Manic Mobile Monday

I might have to start a new thing called Mobile Monday... I had every intention of getting a post together for this morning, but before I know it, the day is almost over! The hours just fly by. Manic Monday is DEFINITELY real. Whew. 

We had a super busy weekend that was filled with quality time with family and friends, so I can't complain about that. I can, however, complain about how my weekend started: with a visit to the dermatologist, which I left with one less mole than I began. Womp, womp. A spot on my hand was deemed "weird" by the doctor, and next thing I knew, it was being removed for further testing. See ya, spot!

Pain in my hand aside, I can't actually complain about the appointment. The office was nice, the doctor was friendly and knowledgeable, and she was very proactive about skin care. Check, check, and check! So there's my PSA for the day: if you haven't had your skin checks lately, stop everything and make an appointment! It is so very important. 

Another notable weekend activity was a major yard project: bush removal! I have hated the boxwood bushes in front of our house since the day we moved in, so I got it in my head that we should remove them. Let me just say this: ripping out gigantic hedges is not as simple as one might believe. 

Luckily, I put together my dream team (my parents and husband are awesome) (not at all by bribing them with wine and food...) and together we ripped those suckers out. It may or may not have involved attaching a rope to my mom's Lexus and tying it around a bush and yanking it out of the ground... We're classy, y'all. At the end of the day, though, I was freaking thrilled with the results. You can actually see my front porch! Hooray! I am really lucky I got help though... Because, in retrospect, I have no idea how I thought I was going to handle that alone. It was a much bigger project than I anticipated! 

Our final activity of the weekend was attending a crab fest hosted by the local chapter of the Virginia Tech Alumni Association.

 It was so much fun, and made me simultaneously happy and sad. Happy, because it's almost time for college football to come back! But sad, because it was a "freshman send-off" event for local kids who are heading down to Blacksburg to start their college career.. And I am so jealous!! What I wouldn't give to be starting those four years over again. They don't know how lucky they are! Sob. 

Anyway, we ate crabs, drank beer, and enjoyed the great company of fellow Hokies - can't beat that for a Sunday afternoon! 

C and I are looking forward to getting more involved with the alumni club - it's such a great organization, and I love meeting people who love my alma mater as much as I do. Hokie Nation, baby!

So tell me...

• Have you ever tackled a home-improvement project that turned out harder than you expected?
• Are you involved with your college alumni club?
• Are you a crab eater? I LIKE crab, but I really don't like working so hard for my food...!

Project #1: Over and Done

On Saturday, C & I tackled House Project #1 for 2014: painting our guest room. We currently have three spare bedrooms in the house and generally let guests crash wherever they like, but once there are kidlets running around and the two rooms upstairs are claimed, the basement bedroom will be the "official" guest room. There is a full bathroom in our basement, so that makes it perfect - guests can have their own space, shower and toilet included, and everyone is happy! This was definitely a selling point of the house for us, and I'm so glad we have the opportunity to use our space this way.

The original color in this room was a lovely forest / camouflage / mold green, and, as an added bonus, there were holes in ALL the walls - the family before us had hung stuff everywhere, generally with wall anchors, and the room just looked a mess. C spackled and sanded on Friday and moved as much of the stuff out of the room as he could. We got up bright and early Saturday morning to tape off the baseboards and move the rest of the stuff, and then we got the party started!

You can see a hint of the green walls in the upper left corner

We had almost a gallon of paint left from when we painted the main part of the basement, and we've like the color so well that we decided to use it in the guest room, too. The main basement gets a lot of natural light, and the guest room gets very little, so the colors actually look pretty different. I like the effect, because it makes it look like we picked coordinating-but-different colors, when, really, we just used what we had.

FYI - the color is Woodsmoke by Eddie Bauer.

A few hours and two coats of paint later, we had a bright, fresh new guest room! I love how clean the new paint looks, and having all the holes patched makes it look so much more put-together. I am excited to style the room and find a few pieces of furniture for it now! Time to actually turn that sad little room into a special place for our guests to stay.

Before and after

A better idea of what the color actually looks like

I'm planning on keeping the black and white bedspread, and planning to accent the room with white and turquoise or teal. Granted, this is all TBD, depending on what I find as I start to scour Pier 1 and Homegoods... looking forward to having a little freedom to do whatever I like!

Bring on the drop clothes and rollers

We are taking on our very first new-home-owners DIY task this weekend: painting the basement.

(dun dun dunnnnnnn....)

The basement in our house consists of a guest room, unfinished laundry room, one full bath, and then a large open room. For the previous owners, it was a playroom, and it's painted a lovely shade of sky blue. For us, it is not a playroom (for now) - or at least not a playroom for children! It's going to be C's "man cave" area (although I really kind of hate that term, because I will enjoy the area just as much), where all the sports memorabilia will go, as well as a TV, the kegerator, pool table, etc. It'll be a lovely rec room when we're finished, I'm sure - but first, that sky blue has got to go!

I'm kind of excited about painting. I know it's something that many people find daunting, but I've been doing it for as long as I can remember. As a kid, my parents always let us pick whatever color we wanted for our bedrooms, and we could change the color every couple of years, with the requirement that we help with the painting. I'm pretty much an old pro :)

However, there is a key piece of this process missing - I haven't picked a color! Kind of important, I guess. I'm leaning towards some sort of gray, which I think would make a nice neutral background for the variety of sports colors that will be in the room.

Here are some examples of what I'm thinking:

L-R: Pediment, Urban Putty, Alpaca, & Roycroft Mist Gray (All by Sherwin Williams)

Now that I'm looking again, though, none of this really look like the gray that I want... Bah. I have a feeling this is going to be a spur-of-the-moment decision, while we are standing in Lowe's!

Any suggestions for a good gray paint to use? All recommendations welcome...