AUGUST SUPERLATIVES
It’s that time again! When we take a moment to look back on all that we’ve done in the past month at a glance (and gather all the links in one handy place for ya). and of course we tossed in some never-before-seen stuff, just because we’re over-sharers. This month felt especially busy for us, with everything from painting, organizing, building, rearranging, crafting, art-making, upholstering, light-fixture-ing, coding, ORBing (yes, it’s a category of its own), and breaking stuff. So let’s take a walk down memory lane, with yearbook-esque superlatives, because we’re strange birds.
Most Illuminating: Clipping 320 clothespins in place to create our laundry room’s clothespin chandelier for our first ever Pinterest Challenge. Oh and you can scroll down to the bottom of the post to see over 500 (wowza!) other Pinterest challenge projects submitted by you guys. So much good stuff. Gah.
Most Spoiled: Potato-stamping a fun little pattern inside Clara’s closet turned reading nook. Oh to be one again…
Our favorite Videos
Most likely To Win Mariah Carey’s Approval: This free butterfly art that I made out of a flier that I picked up on our trip to natural Bridge, VA.
Most likely To Win Carrie Bradshaw’s Approval: adding shoe storage to our laundry room, courtesy of some Ikea recycling bins. Although Ms. Bradshaw would need about a hundred of them for all of her Manolos.
So Fresh & So Clean, Clean: finishing our laundry room makeover. Woo hoo – one room down!
Most likely To Be committed For A pillow Addiction: Me, as evidenced by these new striped pillows that I scored for $9 each at HomeGoods. and if making free art out of paint chips counts as treatment, then I’m on the road to recovery.
Clumsiest: John, who seems determined to break things lately, including this light fixture cover that fell while swapping out the fixture in our hallway.
Most Hard-Working: Our new Effecktiv storage unit from Ikea, which has the fun job of housing all of our files, printer, and miscellaneous office goodies. Oh the excitement.
Most Debonair: dressing up said Effektiv unit with some black glass handles from hobby Lobby Schlobby Bobby.
ORB of the Month: giving our mailbox the oil-rubbed bronze treatment, along with completing a few other outdoor maintenance projects (which helped our yard look not quiiite as neglected – it’s still pretty bad though).
ORB of the Month (Runner Up): several door handles, including the hardware on our front door, got a nice little face-lift.
Most Cheerful: giving our front door the yellow paint treatment. It’s like our house is smiling at us whenever we come home.
Most likely To stockpile Swedish Things: Us, after our first trip to Ikea since John’s parents moved out of the area. suddenly a trip there seems much more precious.
Worst Dressed: A video tour of our not-so-clean house (as well as some random old photos of us).
Most likely To get Worms: creating a compost bin in the backyard using leftover shipping pallets. We’ve got some pretty sweet dirt going on.
Most likely To Rock: The rocking chair that I finally painted and reupholstered (after it sat around unfinished for almost a year).
Most pictures In A single Post: A visual comparison of our new house vs. our old house, which involved so many photos that it took down the site down for a good hour (ca-rashhh). Lesson learned.
Best “Rome Wasn’t built In A Day” Reminder: A look back at our first house, 8 months in, and how little we had accomplished in that time. Ah, memories.
Best Moves: switching up Clara’s furniture arrangement to help solve a crib-in-front-of-vent situation.
Worst Moves: Rearranging the office furniture in preparation for its makeover, which [turned out to be] a not so good solution. At least now we’re on the right track.
The “Thrill Of The Hunt” Award: searching high and low for the perfect cabinets to turn into a built-in office desk. With a dog and a baby in our shopping cart.
The “Ripley’s Petersik’s believe It Or Not!” Award: scoring six whole cabinets for six measly dollars at the habitat for Humanity restore in Alexandria, VA (well, they were technically $6.30 with tax).
Most Destined For Greatness: Our office cabinets, which we sanded and primed to prep them for glossy white paint. So excited to get these babies done. We’ll share pics early next week if all goes well! and you can catch a sneak peek of me painting them over on young house Life.
Most likely To Be From new Jersey: Me, as demonstrated by my magnetic attraction to glittery pine-cones, which accompanied some simple leaf-y decorations that I made for my cousin Megan’s bridal shower. Oh yeah and I sorted M&Ms by color like a wackadoo.
Biggest Jerk: Hurricane Irene, who tore up our neighborhood. (Update: the tree was finally removed from our neighbor’s roof yesterday and they’re in good spirits but the house still needs a lot of repair. thanks for keeping them in your thoughts)
Most Overdue: Redesigning our blog themefor the first time in over three years.
Here are a few not-it initial designs that we tried on and scrapped. So glad we went with the gray heart background and simplified the too-busy-header (too much change, too left-heavy with that pile of pics, and the ceramic frog felt less “iconic” than my beloved ceramic rhino):
Cutest Couple: Clara and her cousin John snuggled up post Hurricane Irene.
So there you have it. August at a glance. and yes, this was just as much fun as last months inaugural superlatives post. Dorks for life.
What have you guys been up to this month? have you ever made a list of accomplishments to look back on? It’s so nice to take a break from adding things to our to-do list to look back on what we’ve already done. just for a minute. true to form we were all over the place (nearly every room of our house got in on the fun). Let’s call it spreading the love (as opposed to lacking focus and bouncing off the walls), shall we?
Psst- You can check out July’s superlatives here.
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