Top Ten Favorite Things - Early Fall Edition

It's been quite a while since I shared my favorite things, but with Thanksgiving quickly coming up I thought what better way to start to get in the holiday spirit then to start this back up!

Top Row
1. Testing out the beautiful new walking trail in our neighborhood
2. Silly Selfies with my Silly Guy
3. Who doesn't love surprise flowers??
4. Very Proud of THIS GUY for working hard to get his dream job!
5. GOB growling at our new bear bottle opener

Bottom Row
6. So happy these little cuties were able to Trick or Treat together this year
7. My favorite XMas commercial so far - Petco's Guinea Pig
8. After weeks of feeling like I was extremely behind on everything - A CLEAN TO DO BOARD!
9. Very Proud of THIS GUY for being very braze while going for some (very minor!) surgery
10. A little impromptu Antique Shopping and mid-week lunch with my guy

Guest Bathroom FINAL UPDATE!

So my powder room has been making me angry lately...angry enough to grab my crowbar.  But before I start tearing up molding (or a few hours afterwards...who's counting) I wanted to close the books on the guest bathroom blog-wise.  I've been holding off posting this (I actually did finish before GOBs bday) because I needed to make some small fixes and thought maybe I would try to finish off all of the last to-dos on my list before I shared....but after a few weeks away from it I realized that the small fixes don't bother me as much as they used to and things are more than OK enough to share a final post on this project.....so without further ado, here's what she looks like today:

 

I can't describe how cozy it feels in here and how happy it makes me!  I didn't want to bore everyone with all of the detailed step-by-steps of all of the last little projects, so here are some of the highlights.....

I ran the beadboard really high so that it cleared the outlets and also gave the medicine cabinets a built in look (these were from Home Decorators BTW and have chalkboards inside so I can harass the boys as they get older to Brush Their Teeth and Put on Deodorant).  If you're going to do beadboard in the bathroom make sure it's the PVC kind that is waterproof and rot resistant.  They just slide together so it's super easy.

 

I don't think I shared much of the other side of the room since all of the big projects happened in the shower area, but I took the opportunity to test something out that I plan to do in the whole house, which is to replace the door trim and hardware.  I LOVE how it came out!!!  It makes my other doors look like garbage (I'm talking to you Powder Room)

 

I spent a crazy amount of time thinking about what kind of shelves I wanted in here (no seriously...a CRAZY amount of time) and the winner was these pipe shelves.  The pipes are just black plumbing pipes from Lowes (spray painted with Hammered Black Spray Paint) and the wood for the shelves came from the construction sites around our house, which was great because they were already a little beat up.

 

I did get one art project in before I shared this post - I really want to put some "inspirational" sayings around the house but I want them to be special.  I stumbled on this one by Emerson on Pinterest and thought it was the perfect thing for my boys to read every day.  I need to darken up the letters more, but if it doesn't come across in the picture it says "Be Silly, Be Honest, Be Kind"

So that's it for now!  Like I said I still have some things to do (artwork, pictures, crown molding, etc). but those are small in the scope of this house and can wait until another day.  Before I go, here's one last before and after for your viewing pleasure.

Who wants to come over for Dinner?

I have a few small things to finish in the bathroom before I share a final blog on that, but wanted to knock one more project off my list before the nice weather disappears.   So while taking a much needed break from work I tackled my biggest building project and now we finally have a kitchen table that can fit my whole family for dinner!

It really wasn't that difficult but it did require all of the tool arsenal that me and my dad have been amassing and a lot of focus.  The plan itself came from one of my favorite DIY sites Shanty-2-Chic.  If you are looking for plans to build furniture yourself, or just some good inspiration I highly recommend taking a look through their site - they have lots of table plans besides this one.

I probably could have made things much easier on myself by picking something easy, but me being me I picked a plan with a pretty complicated set of table legs - I wanted to be able to fit as many chairs around this thing as possible so the "X" legs let's us do that.  I took a look at the table that inspired this one from Restoration Hardware and it said that the design was suppose to look like it was made from old railroad ties.  Oh and btw, that table was around $2500!!!  Don't like to talk money but let's just say this was CONSIDERABLY less.

I went back and forth on the stain but finally settle on a two - tone distressed effect with a dark brown tone underneath and then a gray tone on top....it kinda makes the wood look like's it's been faded in the sun.  It may have turned out a little darker then I originally wanted, but now that we've lived with it for a day I think I really like it.  Am thinking about adding lighter cushions to the benches that will eventually be on either side - good idea / bad idea?

So now we finally have a table that fits the room and can fit 10 people - which was my goal.  Glad I went for it on this one - I learned a lot of extremely good lessons and am already daydreaming about what to build next - after I finish the bathroom and build these benches of course.

 My little helper / photobomber - how young is too young to use power tools?