cloudy so I took some Sprayaway and washed it one more time.  Now it shines and the grout is clean.  Throw the towels in the laundry and they come out sparkling white!

Today, I reluctantly decided to tackle the tile and grout next to the stove, but did not want to do it.  I procrastinated by washing the linens on Stephanie’s bed and spied an Oxyclean tube of gel that my husband had purchased.  Hmmm.

So, I grabbed the gel, squirted it out onto my counter top and repeated Saturday’s process.  It worked really well, but is very messy and took more rinsing.  Overall the stove area looks better than the island, but we will see if it dries with a film.  No problem if it does, but it would be great if it doesn’t.

Side effect:  We loved the clean grout and are biting the bullet and having a pro come to clean the floor tomorrow.  Randy saw how much effort it was to clean the island, and couldn’t imagine how long it would take me to do the floor.  Probably over 200 square feet!  woohoo! I have been wanting to hire that done, but until Randy saw how hard it was, I think he imagined me doing it myself.  Win Win.  Clean counters, clean dish towels, and after tomorrow, clean floors.

It is the small things that get me going!  :’)