Down with Mailboxes!

It finally happened on Monday. Our ancient rusty iron mailbox died. Seriously - it just keeled over and died. I'm shocked the poor thing made it as long as it did.

To tide us over, Mike duct taped it to some pieces of wood and stood it back up again. So it's out there right now, standing tall and still accepting mail for the week.

But knowing this was a sign, we bought a new mailbox and post on Tuesday. I wanted a green mailbox and a white post. Unfortunately, the only mailboxes in green were super huge.... and the wooden posts were, well, even bigger. So we're going from a small, inadequate, embarrassingly cruddy mailbox to a large, phallic, bigger-than-all-the-neighbors mailbox.

This picture is terrible - but as you can see, this mailbox post is huge. Thank god half of it goes in the ground! Mike sanded it last night and will hopefully paint it tomorrow if not tonight. If all goes well, we could have this baby up and running by Monday!

It'll be such a change just to have a mailbox that doesn't leak or lean to one side. I still have to get some of those wrought iron numbers for the post - that's another thing I hated about the old mailbox: the number stickers. Ew!

Anyway - enough about mailboxes! That was a total tangent project.

We're finally making headway on the trim! Yay! At this point everything is cut and nearly ready to be installed. Mike put on the 2nd coat of stain last night.

The only thing remaining to be stained is the closet doors, which need to be sprayed. (We have an automotive grade paint sprayer - no junky sprayers here.) And they need to be sprayed outside. And it looks like weather will not be cooperating for this weekend. So more delays there.

Also - I got a couple bounce backs from my email to Closetmaid regarding the organizer. So glad they care, you know? So I suppose we'll be going with a white organizer, (Grrrrrrrr!) which we will probably purchase sometime next week once all the trim is installed.

I guess I should just be happy it's all coming together. This Sunday begins the 30 day countdown. I have to admit I'm nervous. Mostly about getting everything done in time. All the weird dreams and hectic work days aren't helping either. I have to get everything prepared at work too, after all!

Cherrified!

I have a closet organizer in my bedroom closet that I'm just in love with. It's a Closetmaid Completions Cherry 16" set with matching drawers and shelves. The cherry color just happens to match our hardwood and trim color perfectly!

Granted, the dam thing was expensive. Nearly $90 for the 16" base set and then around $30-40 for each 10" drawer. So, as you can imagine, I didn't purchase everything at once. Whenever I had some extra cash, I'd head over to Lowes, where I first bought the main $90 set, and I'd pickup a drawer here, a shelf there, etc.

I was really looking forward to purchasing a second set for the baby's room - the main set, the drawers, the shelves - I was just going to purchase everything. So yesterday at lunch I went out to my nearest Lowes...

And they didn't have it. In fact, they didn't have any more Closetmaid Completions sets. They had a new brand! They didn't even have any of the accessories for the Closetmaid sets. And the new brand, though similar in style, was a completely different color.

Then I tried Home Depo. They were carrying Closetmaid Completions.... but not in Cherry.

At this point I went online and frantically started searching. Neither Home Depot or Lowes had the Cherry colored set available. Lowes still listed it, but you couldn't purchase online and it wasn't finding the item at any of my closest stores.

I found several blogs talking about a big sale on Closetmaid Completions at Lowes - 75% off. Boy am I pissed I missed out on that memo!

Then I went to the Closetmaid site - turns out you can't order Completions direct from Closetmaid, though they still listed the cherry set and accessories in their online catalog.

I checked Ebay - no luck. And no other store or website seemed to carry it.

So I went back to Closetmaid's website and sent them the following inquiry:
I currently have one of your Closetmaid Completions Cherry 16" closet organizers with several drawers. I love it because it matches the cherry hardwood floors and trim of my house. I want to purchase another 16" Closetmaid Completions Cherry closet organizer with drawers and other accessories. However, it seems Lowes has discontinued carrying it, Home Depot does not carry it in the Cherry color, and I cannot purchase it online. Has this product been discontinued? I hope not. I would really like to purchase. Where can I purchase?

But I have a feeling they're going to tell me that color has been discontinued. I can't tell you what a disappointment this is. It was the perfect color! And now I can't even get new accessories in the same color for my closet set. I can purchase the wire drawers instead of the laminate wood-looking ones, so I'm not totally screwed, but still!

Hopefully Closetmaid will get back to me soon. If the set is indeed discontinued, I will have to purchase an odd ball wood color - or just go with white. I can't help but think that I wouldn't be in this situation if the sets and accessories weren't so dam expensive!

UPDATE - I just looked again at Home Depot's website - they're calling the wood color of their Closetmaid sets cherry - but it is definitely not the color I previously purchased. Looks more like oak to me.

This is Home Depot's Cherry


The Cherry color I currently have and am looking for.

The Lions and The Lambs

This March the lions and the lambs are just running around in circles! One day it's winter, next day - spring. Surprising that living creatures don't go into shock from the constant changeover.

Yesterday was definitely a lamb day. Mike and I cleaned up around the yard and burned some brush. It felt good to be outside, even though I couldn't do much yard work save for picking up some bits of trash. (Although I did dare to go for a short motorcycle ride late in the afternoon.)

And in the evening - well, I sort of have a confession to make. I went to the deepHo and bought baseboard trim and closet doors on my HD card. I had a coupon.

So before you shake your head and remind me that I shouldn't be using that dam card - I'll have you know that I paid off the entire balance this morning. (Minus what I just purchased yesterday.) And there is the matter of having a coupon... a coupon requiring you to purchase on your card of course, but a coupon nonetheless. And if I don't purchase anything else, I can have this paid within the next billing cycle. So it's not so bad after all.

Now comes the cycle of cutting and staining and sanding and staining again. The rest of the window trim still hasn't been cut. Mike and I have both been really busy... and he doesn't much like trim work anyway, so he's been procrastinating and I just haven't pushed the issue yet. Although I did pick up the new rug on Saturday! I'm really happy, it looks good, and now I'm even more eager to have the trim done so I can put the rest of the curtains back up.

The only things left to buy are the closet light and organizer. And if I had remembered, I would have bought the closet light on my coupon too. The organizer is a Lowe's item.

Baby's room with rug - looks pretty much completed from this angle. You can't see the other sides of the room where there are no curtains, no closet doors, and a big pile of hardwood....

Spring Edition of Now What

As you may remember, purchasing 500sq feet of hardwood flooring was a 100% gamble. Sure, Lumber Liquidators had their No Payment No Interest for 12mo's deal going on, but who wants another card and another must-pay-this-off-in-a-year monthly payment? I gambled on upcoming tax refunds to pay off the entire thing. (An educated gamble based on the amount of past years refunds.)

This past weekend we prepared our returns (thank you to my in-laws and their edition of Turbo Tax) and were both pleasantly surprised to find that we would be able to pay off the entire hardwood purchase AND THEN SOME. The "and then some" was definitely an unexpected surprise.

Already a flutter of possibilities are swimming around my head... although I know I have to rein myself in. Immediately and without thinking, the first thing out of my mouth was, "now we can do the floors in the living room." Although after thinking on it further, I reminded myself that the siding is still in desperate need of replacement and the porch is still in desperate need of railings and trim.

Not to mention the obvious - the baby's room is not 100% completed yet!

Our biggest problem (that Mike and I share) is our tendency to begin new projects without completing the old ones. We just get waaay too excited about new projects sometimes, and it bites us in the butt. Might I bring up the examples of the upstairs (still awaiting some trim and lighting fixtures), the downstairs stair railing (as of yet unfinished), and of course the porch and siding.

So when the money arrives (March 20 if all goes well), completion of the baby's room will be the A #1 priority. Baseboard trim and everything for the closet. Not much - but it all needs to be done.

Then what? That's the question isn't it. But I'm not even going to ask myself right now.

Trimming Here and There

First off, thank you all, we won the case. The floor shalt not be poly'd.

With that decision made, we quickly moved on to window trim. Mike's been cutting and staining and scuffing and staining since Sunday. And last night he applied the final coat.

With another baby-related class tonight, we won't be able to install the trim until at least tomorrow night, pending Mike's schedule. Then, once this trim is installed, we can put up the new shades and then begin the fun and exciting process of cutting and staining and scuffing and staining the trim that goes around the windows.

Closet doors, trim, light, and organizer are next on the list after that.... then we're done!

Granted, I still have yet to purchase the rug. But I plan to probably after the 15th of this month. And hey - wouldn't you know that's right around the corner!

Seeing as how we decided not to poly, we put together the crib on Sunday. (I just couldn't stand looking at the box any longer!) Though I was apprehensive about the color at first, once I saw it in the room I was just in love. Perfect contrast - not too yellow. And the bedding matches the room just perfectly. I couldn't be happier!

Notice the little Fidget head... yeah she thinks this is an awesome new cat bed. Boy is she going to be disappointed!