Home Updates

A couple of weeks ago, I put some clothes in the dryer, and kept turning it on because it would finish and not be dry.  That wasn’t too uncommon, as I usually have to run it for two full cycles to get it dry, but this time, they weren’t even getting close to dry. I finally realized that our dryer was not working.  We had just replaced the drying element about six months ago (“we” meaning Shane), and since the washer/dryer set was an older one we had bought for really cheap off Craigslist when we bought our house five years ago, we decided it might not be worth putting another heating element in.  We had discussed a few times trying to get a full-size, front loading washer with a dryer that could stack on top.  I went to five different stores, and I was lucky enough to find an LG set at Best Buy that was an open box one and an amazing deal.  It even included free delivery and installation!

With the washer and dryer stacked on top of each other, we now had a lot of extra space in our laundry closet.  I should have taken some before pictures.  Shane has already built shelving into three of our other closets, so I enlisted him once again to do some more shelves.  He put in three shelves, and we got some nice drawers from Ikea to put on the bottom.  Shane also put in a holder on the side wall for the brooms and mops (which previously were tossed in the garage), and he moved the drying rack we had in there onto another wall.  Now I just have to organize some items to put in the basket drawers below!

   

Another project I did this week was one I had started awhile ago.  Back in September, I painted Landon and Davis’s bedroom tan with a thick blue stripe and a thinner green stripe to match their duvet covers.  I had been wanting to try out using starch to put some cut out animals from material that I had left over from making their curtains onto the stripe.  It was so easy, and so cheap!  The material I already had, and the starch cost me 97 cents.  I didn’t even use the whole can.  The hardest part was just cutting out all of the animals.  Once they were all cut out, I laid a plastic bag on the ground, and put one of the cut-outs on top of it and sprayed it with starch.  Once it was nice and wet, I put it up on the wall, smoothing it out until all of the air bubbles were gone.  I had a damp rag with me too so that I could wipe up any starch that dripped down the wall.  That was it!  The whole thing went pretty quickly.  Here are a few pictures.

   

Our final project was to make a cover for our sandbox.  We have just had a tarp over the top of it, but it blows off and usually our sand is completely wet.  We bought a piece of wood that fit over the top, and Shane cut out some notches for where the sides of the sandbox came up.  We then bought a tarp, and used a staple gun to staple it to the board.  It fits just perfect over the sandbox, and now our sand will stay dry!  An added bonus is that James and even Davis can’t open it by themselves, so they can’t sneak in the sandbox and get all dirty without me knowing.  I’ll have to take a picture of that project in the morning when it’s light outside.