What have I been doing... Reading edition... Code to Zero

Another fabulous book by one of my most favorite authors, Ken Follett!  A man wakes up in the restroom at Union Station dressed as a bum with no memory of who he is, what he does or any memory at all.  This book takes place during the Cold War, and the background of this book discusses the space race between the US and Russia, so you know that this man has something to do with the creation/flight of rockets.  As in all of Follett's books, there are tons of twists and turns and keeps you guessing until the very end!

I definitely recommend this book!!!

What have I been doing... Miscellaneous edition...

I apologize for being MIA for a couple days!  If you are here for a cabinet update, I will have that posted later today.  They finished up on Friday late evening and told me not to touch them until Monday, so I wasn't able to put anything away until then.  During that time, I decided that I wanted to line all the shelves and drawers with a plastic shelf liner so I have been working on that all day Monday and Tuesday doing that.  I finally got it done last night about 9, put away stuff until about 11 and went to bed!  So I will finish it all today and post pictures when I'm finished!!

So... what did I do this weekend, you ask?  We had the hubby's Christmas party, so I had to shop for something to wear, then get ready, then go to the party (it was a lot of fun!!).  I also did some Christmas shopping and got that all figured out (still have a lot to do)!  I also finished another book, which I will "review" later today!  Oh yeah, and I did about a million loads of laundry!!

Nothing too exciting!!  I still have so much to do to get ready for Christmas!  What all do you still need to do??

What have I been doing... (Reading edition)... 7th Heaven

For my second book "review" for today, I read 7th Heaven by James Patterson.

Not to be confused with the old TV show Seventh Heaven.

I love James Patterson's books!  This is the 7th edition of the Women's Murder Club, and it was just as wonderful as the previous 6!  His books are all thrillers/mysteries, which is my favorite genre of book.  I highly recommend this one too!!

What have I been doing... (Reading edition)... On Mystic Lake

Since my house is in complete disarray, I haven't been able to do much crafting lately so I have been doing a lot of reading.  The first book I'm going to "review" is On Mystic Lake by Kristin Hannah.

 Definitely do not confuse this with the 1980's hit movie with Julia Roberts... that's called Mystic Pizza.  Mystic Pizza takes place in Mystic Connecticut (I think) and On Mystic Lake takes place in the Pacific Northwest, and the plot is nothing at all the same.

Kristin Hannah is a fabulous writer, she deals with real world issues... this one dealt with adultery, divorce, pregnancy, death, and depression, but she deals with them in a real-world manner, not a bunch of soap opera type storylines.  I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it!!

Friday Cabinet update... (Home Improvement Edition)...

Here's what they look like now!!!  BEE-YOU-TEE-FULL!!!!  The crew is here right now as we speak putting on a polyurethane coating on, then they will put all the handles back on and it will be FINISHED!!!!

So, if you are my friend on facebook, you might have seen my post yesterday about being a little bit down.  There are several things that have been going on that have all contributed to my "downness", but I am feeling better now.  One of the things is the complete upheaval of my house right now.  It's all for the greater good, the cabinets will be fabulous when they are finished, but right now here are some pictures of what my house looks like... the fridge is in the middle of the eat-in kitchen.  The kitchen table is in the middle of the living room along with 1/2 of all my kitchen supplies.

The other half of my kitchen supplies is in the dining room... the table is completely covered with stuff and on the floor are huge rubbermaid bins full of dishes.  It is driving me crazy!!  Only one more day!!  

Thursday Cabinet Update... (Home Improvement Edition)...

Oh you guys... the cabinets are looking SO BEAUTIFUL!!!!  They got the first coat on yesterday and will be back today to do the second coat... It looks so good especially against the blue of the wall!!

Here is the cabinet that I've been taking pictures of to update you guys... you can still see the brushstrokes, but that's pretty common after the first coat.  The granite countertops pop so well against the dark brown!!

I am so excited!!  It's looking so good!!  I'll be back tomorrow morning with another update!!!

Cabinet update... (Home Improvement Edition)...

So far we have gone from this...

 To this...

And now, we are here...

SURPRISE!!!  We are getting blue cabinets... I have decided to go with a country look!!

Just kidding, that's just the tinted primer... it's actually a beautiful color of blue... a very pretty bluish-gray!

Since the refinishing team had to miss Monday due to illness, they stayed later last night to make up for it... they got all the cabinets degreased, sanded, and primed so today they will put on the first layer of color!  I will update either tonight or tomorrow!!!

What have I been doing... (Reading edition)...

Finished another book... I seem to be on a crime/mystery book sweep here!  This book is The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly.  I love his books, this one was no different.  It was fabulous!  I highly recommend it!!

And don't worry, the book I'm reading now is not a crime or a mystery book!!  Stay tuned for that one soon!!

Appliances, anyone?!?!?

Tomorrow is the BIG day!!!!

The big cabinet refinishing project begins tomorrow!  I will plan to post pictures everyday to let you see how things are going.  

Last week we received in the mail, an immediate family pricing invitation to Nebraska Furniture Mart so we went yesterday and ordered all our new appliances!!  woohoo!

I do have to admit that I feel a little bad getting all new appliances when my old ones still work perfectly fine, so we are going to try and sell them, and if they don't sell then we will donate them to Habitat to Humanity.  I've enclosed a picture of each appliance with a price, if you are interested in any appliances or know someone who is, please let me know and I can get you all the dimensions and take pictures of the insides.  All appliances were brand new when we built the house which was in December of 2001.

 Microwave $50 *have someone possibly interested

Refrigerator $200 *have someone possibly interested

Stove $100

Dishwasher $75

What have I been doing... (Decorating/Home Improvement edition)...

So, I know all my faithful blog readers have been waiting with great anticipation to know what the big project is that I'm working on that requires many layers of spray paint.  We built our house 10 years ago and when we did that, everyone put in brass doorknobs and accessories.  Like those in the picture below... and they are ugly (in my opinion).  We priced out how much it would be to get all new door fixtures and with over 22 doors it was going to cost a lot!!  So I decided to spray paint them all!!!  It's actually a really easy process, there's just a lot of waiting time in between each layer and you have to completely take the entire door off the frame!!

Here are the steps to spray painting your doorknobs.
1.) Gather your supplies... screwdriver, hammer, sanding paper or pads, primer, paint, clear coat (optional), styrofoam, dowels boxes.  I am using the Rust-oleum Oil Rubbed Bronze paint with clean metal primer in white.

 2.) Remover the door from the frame, and remove all the hardware from the door.  If you've never removed a doorknob before, you may want to google "removing doorknob" because it can be a tiny bit tricky.  You also need to clean all the hardware after removing it from the door.  I usually have a bucket of soapy water and just toss each piece in as I remove it.  Let each piece dry completely.

 3.) You need to fully sand every area of each piece of hardware.  I use 150 grit sand paper or sanding pads.  You don't need to fully scratch off all the brass, you just need to rough up the surface so the spray paint will adhere.  You can see in this picture the difference between the sanded and the unsanded (sanded knob and hinge are on the left, unsanded on the right).

 4.) Now this is where technique can differ.  I usually save some styrofoam from packaging boxes and put all the screws upright in the styrofoam.  I also put dowels in and "hang" the doorknobs on the dowels, so if you do have any drips they will drip right off instead of staying on the knob.  I put on one coat of primer, follow the directions letting it dry then flip the hinges over and turn the knobs and put on a coat of primer onto the areas that didn't make the first pass through.

 5.) After the primer has dried (follow the directions on the spray paint), complete the same process with the your main paint color.  I usually do 2 total coats of the color so for 1 hinge it would be coat 1 side A, then coat 1 side B, then coat 2 side A, then coat 2 side B, being sure to let the paint dry as directed on the directions for the spray paint.

 6.) AFter this step, you can also add a clear coat if you want, on my first knob that I completed, I did put on the clear coat, but it dulled the colored finish so I don't think I'm going to put on the clear coat anymore.  Once everything is all dried, just reattach all the hardware back to the door and here's what you will end up with...

What am I up to... (Miscellaneous edition)...

I am currently working on a mass undertaking decorating/ home improvement project that requires many many layers of spray paint (I will post about this project later today or tomorrow).  As I wait for each layer of spray paint to dry, I am trying to complete a few organization type projects here and there... including...

 - taking everything out of all my cabinets in the kitchen because the cabinet refinishing project starts Monday!!!

- Working on my Christmas cards (yes,  I hand-make them every year)

- Reorganizing our bill filing system with the aid of my Dyno Label Maker (possibly the best thing EVER invented)!

 - And shredding all kinds of old papers from 2007-2009 (Apparently I haven't shredded any old stuff since before the 4 year old was born... oops!!  The paper recycling in town will be full this month!!!!

These projects on top of ER visits, dentist visits and pharmacy visits have been keeping us super-busy!!!

What have I been doing... (Reading edition)...

I did something today that I so very rarely do that I feel it necessary to mention... I returned a book to the library before I had finished reading it.  I honestly can't remember the last time I did that.  The title of this book is Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy by Carlos Eire.  It's not that the book wasn't good or anything, I just couldn't seem to get into it.  I am going to put it back on my list to check out again later and finish it.  I did read over half of it.  I'm not sure why I wasn't feeling this book because it is very well written and something I had never read before and very interesting... I just couldn't get into it!

I don't know about you, but alway in elementary, middle and high school when we had social studies/history, we always started with Indians/Explorers but never made it past WWII by the end of the year.  I hate to admit that I really know very little about the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Cold War, Watergate, etc.  I had no idea that in the early 60's over 10,000 children were sent from Cuba to live with "foster parents" in the United States with no hopes of ever seeing their parents again.  This book is the true story of one of these Refugee boys.  Even in the half I read, I learned a lot!  And I do recommend this book and I do plan on finishing it at some point in the future!!

As promised... (Decorating edition)...

As promised yesterday, here is a picture of the Ballard Designs-inspired artwork on my dining room  wall... the wall is huge so I will definitely be adding some more things...

Hope you like it!!  I had several people say they were going to give this project a try... definitely email me, text me, call me if you have any questions and when you are finished, send me a picture!!!!