Powder Room
1/4 Bath
Toilet & Sink
Potty Palace

Whatever you call it, mine was a mess. 

Dark. Gross pedestal sink. Even grosser toilet. The little powder room, only bathroom on the 1st floor was dank, dismal, dark green - ewww.

See what I mean?

I wanted something similar to the linens I used in my powder room in TN. But I wasn't sure which direction I wanted to go - BLUE or TEAL or something with my new fascination with GREY. I decided to forego the 'paint test' and just match up to my new towel set:

Granted, not a huge fan of the flowery, but I really like the colors.  So I ended up with Shale Grey:

I'm also not a fan of pedestal sinks. Where are you supposed to put things??? The Big Orange had a great price on a cabinet sink so I couldn't pass it up. There was also a light cover issue. The existing ones were gross.  I don't have a photo of the original light covers. I do have one of my new covers but...they're light covers and not very exciting.


On the other hand...Here's the DONE!

Freezer Meals

          Some time ago I started pinning freezer meals. My daughter who lives out of state was going to pre-make/freeze them and send them to me so she would be able to help me in my current physical place. We never could figure out how to ship them though.

           So when my youngest decided she was moving back to TN, we thought all my pins might come in handy.

           I perused through all the pinned meals and came up with ones I would actually eat and came up with these:

Five Cheese Veggie Lasagna (Stouffer's copy)         Broccoli Cheddar Chicken Pasta    
Pot Roast                                                                    Cheesy Garlic Chicken  
Hearty Beef Stew                                                       Garlic Ranch Chicken  
Chili                                                                            Parmesan Chicken  
Pulled Pork                                                                 Loaded Potato Soup
Steak Fajitas                                                               Cauliflower Tots (Side dish)
Twice Baked Potatoes                                                Potato Skins


I waited for a good meat sale as that tends to be the most expensive ingredient. I also picked up a large box of gallon and quart size freezer bags, as well as some multi-use aluminum foil pans.

The night before we were set to cook, I went through all the recipes to determine what needed to be done to what vegetable/meat. In the morning, we put all the ingredients for each recipe into a foil pan & labeled it with the meal name.
                                          

Since my physical ability is limited, my mom came to help my daughter with the prep/cooking. I labeled all the bags. On each bag I wrote:
                                            The Date
                                            The Meal Name
                                             Cooking Instructions

Some of the meals are specifically crock pot meals that serve 4. For those meals, I chose to pre-cook and split them into single (approximately) serve sizes.

All in all, it was about 5 hours of prep/cooking/packaging, excluding the crock pot meal cooking times (we are actually going to finish those up over the next couple days).

All the recipes and a shopping list can be downloaded here:
http://paigeengle.blogspot.com/p/freezer-meal-recipes.html

ENJOY!!!

The 1st room painted

I left things hanging here for a while. Most of the ‘hang’ comes under the scope of my medical issues (I have a different blog covering that – which you can find on the right).

Now, where were we??? Color. Right.

I’m going to go through all the color selections room by room throughout the blog. Mostly because we (okay, my kids) are a) still working on getting things done; 2) trying to get photos with the same angles; and iv) I am making multiple changes in several rooms.

                                                                         The Kitchen

The kitchen is one of the most important rooms in any/every house. Everyone has their own preferred set-up (the triangle thing) and most used appliances. For me, organizing the pantry was a big thing. (http://paigeengle.blogspot.com/2015/01/itsy-bitsy-teeny-tiny-pantry-now-dont.html)

The God-awful color was the first thing I wanted to address, but getting the pantry done was a logistical priority. I knew I wanted something teal-ish but I wasn’t sure exactly. My kitchen at my house in TN was immersed in tans, burnt orange and chocolate. I had purchased an awesome but totally not micro-safe (I didn’t discover that until later) dinnerware set to go with the colors I chose for the décor. I decided I needed to flip that for this adventure. So I set out looking at dinnerware. I came up with this:
                                                   

I love the light pattern that allows both color and neutral (white, black, gray, tan) options. I was already thinking I wanted some gray hue in the family room and halls and my cabinets were white with black countertops, so I focused on color. I mean, who doesn’t like color in the kitchen???

With some color hue in my mind, I set out to the big box store to decide on something more specific. I came home with paint chips and held them up as has been done throughout the history of paint chips. (Of course, I learned my lesson on choosing a color this way, which is covered in another post.) So after a few sample jars and splashing painting a bit on different areas, I landed on Behr Gulf Winds. 

                                                 I think they go together rather nicely, don’t you?

It’s one thing to match up, look nice next to a plate, but what happens on the walls? Let’s see how my color choices turned out:

Here’s the BEFORE

A bit of a different angle, the AFTER               

I think it turned out pretty good!!! We did run into some issues with the ceiling. If you HAVE to hire professionals but are on a limited budget, have the pro’s do the ceilings. It will save a LOT of arguments frustration that way!

Side By Side: (same pics, sorry...my mobility limits my photgraphy)

 

Still need to finish it, but that's coming!!!

What colors YOUR world?

What colors YOUR world?

I have to admit, I fell in love with the new paint color on my old house. I bought that house in 2007 when it was brand spanking new. And ALL khaki. Mind you, khaki is a nice neutral color, I just happen to not like it EVERYWHERE. So the girls and I bought paint. LOTS of paint. And we painted. The kitchen. It wasn't for several more years that we painted again. The dining room. Then, a few years later, after my oldest went away to college and my youngest moved into the 'big' bedroom, I painted a bedroom. A year later, I was preparing my house to put on the market. So everything got painted. All one color. Sherwin Williams Perfect Greige. Awesome color!

That started what I was looking for in my new house. Except, a little different. I like color. I LOVE color. I needed more than one color. There is a little limit to what/how many colors you can paint your house. There is a bit more leeway now then when I was growing up but still, there's a limit. For example, you really shouldn't do something like this:

Bedroom,aka Brittani's room (BEFORE repainting)

Seriously, THAT was on the walls AND ceiling in one of the bedrooms of my new house. My favorite color happens to be purple. I almost had to change my mind after seeing this. Since this is the second largest bedroom (with a walk-in closet) and since Alex is living with his dad and Brittani is a girl, this is Brittani's room. Even if the design was what she had in mind, Brittani is not a purple fan. Her pallet was easy: Grey, Red, Black. The design was determined (hint: it wasn't sponge paint) and they painted. It looks amazing! (pics to follow).

As my daughter did her thing in her room, I poured over paint colors online, collected paint chips, purchased many paint samples (please, do not skip this step...more on paint products coming up). After this drawn out search, I knew one thing: I love purple. 

Okay, I knew two THREE things: I had to have a warm, coordinated color scheme that flowed from room to room and I wanted gray grey light black in there somewhere. In addition, I love purple. 

I did discover some difficulty keeping track of which paint goes in which room. Of course I wrote which room it was going in on the back of each paint chip, but that didn't help much when I had to keep flipping the cards over (simplicity rules). 

I tried putting all my paint chips as my house is laid out but I couldn't keep track very well with everything written on the back and how was I going to do the upstairs? 

1st floor layout

 I ended up getting a piece of cardboard and laying the paint chips out kinda in room order. I covered the entire front with packing tape to keep them in place, then wrote which room on each chip. I ended up with this:

All of the paint is Behr Ultra or Premium Plus, in either an eggshell or satin finish (unless noted). Some of the color names are either difficult to read or covered up, so I'll list them in the order they appear on the cardboard:

Left Side

(top to bottom)

Porpoise

Gulf Winds

Gentle Rain

Weathered Sandstone

Only Natural

Toasted Wheat

Shale Gray

Crepe

Right Side

(top to bottom)

Ancient Stone

Country Club

Silvery Moonlight (Glidden)

Stone Fence

Gray Timber Wolf

French Lilac

*Custom Color based off Old Amethyst

                          Lilac Mauve & an older (unopened) Valspar paint I had left over from TN (bottom 2 colors)                                                                        

The one color that misfired on the walls was the Ancient Stone. On the chip, it was perfect for the hallways. On the walls, it was an odd purple. While I believe we have established I love purple, I did not love purple for my hallway. I was going for an awesome grey gray light black (one of these days I'll figure out how exactly GREY is spelled). Back to the local Big Orange...I ended up with Winds Breath, which turned out perfect. I also ended up using Pewter Mug in the Master bedroom instead of the Gray Timberwolf. Since I never replaced those on the cardboard, here they are:

 

Winds Breath

Pewter Mug

Overall, I think they all turned out quite nicely. I can't wait to show you the finished Before & After's!!!

*** EDIT: A few things I learned with the whole house painting project -
                                 
                                    1) NEVER pay someone to do something you think you can do yourself. I paid for painting services and regret it in every room of my house.
                                    2) If you do pay someone - watch everything they do
                                    3) Don't be afraid to experiment or change your mind