I would like to take a moment to unironically thank God for our house. Thank you 6lb 8oz Baby Jesus. Today, in particular, for storage capacity.
When we built this house, I added a storage room in the garage with the idea of Christmas decorations. My fat ass isn’t getting shit out of an attic every year. (Also in Alabama, wax candles melt in the attic — expensive QVC battery candle RIP). Now, the storage room does have a mouse problem, but last year I started upgrading the boxes to totes.
Storage capacity also means I can buy things I don’t need now to use later. Like something that might make a great Dirty Santa gift one day. So when K2 called this morning to inquire if I still had the llama cookie jar I offered her for a secret Santa, I was like sure — I’ll get a picture.
I walked out to my garage (THANK YOU GOD, for a garage. First time having a garage. Fucking amazing). Got down the “Christmas Vomit” tote:
And bam — llama located with a simple, short indoor walk to the storage room.
It even had the receipt from 2019 with it:
This is from that time (Apparently on Dec 30th, 2019) that K and I went to Hobby Lobby on 80% off after Christmas Day. We got there before it opened because they had the beautiful metal reindeer that were like $200 or something crazy that I wanted so bad. Bad enough to wake up early on a Sunday to be there at opening for.
Bitch in front of us got a cart and bought EVERY. Single. One.
Anyway, that’s not the point. The POINT is that I love my house. I’m so blessed to have an insanely amazing house. It’s gorgeous and I love it. I have a cat bathroom. I have a pool. I have a garage for my car. And I have convenient, easily accessible holiday storage. So I can buy 80% off llama cookie jars — because in 6 years, it’s going to be a perfect Secret Santa gift for someone.
Sidenote:Yall remember when llamas were all the rage? I guess around 2019? Now I think it’s moved to capybaras. I bet there’s a capybara cookie jar with an orange on its head next year.
I really wanted an Advent calendar this year. I wanted fancy keto chocolates. I found TWO chocolatiers who do keto bon bon calendars. Both in ENGLAND. Only one of which ships to America. Price $60.00. Shipping $22.00. Fuck. So I went on Amazon shopping around for advent calendars I might like. I was about to order one with those metal puzzles, but like, I’d like to mix it up. So I thought about a DIY advent calendar! Now husband aint gonna do that for me — I asked. But my friends would! So I tasked K with a hundred dollars to stuff an advent calendar for me.
So I decided to make myself a reusable calendar. Cause I’m crafty and I could have done paper bags but that would be simple. I don’t like simple. I also found the blank wooden calendars on amazon. They’re cheap crap — but whatever. The photos were obviously AI — whatever. I can paint! So I ordered a cheap wood advent calendar.
I considered modpodge. I thought I’d be able to find a cute christmas bag, or some paper — or better yet, decals. Nope. So I decided to paint mine. First, I had to color it. I decided to stain it so you could see the wood grain. This was fuck me #1. Because the red gel stain dried super light and also slightly powdery. So I had to seal the whole thing. Whatever. It’s red. Also this took two days because it needed two coats.
I decided to go with hanging ornaments. So I put a photo of my red boxes in Photoshop and mocked up colorful balls and garland. Then I spent two evenings painting them. This was the highly enjoyable part. I genuinely looked forward to coming home to work on my advent calendar these days. Painting circles is hard so they did end up bigger and therefore I had to drop one. Whatever. I also repainted the garland and decided I went way to dark on the greens. It is what it is.
I used nail art for the drawer numbers! K and I went to Hobby Lobby AND Michael’s last weekend looking for anything to use for numbers. Wood burning? Only letters. Stickers? Nope. Stamps? Only letters. Charms? Holy shit, so expensive. So Etsy hooked me up with nail art stickers. They ended up CRAZY tiny but they’re there.
Fuck me #2 was sealing everything. Thankfully, I was correct that sealing it would darken the red. I did NOT think to seal it before I painted on the stain. This would have saved me a ton of trouble. Why? Well, that powdery red stain coat turned the clear varnish bright pink! That looks awesome over my painting! So I had to seal and then quickly wipe it off the painted areas. So, of course that was gonna be two coats. Then I had to go super extra and seal all the sides of the drawers too to make them red and not pink. That’s a lot of surfaces.
I’m going to go with fuck me #3 was not spending more on a quality box. This one has a lot of jankiness so some drawers don’t fit well. This led to lots of sanding and numbering after staining. Then it led to a bit more sanding after painting and sealing. There are some tight fits where drawer separators are crooked. Also the different wood types took stain differently and the front shows the particle board. But whatever — IT LOOKS SO GOOD NOW!
I’m actually really happy I went with the stain so you can see the wood grain.
Now I’m going to take it to K so she can fill it with goodies for me to enjoy all December!
These would be fantastic to do if you had kids. Think about growing up with a custom advent calendar and having that keepsake. It would also be cheaper for the parents. You can just buy a bag of candy and bam, advent calendar done. Or, you could be smart and get little trinkets all year and stash them away. Like think of the stuff you stuff in Easter Eggs. Grab it up and save it. Clearance Halloween candy treats.
I really enjoyed making this! I think it would be great with little gold feet too. Like little wood balls or something. But I’m not going to hunt those down.
I’m so excited for my calendar! I’m going to put it under my Christmas Tree!
I finally got a Rattlesnake Plant! I’ve been wanting one for a few months. I even priced them around my birthday back around November at the nursery but didn’t get one. I thought it would be a good gift. But now that the holidays are over, I still want one. I babysat K2s over Christmas and then she took it and I was like — OK, I’ll get one. I had priced them at $25 at the nursery for a 4 inch. I found this 6 inch on Home Depot’s website for the same price! It got here and I’m super happy with it! Look how it’s already opening and closing after two days:
Good day, lamp, I touch you. Good night, lamp, no touch.
The packaging was also probably the best I’ve had on a live plant. It was wrapped in a brown pot bag and there was a ziptie around the stem area to keep the dirt in. Nice. Then it was in another brown pot bag to protect the leaves. And the box was special made for plants. It had a lift off top and handles. And it was super clear which side was up. Not that FedEx gave a single fuck because it was on its side on my porch despite the GLARING “This Side Up” all over the box. All you can do it try.
I also trimmed my Prayer Plant (I think it’s a Lemon Lime) in the kitchen. It was looking super leggy. I want it to be more bushy. So I figured I’d try to root some pieces. I’ll report to a bigger pot and make it 4 stems in the pot. Plus there’s a plant swap coming up and I can sell the others if they root. Still rooting my zig zag cactus cuttings too. So in preparation for the plant swap, I split them into two little terrecotta pots to continue their journey.
Part of the inspiration for this was now that Christmas is put away, the side table is back over by the window. And I’m tired of the kitchen counter looking cluttered with the leggy prayer plant and the zig zag rooting. So I moved it all over to the living room where — not only do I not get annoyed by it, I get to ENJOY them!
Look at me using two of the set-of-four serving trays I got off Vine!
Oh, and I moved the money tree back to the window. Dear god, I hope it’s happy. I moved it with a grow lamp for the Christmas tree and well over half of the leaves just fucking bailed. I think it got spider mites too. So I’ve been treating it and now it’s back by the fucking window. It’s so fucking dramatic. There is new growth though. And then its pot started leaking — no!
Almost all of my plants are watered from below. It just works for me. So the money tree lives in a nursery pot that sits on top of a pile of rocks in a planter pot (with cotton string to wick up water). It has been in there for well over a year. And all the sudden one of the holes I had glued shut decides to leak. Mother fucker. Why?
So I had to clean it out and triage.
Does anyone else have a container of various glues and UV resin? Is it normal for people to have to organize their adhesives? There were just random glues all over the place — in both junk drawers, craft stuff, the garage (OK, actually there’s still four in the garage that are not represented here — wood glue and the glue I use for glass mosaics).
It’s kinda funny cause this basket is one of the three I bought to organize all my surgery supplies when I did the plastic surgeries. I had one for meds, one for bandaging, I forget the other… Here, I found it. One was just hygiene stuff cause I had to live in the chair in the living room. I was super-fucking organized for those surgeries. So it was a human triage basket and now it’s a stuff triage basket.
I went with the Gorilla Glue Construction: Clear. The strongest of the gorilla glue line. Like that shit is insane. I just pumped the holes with it and let it dry overnight. Note: There is “Clear Gorilla Glue” and that is not the same as “Gorilla Construction Glue: Clear.” Like you might think — just use the crazy strong one for everything. But no. The crazy strong one is super thick and you don’t have a lot of control. It’s also not gonna wipe off ANYTHING. That’s way above craft grade. FYI
Since we moved into our gorgeous home nine years ago, I’ve had a shame. (Well, the bedroom furniture is tragic, but no one sees that.) With an open floor plan, it’s hard to hide. Unless you’ve been to my house, you haven’t seen it. I have probably shown photos of every inch of my house, but not this one. In fact, I’m glad I took some before pictures knowing I was doing a makeover. I can’t find any old photos of this hall! I always clip it out or avoid it in photos. Unfortunately, it’s on display in the house though. It’s the hall where our garage door meets the downstairs bathroom and the cat’s litterbox room. It’s fully visible from the dining room and kitchen and I’ve HATED IT for years.
So, as you know, we recently had our floor redone. After it was done, we had a few days waiting on the movers to move our shit back in. During this time, I saw a fully clean hallway. I realized how much I REALLY fucking hated that hall. And that’s when I decided, I gotta fix this like NOW.
You all know, my husband is not a spender. So until we pay off the house, we aren’t making big purchases. So this hall has always just been some cheap 13-year-old short Target shelves full of shit. I TRIED to make it better by using storage cubes I already had. But yeah, bad. Especially, always seeing the cleaning tools. So I’ve been telling myself that we will have the cabinet people come and build some nice storage there. The other side of this wall is the garage so we could even steal some space from the garage to make them deeper. But that’s gonna cost.
But I finally broke. I needed to fix it. Here it was in its CLEANEST state. That’s because we had just moved everything back in and I tried to make it look neater. I don’t even have any photos of this area before the floor redo. Notice I never hung anything over here so no one would look.
We kinda need the storage. Some of the stuff could go other places (and since has). But we want our shoes there by the door. This works out as a great feeding station for the cat. It’s a spot to drop things off when you come in and out. And there’s just some shit that doesn’t have a home, okay? Where do you keep all your spare candles? All the clips and command hooks and stickies? All you bottles of chemicals? And before the litter closet makeover, this was where the spare food and litter and supplies went as well.
So I needed something with doors. Cabinets. But I needed a broom storage so tall cabinets. So I looked at IKEA. I’ve never used IKEA. But they make affordable stuff, right? Everybody has “cheap” IKEA furniture, right? I decided on the PAX system. Just kidding, that’s sold out and unavailable. How about the Billy? These are Billy shelves with Oxberg doors.
OK, OK. The tall cabinets have a non-optional middle shelf… but like it’s not the LAW that I have to install that. So a single for brooms and cleaning shit. A double for everything else. The 15 inch doors above the cat food station are only available in glass, but I can put some contact paper or something on them. Their cabinets are wider than what we had, so the shoe bench won’t fit anymore. So I added a single short for shoe storage.
I can make that work! And I DID — look at this shit: My so not-at-all-shameful hallway!
Look at how CLEAN it is! Holy shit! All those plants are from IKEA too. They were absurdly cheap. I didn’t intend for them all to go here. However, I like the inspiration to not set anything on top of the cabinets. As you can see, our base molding is taller than normal so they don’t sit flush against the wall. Hence the hanging plants. They were super shiny, but I hit all the plants with some matte clear spray.
It’s so clean! The white is so fresh too! And there’s so much storage! Here they are before I got the tall doors on:
They are shallower than the shelves I had before. So I didn’t get to keep my easy cube storage. But I made it work. Everything has a home! Those storage boxes from IKEA are a perfect fit. They’re the Kuggis boxes that are 10.25 inches deep so fit like a glove. I’m so glad I bought enough to do a whole row of them. I wish I had bought more. They’re like useful little junk drawers. One is for clips and hooks. One is hardware and wires. One is craft miscellaneous. The last is WTF miscellaneous. I got a basket with all the pool bits and bobs in it. But most importantly…
I HAVE A BROOM CLOSET, MOTHERFUCKERS!
I never thought a broom closet would make me so fucking happy. But it does. It really really does. Like I didn’t know those broom handles were eating my soul until I put a door there. LOOK! (For those wondering, that middle shelf did seem kind-of required. I assembled it without the middle shelf and when I stood it up it bowed out just enough for the back to pop out. My solution was to install the middle shelf vertically. It is glued in using the wood dowels in the back most holes.)
Now look at the difference when you exit my downstairs guest bathroom. I mean da-y-mn. Such a difference. Holy shit. I’m so pleased. I just want to look at it. Before vs after:
I am an IKEA convert. Holy shit. This is better than I could have hoped. I meant this to be a temporary stopgap until we could get some professional stuff built. But I’m so happy with it, I think I might just hire someone to do some hacks to make it look more built in later. You know, move the floor trim, flush against the wall, cover the outside sides with real wood. For now though — holy fuck, 90% there! I can’t believe it was so affordable! I can’t believe how much I HATED THIS HALL.
Oh oh oh — did you notice the hardware? The IKEA Oxberg doors come with the tiniest joke of a door knob known to man. So I went online and picked up some simple handles and knobs. Turns out I bought the EXACT SAME hardware that is all over my house. I guess my tastes on cabinet door hardware doesn’t change much. I used the existing screw hole for the bottom of each handle. The shorter doors I bought the option of handles or the matching knobs. I did not like the look of the handles. Since they wouldn’t line up with the other three, I thought it looked bad. So I used the knobs. I don’t absolutely love the knobs, but they match the handles (same set). Oh and I used extra knobs to switch out the silver ones in the guest bath so that cheapo cabinet matches now too!
This is such a big win. I just can’t stop looking at it. No more avoiding photos now! This is AWESOME!
Oh, and I know I already did a whole post about the cat lounge and litter room makeover before it was complete. I painted the cabinet doors now. So now all of the extra cat stuff that was on these shelves lives in the litter room (tons of unopened food, cat litter, deodorizers, ect). And the stuff I need daily for feeding lives above Louie’s Jazz Lounge! The opened kibble, the opened case of cans, all of his treats, paper plates for wet food, a water carafe for water refills, even a knife (in the green glass) for splitting the cans of food. And look — hooks for the food scoop and can opener! IT’S SO PERFECT! I whipped up a box to hide/protect the fountain cables and extension cord too.
NOTE: The doors are not painted perfect and you will not comment on them when you see them. It isn’t noticeable, but it’s not perfect. First, I tried just using contact paper on the glass. That was far too stark white, slightly see through, and the corners weren’t great. So I painted it with our house trim paint. That was a huge debacle of rusted paint cans, paint spilling out of holes in the bottom, and rust spots in the paint. But it’s a super thick luxury eggshell paint. I did 3 coats with heavy sanding between each one. But I’m a human without a mechanical sander and you could still see the paint brush lines! UGH! I finished it off with a white wash of acrylic and two coats of clear matte sealant. I’m fucking done with them. Even though some of the god damn paper over the particle board peeled off with the blue painters tape! It was a tiny bit and I touched it up with the acrylic paint. It’s fine. It’s all fine. I’m done. Five fucking coats of paint plus two coats of sealer, I’m not messing with them anymore.
