Sewing Room

We finally get to reveal the Sewing Room we've been working on for so long! There are still some finishing touches that I'd like to do but it's close enough to reveal. There are a lot of pictures so keep scrolling for the finished room.

So there is a building on our property (well, the property that our landlord owns - about 30 feet from our house) that looks like this:

Tim thinks Friday the 13th was filmed there.

As you might imagine, it is officially condemned. But do they tear it down? Nooooo. Just let it rot. Anyways, Tim and I peeked inside and despite the floor and ceiling caving in, there was furniture in there. Why our landlords don't care about wasting furniture, I don't know. Anyways, they let us use some of the furniture that was originally in our house (a couple of dresser/buffet things) so we figured they wouldn't mind if we used the bookshelf that was in the creepy house. But the backing on it was falling off so we took that off. This is what it looked like:

A fresh coat of paint helped immensely. We found some old (and I mean really old!) baseboard in the pantry:

I sanded it,

And then took all the rusty nails out. It's a surprise I didn't get tetanus. 

Tim added them to the bookcase...

And I painted them white too. Then filled in all the cracks with nail putty.

Oh, then Tim added new legs to the table he had already made to make it taller. Yup, we just bought 4x4 and painted it. We're cheap.

And now the table is awesome. Ready to see?

The view as you enter the room...

Off to the right there is a shipping station. 

Beside the table is a magazine rack (that we got as a wedding present - thanks Vance and Jenny Bell!) that I'm using to hold all my boxes, wrapping paper, tissue paper, and such. 

The finished bookcase! We added beadboard from Lowe's to the back. I like it so much I might ask our landlords if we can buy it when we leave. 

My fabulous new sewing table that Tim made. (Oh, and Tim made me that "C" for Christmas. It holds thread.)

Oh! We wanted a plexiglass top so the raw wood wouldn't catch on fabric. Tim got a spare piece from Chick-fil-A that they'd had in storage for three years. He re-cut it and it looks fabulous!

Then I have an ironing station. We stole those shelves from Tim's parents' house.

I still haven't organized the cabinet yet. Eventually, folks. 

Oh! and I found these glass containers at the Salvation Army. $1.85 for three.

A quick coat of red spray paint (leftover from when Tim painted the rocking chairs on the front step) and they look fabulous as bookends for my patterns.

Oh, and these? Squares of cardboard cut from USPS mailing boxes and covered in wrapping paper and then hung with Command strips.

I'm sure I have other tidbits that I didn't mention. Feel free to ask for more details!

Looking Back at January and Forward to February

Day 28: Blackened Chicken with Cuban Black Beans and Rice, Corn and Bread. I thought it was delicious and Tim just thought it was okay (first time that's ever happened!). His taste buds must be impaired from the sickness. Just kidding... sorta.

I also took the opportunity to clean the fridge while it was low. This was a few days ago; it's even barer now!

We did it. We reached the end of our Four Weeks of Frugality and lived to tell the story. What started as a conversation in December ("Dude, we gotta save money") has been a wonderful success. But I have a confession: I'm not sure how much money we saved. I mean, there is definitely more in our bank account right now than there was at the beginning of the month but we don't have a set budget (yet! Stop yelling at me!) to see exactly how much we didn't spend. But, we did realize some pretty awesome things:

1. You don't need everything you want.

I know, this is a no-brainer. But really, we want so many things in life. I've been amazing by how hard it was to not go to McDonald's and get a Diet Coke or not buy a York mint at the checkout counter.

2. It's okay to deprive yourself now and then. It won't kill you or your family.
In fact, it might even bring you closer together.

The story is often told of Helen Hayes Brown (an American theatre actress) and her husband entitled "I wish they were peanuts". Read the sweet paragraph here. Going without is okay.

3. We are very richly blessed.

Self-explanatory really. We have so much to be thankful for. God has blessed us with jobs, money, food, friends, and love. What more do you need?

4. We can get really creative if we have to.

It was such a fun challenge to make dinner each night using just what we had on hand. I got very resourceful and made some fun (and sometimes interesting) meals. But we never went hungry and we didn't even have to eat the Ramen noodles in the pantry that have rat marks in them (why are we saving those?). We also got very creative on the Sewing Room, determined not to spend a penny. Leftover paint, donated furniture, and some clever decorating is turning into such a cute room! Just a few more finishing touches and we can have a Sewing Room reveal. YAY!

In conclusion, January was awesome. No, we didn't do it perfectly because we bought dog food and had to buy gas. But I'm choosing to remember the bright side. We worked towards a goal to save money and did it. Together. And that's something worth celebrating. 

What's next? Glad you asked!

Faith and Fitness February!

Yup, February is the time to whip out bodies and souls into shape. Rules are as follows:

1. Attend the gym 5 times a week (or some outdoor activity such as running).
2. Devotions every night together (28 days).
3. One "Date Night" each week using the curriculum we got at our Premarital weekend at WinShape. (Yes, we haven't done our "homework" yet that we got 8 months ago. We're just so perfect that we don't need help. HA. Just kidding.)

I'm looking forward to this! (Well, maybe not to going to the gym...)

Six Months!!!

Today was our Six Month Anniversary! Time sure flies when you're having fun! It seems like just yesterday I was logging onto eHarmony each night to see if this cute guy from Milledgeville had sent me another message. And here we are married and living life together! Life is so much more epic when you finally get to live it with the person God made for you to experience it with! (Yes, I just ended a sentence in "with". Sorry.)

I wanted a super special meal for tonight so I've been hoarding our good things - we can have a super special meal without spending an extra penny! I got cocktail shrimp on sale at Kroger a few months ago (50% off!) and sparkling grape juice for only $1.25. We had steak that Tim's parents had given us and brownie mix I got for $1 from Dollar General. Add some veggies and you have a gourmet meal! Candlelight is absolutely necessary.

Mmmm, sparkling grape juice.

Everything (even brownies!) is better cut into cute shapes.

Tonight Tim and I spent a few hours working on the Sewing Room. I can't wait to post an update! Hopefully soon!

Only 3 days left of No Spend January. I'm so ready to buy cheese! I miss it so much!

Day 23

We are so close to the end of our month of spending no money. We can do this!

So I wanted to make some cookies using a recipe I found online: Cool Whip Cookies. And I had all the stuff on hand from couponing. Hooray. Well... except for powdered sugar. After some web research, people said that you can use a food processor and blend regular sugar and it becomes powdered sugar. So here's the ingredients:

I mixed it all up and it was like very (VERY!) sticky mousse. 

The directions said to roll it into to balls and then roll in powdered sugar. Yeah, right. I just kinda dolloped it into the fake powdered sugar and then kinda swirled it around. 

I dropped them onto a cookie sheet and sprinkled some more fake powdered sugar because the other was soaking into the dough.

When they came out of the oven, the fake powdered sugar had soaked almost completely into the cookies. But the bad part was that the sugar on the bottom of the cookies had crystalized and stuck the cookies to the pan.

I thought the cookies were just blah. Not quite sweet enough to be cookies, in my opinion. But Tim thought they were pretty good - he said they tasted just like Cocoa Puffs (which he likes). 

Tim had been craving Cinnamon Raisin Bread and so I whipped some up in the bread machine following this recipe. So delicious! This is a keeper!

Tim was in charge of making the meat tonight so he made pork chops in gravy. First time we had ever made gravy (and we were out of milk so we had to use evaporated milk). It turned out so yummy over mashed potatoes! Add some lima beans and a slice of raisin bread and it was the perfect meal!

Mr. Amazing

So Tim can make anything. Which I'm realizing more and more.

We were cutting up the fallen tree in the backyard and Tim was dying to make some of the logs into something. So he grabbed one and made an iPhone charging station.

A few coats of polyurethane and lots of drilling later and here it is beside our bed:

Close-up:

And the back:

Yeah. Awesome.

Then the next day he was feeling particularly crafty again. First he took apart a broken motion light and made it into a normal overhead light for the Great Room (gonna get a picture soon...). Then he took another log and another broken lamp and made it into an epic accent lamp for the Dining Room.

And here's the aftermath in the Great Room. He even used part of a coat hanger. Wha-?

I wonder what he's gonna build next...

Food, food, food

It's Day 21 of Four Weeks of Frugality and we still aren't eating Ramen noodles (yet).

Monday night we had my favoritest meal: Taco Dinner. Every summer we spent weeks and weeks at my grandmother's lakehouse. 6 girl cousins in one room - so fun. But the best part was all the yummy meals each night. Taco Dinner was the best because it's easy to feed a big crowd and everyone can customize it to their liking. So here's the list of things necessary for Taco Dinner:

Rice
Taco meat (with red or black beans)
Cheese
Shredded lettuce
Diced tomatoes
Sour cream
Ketchup (I know it sounds weird - but it's totally necessary!)
Crushed Doritos (the best part!)

Layer all ingredients and enjoy!

We ate it Monday night but we sadly didn't have any Doritos (*tear* *sniff* *sniff*). We tried subbing mini Cheez-its - I thought it wasn't half bad but Tim loved it.

And York Pieces for dessert - yum!

Tuesday night we had delicious Brunswick stew (thanks Ethan!) and corn muffins. We didn't have any milk for the muffin mix but we did have evaporated milk in the pantry - added a little water and it was perfect!

Tonight we had a chicken casserole from the back of a stuffing box. It wasn't bad - but we had to use Kroger brand frozen chicken so the chicken was a little chewy. But the rest of it was pretty good. Add some cinnamon bread and it was a very yummy meal.