I Won I Won! Sorda...

Remember I mentioned earlier in the week how I was on the hunt for a new chandy for the dining room on a peanut butter and jelly budget?Well last night I won this one on Ebay!! Well not really won it but paid the $5 extra dollars and just out right purchased it so I would not have to wait around or miss out on it because I am infamous for forgetting abt stuff I am watching on there. Anyways, guess how much!? $45 y'all!!! It has six lights and from the measurements posted it should be just the right size. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one and that it arrives in one piece!!

Today instead of working on the floors or doing laundry the boys and I headed out to The Old Oak Cottage which  the boys lovingly refer to as The Cookie Store" because Ms. Marci always has cookies out for all of her guest. Oldest was just amazed at the new show room out there and even made it the topic of conversation during dinner with The Hubster. I am sure The Hubster was just thrilled!;) Anyways, I always come home with some type of treasure cause I just can not help myself. (The cute basket I purchased from HomeGoods a few months back.)

I fell in love with these mini sconces with bling! They are even hard wired so I can use them as actual lights. I have no place for that though so now I am trying to figure out how to dissect them and use them a candelabras instead without destroying them. 

I just love the pantina on these darlings!

I also got the April and May issues of Romantic Homes. They were half off and again I just could not help myself. Thats two for the price of one and well I'm cheap.

I look thru these magazines time and time again and well these floors jumped right out at me! They have the lil' wheels in my brain going round and round thats for sure! Now if I can only convince The Hubster of my grand plan!;)

And look at those mini wood beams in this pic! They have me saying hmmmm as well! Oh darling hubby ya got a sec!?;)

 I could not leave with out including this pic for Ma and The Nana. This is how I found the boys yesterday afternoon when I took a short break from the floors. I thought it was rather strange I was not being interrupted. And yes, there is another peek at the new flooring! I keep telling myself it will all be worth it in the end! It will all be worth it in the end. Maybe.

 Linking up to Blue Creek Home for Treasure Hunt Thursday!

One last thing before I go, thank you to my new followers this week! Ya put me over the 300 mark!  


It's 1 am y'all and this mama is tired so I am outta here!! Have a good one!

Atlanta-What You Can Get For Your Money

This home is truly a charmer! I found it on the Realtors site a few weekends ago after The Hubster and I had our yearly talk about what life would be like if we moved back closer to family. One of the concerns was home prices. You can get sooo much more house or your money where we live now it is not funny. He did not think we could afford to live in Atlanta.

The wood floors and trim moldings are after my heart.

This kitchen is soo bright and airy. I love all the windows!

And check out this window display in the living room!!! Gorgeous! I love seeing all the trees outside! 

Yep, the fireplace even gets two thumbs up from me!

Upstairs balcony is a plus and so cozy.

And OMG this is what totally sold me on this home! I LOVE this out door living space!! It even has outdoor speakers!

Just a charming 3200 sq ft house for $259,9000. Yep we can afford that! Are we gonna pack up our bags and head east? Not likely, though it would be sooooo very nice to live by family and something you just can not measure it is all about job security these days. The thing I noticed when looking at Atlanta homes and what pretty much ended the Atlanta conversation was the fact that there are sooooooo many short sales and foreclosures there. Almost every other house I had found was one and that got me thinking. The Hubster has a pretty secure job...knocking on wood...that he has had for ten years now. It is what brought us to the big state of TX two short days after we were married. It is a solid job and we have NEVER had worries that he was going to loose his job. He has a great retirement plan and with the right planning things will only get better for us here. We will be able to provide for the boys and pay for their schooling to ensure they have a great start out in this crazy thing we call life. It is very hard to give something like that up and we thank the Lord above every day for that security! For right now Texas still is the right answer for us but who knows maybe down the road we will actually stop talking about what if and just throw caution to the wind. Doubt it but ya never know what life has in store for ya!

Weigh In Wednesdays #7-Thirsty?

Welcome to WIW #7! This week I am going to share with y'all what I like to drink. We all know that water is best for us and getting in the habit of drinking it can be hard for some us. I am not a straight water person. I have to have something in my water even if it is just a lemon wedge. When we dine out I always order diet coke and that is the only time I drink soda of any kind. To me good water at restaurants is hard to come by. There is only one place I will drink the water and even get refills and that is Mcallisters all the way across town. It is the BEST water by far yet I have no idea why.
So what do I drink when I am at home that does not pack on the pounds or hinder my progress?

Mio came out a few months ago. We tried it at Target and were hooked. It cost less than $3 back then.  I love the Mango Peach and the Peach Tea! Super yummy and the boys like it too. Mio I think is owned by Kraft foods and well Kraft thought they would be sneaky by getting ya hooked and then raised the price! Now they are $3.50-$3.85 depending on where ya shop. Sorry Kraft no matter how yummy I am not buying anymore unless they are on sale! Worth the wait though.

Sams Club...aka WalMart...flavored waters are always found in our home. This is what The Hubster drinks everyday and they have TONS of new flavors some even with antioxidants. There is one new one that taste just like a fruity wine cooler! No joke! We fight over it! For the life of me I forget what one it is though. They have been sold out the past few times we have been. If WalMart/Sams is reading this ya need to offer these waters in bulk at Sams!! If ya did we so would become members again! That is how much we drink it.

I just recently became a Snapple Lemon tea drinker since they have been on sale at Target the past few weeks! I will say though I have been drinking the non diet version which I shouldn't be doing but I swear the green tea gives me a major boost and so I think it equals out in the end. More energy to do stuff equals more stuff done which equals more calories burned! Sounds like a win win to me!;)

We are also a huge Crystal Light fan and WalMarts version is what we usually get . It saves  over 50 cents!

What are your fave calorie saving drinks?

If ya want to join in on WIW just let me know and I will add your link to the list! Though my party is small  I have faith more of y'all will join in soon!:)
Next week lets talk about dessert! YUMMY!

Let's get this party started!

1.

P.s. This was a great week! I am now back to pre vacation weight! I made a new goal for myself for the rest of the year. I will share that with ya soon!:)

Molding for The Dining Room

Yes, I know you are probably wondering just how many more posts this week I can get out of our dining room but let me assure you this will  be the last one till we actually get something completed in here. 

Okay said dining room Yawn boring. I have been tossing back and fourth for lil' over a year now adding molding to the bottom half of the chair rail in here. The Hubbys always cringed but now that the dining room is essentially torn apart I figured now is as good of time as any to attempt some type of molding in here.

I have had this pic in my inspiration file for like ever! I actually had it because I loved the paint color and had not yet decided on a paint color for our dining room. Yes, I would certainly take this dining room in a heart beat to include the chandy! Wonder if they would mind giving it to me cause it is exactly what I have been looking for but on a peanut butter and jelly budget. Anyways, this is standard picture molding and it is what The Hubster prefers. I do like it a lot but I want something a bit different. Yes, I like being different and The Hubster says no I like being difficult!;)

So searching the world wide web I found this pic. I apologize but for some reason I can not find whose pic this is!! I thought I saved all the blogs my search took me to but for some reason I lost this one. If ya know please let me know so I can give credit! Anyways I love the board and batten treatment but I am refusing to tear one more thing up in our house so our current chair railing MUST stay so this will not work. Still really loving it though!

That brought me to Thrifty Decor Chic and her sons big boy room reno. She used lattice strips from Home Depot to create this board and batten treatment. I have had this in my file for over a year and I honestly have been trying to hunt down said lattice strips with no such luck. Seriously I do not know why Home Depot does not carry the same lumber supplies in every store! It is very frustrating because I then found Courtney over at And Then There Was Home. She was in the process of creating a board and batten treatment in her office and found some bender board at Home Depot that she used to turn her office into master piece! After seeing it I quickly threw the boys in the car and rushed over to our Home Depot thinking I had finally found something that would work because Courtney lives just south of us and surely if her Home Depot carried said bender board ours would too. NOPE!!!

I ended up at Lowes just to see what if anything I could come up with cause I know it is now or never on creating a wall treatment for in here. I did not find any wood lattice strips but what I did find was an 8 ft long piece of PVC lattice that was white and paintable. At $5 a strip though it is more than what I am wanting to spend but it works and so I brought it home and created the single strip design like Thrifty Decor Chic and well The Hubster said he did not like it. He thinks it looks like an after thought in the dinning room though he likes it in the room Thrifty Decor did! Urgh! I do not want the molding to look like an after thought I want it to look like a french country farm house and though I know in my hearts of hearts it would look lovely I set out on a mission tonight to come up with a differ design that we could both hopefully be happy with that will still cost lil' to accomplish and cost The Hubster the least amount of his time.

This is what I came up with. Sorry for the poor pic quality. It was after 10 pm. I am thinking this design will certainly work. I would have done it all the way down the wall but I only had two 8 ft strips and can only get three smaller strips out of each of them so this is as good as it gets till I decide for sure on the design.  I am really thinking this may be it and yes I really should have been in the dining room scrapping the floor clean but my OCD and ADD kicked in yet again!:) Sigh...

And yet as if I needed another idea I found tonight Amy's molding project over at A Little Piece of Heaven. Her dining room turned out just lovely but she used the elusive wooden lattice strips from Home Depot as well!! Urghhhhh you Home Depot!! You should really head over to Amy's cause not only did she do this beautiful wall treatment she also has done several others in her foyer and in a bathroom that are gorgeous!

Off to obsess some more abt this and to stick the strips back on the wall so The Hubster can see them in the morning on his way out the door to work. I just heard them popping off the wall! I guess Duck tape doesn't stay stuck to everything.

Oh, and if you are heading back here for Weigh IN Wednesday I will have that post up later in the after noon Wednesday. I am still working on it. 

Shine Your Lil' Light On Me

I mentioned in my previous post how I am dreaming up changes for the dining room while we have it torn apart. One of those changes  to The Hubster's dismay I am thinking of is the chandy.

This is the chandy that came with the house. It was nice but it just was not our style. If it did not have the globes I probably could have revamped it to work. 

I ended up changing it out to this beautiful 9 arm chandy. It was more to my liking and a great price. I purchased it before I really had any direction in the dining room though and now that it is almost fully decorated I think the chandy needs to be a bit more. I am sure The Papa is just shaking his head right about now  I am sure. He is my lighting technician!:) Don't worry Papa I think we can handle this one...maybe!;)

I want some bling and I am tossing back and fourth shades. This is soooo pretty but wayyyy out of my price range. I think I saw it on Ballard.

Then there is this one which is a totally differ direction. I really do love it but I think I need something more. 

I am really wanting to stay at $100 or less but bling does not cost $100 or less....sigh... so I found this very pretty chandy on Amazon for $160. I really like the finish on it and it certainly has made it to my short list.

Then I found this one on Lowes.com. It is on clearance for just $80 and right up my alley! It is a 6 arm but looks like a four arm in the pic. I was ready to jump on this deal but sadly it is sold out on line and not avail in any Lowes near by. Sigh again. I think it would have been perfect. I was also able to find it on another site for $120 and then another $25 for shipping so that is an option. 

Then there is this overstock chandy on HomeDepot.com. It was over $300 and now just $129! A great deal and a top contender. It lacks the bling I am wanting though I guess I can always buy some bling and add it. Bling for chandy's can get  expensive though.

So which one that IS in my price range would you pick? I think tomorrow I am going to check out the two Lowes near us and see if they might have the $80 one by chance or even a floor model they are willing to sell me. I got the cute lil' chandy over our kitchen sink that way so maybe I will get lucky again. 

Moved Out

Yep, that is exactly what we did this past weekend! No, not the moving out you may have been thinking if you are new to my blog. We moved out everything from the dining room & office to prepare for the new flooring we are in the process of laying. 

Welcome to our dining room. Attractive isn't it!?;) It soon will be....maybe not as soon as we like but soon. 

I did not want to take the window treatments down and then have to iron them so I decided to wrap um up with plastic and duck tape. Works pretty well! Now you may be wondering where everything ended up.

A little here.

A little there...and yes I have yet to get behind the heavy dresser to finish painting our master but it is on the top of the list trust me!

Every nook and crannie in our home is holding something since the front half of our house is being demolished. 

There is not even a vacancy in our Guest Suite at the moment. 

Our Sophia decided to take the very last spot available! Don't worry though if you are brave enough to want to come and visit right now you can have the boys twin beds upstairs!;)

So yep my house is starting to look like an episode of hoarders and I am honestly surprisingly okay with that... at this moment. The flooring in the dinning room actually came up much easier than the foyer but I am still having a heck of a time getting the concrete ready for prepping so we can re level it all.

It is funny now that everything is out I am thinking of all the things I want to do to these rooms before we put everything back in. The dining room I am hoping will get some new trim work and then I want to paint the buffet and for the office we have a table we bought  months ago to store all The Hubster's computer "treasures" that needs to be painted as well. So lots more projects to do but instead of feeling over whelmed like I have been I am actually kinda excited to get it all done!

So what have y'all been up to??

Linking up to the following parties:

Metamorphosis Monday

Show Off Your Cottage Monday

Wow Us Wednesdays

Open House Party Thursdays

Transformation Thursday

Inspiration Friday

Feather Your Nest Friday

Show & Tell Friday