Summer Furniture Projects

I LOVE love LOVE the fall.  I love the leaves changing, the weather cooling, the pumpkin-flavored goodies, the CLOTHES! and even the football.  I have my boots lined up in my closet ready to go, sweaters in tow, and scarves waiting.  I even tried to wear a scarf today (it was cool this morning, I swear), but by mid-day with temperatures reaching the upper 80s... it was pretty sweltering.  All that to say, come on fall!!!

I did take advantage of the somewhat less scorching heat by resuming my furniture projects today!  It was really fun at the beginning of the summer, fun enough to push through the sweat and Georgia heat.  But come July in the dirty south... I just can't stand to be outside for more than 5 seconds, much less exerting myself.  Hence a hiatus from furniture projects.

I did manage to do a couple projects at the beginning of the summer that I have not posted, so here they are now!

BEFORE:  This was a chest of drawers that was at my in-laws house.  After I refinished it, we found out it was a part of Jonnie's baby room.  Aww.  It had been painted a couple times since then, and had some knobs mysteriously missing.

AFTER:  This is in our "breakfast nook" type area and houses all of our office supplies.  I wanted to do a fun pop of color, so I went with Behr Arizona (a match for AS Arles).

I even re-lined the drawers with some pretty drawer liner I had laying around.  Then in a sudden bust of creativity, I had the thought to make a pretty matching picture frame with the scraps and a frame I got at the thrift store!

Too bad I didn't realize the frame was 5x7.  Who has 5x7s??  I still haven't put a photo in this frame but it's the thought that counts, right?

Another project that my friend Mallory helped me with this summer was a coffee table for our good friend Laura.

BEFORE:  

Shiny oaky coffe table.

AFTER:

 

Shabby chic coffe table!  This is Behr Outback (A match for AS Versaille).

Super cute in their living room!

So there they are.  I'm currently working on a hutch/china cabinet that took FOREVER to paint today.  Totally exhausted but I think it's going to be really pretty.  Tonight calls for some fro yo for sure!  

Food for Thought

I would say that I have a love-hate relationship with food.  I love eating... but like many people, my food choices can get me into major trouble with the way they make me feel and of course, the weight they make me gain.  I enjoyed the fast metabolism of my teenage years, but as my age increased in my twenties... my metabolism of course did not follow suit and began to fall.  After a family cruise in December of 2010, I hit a number on the scale that I had never seen before, and I finally realized my no-discipline, enjoy food no matter what philosophy was going to have to change.

In 2011, I lost 20 pounds on the Weight Watchers program.  I can't say enough good things about Weight Watchers!  The program taught me HOW to eat well and how to cook well rather than confining me to a strict diet to follow.  It worked so well that after I lost the 15 pounds that was my original goal, after I quit Weight Watchers officially I lost another 5 pounds just from the healthy habits I picked up!  I would absolutely recommend Weight Watchers to anyone looking to get a kick-start in their weight loss goals.

Recently to keep the discipline in my life alive, I tried keeping up with my calories on My Fitness Pal (another great and FREE weight loss tool), but honestly counting calories makes me go into semi-eating disorder mode.  Suddenly it's about beating the strict number on the screen rather than feeding your body what it needs.  I found pleasure in keeping my calories low and hit a mountain of guilt any time I screwed up.  Not a good situation.  I realized that for me, my focus simply needs to be on being HEALTHY - eating food that is good for me and exercising often.

So... since my Weight Watcher days, I noticed that foods such as produce (most of which have no Points Plus values) and things straight from nature are the basis for a healthy diet.  All the processed stuff has so many added chemicals and un-pronouncable ingredients, empty calories, and little nutritional value.  At the store we try to stick to the perimeter of the store, only grabbing produce, meats, dairy, etc.

After a little bit of research this morning, I realized that this philosophy I try to eat by is called "Clean Eating," and I found an awesome website full of  Clean Eating Recipes called "The Gracious Pantry."  I got so excited by the recipes that I tried three of them today!

For Breakfast:  Clean Eating Banana Muffins
I realized that the processed cereal that I eat every morning is loaded with sugar and doesn't keep me full until lunch (or even my mid-morning snack at work!).  I am going to try these muffins this week in the morning with a handful of blueberries!  These muffins turned out so pretty and they are tasty!  I used whole wheat flour instead of whole wheat pastry flour, and I topped them with walnuts.

For Lunch:  Clean Eating Chicken Salad

I made this recipe for lunch today including the clean Ranch dressing from scratch!  It was delectable, especially if you like dill!  I ate it on Kroger whole wheat crackers... totally not "clean" (the ingredient list is a mile long) but hey you gotta start somewhere.

For Snack:  Clean Eating Granola
I accidentally cooked it for a wee bit too long, but it's still really good!  I'm going to mix it with walnuts and almonds and keep it in baggies at my desk at work for a quick, healthy, and protein-packed snack.

It's been a long afternoon in the kitchen and the dishes were piled to the ceiling... but hey it's worth it to have some wholesome food to eat!  And now I have this stuff ready to go for the week ahead for on-the-go meals!

Anyone else practice Clean Eating?  Have any good recipes?  Send them my way!!!

Natalie

Furniture Frenzy!

The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic with the Geigers!  Road Rules, the summer mission trip for middle school students, came and went like a blur during the second week in June.  When I got back, the next week I went with Jonnie on his business trip to Stone Mountain, which was hilarious because that's where we are both from (so I got to spend some good time with my mom and dad!).  In between, we somehow managed to shoot three weddings for The Guestbox (the wedding video business I work for on the side, check it out) and get a couple of those videos edited.  Whew!

Also somehow in the midst of those couple weeks I thought it would be fun and stress-relieving to add in a couple of furniture projects... not sure about my logic on that one but it was nice to take my mind of some of the busyness (by making myself more busy?).  Nonetheless I have two more furniture projects complete to share that I am just thrilled about!

The first one is an entertainment unit we found on Craigslist for $50.  I forgot to take the before picture before I took the doors off the thing... so picture this with doors:

You can't really see, but the top is pretty scratched up and the little side cabinets are actually CD racks on rollers on the inside.  We were able to remove the racks and the tracks for them and voila!  Extra cabinet space.

I wanted to do a cheery color to go in my living room which has lots of browns in addition to some teal and burnt orange.  I went with Behr "Gulf Winds" which is a match for Annie Sloan "Provence."  Again I used Mallory's technique of adding baking soda to the paint to give it the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint feel.

I've found that the trial size of the Behr paint is enough for one of the projects which is awesome because that is cheap!   The only material cost of these projects now that I've bought paintbrushes, wax, cheesecloth, etc is for the paint (less than $3) and a new sanding block (less than $4), so the total for the project supplies is about $7!  Not too shabby!

Here's how it turned out after painting, sanding, distressing, waxing, and spray painting the knobs in the hammered metal paint:

Cute!  So we bring it inside, set it in our living room and realize... the TV that we want to put on it has to easily weigh several hundred pounds.  The thing is mammoth.  I mean unliftable.  So Jonnie called over our good friend Matt and together they somehow managed to lift the thing onto its new home!

So there she is in the corner, supporting the weight of the heaviest TV on the planet.  If you look closely you can see our antenna to the left (that's right folks, antenna).  I have board games in the skinny cabinets and all of our router stuff in the glass cabinet part (as well as our printer which had no home before now).  I wish I had a before picture of the TV on a coffee table with the mess of wires and madness beneath it.  This is muuuch better!  But I have GOT to do something to cover the plug next to the fireplace!!!  I have been racking my brain to think of something.  A basket?  A treasure chest?  A plant?  A margarita machine?

More pictures to come of the other project!

Furniture Refinishing - Take One!

My friend Mallory is really crafty and inspired me to try my hand at furniture refinishing!  So last weekend I ventured out into the world of Craigslist and stumbled upon a buffet for $25.  When I contacted the seller, she said it was "all wood" and "antique."  Sounds great right?  So Jonnie and I hopped in the truck and headed over to Smyrna to pick up our first Craigslist purchase.  I have to admit we both were a little skeptical and hoping we were not going to be kidnapped, but we did indeed survive our encounter.

This is what it looked like from the Craigslist picture:

When we got there, she had taken out all the drawers for "easy moving."  After inspecting it, we realized it was definitely not real wood... and the back of the thing was a piece of cardboard stapled on.  Although it wasn't what I had in mind, I decided it would be a good "starter piece" and we hauled it to the truck.  It wasn't until then that we discovered... half of the drawers didn't fit into their homes.  Nowww we see why she had them taken out...

Because I am incredibly impatient and couldn't wait for Mallory's help and advice, I went ahead and googled "refinishing furniture" and decided to paint it black, since my dining room table is black.  I went to Home Depot, got all my supplies, sanded the buffet, primed it, painted it, painted it again... and hated it.  Darn my impatience!  Here's what it looked like:

It wasn't SO bad, but it was just boring.  And the imperfections were really obvious.  At this point I had Mallory over to rescue me.  Apparently she had a method of painting that involved no pre-sanding, no priming, little dry time, and awesome results.  Hmm.  Should have waited!  But we decided the black would look cool under the new color (Behr Cathedral - a match for Annie Sloan Aubusson Blue).  So she helped me and it turned out super cute!  Here is the finished product:

So that's it!  I'll post more details about the painting process if it's successful with my next project.  I think it turned out cute and adds a fun pop of color to my black dining room!

Maybe I'll be crafty after all!

I'm back!

After a staggering two year break from blogging (where DOES the time go?!), I got inspired and now I'm baaaack!  I just completed my first DIY home improvement project, and I decided that the blogosphere is in need of just one more person blogging about that type of thing.  I'd also like to share awesome recipes as I discover them as well as musings from our hectic yet ridiculously blessed life.

Jonnie and I have now been married for two and a half years!  Again, where does the time go??  It is really fun to read the last posts on this blog and remember what it was like during that first year of marriage.  I'd love to share on this blog the lessons we've learned and continue to learn as we grow with each other.  But more on that later!

We've since moved out of apartment life and into a rental home!  Still one bathroom... but we mastered the art of sharing in our one bed/one bath apartment the first two years of marriage.  But now we have so much more space, actual ROOMS as opposed to the combination kitchen, dining room, living room, laundry room we previously had.  We used to joke that it was like that place out west where you can stand in one spot and be in 4 states at once.   We are loving our house, and since we decided we just might stay here another couple years, I'm getting into decorating frugally and do-it-yourselfy.  It is laughable that I think I have time for these projects - I am currently a full-time youth director and also doing a part-time video shooting and editing for my unbelievably talented friend and wedding business mogul (that's right).  But I have found that these home improvement projects are really fun, soothing, and something to take my mind off of stresses such as the 42 middle school students I am taking on a 6 day road trip this weekend... more on that later as well.

So here goes nothing... back in the blog world!  Let's keep it up this time.  I'll share pictures of my first project that I just completed soon!

Storage Snafu

Picture this scene: Living room of one bedroom apartment. Two bikes. Set of golf clubs. Box of golf balls. Bag of baseball bats. Bag of tennis rackets. Treadmill. Ok, so I made that last one up, but that would have fit right in to our living-room-fastly-becoming-fitness-arena.

Now, this scene crept upon me slowly. May and June are wildly busy for me with youth mission trips, so I have been out of town a lot in the past month. Before I left, the bikes appeared in our apartment. These bikes were going to be on the porch before I got back from my first trip, or so I was told. But alas, upon my return, not only were there two bikes, but that is when the golf clubs appeared. No big deal, I'm going out of town again in three days, I thought. So I left for the next trip, and when I returned - the small apartment living room/fitness club had been born.

I love that my husband is athletic. I love that no matter what sport he picks up, he dominates. Seriously, I pray that our children get his athletic ability (and my radiant beauty and supreme intelligence of course).

We recently started the process of beginning to look at starting to think about maybe possibly buying a home. It's a ways in the future, but we're starting to look and see what we like, what we don't like, what we need, etc. Must have on the list: plenty of storage. I can't wait until we can live in a place where all of our stuff, including his sports equipment, can live happily ever after in its very own space (maybe even a garage, dream big!). Until then, he has successfully removed everything from the living room, and we can't believe how spacious it now feels. Like a brand new place. The question remains... where in the world did he hide it all? Still a mystery to me, but at least the living room is clear :)

Long time, no blog!

Please accept my most sincere apologies for falling of the blog wagon... I'm pretty sure that starting a fabulous blog and then not writing a on it for five months is the cardinal sin of the blog world... so please, forgive me.

Newlywed life has continued for us to prove to be the roller coaster we were foretold it would be. Lots of adjustment, lots of growing up, lots of need for grace, and lots of laughs.

Here are the top ten things you missed in the busyness of these last few (blogless, my apologies again) months...

1. We joined an eight week couple's Bible study for newlyweds, and it was awesome. It was so good for our marriage to be in the Word together and to make some new friends who can relate to where we are in life. Good times!

2. My mom underwent 6 weeks of radiation with chemotherapy. She is a champion and kicked that cancer where the sun don't shine (quite literally...). After a scan this week, her doctor told her that the cancer is gone and everything is back to normal. Praise God!

3. Jonnie got a new job. It is a more challenging job and a better fit to his outgoing personality, and it is just fifteen minutes down the road from where we live - so it was a great change! Not to mention that his first day on the job was at a conference in Las Vegas... not too shabby! So, he's been learning how to navigate his new world of sales these past couple of months and is doing a great job!

4. I got a "promotion" as well. My job currently consists primarily of directing a program for 5th and 6th grade kids, and beginning in the fall I will be venturing into Junior High world as the new Middle School Director. After a year of working at the church, I still love love love love my job. Couldn't design a more dream job for me than this!

5. I've gotten pretty good at this cooking biz, I'm just sayin. I still burn baked goods... but I swear it's my oven.

6. We had a minor emergency that resulted in a trip to Urgent Care and a couple stitches for Jonnie. We arrived at church one Sunday morning, and upon exiting the truck, Jonnie shut (and locked!) the car door on his hand. Ouch!

7. I went on a mission trip to Honduras with juniors and seniors in high school over Spring Break. Despite my prissy, high maintenance personality, I actually adored the trip and look forward to going back. Only problem... scorpions. A couple of our team members got scorped, forcing me to sleep with one eye open and my hand gripped to the flashlight all night... but besides that, it was awesome.

8. We joined a gym. And we're pretty much in love with it. He's hooked on racquetball and the fact that there is a hot tub in the locker room with a flat screen TV playing non-stop ESPN. I, on the other hand, am newly obsessed with Zumba workout classes. It's an hour of straight up clubbin' dancing that doubles as a cardio workout. Now that's my kind of exercise!

9. I've been freakishly sick a lot lately. Mostly colds (at least two each month), but the latest joy was a vicious stomach bug. Jonnie stayed home from work to take care of me. You know you have a good husband when he puts his conference call on mute so he can sit and rub your back while you hug the toilet. Now that's support.

10. We're going to look at our first house tomorrow. It was built in 1860 and it's tiny and we can't move any time in the near future... but we are beginning to dream. :)

So there's the high speed catch up. I fully intend on keeping up to date from now on... this life's too crazy not to document!