I know what you are thinking: Well it's happened again. Jill has given up on the blogging. Actually, I've been blogging like crazy over at Living the Healthier Life. And believe it or not, I've been working on the house... a lot. In one of my last posts I said I was going to work on my board and batten. The regular board and batten doesn't fit with the house's overall theme and, well, I just like picture frame moulding, so I started working on it. And then my miter saw broke. So I ran out and got a new one except that I grabbed the wrong box. I live about 30 minutes from the closest HD so I thought I'd just use the little 7 inch saw I grabbed on accident. I was about 2 cuts in when I realized it was quite possibly the worst saw I'd ever purchased. Sigh... so for a week nothing got done. I went back to HD, exchanged saws and headed back to work on my moulding. I actually got quiet a bit done.

I had decided that instead of building a storage bench for  my office, my weekend would be better sent finishing some projects (I'm a notorious start-but-not-finsh project kind of gal). One of the things I've really been needing to do involves my board and batten. When I put it on I loved it. And I still do. But it's just looking too craftsman for my taste. After going to Europe this summer I fell in love with picture frame moulding. I think it is so classic - and if it is good enough for the palaces in Europe I'm pretty sure it would work here in Texas. I headed out to get my supplies and decided that while I was at it I'd pick up the rail cap for the top part of the b&b. About 1/2 way in my saw miter saw broke. My miter saw that I've had for 10 years. My miter saw that was the first power tool I ever bought. Yep. It's gone. So with that, all I was able to do was go from this:

Yep, it's happened. I am blogging about a printer. But it's really about more than that. I have been working on this house for three years. I spent more money than I care to admit on flooring, backsplashes, paint and other things. Need a new backsplash? Done. Hate the tile downstairs? Gone. Yet for the last three years I have dealt with a printer that is almost as old as my seven-year-old daughter. It was one of the first wireless printers and for the last few years it has barely worked. But I kept it. Why? Because it worked good enough. Because I had ink stocked up. Because I'm too cheap to buy a new one. Yep, there is the real reason. I will spend thousands of dollars on making my house look good but won't part with $100 to get a printer that actually works the way I need it to? That's just plain crazy.

One of the problems with working in a work-in-progress office is that you spend the entire day staring at a space that desperately needs work. The last few days, while reading, I would look around and think "I really need to get this office organized." I've got a pretty tough semester and having my office in shambles makes it all that much harder. I can't find the books I need. I can't find the right calculator (graphing or financial), there are no telling where my pens are, and the place just looks terrible. I set aside one day a week, Monday through Thursday, for one course. Today's course was Accounting. Since it is the first week, the assignment was a general overview. The whole reading/assignment took me about an hour. I did a little bit of necessary work and then I decided I needed to work on the office. The priority for today was organization. With that in my mind I decided to tackle this mess:

One of my favorite parts of remodeling is the decorating that comes with it. With my daughter's room, there wasn't much that had to be done for the remodel. The ugly tile floors extended into her room so removing that and replacing it with wood was pretty much the only project in her room. When I asked what she wanted to do in her room she said "mom, I want a hot pink room." Ouch. For the last year, I've been dealing with the loud purple wall (which were preceded by aqua walls). I really want her to express herself but a hot pink room? Hmmmm.... As usual, I took to Pinterest and Google Images and poured through hundreds of photos of hot pink rooms. All of them were pretty scary, to say the least. While on Houzz.com I found a room that I thought may be the solution to my problem. It was a completely white room with a turquoise stripe running through it. I immediately showed the picture to my daughter and she loved it. Phew..

Have you ever noticed that after your make one part of your house amazing you just have to make anything that touches that area just as beautiful? For the last couple of months I've been working on the entryway. I've added board and batten, painted the closet doors, restyled the entry table, repainted and (finally) bought roman shades for the front windows (see the big reveal here). I was so excited by how it all looked I even bought flowers for the containers in the front of the house (since I could see them through the lower windows) and a rug for the front door area. Everything looks so beautiful that I was starting to feel sorry for our lowly little powder bath. It's been so neglected throughout all of our remodeling. Yes, it got new floors but only because I had a bit left over from the master bath remodel. And it's true that it received new "utilities" when the flooring was redone. But other than that, it has barely been touched in the three years that we have lived here. It's been so faithful and always there for us but we treat it so poorly. So I decided to give it the love it deserved.

I've remodeled lots of rooms in several houses (including my current home) - mostly on my own. When it came time to do the bathroom, though, I thought it was best to leave it to the pros. As you all know, it's been a process. As with all processes, I've learned a few things along the way. I hope that if you ever find yourself in a remodel these tips will help. Get A Schedule

Seems like a no-brainer, but one of the things I failed to do early on was get a schedule. Since I've always done things on my own it just wasn't something I thought about doing. It has probably caused 90% of my frustration because things aren't happening at the rate/speed I thought it would. Of course having a schedule doesn't mean everything will happen as it should, but at least you will have a guideline (a very, very loose guideline).