Hanging beds – Yay or Nay?

Hanging beds are on design trend for spring. This time the hanging bed moves indoors to the bedroom from the covered porch. Need proof? Anthropologie has a hanging bed in their Spring line.

Photo courtesy of Anthropolopie

If Anthro does it, many will follow. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing. I likes me some Anthro too.

To put hanging beds into design context, here is how the TheNovogratz’s (love them!) used hanging beds in The Pioneer Woman’s house (love her too!)

Stitched Love Note

Valentine’s Day gifts for Husband are hard. I use all my good gift ideas for Christmas.

 Husband usually gives me candy or flowers. I don't do that in case I duplicate. Although for our first Valentine’s Day, I gave him an anatomically correct chocolate heart.

18 years later it’s still in the box in the back of our refrigerator.  I’d show you the real thing but I’m too afraid to open the box.

 I told Husband he had my heart - and gave him this

 

Garage Workshop Transformation: Insulate the Garage Walls

Fiberglass insulation has the reputation for being a pain in the itch to install. Fortunately, I had a better experience than I expected with fiberglass insulation when I insulated the garage door.

Insulated garage wall

The Owens Corning Garage Door Insulation kit I used was not made with the recycled content and no itch Owen's Corning EcoTouch insulation. The door kit insulation made my hands itch mildly when I pulled the rolls from the box without wearing gloves but nothing like the persistent itch-fest I experienced after doing minor DIY jobs involving the brand my builder used.

My good experience with the fiberglass garage door insulation kit made me think differently about fiberglass insulation. It also made me want to try the EcoTouch insulation I read about while researching garage door insulation options. I agreed to join Owen’s Corning’s EcoTouch DIY Review Panel and blog about my insulation adventures. 

 My insulated garage door. It looks like pillows, doesn't it?

Hot Dog Pinewood Derby Car

This project is not mine but it’s so awesomesauce I must share it with the entire Internet. Yep. That. Cool.

Mr. G is racing in his first Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. With a little parental help, the kid needs to turn a block of wood, a weight, and some wheels into a car for the BIG RACE. 

It sounds fun. I wish Girl Scouts did something like that. Even at a young age, I'd use any excuse to break out the tools, ya know?

When his mom told me Mr. G wanted to go for style instead of speed, I expected Mr. G to make a car looking like the Batmobile (a thumbs up choice because we share the same taste in superheroes) or an ice cream truck to go with his career goal of being an ice cream man.

Clear Your Clutter: Five Temporary Garage Organizers

I’m participating in the Clear Your Clutter Challenge because my garage workshop project is making nothing but clutter in the garage.

I know things will get worse before they get better but I need a temporary fix. I have a big fat bruise on my arm (OW!) when a couple of tool cases leapt from a shelf and cannon balled onto my arms and head during a I-swear-I-put-it-in-the-garage type search. 

A garage clean up and temporary reorganization should put the workshop project back on track. It is either that or post Beware of Falling Power Tools signs all over the garage. Oh, heck I still might.

I want to spend as little money as possible on this project because all of my organization and storage will change in a few months when I build the new garage storage system. My repurposed freebies may not be the prettiest but they are doing the job for now. 

 This is my working plan for final garage project.

What is the Strangest Thing You Do to Save Money?

I watched the Extreme Cheapskates special on TLC. True to reality TV, they presented and edited the people featured as weird in the lengths they go to save money even though I read many of those tips, like washing and reusing plastic zipper baggies (heck! I do it myself) on blogs and in The Tightwad Gazette books long before this show was a twinkle in a producer's eye.

Our green and frugal ways mean the amount of our weekly household trash is usually one small plastic bag of trash. 

Frugality, just like green living, is all about balance. What works and is normal for some, others just can’t go there. I’m all for boxing up and taking my restaurant leftovers home with me (a quick, easy, and cheap lunch option for the following day!) but I personally draw the line at asking other people for their leftovers at the restaurant, while one guy on the show does it all the time – to his wife’s embarrassment which makes good TV.

If I left these amazing homemade tortillas at the restaurant it would have been a crime!

30 DIY Goals for 2012

I learned early on that it’s better in the Spousal Management department if I give Husband a head’s up on a major DIY project. For some crazy reason, the man doesn’t like to come home to surprises that look like this:

Surprise! I’m painting the kitchen! Doesn't it look GREAT?!

The Nester is holding a Home Goals party. In the interest of holding myself accountable for actually doing a planned project instead of plunking my tush in front of DIY Network and only dreaming about it, I made a list of DIY project goals for the year.

Husband, consider this list your head’s up for 2012.

Garage

Yeah, I know I said 2011 was going to be the Year of the Garage Workshop. It accidently turned into the Summer of the Remodeled Garden and Porch which had yummier results than accidentally ingesting sawdust. Although I reserve the right to ingest sawdust at any time in the future because who couldn't use a little more fiber in their diet? 

This looks largely the same except I painted the wall blue.

How Do You Pick Paint Colors?

When we first bought our condo, I can’t tell you how excited I was at the prospect of painting the walls! After years and years of renting white walled apartments, finally, FINALLY I got to paint my rooms any color I want!

Condo Blues and Lazy Budget Chef World Headquarters and Thunderdome

I skipped down to the store and basked in the glow of the rainbow of paint chips before me in the paint department. 

Then I got overwhelmed. 

It’s one thing to say that you want to paint a room green because it’s your favorite color and certainly another when 100 shades of green paint chips are staring you in the face at the store. Not to mention, coordinating the colors of the trim work, curtains, floor, ceiling, and furniture with the wall so it doesn’t look like a hodge podge of stuff I like but doesn’t go together at all.

ACK!

Princess’s Tequila Snowman

I like to decorate with snowmen because they are happy little guys you can leave out after Christmas as a winter decoration. Well, that is, unless you are our Queen of No Property Manager who argued that the snowman I hung  on my door was a Christmas decoration and should be taken down last February (during a blizzard I might add when the real thing dotted lawns all over the neighborhood.)

Of course, I shot back it wasn’t right she assumed I even celebrate Christmas (although we do) because we live in a multicultural neighborhood (which I love!) and I don’t remember anything about a snowman crossing the dessert to visit the baby Jesus in the stable – who was really born in March, not December.

I left the snowman on my door until the Spring Solstice -which is in March for spite. Heh.

My Top 10 Project Posts of 2011

Happy New Year! 2011 was a busy, busy blogging year. I went to my first Blissdom conference. This year I am going to be one of the Blissdom Newcomer Community Leaders! Please come! (More on that in a later post.)

I taught a great group of momand dad bloggers how to use tools at the Craftsman DIY Blogger Summit.

Richard from Craftsman, Primer Magazine, The Gadgeteer, Backpacking Dad, CC Chapman, Mom Start is hiding almost off screen), Wiskey in My Sippy Cup, Busy Dad Blog, and Attack of the Redneck Mommy.