Merry and Bright {Christmas 2012}

I hope you all had a very merry Christmas this week!  Christmas is my favorite time of year, so even though it's technically over, I'm posting pictures of our holiday decorating to hold on just a liiiiitle bit longer.  :-)

I waited until the last minute (i.e.,  right before we left for the holidays) to take these pictures-- we had days of clouds and/or rain, so I was waiting on the sun to finally come out.  But by the time it did, I didn't have time to take a picture of our tree at night.  It's painfully obvious in the daylight that we need a new Christmas tree.  The tree has been around as long as Mr. GI has; we inherited it from his mom during our first Christmas together.  It's a fake tree, but it has real bark on the trunk which makes it difficult to tell that it's fake.  But it's been losing more of its needles than a real tree, so it's gotten pretty bare.

Christmas Crafts

Merry Christmas!  It's tough blogging about Christmas gifts because I don't want to give anything away to my family... so instead, here are the gifts I made last year!

Felt snowflake ornaments
I pinned a tutorial for felt ornaments courtesy of Purl Bee and thought I'd try it for my family gifts.  Besides a few mechanical problems (don't we all have love-hate relationships with our sewing machine?) it all turned out well.  The instructions were easy to follow and I got the fabric on a super sale on Black Friday from JoAnn's Fabrics.  Win!

Why, Hello There!

It's been a while, eh?  A break between semesters gives me a little time to blog again, and thank goodness.  We've been busy studying, but we've had some fun in there, too.  Like enjoying the fall...

Juggling

Blog and bloggy friends, how I've missed you!  We all juggle in life at one point or another, and recently my juggling has included a promotion, training my replacement, and graduate school, which I started over the summer.  On top of that, Mr. Great Indoors has been in school, too.  

Needless to say, our little family has been a tad busy recently.  Our house is a a wreck most of the time, or at least approaching a wreck.  It's not blogworthy in the least, which is, of course, how we in the blogging community compare ourselves, isn't it?  There are half-finished projects throughout the house, including (if you've been paying attention) the master bathroom.  We're enjoying the finished guest bathroom, at least.

But we're surviving our classes, learning a lot, and somehow managing to sneak in some couple time, too.  This newest adventure is forcing us to challenge ourselves on a daily basis, which leaves us happily exhausted.  It's all leading us to a better life together, and I'd say that's the point.

One of these days it will all calm down, but until then, I'm trying not to be too critical of myself.  In the last year, I've gained perspective and patience, which I know is more important than blogging crafty projects on the interwebs.  That said, I am missing doing something fun that is completely for myself, and someday I'll get back to it.  Until then, keep up the good work.  And keep an eye out for our half-finished projects to be fully-finished one of these days.

Another Guest Bathroom: Guest Amenities

I hope you all enjoyed the reveal of E's guest bathroom earlier in the week!  It's just in the nick of time, too, because UGA football season (starting today!!) brings all sorts of guests to E's house.  She pretty much has a revolving door every fall (we also run our own bed and breakfast during football season).  :-)  With that in mind, we worked some guest amenities into E's guest bathroom.

Psst... in case you're curious, the font I used is "Channel" on PicMonkey.

Another Guest Bathroom: Complete!

A few months ago, I introduced you to my friend E's guest bathroom.  She had been renting a home for the past two years with a roommate and now has the place to herself.  We worked together to make a plan for her guest bathroom.  Here's how it turned out!

The Great Outdoors {Hiking the Appalachian Trail}

Since we still have a bit to do with the bathroom before it's finished (life gets in the way), I thought I'd share a trip Mr. Great Indoors and I took over the weekend with our friend B.  We took off from Clingmans Dome in North Carolina and hiked through the Smokies to Silers Bald.

Master Bathroom: Board and Batten

So far in the master bathroom, we've bought $5 paint, repaired and installed drywall, and painted the top half of the walls.  What's next, you ask?  This:

Clockwise from top left, images pinned here, here, here, and here

Master Bathroom: Paint! {Kind of}

This is more a tease than anything else.  I can't show you the entire paint job because that would reveal the next step!  So here's a peek at the new color we're loving.  This paint, as I mentioned in my first post about the master bathroom, was a $5 find in the Lowe's oops bin. It's a multidimensional color-- when I first saw it in the store, I thought it was green.  Then I put some on the walls and it looked gray.  Light shines in the window, and it shows a little blue.  So obviously the colors in these pictures vary, too.

Master Bathroom: Mr. Great Indoor's Favorite Things {Dry Wall!}

You might remember that I came home to this on the first day of Mr. GI working in the master bathroom.  Seems like progress...

Master Bathroom: Humble Beginnings

That's right.  In addition to working on my friend's guest bathroom, we're tackling our master bathroom.  I will have an update about E's bathroom soon; life has gotten in the way of blogging recently!

As a reminder, here's what our bathroom looked like a few summers ago after our first run-in with moisture a few summers ago (shoulda known then!).

One Dollar, Bob

If you're looking for The Great Indoors, don't worry-- you're in the right place!  It was about time for a little blog redesign. Bear with me if some of the features don't look the same.  I'll be updating those over the next few days.

The price was way right for this beauty we found at a yard sale a few weeks ago.

The 12th of July

...or, if I had posted this when I intended, the 4th of July!  I thought I'd share our Independence Day decorations in case you're looking for future inspiration.  I actually plan to keep these up for most of the summer since I'm enjoying them so much.  The only money I spent on any of this decor was $2.50 for the little flags (which we intended to take to our local fireworks but forgot at home!).  Other than that, I didn't spend a dime on this project.  I just walked around the house collecting anything that fit the look I was going for.  In this case:  red, white, and blue.

First up, our cookout table setting.  We had a few folks over to eat brats (totally un-American, I know), corn on the cob, and apple pie (definitely American), among other tasty things. 

Summer Pinterest Challenge: $5 DIY Vintage Sign

It's that time again!  The fearless ladies (and fellas) behind Young House Love, Bower Power, Centsational Girl, and Ten June announced this summer's Pinterest Challenge last week. I made some window art last summer, framed paint chip art last fall, and the always fabulous redneck Mason jar chandelier this winter, when Sherry and Katie were nice enough to ask me to host!  So I was definitely on board with a challenge this go 'round!

Another Guest Bathroom...

...but I'm not paying for it this time!  One of my good friends has challenged me to make over her guest bathroom, given a $60 budget.  I'm always up for spending someone else's money decorating someone else's house!  :-)

My friend E is in a rental house, and this bathroom used to be her roommate's.  Now she's got the house to herself, and she's excited about changing things up.

This is Why I'm Hot

No, actually, this is why I'm hot.  In case you don't click through to the link, the title of the article is, "Heat wave:  1,000+ records fall in US in a week."  Just like the rest of the country, we've had record-breaking temperatures in Georgia the past week.  I'm usually one of those people that says, "You live in Georgia.  It's the summer.  Get over it."  But it has been hot as Hades the last week. 

As hot as it's been, we've been enjoying the summer from inside in the beautiful air conditioning (although that went away shortly this weekend when our power went out for a few hours).  One of the things we've enjoyed the most are some beautiful summer veggies.

Sadly, the only thing in this picture that's ours are the zucchini.  The yellow squash and Vidalia onion hail from Farm Publix, but the jalapenos and eggplants came from a local farm (my former boss who now has goats and donkeys and a huge farm!).  We whipped up some stuffed eggplants, squash/onion skillet (olive oil, onions, squash and zucchini, with a little fresh basil on top), and pan-fried jalapenos.  Trust me on the jalapenos.  The spice cooks out of them so they turn out to be crunchy goodness.  Olive oil, thinly sliced jalapenos (seeds removed), and if you get a spicy one, someone else in the group has to buy you a beer.  Sounds like a great deal to me.

What are your plans for the 4th tomorrow?  Any fireworks, fresh veggies, air conditioning or otherwise?

You're an Organizer, Baby

Post title to be sung to Britney's "Womanizer" as: Organizer, organ organizer you're a organizer oh organizer oh you're an organizer, baby (you, you are). Hehe. 

Kate over at Centsational Girl posted her results from a BHG organizing quiz this week, and it inspired me to take the quiz myself.  I never put too much stock in these quizzes; they're just something fun to do, and always interesting to see how well they work.  But this one hit the nail on the head.  (You can take it here.)

I'm pretty sure from the moment I entered the world, I was making lists.  I kept a spiral-bound notebook from elementary school (think second or third grade), and it's funny to flip through it every now and again to look at the things I thought were worthy of a list.  Even my choices of the boys in the third grade were ranked.  Serious business.

Image (and onesie) here

Guest Bathroom: The Numbers

Admittedly, it's a lot more fun to look at after pictures of the bathroom than it is to talk about the money we spent to make it happen.  But in case anyone else is in our position (and for my reference in the future), I figured I'd outline what we tugged out of our wallets for this project.

After adding everything up, I have to laugh at our initial $150 budget, which certainly limited us.  But with a 20% mark-up for incidentals, we were still only looking at spending $180.  Well, that didn't take into account the $160 we spent on drywall, new trim, plumbing, and other random stuff that it took to get the room from moldy to ready for paint. 

Guest Bathroom: The After!!

I have another post I'm getting ready for next week with some meat (i.e., numbers) in it.  For this post, though, let's just admire the finished product.

Pumpkin Party

Our mystery squash turned a suspicious color over the weekend:

It looks like our pumpkin carving this fall will be courtesy of our compost!

Stuff We've Tried

I had hoped to have a final post about the guest bathroom up today, but life got busy.  So instead, I thought I'd start a new series of posts about things we've tried from around the interwebs.  Enjoy!

We're on a pretty tight budget around our house, so I love to find cheap recipes that are easy and tasty.  These three things don't always happen together, so it takes some searching to get good recipes.

Fancy Ramen Noodles.  I read about these noodles from Ashley and Greg over at 7th House on the Left (recipe here), and we quickly got addicted.  The recipe takes barely any ingredients, and we usually have all of them on hand.  The perfect combination!  I usually double the recipe and use less Sriracha sauce (aka "rooster sauce" around here) than suggested.  Maybe we're just pansies.  I pinned this recipe here.

Source: 7thhouseontheleft.com via Mrs. Great on Pinterest

The Five Dollar Faucet

We had an awesome yard sale Saturday this past weekend.  Our best find was this guy.  He was only five buckaroos from a yard sale across town.  It turns out the people hosting the sale had a daughter who bought this faucet, used it for a year, then got a fancy free faucet (say that three times fast) from work.  There wasn't a price marked on the box, and we were fully ready to pay up to $20 for it.  But Mr. GI learned a chunk of wisdom from American Pickers:  always ask the seller what they're willing to take for a piece, never offer a price first.  The buyers (you!) are always in control, so if the seller offers a price that's too high, you can always work it down. 

Garden 3.0

I feel like I have still yet to make up for my terrible blogging habits over the last few months (an overflow of posts and then... nothing).  Case in point:  It's 11 days into June, and I have yet to let out a peep about our summer garden that we planted two months ago.  Well, I'm making up for it now!

Here's a layout of our garden this year. 

Last week I counted 23 tomato plants, 5 mystery squash fruits, and 20 tomatoes waiting to ripen.  Mmmm!  See the bottom of the post for a picture of our mystery squash.

Our Redneck Chandelier and Barn Light Electric

We're still loving the redneck Mason jar chandelier we made for the Winter Pinterest Challenge a few months ago, and I figured I'd give an update about how it's holding up.

Guest Bathroom: The Iron Curtain

Old Winston would be proud of this curtain.  No, not THAT curtain (although it is a lovely color scheme, no?).  We're not Communists.

Image here

I guess I'm getting ahead of myself a bit.  A month ago (although it seems like that was just yesterday) I posted about the end of my burlap-colored dream.  My grand plan for the guest bathroom shower curtain was to DIY an extra-long burlap curtain, bringing in a nice variation in texture and trying out a new type of fabric.

Missing in Action

Somehow I blinked and it's been a month since I last posted.  I'm sure part of it has to do with how busy my life was in May, but probably more with the exhaustion that came with the guest bathroom being finished.  I've got a few things to share with you (is anyone still out there?), so stick around and you'll hear from me again soon.  Pinkie promise.

Guest Bathroom: Closing the Curtain

We're in the final stretch of the guest bathroom right now, so we're at the point where I need to be making up my mind about the finishing touches.  Artwork, shower curtain, and the fluffy stuff that Mr. GI doesn't have to do I get to play with.  I had been thinking about bringing in a burlap shower curtain into the guest bathroom, for two reasons:  first, it introduces a neat texture into the room where just about everything is painted (vanity, crates) or ceramic-ish (toilet, tub); second, burlap is dirt cheap.  Think under $3/yard from Wal-Mart cheap.

Image here

Guest Bathroom: Crate Shelving

I definitely wanted some storage in our guest bathroom, and I considered a few different options.  I loved IKEA's Lack shelves, but we were trying to do this remodel on the cheap.  And $50 for mostly-aesthetic shelving wasn't going to make it in the budget.

 From left:  here, here, and here

So then I started searching for reclaimed materials that would make good shelves.  Drawers, windows, wine crates, and more.  But unfortunately drawers didn't seem very practical (probably not deep enough, and which way would you hang them, anyway?), windows were pretty but again had not much storage space, and no one in town uses wooden wine crates any more.  Boo!

Clockwise from top left:  here, here, here, and here

Guest Bathroom: Water We Doing?

I almost can't believe that's the worst best pun I could come up with for this post.  But those you who know me well enough have probably heard my "deer" jokes at least twice, so maybe I should believe it.

Anyway.  The point of that terrible pun is to say that we finally figured out what was actually causing the water damage in the bathrooms.  Given all this nastiness, we thought it was a faulty ring on the guest bathroom toilet (read about that here).

Happy Birthday, Chewy!

Yesterday we celebrated Chewy's third birthday!

Guest Bathroom: Polishing Up Our $5 Light Fixture

One of the most awesome finds for our guest bathroom project was this $5 light fixture.  We stole grabbed it from a really nice contractor's yard sale, and even though there was a $10 price tag on it, I asked once if they'd take 5 and they did!  Score!

Guest Bathroom: Lay It On Me

It felt like things were snowballing this week in the bathroom-- after getting the room cleaned up and painted, I knew it wouldn't take much longer to do everything else.  And actually, everything in this post took about thirty minutes to do.  Mr. Great Indoors really wanted this one done.

You might remember we were going with this 12x12 vinyl tile from Lowe's.  We bought one tile of this gray slate and another of the beige slate to try it out, and the gray one looked great against the existing fixtures.  And I loved the dimension of it.  It looks deceptively like ceramic tile

Image here

Guest Bathroom: Painting the Town... or the Bathroom

I knew Mr. Great Indoors was ready for the bathroom to be finished when I came home to this yesterday:

Our usual arrangement is that he builds it and I paint it, and boy has he done a lot of building for this project, mostly in the form of floating drywall.  But things are serious if he picks up a paint brush-- and he spent a few hours cutting in around the bathroom yesterday.

Guest Bathroom: Cleanin' Up and Wallpaperin' Down

Wallpaper, you say?!  What ever could she mean, WALLPAPER??  But let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

First off, the cleaning up part of the title.  During the almost three weeks that Mr. Great Indoors spent working on the drywall in the guest bathroom, our entire house was covered in a thin film of construction dust.  I did try to keep things generally dusted, but all it took was one minor sanding session on the drywall patches and it all came back.  I felt like Pig Pen most of the time, and with all the construction equipment scattered around, the house also looked like him.

Image here

A Little Teaser

Technical glitches are still holding up any real blog progess, but we are on the precipice (oooh, big word) of finally getting some pretty after pictures! Crossing my fingers that I'll be able to share some fun stuff tomorrow. :-)  Since, by the way, we have company coming in this weekend....

In the meantime, enjoy this little teaser (albeit terrible cell phone) shot of the bathroom with the floor tiles down for a test run.

Technical Difficulties and An Update

Image here

Pardon my lack of post today, but we're experiencing technical difficulties in the Great Indoors household.  Namely that our computer power cord decided to explode (literally) last night before I got pictures uploaded for a post today.  Unfortunately most of my pictures are trapped on the laptop until we're guaranteed power to it again.  Oops!

In the meantime, here's an update about the progress in the guest bathroom.  The new stuff is bold.

• Remove quarter round (which we'll reuse as much as possible), toilet, vinyl, vanity, mirror  (We're keeping the old vinyl down until we finish the big work on the walls)
• Remove wallpaper and repair wall (one wall done, three to go)
• Repair light fixture location
• Repair water-damaged studs and drywall in guest bathroom
• Pick a paint color
• Clean up construction dust!
• Clean up old vinyl adhesive, level floor
• Paint walls
• Lay floor in guest bathroom
• Replace all baseboards and quarter round in guest bathroom
• Fix trim over door
• Paint trim
• Attach vanity legs, paint vanity
• Reinstall vanity
• Reinstall toilet
• Frame the mirror with trim (or we might get crazy and just buy a new mirror... we'll see) Buy a new mirror for the guest bathroom  We've figured out a work-around for now until we find the perfect mirror -- will share!
• Clean up and install new light fixture (more about that soon!)
• Paint crates for shelving
• Install shelving above the toilet
• Make a burlap shower curtain, plus a fabric curtain liner
• Accessorize!  Maybe some DIY wall art
• Repair water-damaged studs and drywall in master bathroom
• Lay floor in master bathroom
• Replace all baseboards and quarter round in master bathroom
• Install pedestal sink in master bathroom

There's still so much to do!!  But we've at least got the room just about to the zero point-- where the repairs are done and we can start in on the FUN STUFF!  Wish us luck!

Guest Bathroom: Overhauling the Vanity

I'm so excited to share our first before and after for the bathroom rehaul!  However, I do have to apologize for being a bad blogger, since I seem to not have taken comprehensive pictures of the whole process.  Oops.

To refresh your memory, here's the vanity in place before we started.  I always hated how both the bathroom vanities in this house were so lowwww.  I felt like I had to bend completely at the waist to wash my face.  Granted, I'm kind of tall (although compared to some members of my family, I feel short at 5'8").  So when I saw Centsational Girl's post about adding legs to her bathroom vanity, I knew it was happening in our guest bathroom.

Celebrating Three Years

Mr. Great Indoors and I celebrate three years of marriage today, and in honor of our anniversary I figured I'd share some of my favorite pre-ceremony/ceremony pictures.  Enjoy!

Something borrowed was a cameo broach from my great-great-aunt on the front of my bouquet (the bouquet included English ivy, another family tribute).  My dress was something new, I borrowed my step-father's handkerchief (you can see it in my hand in the picture as we're leaving the church), and my garter was something blue.

I will forever love the picture of our "Chickamafia," as my mom called it.  We got married in Chickamauga, Georgia, and the official men in our wedding looked like the mafia with their suits and sunglasses.  Appropriate name, no?  From left, Mr. GI's brother who was an usher, groomsman J, my dad, Mr. GI, Mr. GI's dad, groomsman T, and best man H.

Guest Bathroom: Color Choices

It's coming down to the crunch time with the bathroom where I actually have to decide on a color for the walls.  When I was dreaming about this room I chose a darkish blue for the walls.

Guest Bathroom: A Rip Roaring Good Time

You might remember that I dreaded this bathroom remodel from the minute we found out there was painted-over wallpaper we'd have to remove.  I knew it would take time and tedium to remove said wallpaper, especially if the lovely builders of our home didn't do us the favor of preparing the drywall before they installed the wallpaper.  Which they didn't.

Mr. Great Indoors had just about finished repairing the drywall on the back wall of the guest bathroom last week, so it was my turn to tackle the wallpaper.  I took a deep breath and dove in, and I figured I'd share what I learned in the process. I've said it already, but remember we were working in a room where the drywall wasn't prepped before the wallpaper was hung, so those of you lucky enough to have prepared drywall probably won't have to go through the mess we did.  I didn't keep very good track of time doing this project, but it took me three evenings after work to get this done at probably 2-3 hours per session.  So go ahead and count on a full day's work to remove all the wallpaper in a small room.  Oh, and these are not pretty pictures (even the "after" photos), so go ahead and prepare yourself for that. 

Another Window...

I thought it would be fitting on Friday the 13th to post about our latest window mishap.  You already know about our sliding door and the broken French door window insert, and now we can add to that list a car window.  That's right.  One single piece of pea gravel shot a single hole through the driver's side window of one of our cars.  Cue the shatter sound effect.

Guest Bathroom: Goodies So Far

Boy, water damage and drywall are pretty boring.  Why don't we talk about something more fun, like the goodies we've gotten so far for the bathrooms!

Our first purchase, even before we dove in headfirst and discovered *&%# water damage did anything to the bathroom, was a yard sale light fixture.  We love yard sales (I was so excited for yard sale weather that it was even on our spring to do list), and we especially love yard sales in nice neighborhoods.  We really lucked out with this particular yard sale; the newly-built home we happened upon belonged to a contractor who was trying to get rid of items from other home renovations.  (Let me just say that this house was gorgeous.  A little modern for my taste, but I have a feeling I'll be seeing this house in Better Homes & Gardens soon.)  There was tons of stuff we would have loved to take home, but ultimately this light fixture called our names.  Originally marked at $10, but the owner didn't blink an eye when I asked if she'd take $5 instead.  Score!!  Considering most of the full-price fixtures we were looking at were at least $40, we're considering this a steal.  I'm writing a separate post about cleaning it up and installing it (once we get that far...).  One shade looks a little wonky in this picture, but it just wasn't screwed on right when we bought it.

Guest Bathroom: Drywall, Oh Drywall

I've always said (usually from reading another DIY blog) that I never wanted to have anything to do with drywall.  Hanging, mudding, floating, or any of those other drywall terms.  Well, incidentally, I have the best husband in the world-- our guest bathroom has needed extensive drywall repairs so far and he has done every bit of it.  Can I get a round of applause for my handy, handsome, husband??  My schedule last week kept me from helping much, but I have since gotten my hands dirty (wallpaper, oh wallpaper.... more about that next week).

So the last chapter of our bathroom reno left us with gaping holes in both bathroom walls, both from our janky light fixture and the mildew issue shared by both bathrooms.  Oh yeah, then there's the wallpaper that was slapped right on top of the unprepared drywall (it sounds like felony assault, huh?).

Let's start with the wall above the vanity.  You'll notice two things here:  (a) the hole where our Hollywood light strip used to be and (b) the bare spot where our mirror used to be.  The old light strip was actually held on by CAULK if you can believe it, so Mr. GI had to do some brainstorming to figure out a solution for our new light fixture.  (Funny enough, Young House Love was dealing with a light fixture problem of their own at about the same time!)

One Year!

 

Image here

It's hard for me to believe I've been doing this blogging thing for a year now.  So hard, in fact, that I actually missed my blog birthday last Thursday.  It's been a blast so far being able to share our adventures with you (you can read most of our first-year projects here or check out our project page), becoming a little bit Internet Famous, and meeting new friends along the way!

Happy first birthday, little blog of mine!  While we're at it, how many of you have started new blogs in the last year?  Veterans, any tips for me?  And what do y'all want to see more of in the second year?

Guest Bathroom: More Than We Bargained For

So I alluded last week to the fact that we (a) had already started the bathroom rehaul and (b) might have found ourselves in a little deeper than we meant to be. We spent the afternoon last Monday shopping around for supplies, brainstorming, and getting excited about the new bathroom we'd have soon.  It all started so innocently, with Mr. Great Indoors taking out the baseboard in the guest bathroom.

Day 1 PLAN:

Remove baseboards to prep for flooring installation

Install light fixture

Sounds simple enough, right?

Day 1 ACTUAL:

Remove baseboards

Discover water damage on baseboard behind the toilet

Rip out dry wall in guest bathroom

Rip up vinyl in guest bathroom to find moisture underneath

See water damage goes through to the other side of the wall (i.e., the master bathroom)

Rip out dry wall in master bathroom

Take a breather before we burn down the house

Attempt to install light fixture

Discover old light fixture was held onto wall by caulk.  That's right:  caulk.  There's actually a gaping hole in the wall that prevents us from hanging the light fixture we bought over the weekend.

Call it a night before anything rash happens

Springing Around the House!

Despite the bathroom posts this week, I know I've been MIA for the last few months (Seven posts in the past three months?  Despicable.).  My work schedule has been absolutely nuts, and I haven't had much spare time to do anything.  But finally I had some time to be in the house in the past week, which I guess was obvious since we've started the bathroom.

So what better to do with a few spare minutes last week than spring decorating?  :-)

Guest Bathroom: The Before

I shared my dream for the guest bathroom the other day, and now it's time to show you how it's starting, particularly since I only had one measly before picture in the last post.

Here's the view from the main hallway.

Guest Bathroom: The Dream

I think I've mentioned a few times how ready I was to overhaul  the guest bathroom, and I even made it one of my 2012 resolutions for the house.  We've done touch-ups in just about every room in the house, but this bathroom has stayed basically the way we found it three years ago.  Which, by the way, was with painted-over wallpaper.  I just hadn't gotten up the guts to deal with that wallpaper, so it stayed.

Wrapping up the Winter Pinterest Challenge

Or, as I almost typed 233463847 times in the past few weeks, the Winterest Pinterest Challenge.  Maybe next time Katie and Sherry host the Winter Pinterest Challenge, they could rename it that.

I intended this post to come much earlier, but I was actually on vacation in Florida with the hubs when the Challenge went up, then went straight back to work.  So I've been sneaking in as much time as possible over the last week and a half to look over all your fabulous Pinterest crafts.  Let me tell you, I'm amazed at your talent, determination, and all-around creativity!  In case some of you haven't had a chance to read through all of the projects, I've plucked out a few of my favorites. 

Winter Pinterest Challenge: Mason Jar Chandelier

If you're coming over from Young House Love, Bower Power, or Hi Sugarplum, welcome!  Take a look around The Great Indoors.  I'd suggest starting by taking the House Tour or looking at the Project Archives.

I seriously did a big ol' happy dance when I got an invitation from Katie last week to participate in the winter edition of the Pinterest Challenge.  I started reading Young House Love back when it was This Young House about three years ago now, and then got caught up in the bacon-stravaganza at Bower Power not too much later.  So it kind of feels like these girls are family!  And I'm glad to get to know Cassie at Hi Sugarplum, too!

When I got on board with this challenge, I considered several different pins, like this fun stickered canvas inspired by Kate Spade, or a super easy pillow cover, or even starting in on my guest bathroom remake with a printed (shower) curtain.  But the one that really got me was this Mason jar chandelier on Style Me Pretty (see the pinned page here and the original post here with lots more inspiration; photography by Tanja Lippert Photography).