Guest bedroom

We have three bedrooms.  This one is the smallest.  It's still a pretty good sized room though.  Of course it doesn't look like this now. 

 It looks like this now (sort of. I've added more):

 The bed is an antique my nana gave me.  I painted it Fern by Rustoleom.  I love spray painting. The dresser was $5 from a yard sale.  It was a sad piece of furniture.  Cigarette burns on the top and really dirty.  But a good sanding and some good paint made it look brand new.  (still drying in these pictures.  That rug that you really can't see but really is there came from Kohls.  Now, I'm not a big fan of Khols because they are so expensive, but I do find really good bargains in there from time to time.  Like this rug.  It was clearanced for $3.  I had looked at it when it was still $20+ and decided I didn't like it that much.  Now, I love it.  And the paper lanterns?  $6 each at Target. I'm having a time getting them to hang right though.  We don't get along.

The picture above the bed is a smashed fairy.  I love fairies.  It came from a calendar.  There are other fairies in that room now too. And that little tiny table beside the bed was $1 from a yard sale (duh).  It was laminate so I was worried about painting it, but it came out great and is still great!  And all the bedding was only about $25.  Down comforter, sheets, and two throws.  Clearance items!  Remember those sheets.  You will see them again!

The bird cage was a couple dollars at a yard sale too.  Again we painted it fern and stuck a yard sale bird in it.  I love this bird cage.  It i so cute! 

Laundry/Utility

 

This was the Laundry/Utility room.  It is still in the works to be magnificent.  Well, as magnificent as a laundry room can be.  We are going to build a closet around the "guts" that are exposed and I did hang a cabinet above the washing machine.   But here is what it pretty much looks like right now:

Paint was on the miss-tint shelf at Lowes for $5.  How can you not love a Tiffany Blue?  Clock has no better place to be right now but it was only $20 from a yard sale.  The washer came with the house and dryer we bought....check the fuse box before you buy anything guys....now we have two dryers.  Oops.  All in all, this room cost us $5 for paint, some white paint for trim and doors, that we already had and a $200 dryer.  The future close will be a much higher cost.  But I cannot wait for it!




P.S.  The clock face was a fun thing I saw somewhere once upon time on Pinterest.  "I'm Late Anyways" 

Bathroom number 2

This is our second bathroom.  Very tiny. Was very ugly.  There is a shower in there too.  As you can see, old medicine cabinet, funky sink. Ugly yellowish paint (well not too bad but just not me.)

Then we did this to it:

   

Gray.  It was better than the yellow but it was still just weird.  We bought the paint for a $1 at a yard sale.  Only thing I really wasted was a couple hours of time. And we totally gutted the toilet because it would just flush randomly.  We put in a new water saver flush system.  Doesn't flush every 5 minutes now!  And the toilet was a piece.  We cut it apart with a sawsaw!  Ha!  The mirrored medicine cabinet was so old and crummy.  We cut cardboard and glued it to the mirror just to see what it would look like framed (stayed that was for a few months too!)

After a few months the gray was so done and I had finally found the green I had been looking for all along:

Now I love the little bathroom.  We still have some things to work on but we did replace the medicine cabinet and light fixture above it.  Light was about $15 and the cabinet was a Christmas gift.  The metal shelves beneath the sink came from a yard sale for about $3 and the metal shelf on the wall was free from my nana.  The paint was $13 from Wal-Mart (love that they color match!) And the towel hooks (I hate towel bars!!!!) was a $2.18 chunk of wood from lowes and some hooks from Home Depot for 75 cents each.  I stained the wood with some mini waxstain that I wasn't sure I liked until now. 

Paneling. Everywhere.

This house was covered in paneling.  Yeah, it was built in 1972 but come on!  I'm not a wood kinda gal either.  And I like cheap and easy.  So we just painted the paneling.  Yeah we primed it first don't worry.  Well let me rephrase that.  I primed and painted. Every. Room. In. The. House.  I did have help here and there.  Nana painted windows, doors and trim for me (thank goodness!)

The first room I worked on was the main bathroom.  I thought since it was smaller it would be easiest.  Well let me tell you it is in the process of ANOTHER redo.  The light fixtures didn't even have glass covers on them.  And the bathtub is just a tub....no shower!  But since I am a budget shopper (and refuse to pay the price hardware stores want for vanity cabinets) it is a slow go.  For now this is what we have done to it.

Ignore the mess around the room.  This picture was taken quickly as I had forgotten to take one before and I was on my way out the door to see my mom in St Louis. We painted the room prickly pear, which I am kinda done with right now.  But it is still better than the paneling!  The trim and doors and cabinets all got painted a gloss white.  Really brightens the space up...hahahahaha! Also, the person who built this house made a little lit window between the bathroom and hallway... Kinda awkward because I could watch Patrick pee from the hallway.  Not exactly something I enjoyed. So we bought some window film and put over the plastic.  Very pretty and now I can't see him in the bathroom (neither can guests!)

The bird clings came cheap from Target.  I found them for like $4 way back when and just held on to them till I found a use.  I kinda like them.  

And the sink is not centered in the mirror....or even usable with the mirror....drives me nuts!  Which is the reason I want a new vanity.  Hopefully I will be able to update the room soon!

We bought a house!

I have been MIA for way too long!  We bought a house last summer and have been working on it non stop.  Wasn't a bad house just needs a lot of updating.  My Momma also had a heart attack the day we bought the house and has been in and out of the hospital (mostly in) during the last 7 months.  So between seeing her in St Louis (two hours away) and Patrick working it has been a very slow go and updating the house.  Especially since EVERYTHING has been a DIY. 

I'm going to post the things I have done on here with as many before and after pictures as possible.  A lot of things I didn't get before pictures because I just forgot.  But I can tell you on one had the things for my house I bought new.  The rest came from yard sales and thrift shops or relatives basements! Ha!

First off, let me introduce you to my house!

Nothing fancy just a house in the country.  3 bed/2 bath ranch with NO AC! Window units do ok for now. 



This house needed paint bad.  I knew replacing the siding would cost a lot more than paint so we opted to keep the aluminum.  We had a man give us an estimate on how much it would cost to paint it but he wouldn't just paint.  He told us if his name went on it, he wanted it to look like a show place....Fix the gutters, add gutters, wash it, paint, wash the shutters, and some other stuff I don't remember.  He only wanted $1100 for all that work but I didn't want the other stuff "fixed".  Those are things I can do...in fact, painting is something I can do!  Only wanted someone else to pain because that's a big painting job.  But with 4 peoples and a sprayer we got it done in one weekend!  All it cost was the paint.  Which was about $350 (trim and all).  Did I mention the massive(ly small) budget we have to remake this house?  Yeah, we're poor.  Who isn't!?  I'll tell you now we had about $5000 for EVERYTHING we wanted to do.  We do a little more when we can and sometimes we don't do as much (like when dryer breaks and needs to be replaced before we buy more paint.) 

Now here's what the house looks like after we painted it!

 A little butterscotch color.  It can be very pale tan to a very glowing and vibrant orange depending on the time of day.  Oh and just so you know, I like color.  A lot of color.  Take that as a warning.  
After we hung the brown shutters back up and hated everything about the house.  It looked like a texas cowboy house.  Just no.  So, I spray painted the shutters white! Yes, I took them down first.  And now I love my house.  We also planted some bushes.  I need to get some evergreen things out there so it doesn't look so crappy in the colder months.  And here are a few more pictures of our country home.  Yes, that is an Amish buggy going down the road.

And we have a chicken coop!  Lots of plans for that building.

As well as our two lean-tos.  

 

  

Coldest time of the year

Well the sheep have started lambing. There are just a couple right now but with how cold it has been and since this is the first snow we have had this winter I imagine a few more will be born in the next couple days. Triplet girls were born a week or so ago but only two made it. They are the tiniest lambs I have ever seen! I love when they sniff your face. They may be dirty but I can't help kissing them!

A day on the farm

We took G and B to the Sheep Farm today. Man, did they have a blast. We all froze today because when they say it's winter in southern Illinois, they ain't lying! G was afraid of the sheep and the dog named Dodgey (my husband named him after his dodge truck. Awesome, right? They also had a cat named Flower Pot once.) He really wanted to pet both but would just get overexcited and spazz out. It was ok though. The kids got to run wild while they were there. Lots of ground and not many places to go. Hey, that about sums up this section of the US in general... Anyway, we took the kids on a "tractor" ride. Really it wasn't a tractor, just an all terrain vehicle, but no reason to break G's heart. After getting our body temperatures down to about -2 degrees we decided to head back to the warmth of home. Ok, so maybe we didn't get that cold....

Until next time...The Magniloquent Mary

Christmas!

Christmas comes but once a year, now it's here, now it's here, bringing lots of joy and tears fa la la la la.

G and B were really into Christmas this year. They didn't want to wake up until we said Santa had left presents! B was in love with Santa too. And me? I'm in love with my roosters and fiesta ware!