Books Galore!

While Bubby was here in October, Granddaddy brought one of our new bookshelves!  These are really special to us because Dad planed out the boards, my Granddaddy and Grandpa helped him build them and once they were down here Bubby and Chris stained and varnished them.  So three generations and two sides of my family are involved in these shelves! I hope we get to cherish it for years to come!

Goodbye Carpet!

Well most of it anyway!  We have been struggling to keep the carpet in our dining room clean since we moved in (everyone knows what a messy eater I am, right?) and finally decided to ask our land lady if we could replace it with... ANYTHING!  I was really hoping to replace all the carpet with something like wood patterned Pergo, but wasn't going to be picky since we weren't paying for it!  She was happy to replace the carpet in the dining and living room, but didn't want to take it out of the bedrooms because so many people preferred carpet in those rooms (who exactly are these people?). 

In order for the workers to come in we had to get everything out.  It wasn't nearly as bad as I feared, and Pandora had a blast!  She thought we were making a new Jungle Gym just for her when we took the TV out of its stand!

  And she was very concerned for the safety of 'Her' chair as Chris moved it into the other room!

While we are still wait to get the carpet off the wall under the bar (what you see in the above picture to your right), we are thrilled with the new floor and how much cleaner it feels!  I plan to put more pictures up when we get the rest removed and painted!

Fun, Little Home Renovations

 While our apartment already feels pretty homey, there are always things that need replaced, updated or added.  Since you need them anyway, might as well make them fun, right?

One of the things we needed I wanted was a new summer quilt and an extra set of summer sheets.  While we have other quilts and comforters, we only really have one light enough to use in the summer down here, the same goes for the sheets, and I really wanted one to change out every now and then since our main season now is summer!  So here they are!  I like the bright yellow and it was much cheaper than its green neighbor that I also liked at Target but who didn't come with any shams.  I just liked the orange sheets and they will work with some of our other bedding.

 Our kitchen towels had finally reached that point where they weren't getting clean... and they still kinda smelled even after I washed them on hot.  Probably my fault somehow, but hey, they are almost five years old and I think that's a good long life for kitchen towels!  Here are my replacements!  I like the bright colors and they work well in my kitchen.  If they last as long as their predecessors I'll be very happy!

 This is a gadget I have been searching for for a couple years now and I'm SO excited about it!  I remember my aunt having something that looked like a mini mesh trampoline that she would use to dry clothes that couldn't go in the dryer and she didn't want to hang outside.  Needless to say I got some funny looks when describing this to sales people.  When my Mom was down we went to Bed Bath and Beyond and finally found something close, I feel better for our situation now.

This hangs on our door, can lay flat against the door and maximizes drying space because it 'stacks' the clothes.  So instead of having three out theses little racks spread across the living room, I just have this hanging on the door!

When we were shopping Mom suggested a different drying rack where you drape the clothes over it that folded up, with the though that I could use it on our covered porch.  Unfortunately after further consideration, we decided that probably won't work while we are here because it is just SO humid here in the summer I think clothes would take forever to dry outside.  Plus I can lay stuff flat on this one.

Thanks for enjoying my new gadgets with me!

We got a new stove this week!!!

So on my list of things I'm working to be content about is our apartment.  Its silly little things that bug me really when I look at the big picture, we are in a safe complex and have very affordable rent for Gainesville, which I appreciate more and more as I ask around about what people are paying down here.  Anyway, my awesome hubby talked to our landlady about a few things that needed fixed/looked at and he mentioned that our oven manages to worm up the whole apartment even when I'm only cooking for a short time.  When the maintenance guy came to work on the other things he checked out the stove at the same time.  He didn't even look inside of it, just noticed what make it was and estimated it to be close to 20 years old and said he'd be happy to order us a new one!!!  So this Thursday when we got home from campus we had a new stove!  It's bright white looks great against the red but also kind of make the surrounding cabinets' off white stand out!  Still the contentment level jumped this week, and my appreciation for God's unexpected provisions!  So excited and grateful!

Little things that make a place feel more like home...

Pretty 'Butterweave' warmer!

It has been a long road to making this apartment feel like home but it is slowly being accomplished!  When we were preparing to have part of my family down I was able to get a few more things up that really made a difference.  A big one was taking down the blinds in the living room over the big patio window and putting up curtains, it doesn't seem like it should be a big change but I like it so much better and it made the place feel a lot more like my own!

We also got some pictures up that have been waiting for frames and a shower curtain up in the very blue bathroom.  I decided yellow would compliment that bathroom and maybe mellow it out a bit!  My newest addition didn't get here in time for the family visit but I am excited about it all the same!  Except for some yellow towels it is the last piece for my 'Very Blue' bathroom!  

The 'Very Blue', and now yellow, bathroom!

My dear friend Sarah Edmundson is a consultant for Scentsy, and I am a new fan of their warmers and bars.  I feel safe about using them since there is no flame... I'm bad about forgetting to blow out candles even though I love them and Chris is afraid I'm going to burn the house down!  Point of story, I bought one of the smaller plug in warmers for this bathroom and it looks great!  If you are interested you can visit Sarah's site and check them out!  I highly recommend 'Sticky Cinnamon Bun' for a scent, it is a nicely spicy cinnamon reminiscent of 'Home Sweet Home' from Yankee candle! 

Trying to 'de-smoke' our apartment...

The previous tenants of our apartment were smokers and you could really tell when we moved in!  We were hoping thorough cleaning and just living here would eventually dissipate the smell, and while it has diminished over time I can still smell a lingering smoke smell on my clothes and in the apartment after we have been away for awhile.  We got a small air purifier about a month ago hoping this would get rid of the smell.  While it diminished the smell further when on, and helped us sleep, it wasn't big enough to take care of the whole apartment and if it is off for any amount of time the smell comes back.

While asking around most people suggested at least steam cleaning the carpets, so when we got a surprise residual check I went on the hunt for a high quality carpet cleaner.  We found a company in our price range but before calling them to make an appointment Chris suggested asking our Landlady if she would pitch in. I'm so glad he did!  She offered to pay for all of it to get the ducts cleaned if needed!  But she wanted us to talk to her guy before having someone else clean the carpets.

Her guy turned out to be the same one who did such a poor job cleaning our apartment in the first place!  He did offer a service the other group did not, it was a spray called a odor counteract ant.  He reassured us that it didn't just cover the odor and it came in a perfume free version.  I looked it up and his story seemed to check out.  So we decided to give that a try along with the carpet cleaning.  We scheduled the spray guy to come early this morning and the carpet guys later this afternoon, that way the spray would dry before they got to work on the carpets and we would have time to hang our pictures back up and get other things off the floors.... but the spray guy was late, really late.  He only got here an hour before the carpet guys, the stuff he was spraying definitely had perfume and we were hard pressed to get stuff up off the floors for the carpet cleaners... GAH!

Sorry, just a little overwhelmed because I also had my first Plant Phys exam today! (It went quite well though I think)  But, this day is finished, we have clean carpets and we are waiting to see if the smell will go away from the spray or if we will need to rent an industry strength air purifier.  Until then we now have the job of putting everything back on our walls and in its place, it almost looks as though we are getting ready to move again.

It has been a long day, but my reassurance is that we did not have to pay for all this (except in time and work)!  God has been so good to provide for even little things we need/want, like a nicer smelling apartment!