October Instagram Challenge

Tim and I both got new phones. The new iPhone 5 to be exact. I previously had the 3GS so for me this was a HUGE upgrade. I am constantly amazed by the clarity of the pictures compared to my old phone. Enter my current obsession with Instagram.

A couple of friends posted the October photo a day challenge and I am going to give it a go. Here are the specifics:

My instagram name is megmatuza, if you want to follow me in the challenge!

1980's Kitchen Makeover

Way back here, I mentioned that my parents finally got around to updating their kitchen. Over the years, they had gotten new counters, appliances ( as they broke), and added a backsplash but everything else is original to the house when the built it back in 1987.

Since they already had granite counters they liked,they were able to salvage them and simple buy a matching Santa Cecilia slab for the new additions. They also upgraded to all new stainless steel Samsung appliances, ripped out the drop lighting and got rid of the peninsula. They salvaged the backsplash as they still liked it and it is pretty neutral. The flooring was replaced with "wood" tile planks that I LOVE! And the best part... the new cabinets!

This is my dad's docking station for ipad, phones etc. 

The photos make everything appear more orange than in real life! The kitchen looks double the size with the removal of the peninsula. The added a build in table instead along with a docking station. They also added a granite sink which I think looks great and breaks up the steel.

Luckily, my dad was able to do a lot of the work himself which saved them a TON! All the cabinets were ordered from Lowe's and my dad did the install. He also did all the electrical work and installed the crown. I painted. They hired someone to rip out the old tile and granite and install the new.

While it may not be 100% my style, I think it looks fantastic and is such a huge improvement over the "before". What do you think?

Speaking of kitchens... I still owe a backspash update on my own kitchen!

Mailbox Makeover

Part of what we worked on during the Labor Day weekend was fixing up our mailbox. It was looking rather rusted and weathered.

The plan was to detach the mailbox and give it a coat of primer and paint. Lowe's is no longer selling Krylon spray paint so it was on clearance for $1.25/ can.... I bought the remaining three cans of primer + paint in white.

While I was at the store, Tim attempted to remove the mailbox from the post and ledge. The screws were melted into the mailbox which made this a rather difficult task. We started to wonder if we would have to replace the post as well since we could not remove the mailbox from the ledge. Luckily, we were able to saw the mailbox off the ledge, saving the ledge but ruining the mailbox. The mailbox was almost rusted through on the inside so back to the store I went to purchase a new mailbox. While I was there, I also picked up this mailbox sign:

Tim set to work on washing the post and ledge. I taped up my new mailbox sign and gave it two coats of oil rubbed bronze paint. Luckily, they give you a great template for laying the numbers so there is no guesswork in placement.

 While that was drying,  we coated the existing post and ledge with two coats of white spray paint. After everything was dry. We attached the mailbox.

I originally wanted the mailbox sign to hang off the ledge, below the mailbox. But since we had to add a bracket to support the weight of the mailbox a few months' back, this was not an option. Second choice was to hang the mailbox vertically, along the post.

Not too bad for an hour of work?

Oh and while we were adding curb appeal, I decided to address the dying flowers around the tree. I pulled them all out and purchased four large ceramic pots at Lowe's. I don't think I ever realized how expensive these pots can be! Luckily, these were on clearance, saving me $5/ pot. I also picked up 4 plants at $2.50 each.

Total cost for our labor day project= $115 (One can of spray paint- $1.25, New Mailbox- $18.98,  Mailbox Sign- $19.98,  4 ceramic pots- $60 and 4 plants- $10).

Labor filled Labor Day Weekend

Don't you just LOVE three day weekends? That extra day makes such a difference! If I had the choice, I would work four 10-hour days to always have a three day weekend.

Tim and I didn't really have too much on the agenda for the weekend. Friday night we had an impromptu date night and went to our favorite sushi restaurant: Mikes Sushi and Sake Bar. We then went to Macy's to shop for the husband. He has lost close to 20 pounds over the summer and needed some smaller pants. Macy's had an awesome Labor Day Sale where the men's dress pants were buy one get one free. Between the sale and my Macy's coupons, we got 5 pairs of pants for under $100.

Saturday we made a list of all the projects that needed to be finished up over the weekend. I did the laundry, Tim did the lawn. I weeded and... we FINISHED the backsplash. I also made an awesome dinner of homemade Bang Bang Shrimp and roasted brussel sprouts.

Sunday was the errand day: church, Target, Publix and shoe shopping. After coming home, unpacking everything and having lunch, we decided to go look at a couple of thrift stores nearby. Two out of the three were closed so we headed over to a large Goodwill that we have had a lot of luck at in the past. We left empty handed..nothing stood out to us this time. The rest of the evening was spent cleaning out drawers and closets.

Today was super productive. I was at Lowe's by 7 am picking up a few items to finish off two projects. I chopped fruit for the week, made a homemade soup and rearranged some things around the house. I swore to myself I would tackle my embarrassingly large "to be ironed pile" but I am slowly losing momentum!

Tuesdays are the longest day of the week for me due to a late standing appointment with a client. I plan to made Beef Fajitas in the crock-pot so that dinner is ready when I get home.

Backsplash Dilemma

Within the past few months, I realized I really wanted a backsplash in our kitchen. I feel very blessed to have an updated kitchen. We had granite, new cabinets and brand new appliances when we moved in. None of it I would have picked out, if given the opportunity, but everything is nice and I really have no complaints.

As soon as I started thinking about adding a backsplash, I was on the look out for something I loved. I really love the mosaic glass tiles (and I love the price even more). However, we have Santa Cecilia granite in our kitchen which looks too "busy" with the mosaics. I decided I needed something monotone to balance the granite but didn't want boring.

Luckily, this is a popular granite which means most stores had a sample out for me to test different backsplashes. I think I tried every tile in both Home Depot and Lowe's and couldn't find anything that would go with the granite. Well, I should say anything that would go with the granite that I liked.  

This weekend I headed over to Floor & Decor to check out what they had.I was shocked to find out that HALF their huge warehouse is backsplash tiles! I snapped lots of pictures at their Santa Cecilia style center before getting the help of their designer, Stacy. Here are some of the no go options:

She was super helpful and recommended a tile I loved. I bought a broken clearance piece to take home and show the husband. Here it is in our kitchen: 

The husband was not a fan. It's hard to tell in the picture but the tile has a lot of sheen to it. It looked amazing in the store with cappuccino grout and trim. 

At this point, we ran to Home Depot for some painters tape. We walked by the cabinetry section and spotted a stainless steel tile we both loved. Turns out it is Apect Tile which is a peel and stick option. We decided to take home a box to play around with different designs and to see what we liked. At this point I was leaning toward the vertical design but once I got home I feel in LOVE with the subway tile design. 

So after reading a lot about the product, we are going for it! I am excited and nervous. The install is supposed to be easy based on the reviews. We have to decided against using the peel and stick and opted for the adhesive method. 

With Issac on his way to the area and an extra day off tomorrow, the project may get underway( dare I say finished?) before the labor day weekend!

Primer, Primer, Primer

We have been working away on the garage clean up. In between coats of paint, I decided I would finally tackle painting the front door. When we moved in, we had to replace the front entry door as the existing door did not fit correctly. It was a simplye pre-primed white steel door (unfortunately, something fancy was not in the budget)!

I decided to use exterior white and interior white based on the side. I also painted all the trim. I set to work cleaning the door and then loosely sanding the surface of the door. I painted all the trim first. Since the door was already primed, I started rolling the door with exterior white (to match our trim) with a small foam door &cabinet roller. The first coat went on great. While waiting for it to dry, something bizarre started happening: I was getting debris when I was rolling. So, I switched to a new roller thinking maybe it was the foam from the roller. No luck.

So I stopped. As time went on... this occurred:

The paint did not adhere to the door AT ALL while the trim looked fantastic. I was frustrated and annoyed! So I turned to google for answers. I read that this is a common problem. Supposedly, pre-primed doors that have been exposed to the elements for more than 30-days need additional primer before paint. Unfortunately, this meant that I have to remove all the paint before I could reprime the door.

Luckily we were able to peel off the majority of the paint but the primer did it's job in other areas and the paint STUCK!

At this point, I decided a trip to Lowe's was in order. I purchased a spray can of Goo Gone and an amazing little 5 in 1 painters tool. We spent about an hour scraping the remaining paint off the door.

The primer did the trick. It still needed two coats of paint to get the job done but things are looking much cleaner and brighter!

On a side note: this weekend we purchased some preprimed MDF from Lowe's to use as a baseboard in our garage. We purchased and immediately came home to paint it. Even with no exposure to the elements, we still experienced an issue with peeling on one of the three baseboards! My new mantra is PRIMER, PRIMER, PRIMER(regardless)!

Absent blogger (with a project).

Where has August gone? Seriously, this month has been a bit of a whirlwind! The first three days of the month were crazy busy with our accreditation audit at work. Last week I took two days off with the hubs since he started back at work this past Monday. We spend a four day weekend tackling our garage (post to come soon). And somehow it is already the 18th? Time is going by too fast!!

To get myself back in the blog routine, I wanted to share a project I finished up a few weeks ago. At the end of July, we went to a local third Friday street festival. They had a vendor there selling letter art comprised of pictures of different letters. Well, my married last name is kind of lengthy which made the price close to $50. Being the cheap-o that I am, I decided that I could make it for far less.

First, I went to the Dollar Tree and purchased 8 3.5X5 inch frames. They only had black or brown so I picked up the black ones and spray painted them white.

Next stop was a trip to Lowe's where I purchased a  piece of wood. I used a 2x6x8 which I had cut down to the appropriate length (mine was 36 inches). I already had stain and poly at home so this trip cost around $5.


I applied three coats of stain because I wanted the wood dark enough to match our bedroom furniture. I also really wanted the white frames to pop on the dark surface. I let the stain dry overnight, then applied a coat of poly.

The next day, I found the letters I wanted to use on this Flickr site (its FREE). I used my home printer and just printed them to size on photo paper. After putting all the letters in the white frames, I used hot glue to adhere them to my wooden frame.

Here is the final product:

I LOVE the way it turned out. Total cost was under $14! I must admit though, it is still sitting in the guest room. I know where I want to hang it but am unsure about the placement until we install the new light in the master bedroom. I will update once its is actually on the wall!