Common Sense Living

Archive for the ‘Decorating’ Category

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The outside of my house is very bland – which is a good idea tax wise, but not great for curb appeal. You can’t see my house from the road anyway.

Regardless, I still like to have a seasonal wreath on the door to add at least a little interest and warmth.

Have you seen the prices of these wreaths? A cheap one is $19.99. And then where do you store them all?

I just figured out a cheaper way to change the look of my door wreath whenever I want.

I removed the poor beaten up flowers from the grapevine wreath that’s been hanging there for years. I bought a fall garland on sale and attached it to the wreath with floral wire. Now I can change the look every season. Its a lot easier to store the garlands than it would be to store a bunch of wreaths.

I’m a happy camper!

More ways to save money decorating

Related articles

• A Wreath (seriouslysassymama.com)
• Partake in the Rich Tradition of Wreath-Hanging (proflowers.com)
• Fall is knockin’ at your door… (DIY a festive wreath!) (dinewithadarling.com)

Image by wellcome images via Flickr

My renovation project has been truly backbreaking. As much as I like to think I’ll always be 35… So after spending a couple of days hanging from an extension ladder over the stairwell – I am paying.

I woke up at 3:30 this morning in excruciating pain. My sciatic nerve is inflamed. OMG.

Actually, age has little to do with this. The last time I had this was almost 20 years ago when I was putting in a block patio. We like to blame things on age, don’t we?

There is no comfortable position. Laying was the worst, and I was so tired. I made it to the computer to look up the sciatic stretch from losethebackpain.com. It didn’t help yet. I’ll have to keep stretching I guess. It must have been about 6 when I was finally able to fall back to sleep.

I called my friend Eveline who has dealt with this many times. She said nothing helped until she went to a massage therapist. She ran over to our neighbor the nurse and got some Advil for me.

Did I mention that there was still a miter saw, and a 30 gal. propane tank in my living room? They finished up the window trim today.

Oh, and they had the furnace guy over. They might put a new furnace in for me. Really? How nice. That means emptying out the utility/storage room.

Does this nightmare ever end? Yeah, I know – no rest for the wicked…

The good news is, the great room is looking pretty good. The wood furniture has all been cleaned and polished. Eveline is going to clean the carpets for me.

I’ve already started on my Thanksgiving checklist. Have you? Now at least I feel like I can start looking forward to it. I talked with both of my sisters today about the menu.

I have to remember to get a birthday cake…. Don’t let me forget!

Resources –

Clean House Fast

Stay healthy, and lose weight

Perfect Fit Decorating

Related articles

• Sciatica: Sciatic Back Pain (dormiamattress.wordpress.com)

Whenever we embark on a new project – we finds tons of stuff jumping off the store shelves with all kinds of claims on the labels. Unfortunately, most of the time – to quote my daughter, “they lie.”

This renovation project has given me the opportunity to try a lot of different stuff.

Like the wallpaper glue remover. It didn’t work at all. Plain old water and a scrubby sponge worked better. I can’t even tell you the name brand. I threw the bottle out.

Or the QuikSand drywall sanding block -

“Outperforms sandpaper and sanding sponges” – Yes it did.

“Won’t clog.”  It didn’t clog, but it did wear away quickly. I ended up having to buy a second one – but it saved a lot of time so it was worth it.

“Creates less airborne dust” – they lie.

I need wipers on my goggles

The joint compound made the same claim – “Reduces airborne dust by 60%”  Well.. the rest of the house wasn’t coated, so maybe so.

It did sand and clean up easily. It is from ProForm, Professional Formula Lite Joint Compound. I’ll never use Spackly stuff again.

Or how about the one coat paints?

The Pittsburgh ceiling paint – big fail. Granted, there was a lot of patching, but it was all primed first. More like 3 coats.

The Pittsburgh wall paints with primer – almost.

The DutchBoy with primer – almost. Granted, it was orange.

I will say that the room will look really good, if I live through it. Eveline says she’s going to have me pick her colors from now on.

Resources –

Clean House Fast

Stay healthy, and lose weight

Perfect Fit Decorating

Related articles

• How to get a smooth painted finish (pinktoesandpowertools.wordpress.com)
• Before & After: What a Difference Some Paint Makes! (apartmenttherapy.com)

I’ve got my supplies and I’m trying to get myself motivated for the next project – the great room ceiling.

When the ceiling was done, or redone – whenever that was last century… they did a really poor job. All of the seams are visible because they didn’t mud it and make sure the ceiling was smooth.

On top of that, over the years there have been poor patch jobs that weren’t sanded out, and excess paint strips. On a wall you would call them drips, but on a ceiling? To make it even worse, the ceiling is painted in a cream color semi gloss so it reflects every imperfection, and never looks clean.

I’ve tried to capture pictures so you could see what I’m talking about -

bad celing

Sorry about the shadows. The ceiling isn’t really that dark and dirty! You can see where I’ve started sanding some of the blobs.

You know what the worst part of this is? Cleaning up after the sanding. I bought joint compound that says it reduces airborne dust by 60%, and sands and finishes easily, and a sanding block that says it creates less airborne dust. We’ll see.

And after all the prep work – who feels like painting?

I hate doing ceilings – don’t you?

It’s such a long process, mud the seams, patch,  let dry, sand, wash, let dry, prime, let dry, paint…

At least I have lots of good food on hand – pumpkin bread, pumpkin seeds, broccoli salad, chocolate… even a couple beers – just in case.

I just have to keep reminding myself how good its going to look – and that the holidays are coming up really fast…

I hope you have a better weekend than me!

Related articles

• Creepy Cheapy Halloween Decorating (commonsenseliving.com)
• Your Place: Plaster ceilings are peeling (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Rearrange furniture, change paint to boost a room (newscover.co.uk)
• The ceilings are fixed! (afsalsunrisehospice.wordpress.com)
• Getting to the bottom of what’s covering ceiling (sfgate.com)
• How Many Drywallers Does It Take… (mistakablypremier.wordpress.com)
• DIY Home Renovations – the myth, the lies & the solution (fruitfulbird.com)

Can you believe its almost Halloween? Are you looking for cheap ways to creep out your house?

When my daughter was young, we had some pretty good Halloween parties. I pulled out some of my old pictures to give you some ideas -

White sheets, plastic rats, spiders, bugs, and bats give your room that haunted mansion look.

White sheets aren’t cheap anymore, but you can get the same feel with white tablecloths from the dollar store.

Hang lightweight bugs and bats from your ceiling fan and turn it on! Don’t use anything heavy though as it will ruin your fans balance.

Here’s a close-up of the centerpiece. Creepy!

Hanging all that spider webbing all over? That’s baby stuff. Take just a strand or two and attach across a doorway so it feels like the real thing when people walk through it.

But outside is really important too. Gotta creep out all those little beggars.

A motion detecting Grim Reaper greets your guests appropriately.

This homemade mummy shows the way …

He was made of newspapers in white plastic bags, and wrapped in gauze of course!

I kept all of my dead plants for this special decorating touch.

When my daughter was very little and still too sick to go out yet, I would dress up as a witch. I went all out – ketchup dripping off my mouth, pale, pale makeup, and darkened eyes. Scared a lot of kids. Really went all out when it was teens at the door. They flipped out. I toned it down when little kids came to the door.

One year I gave out little rotten cucumbers. I wouldn’t suggest doing that anymore. You’ll probably get arrested.

Have fun! Just don’t lose your head…

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For when you don’t want your house to look creepy…