151.1 pounds

Well, it's past that time. So, here I am in those familiar shorts against that same wall. 

The pounds are melting away slowly, even with the sunshine we've been getting lately. Sometimes it's frustrating to get on the scale and have it read the same number. I want to claim having lost 20 pounds but I can't get to 150 to save my life. Here's the good news. People have been telling me {for the first time since I started this} that I'm looking good. "You look like you've lost weight." or "I love that skirt on you!" have been common this month, which certainly only helps the process. :)

No matter how far I still have to go, looking through these pictures helps me see how far I've come.

19 down, 23 to go. 

March 151

February 153

January 160

December 170

thrifty thursdays: outfit post

I bet you didn't know this Thursday was special. Well, it is immensely so. Today is the first in a long line of Thrifty Thursdays! Alliteration is a good reason to show off cheap stuff, right? Yeah, I thought so too. And... here. we. go.

• Shirt: Thrifted Coldwater Creek $1. 
• Skirt: Thrifted Kasper $1. 
• Belt: The Limited.
• Shoes: Target. 
• Earrings: Thrifted Vintage $1.

• Orange Platter: Thrifted Vintage $1. 

What about you? Are you a thrifter? Do you like to be able to say, "Thanks, it was a dollar." when someone compliments you? Do you ever coordinate your outfit with pieces of home decor? I find that the colors in my drawers always make their way into my home too.

Enjoy the sunshine and have a very Thrifty Thursday!

keeping a clean house

When my childhood bff texted to say she was going to be in Knoxville in a couple of hours, I could have gone into panic mode. Thankfully, I have this beautiful little cleaning schedule I've been following for a couple of weeks. Bathroom? Already clean. Dishes? Done. Floors? Vacuumed. Bed? Already made. I had even washed the mirrors! It felt awesome to not have to scramble around getting things ready. I just whipped up some chocolate chip cookies and chilled.

I thought I would share the little schedule with you. Who knows? Maybe you can tweak it and make it your own.

The "daily" portion is pretty self-explanitory, but I can see how Friday on the "weekly" portion might confuse someone. Every Friday is "deep clean day", but you do a different deep clean task every Friday. So, the first Friday you'll dust all furniture and cabinets and the second Friday you will scrub the oven. There aren't always exactly 4 Fridays in every month, so it doesn't matter what week you start on, do the first one. The next week you can do the second one, etc. I hope that makes sense!

Oh, and I don't "Declutter living areas with 'put away basket'" yet. My husband and I aren't that messy. But, I did buy a big basket {$14 at Marshalls, so that when the time comes, we'll be ready}. For now, it's holding our throw blankets.

I like the "almost" stripe horizontally splitting the basket in thirds. Maybe some day I'll make it official with a little color.

The visit went awesome, they raved about the cookies, and the house was clean. I know it'll be a little harder to keep it all clean once we have little munchkins running around, but at least these are good habits to be in.

What're your secrets? I know most of you have been keeping house way longer {or just as long} as me. :)

i love ya, tomorrow

My mom is a nosy snoop. My whole life she has been in my emails, my diaries, and my chats. She's a pretty sneaky detective. For the first time in my life, I appreciate it.

She snuck into my etsy account and checked out the things I had favorited... and then she bought me one for my birthday! {insert your "aw!" here} When my brother came home from spring break, he had this beautiful picture in tow. And true to what I mentioned in my chandelier post, she got that picture frame from a thrift store.

The quote says, "Tomorrow is a new day, with no mistakes in it."- Anne Shirley. Anne of Green Gables is one of the many stories/movies that I associate with my mother and the full childhood I experienced.

Matthew hung it above the mouse cage in the dining room with some little candelabras we picked up on our honeymoon {at a yard sale} for $3.

Here's a little pano so you can get the full effect.

That's our dining room. We finally got the second map up. Check that sucker off the list of things we need to do. I still haven't painted the magnets. I'm undecided. What do you think?

outdoor art

This past weekend was our spring break, and though Matthew and I stayed put in Knoxville, my brother Chris went back to Virginia Beach{a.k.a. home}. When he returned to college he came bearing many gifts. He brought back a bunch of things that I look forward to showing you, but I decided to start out with my version of outdoor art.

Enter Matthew's old dart board. When Matt mentioned that he was going to have Chris pick it up at home, I was all about hanging it up on our big, blank front porch wall.

But, that raw wood look wasn't working for me. It works for me some places {like our pallet shelves} but not so much here. I checked my paint stash. Dark purple, yellow, turquoise, white, gray, and black. For some reason, of all of those, black was the one standing out to me. Three times lately I've heard black mentioned. Once, by an old friend who was talking about painting whole walls black. Another time, I was told to only put black in places with tons of natural light. The last time, I was told that there should be some black in every space for your eyes to rest on.

So, it isn't a whole wall but it does have tons of natural light {it is outside after all}, and there is now a place for you to rest your eyes. So, as a step out of my {normally not black} box, I'm purdy excited. Rest little eyes, rest!

But, I decided not to stop there. I gave the edge a little life. So, in the end I didn't step tooo far out of my box. Yellow, after all, is in my box.

Anyone up for some darts? We're totally game. 

unconventional map love

At my first estate sale we picked up a bunch of fun things. Since then, I've been daydreaming about getting those maps up in the dining room. When we removed the floating shelves that were in there, they left gaping wall anchor holes. We had to fill them and then {since we didn't have any of the paint to match the existing color} we ran out to grab some oops paint, and painted the walls a bright and happy white.

I used to think white was such a boring wall color, but as my taste has grown I've realized I prefer it. Having white walls is like having a blank canvas. Then you can put bright and colorful art up, and there's no competition for your eyes to worry about it. 

Do you know how much it costs to frame three foot pictures? Wayyyy too much money. So, we went unconventional. I mean, really unconventional. First we measured everything, and then we screwed sixteen screws into the wall around the border of where wanted to hang the first map.

That's just the first three screws, but you get the idea. We didn't screw them into the map, we screwed them into the wall. Once all sixteen screws were in, we placed our map up against them and then we grabbed the round heavy duty magnets we had picked up at Lowes (eight magnets for $4). Do you see where we are going?

With the map against the screws, we put a magnet on top of each screw. Then we held our breath, and let go.

It didn't fall off the wall. Huge plus. We let it sit over night. It still looked the same. We let trains go by {we live right next to some very active tracks}. It didn't shimmy off the wall. Success! We still have to hang the other one, and I'm thinking about painted the magnets {brass, yellow, red?}, but I'm all for suggestions. :) 

$5 chandelier

I am like my mother. Yesterday, a stranger informed me that I have a great phone voice. That voice {which both of us can turn on and off} comes directly from the woman who raised me. Today, while washing the dishes, I sliced into my finger with one of our giganormous sharp knives. Trust me, that's from my mother.

However, years ago I promised I would set myself apart from my mother in one specific area: clutter. My mother likes to keep things. Lots of things. Throughout my child hood, though there were piles of things that were supposedly headed out to the thrift store, things never seemed to get more sparse. 

I will vouch for her though, she never bought expensive things. She shopped almost exclusively at thrift stores, a habit I have also picked up. A couple of days ago, I was taking a bag of clothes to the thrift store and I happened upon a chandelier. It was just the standard brassy kind with five arms. They only wanted $5 for it, and that's a steal for any light fixture. 

When Matt came home from work I greeted him at the door with my hands clasped behind my back and that, "Don't look behind me and when you do, don't be mad" smile. He took it like a champ and simply asked where I was planning to hang it.

When I came home the next day, Matt greeted me with the same smile he had seen the day before. It wasn't finished yet, but here's what I found.

There was no medallion for the ceiling yet, but the hard part {taking down the old light fixture} was over. I don't know if you ever saw a before shot of that light, but I took one after he took it down. It was just one of those standard long bulb lights.

I have no idea why this was in our kitchen. New rule of thumb for moving: Replace all existing light fixtures. Often they're just some sort of "standard- hug the ceiling" light and to be honest, they're just plain boring. We ran out to Lowes to grab a ceiling medallion and with a little team work, it was looking like this.

I decided to wait til the morning to take the rest of the pictures so they would have natural light in them because I needed to do the dishes, but when I flipped it on in the morning, one of the light bulbs had burned out. Drat. :)

The longer we live here, the more it feels like home. Plus, we aren't breaking the bank to change things up. This whole project was less than $10 {+ whatever lightbulbs will cost}, and it makes a huge difference to the look and feel of the kitchen. 

I have no idea where this light will be in our future home. Maybe it'll end up some bright coral color in my little girls' room. Who knows? But for now, it will remain in all of its brassy glory and help us keep things bright and happy in the kitchen. 

weekend sparkles

This weekend, after filling the holes in the walls {from those floating shelves}, we grabbed some "oops paint" and made our dining room a little brighter. Yay, for sparkles! We'll be hanging those maps any day now.

I hope your weekend was filled with sparkles too. <3

diy geometric step stool

You know pinterest? That addictive online website where people go to pin things that they will never make? Yeah, that one. I made something. Boo-yah!

A lifetime ago, I pinned this picture.

Someone {Unfortunately, I couldn't find where it originated} spent a great deal of time painting the inside of their closet a fun, geometric pattern. I have no idea what they did to create their look, but I can tell you how I accomplished the same end result {on a smaller scale}.

Like all good DIYs, it mixes bright colors and trash.

The step stool in question was saved from a trash pile years ago {Matthew has a good eye for "trash"}. I'm sure Mrs. Nowak gave it a thorough scrubbing when it first entered her home, but I gave it another wipe down before I started, just for good measure.

Next I armed myself with the things I needed.

• The step stool
• A perfect triangle
• A pencil
• A ruler
• Scissors
• A frosted flakes box
• Paint
• Paintbrushes

I started by cutting out the geometric triangle and tracing it onto the frosted flakes box {obviously, you may use any cardboard}. Next, I cut it out of the frosted flakes box, and wah-lah! I had my "stencil".

I simply traced out the area I wanted my triangle pattern to be in {using the ruler for a straight edge} and then used the cardboard triangle to make my pattern {one triangle up, one triangle down etc.}. 

Let the paint application begin! I started off just like the inspiration photo I was using, and stayed with it for the most part. I "messed up" a couple of time by painting a triangle "the wrong color", but I just let it be and continued. I did each color completely before moving on to the next color. Also, I did my best to let  the first color dry before I started the second {etc.}.

Not gonna lie, I'm pretty proud of that coral color. I mixed red, white, and yellow and got the color I was looking for on the first try. Color by color it continued, until the stool went from "that stool we saved from the trash" to "that stool we made entirely awesome."

I can now officially see my future little kids standing on the stool {still on their tiptoes} washing their pudgey fingers. Such a helpful little stool.

As a final step, I gave him a coat of valspar clear gloss finish to help protect the pattern from those tiny toes. Wanna see the finished product again? I just like it so much.

It's so prettiful. :)

So, have you recently realized your love for all things geometric? What about found an awesome color pallet somewhere unexpected? Painted a stool? Work with me here. ;)

throw pillow diy. sorta.

You know those throw pillows that I've been claiming I'd sew for months? They're sitting on my couch. I'm not going to lie; They took me days to make. Three throw pillows = days.

They still aren't perfect. In fact, if that's what they had looked like the first time I sewed them I would have grabbed my seam ripper {just kidding, I don't have one. I would have grabbed Matthew's pocket knife}. But this was after 10,000 tries, and for today, I like them.

The hardest part {by far} was the innocent looking yellow pillow. Don't let it fool you. It's downright vicious.

My great-grandma made that doiley, and I had the fabulous idea of sewing it to the center of the fabric I was using. What I didn't realize was that the pattern I was using wouldn't put the middle of my fabric... in the middle of the pillow. It looked stupid. Off.

Here's what I learned from the project.

• Before you begin sewing, get one of those cutting board things to help you measure so you don't have to make little marks all over your fabric and hope you're cutting in a straight line. I don't care how much they cost. It'll be worth it.
• Don't put doilies in the middle of your pillows.
• Keep trying no matter how bad you {literally} want to beat the stuffing out of your project.

Honestly, in the end it helped me to learn a lesson, and no lesson is worth learning if you don't turn around and teach it. The four year old who I watch is a perfectionist. She hates change and likes everything "just so". 

It's hard to do crafts with children who want their craft to look exactly like the box. "What color do you think we should use for  hat?" *She checks the box* "Black". Sometimes I want to scream, "You're allowed to be creative! It doesn't have to look exactly like that! That's why they gave you different colors to choose from!"

Yes, that was a rabbit trail. Back to the point. Yesterday, she was making a bunny craft that her mother had bought for easter time. She was having trouble glueing one of the eyes on and after a moment of trying she cried out exasperated, "I give up!" It made me smile. How many times did I say that yesterday when I was trying to turn fabric into throw pillows? I was quick to answer, "Oh no! We can't give up! Guess what I did yesterday." She looked interested and I told her, "I tried to sew something and I couldn't get it right and I said, 'I give up!' but Mr. Matthew said, 'You can't give up!' and then he helped me and I got it right {really he just encouraged me, but I was using it as an opportunity to help her}." She seemed surprised that adults sometimes almost give up, but we worked together and got that bunny looking awesome. 

All throughout the day, as we moved from activity to activity, she would look at me mischevously and say, "I give up!" so that I would reply, "Oh no! You know we never give up!" :) 

So, the good news is I learned something, even if it was completely unrelated to sewing throw pillows.

bigger, better, cheaper

I've mentioned it somewhere back in the archives before, but when Matthew and I got married we opted out of a t.v. Instead, we saved up our five dollar bills until we could afford a quality projector. We've been projecting it straight up on our wall {for movies. we also got a clearplay which cleans up any movie that they have a filter for}, and even though that works, we knew that we didn't want to spend our whole marriage with a portion of the wall empty and dedicated to staying so.

Our projector holder :)

The empty wall space where we project

So, we've been on the lookout for a large projector screen. When we were at the flea market in Nashville, Matthew found one. He called me over. It was $25. It was a little dirty/dented. It wasn't really big. BUT, when you find something you've been looking for, it's sometimes hard to be rational about things like that.

The moral of the story is, "If you aren't sure, don't buy it." You will find something that is bigger, better, and cheaper.

Yesterday, on my way home from work, I noticed that one of our favorite thrift stores was open later than normal. Matthew was up for the quick walk in a "tornado" {we were supposed to have tornados yesterday, but as far as I know they never showed their faces here in Powell}, so we shuffled across the street in the pouring rain. The thrift store {where I got my new office chair} was under new management, way cleaner, and wayyyy cheaper. We looked around. I was sorting through the sheet section when I noticed a projector screen.

Matthew is way better at checking over things like that to make sure it is exactly what we are looking for. He pulled it out, and the new owner came over to tell us it was broken. Drat.

But Matthew tried anyways and fixed it. He's such a clever cleaver. She had been pulling at it upside down. Not only does it work, it is huge. Not only is it huge, the screen is very clean. While she went out to watch the lightning do its dance, Matthew and I talked about it. We wanted it. Now it depended on how much she wanted for it.

She came in, and we asked. She wanted two dollars. :) Perfect. Not only is it what we wanted, it also fits perfectly between the china cabinet and the wall for storage. We probably won't use it in this house, but I'm excited about the possibilities. I'm imagining bringing it outside to watch a movie on our back porch when the weather is perfect, or hanging it from the ceiling above the mantel and pulling it down when we want to enjoy a movie.

What have you found lately for cheaper than you thought you would?

flea market finds

Remember growing up? Remember the way your mom decorated her house? My mom always had "themes". The kitchen was "Give us this day our daily bread." and the dining room was apples. When I was young I picked magnolias for the theme of my kitchen. I love the shape, smell, and colors involved in magnolia trees. In the last couple of years I've realized that I'm not a "themey" person. I didn't know that. I'm not a "rubber duck" bath person {maybe whales, but that's more of an obsession than a theme :)}. I've realized that different people make their homes beautiful in different ways, and my way is simply by filling it with things that I love. Things that bring a story or a smile.

Here are some of those things that have recently been added to the Nowak household.

Gah! Toys! Yay for future Nowak babies!

I had to get that out. Yes, I am already buying things for the non-existant children I plan to have. Yes, I do have a plastic bin full of kids stuff in top of the coat closest. You know, an American girl doll, some cupcake gloves, a wooden whale... Now, add to that some awesome fisher price toys and some quality wooden stuff. :) Oh, and that train makes the most legit sound when you push its smoke stack down. Imagine a loud and clear, "Choo choo choo, chugga chugga choo choo, chugga chugga choo choo." With bells for the railroad crossing going up and everything. All the goodies on that chair were bought from Goodwill Bins for $0.59 a pound= Super cheap.

Oh, that chair? :) Just a zig zag, super comfy wingback that we picked up for $25. No big deal. Only amazing.

But, we had to move the orange mid-century chair that was there. It got relocated into the Dining Room, where we created a little reading area by moving our small bookshelf with it. I need a piece of art to go above the mouse cage, but mom said she got me a picture for my birthday, so I'm waiting with the hope of using it to fill that space.

I'm going to tear those shelves down and hang up our giganormous maps any day now. That table cloth is a $3 flea market find.

Ok, I know it's probably hard for you to keep track of where things in our house are, but that chair/bookshelf are now where my desk used to be. And so... you guessed it. The desk has also migrated. It now resides in the living room.

Right next to the front door, where the bookshelf with the mouse cage used to be. Oh, did you notice my new vintage fan? It was a flea market find. I talked him down to $25 {since the ones I've been looking at online are that much or more + shipping}. I love it and its vintage cage. Wanna see a close up? Ok, if you insist. :)

That cook book is from the Lovelesss Cafe and it's chocked full of delicious looking desserts! I'm making the first one tonight; Wish me luck!

I also got a candelabra {$3}, a new bed cover {$27}, four glasses {$2 total}, pearls from Matthew, and a nesting doll from my Uncle Jeff and his wife Rebecca.

That's a brief rundown of my birthday purchases. Our apartment just keeps getting more homey. :)