More Decor

I mentioned the other day that I was busier on Friday and Saturday than I had been for the previous two months.  I totally am not even exaggerating either!  It's like, the little alarm went off in my head screaming TWO WEEKS!  TWO WEEKS UNTIL BABY IS DUE! and that was what I needed to get my behind moving again.  

Of course, I'm still not dilated at all nor has this baby's head dropped, but that doesn't really matter right now.  What matters is that this mama is running out of time!  That c-section date will be here before I know it.  Yikes.

Sunday morning found all of us Fehlings up at the ungodly (to us!) hour of 7:45 in the morning.  If you know us, you know how NOT normal this is.  We're more like 11:00 people. ;)  I decided not to let it go to waste though and spent the morning puttering around the house.

I put up some simple decorations up on the "mantel."  After we painted I moved my big gold mirror to the big blank wall by the sofa and put this smaller white one over the tv.  I think the scale is a little better here.  I moved the paper bunting from my large chalkboard here, added the "Count Your Blessings" framed printable (always a good reminder) and a small milk glass vase with faux red, white, and blue carnations as a nod to the upcoming holiday.

I saw a vase similar to this bottle I bought at Goodwill last year on Pinterest but it had jute tied around the neck.  I thought that was a nice touch, so I found a piece of twine in my craft room and hot glued it to the neck.  It's a nice detail.  The branch I just clipped off a bush in the back yard.  I want a big bare branch for that eventually because this one isn't going to last forever.

It's simple, and once I swap out the carnations for something else, seasonally neutral.  This way if I don't get around to doing anything up there because I'm preoccupied with more important things, it won't look bad.  Also, less stuff up there means easier dusting!

I bought another houseplant during a Home Depot run this weekend because I decided that I needed a plant in the bathroom.  This little cutie was only $1.77, plus I spent another couple of bucks on the pot and saucer.    Terra cotta pots are my favorite - especially when they're old and slightly chippy.  The bright orange of this new pot was seriously clashing with the muted colors in my bathroom though, so I painted it white and then hit it with my Mouse sander to take off most of the paint.  The result?  A not so glaringly orange, kind of aged looking pot that is much less out of place on my bathroom counter!

See?

Funny story - the first time I took this photo I realized my belly was totally sticking in the doorway!

I repotted this plant, along with my mother in law's tongue Sunday morning.  I also scraped the top layer of soil out of some of my other plants and added fresh potting soil to those.  I was going to repot the big plant but the pot I was going to use was too small so I have to look for another one.  Lame.  It's still in the oh-so-pretty black plastic nursery pot.

Oh, and there's this new addition too:

I have this funny quirk where I do NOT like to put bathroom tissue under the sink.  I keep it in the linen closet. There's this thing in my head that is certain that putting it under the sink is a surefire way to get the plumbing to fail, the pipes to leak, and the TP to be ruined.  I guess it's from when I was a kid and we were poor and lived in less than stellar locations. I swear the plumbing leaking was just a regular occurrence, and my mom ALWAYS kept the bathroom tissue under there.  It's like she never learned her lesson!

The problem with keeping it in the linen closet, however, is that the linen closet is nowhere near the bathroom.  Since I have to pee fifty times a day lately, I go through it pretty fast - and at times I find myself in there with an empty roll.  Often, actually.  I saw a picture somewhere of a small basket on the back of a toilet with spare rolls and thought it was a great idea!  Well, I've looked everywhere for the perfect basket and not one was to be found.  They were all too big, or too wide, or too tall, or the wrong color.  Bummer.

Then, during yet another trip to Home Depot for yet another paint sample, it hit me - cull lumber!  In just about every Home Depot I've visited, there is a big bin somewhere in the lumber department called Cull Lumber.  It's full of random bits and pieces of wood and the ends are usually spray painted a bright color.  Best part?  It's cheap.  I picked up two four foot boards for 51 cents each, but only ended up using one for this project.

I took some measurements, busted out my miter box and the back saw, and got to work.  A few straight cuts and a few nails later I had a little wooden box that was the perfect size for what I needed.  I used this water-based stain that you paint on then rub off to add color because I felt like another painted item in here would be too much matchy-matchiness.  It came out the perfect size to hold a spare roll and the box of wet wipes and only cost me 51 cents.  Kick butt.

Hooray for learning basic mechanical drawing in woodshop when I was ten!