sights

From my back yard I can see horses!  i think the neighbors about 3 houses down have them.  I think it's cool.  I'm aware that it's not exactly "wildlife".  This pictures makes it seem like they're much closer than they are because I zoomed in. 

 This is more natural, but I can still see them when I look out the sliding glass doors to the porch!

An then another sight that we've been trying to wrap our arms around is the bathroom color.  We got sample sizes of the two reds we liked, but we're not sure we're crazy about either one.  It's hard to take pictures of colors, but the one on the left is certainly more of an orange-red - kind of like a maple, and the one on the right is more red-red, and strangely, they both look similar to the red in the little detail tile, but i'm just not sure they're right with the main tile color.  We may be back to the drawing board and not even stick with red.  who knows?  I just did the swatches this morning so we'll need to live with it a bit.

grandma wallpaper no more!

When we move in, it was a toss up as to whether the butterscotch plaid wallpaper in the kitchen, or the grandma pink flowered wallpaper in the bathroom, was worse.  Billy "accidentally" pulled off a chunk of the bathroom wallpaper the other day, so we decided that was the one to tackle first.  This picture really doesn't do its full ugliness justice.  it was bad!  the tiles are a peachy-pink and there's a little trim with a red color in the diamonds.  

Here's a better shot of the wallpaper in its full glory!

He spent two days scraping and peeling - he got it all amazingly clean!!  there are a couple places to spackle (there must have been a different medicine cabinet there at one point) but overall, it's great looking.

I brought home about 1000 paint chips from Lowe's and I'm going to get sample cans of the two reds on the right.  We decided the bathroom could handle a bright color and we wanted to pull in that trim color.  I think it'll look great!

&#$* I learned on Pinterest

I haven't been on Pinterest very long, but like everyone else, I've fallen into its black hole pretty hard.  It's like having a whole staff of people trolling the web for sweet stuff for you, and you just have to be like "yep, nope, yep - remind me of that later.  how 'bout saving it on an electronic bulletin board or something?"  I love it!  Anyway, aside from recipes and whatnot that I've tried, I have a few household things that I've started doing because I saw it on Pinterest:

Put your sheet sets together inside one of the pillow cases.  brilliant.  so neat and easy to pull out of the linen closet.  I was always putting stuff in stacks of pillow cases, flat sheets, fitted sheets, etc.  why?  duh. 

Use a binder clip to hold your cords next to the computer.  so handy!

Store your aluminum foil, cling wrap, etc. in a magazine holder.  Well, as I was unpacking, I knew I wanted to do this, but hadn't unboxed any magazine holders yet - and this box was a perfect size (bigger!) so I just cut it with a pocket knife into a handy magazine holder-ish shape.  It's so easy to pull out and it keeps everything from just being in a pile that forces you to yank from the bottom.  Not very pretty, i'll admit that.  If I were really cool, I guess I'd cover it in craft paper or something.  maybe someday.  that falls a little bit into my oh-gimme-a-break category - I just don't think everything must be color coordinated.  or i'm jealous of people who manage to do that.  

Also, speaking of space saving, this isn't Pinterest related at all, but my microwave amazingly fits exactly in this cupboard!!  I was really freaking out about the size of my new kitchen - specifically the counter space.  I didn't know how I was going to put everything in it.  This was a HUGE help - we just had to drill a hole in the back of the cabinet to run the cord out - it's barely noticeable!  I also thought I'd never be able to live without my toaster oven, but after nearly a month it's still in the garage and I'm pretty sure I can!  I mean I did use it a lot when it was on the counter at the old house, but it's not really worth hauling in and out of a cupboard.  The George Foreman used to also be on the counter - it's nice having that tucked away too!  

What are your favorite pins?