Curb Appeal (day 5)

Holy geez, I need a nap. I've been inside for the past hour, and I don't think I'll be moving for the rest of the night. So sore.

My dad offered to help me today, so I took advantage.

What day 5 started with:

What it ended with:

The game plan had to change a bit because of the gaslight post we discovered last week, but I made it work. I'm loving how to looks with the topper. Now I just need to go back to the hardware store for the glue. Ugh.

Meet Pengy Wengy

Macintosh may play with many toys throughout the day, but there's only 1 toy he brings to bed at night - Pengy Wengy.


Does anyone else have a pet that does this? I've never seen anything like it.

(As for the name, well, that's because of our penguin toy surplus. Each one got a name, so we could keep track of them. You guys have seen my penguin tree, none of this should be surprising).

Wine-tasting party countdown

In 28 days, Brent and I will be hosting my mom's 60th birthday party, and what better way to do that than with a white wine-tasting party.

After the success of Brent's 30th birthday beer-tasting party, I've decided to keep the format fairly similar – just with wine. The biggest change is that this party is more genre specific – so chardonnay, pinot grigio, riesling/muscat and blends are the categories (versus white, red and blush). (This will also be the plan, when we bring back the beer-tasting party Octoberfest style).

I haven't really decided on a lot of the other details, but I think it would be awesome to do a cheese bar somewhere separate from the other appetizers.

The guest list includes 30 couples, the majority of which have not seen my house. And of the ones who have, most haven't seen it since the housewarming party in November 2009 – so things like the painted fireplace, houndstooth wall, bar, living room art, office and built-ins (to name a few) were nonexistent.

There's so much I would love to get done, but time is quickly running out – especially with Brent's jammed packed Corporate Challenge schedule and the upcoming wedding of our 2 good friends.

But, here are the musts:
- Get furniture for the man cave (this is scheduled to arrive in 2 weeks, and I pray that it fits)
- Do the built-in shelf on the other side of the man cave
- Finish painting the man cave ceiling
- Finish retaining wall in front
- Plant flowers and mulch the front and back yards

* The invitation is part of the wine-tasting party package I will soon be offering. Visit the Paper Obsessed tab for more detail.

Spring Organizing (Closet #2)

The office closet had gotten out of control:

It was my giant junk drawer. But not anymore.

I did a thorough clean sweep on this closet – going through every piece of paper in it. Check out the rejects:

But it was totally worth the effort:

And since I got rid of so much paper, I rewarded myself by adding more to my "mini paper store" stash:

Paint apparently doesn't fix all

It's been freakishly cold in Kansas City for the past week, so the heater has played a staring role in the Miller household. So when I couldn't turn the heating/cooling on using the thermostat this weekend – I started seeing $$$ and getting rather nervous.

After trying new batteries and other cheap fixes, we had our heating and cooling guy come out today. It's never a good sign when you can baffle the pros. After lots of trips up and down the stairs, he discovered the wiring was going bad. Ugh.

Then he asks, "have you hung anything up in the living room recently?" Nope.

As he journeys back to the basement, I start thinking of the man cave, and then the ceiling I'm still (yes, still) painting. And how last week, before the non-existent sectional arrived – I painted the front half of the ceiling...including the wires. Crap.

Paint was indeed the issue. Apparently, some of the wiring the previous owners did wasn't correct, and some wires were exposed. And once I painted over it, bad things happened.
Thankfully, everything is now to code, working and fixed without breaking the bank.

I'm just so happy he asked me that question, because I would have never made the connection. Especially, considering the painting and thermostat incidents were 5 days apart.

Apparently, paint does not fix all.

Tall crush

I am smitten for CB2's high dining tables.


Do I plan on buying one? Nope. But I am enjoying my impractical dreams of busting out these tables during parties (that's right, in my dreams – I definitely own several of these guys). I love hightop tables.


In furniture news: I'm starting to wonder if Brent and I will ever be futon-free in the man cave. When we moved into the house, we had the money for the furniture, and the day before we went shopping, Brent's car decided it wanted the money instead. And that started the "always something" trend. The new something? Thermostat isn't turning anything on. We have someone coming out tomorrow, and I'm praying this won't break the bank (or furniture fund) too much.

In landscaping news: It has been cold and rainy for the past 2 weeks. So, I have accomplished nothing. I'm getting rather tired of this 40-degree weather.

In job news: I heard back from the place I interviewed with, and I've moved on to the design-test round. So, if I seem a little quiet, it's because I have magazine layouts to dream up.

Sofa shopping has begun

After the CL drama (and finding no other acceptable man cave sitting on there), Brent and I decided to hit up some furniture stores today.

We actually found 2 that we liked – a microfiber sectional and a leather sofa set. Originally, we were dead set on the sofa set, but with 2 sofas (who needs a loveseat), but when we came back and did some measuring, we discovered that we literally did need a loveseat. Ugh.

So now it's looking like a sectional is the best solution for the narrow space.

This is the current winner:


(Try not to be too distracted by the terrible coffee table).

The obstacle now is making sure we can actually get it into the basement. Brent took all the door and hallway measurements tonight, and hopefully on Monday we'll find out good news about the furniture guys being able to make it work.

In other news: Brent got to experience US Toy for the first time today. In a store full of little kid party favors, leave it to him to find the mini toilet toy with a smiling piece of poo in it (that can squirt water at you when you open the lid). I'm still shocked he didn't try to sneak it into the cart. Maybe this is a sign of maturity?