So long, caffeine.

I don't know if you know this or not, but I'm addicted to coke. Coca-cola, that is, not cocaine. I love the taste of coke. I love the sound it makes when you open a coke can. I love the smell of the fizz when you pour it in a glass. I love the tingly bubbles on my tongue. I love it from a can, from a bottle, from a glass. To me, coke is so refreshing. It quenches my thirst. This post is really making me want a coke.

But I can't have one. I have not had any caffeine (to drink) since last Wednesday. It's been 5 days since my last caffeinated beverage. Five looooooong days. I actually have a headache right now from my lack of caffeine. Two years ago I gave up drinking sodas for Lent. That was tough, but at least I knew it was only temporary. I could count down the days until I could pop open a can. This time, though, there is no end in sight.

Why?

I have had a lot of anxiety lately. I find myself getting worked up all the time. And last week I had my first full-blown panic attack. I thought I'd had one before, but this one definitely took the cake. I felt like I might die, and it was terrifying. It is something I hope I never experience again.  Because I know there is no stressful event that caused the attack, I started looking at other causes. Turns out, caffeine is a big trigger for panic attacks.

As soon as I learned that, this sign went up on the fridge.

I know quitting cold-turkey is a little extreme, but I feel like weaning myself would be even harder. It's all or none, ya know?

While the absence of the caffeine itself has most definitely been difficult, another hard part of this is trying to find something else to drink that feels refreshing to me.  I know there are plenty of caffeine free sodas, and I'll still drink those. But I feel like I need to find something that doesn't remind me of my beloved coke. I have never been a fan of water. In fact, I'm not sure I could make myself drink the required 8 glasses in one day if I tried. But, that said, I hope that I can eventually get to the point where drinking a glass of water doesn't sound so awful.

Since I'm not to the water-drinking stage yet, Doc was sweet enough to scour the grocery store for several different non-caffeinated, non-carbonated, flavored beverages. Our fridge now has everything from vitamin water to gatorade to sparkling juice.

Surely one of them has to taste as good as coke, right???

I really don't know how long I'll be able to make it without the caffeine. If anything, I can give it up for Lent since that starts this week and then see how I'm feeling when Easter gets here. Maybe by then I'll be addicted to water. Doubt it, but maybe.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Oh, what a good Valentine's weekend it has been! Yesterday, Doc got out early to run some errands and brought home some treats from here:

Just look at all the goodness!

Six different flavors - chocolate, wedding cake, birthday cake, chocolate banana bread, bailey's, brown crisp - all topped with a tall mound of icing! Mmmmm!

Don't worry, we didn't eat them all ourselves. We took them to my parents' house to share. First we all split the wedding cake one. It got gobbled up so quickly I only got one picture!

Next up was the chocolate one. The icing was so delicious, I felt like I was in heaven.

We had to stop there for fear of sugar overload. When Doc and I got home last night, he surprised me with a fancy dinner. I had no idea he had this up his sleeve! He had the bar in our kitchen set for two:

And the meal got started off with delicious crab-tinis:

We discovered this appetizer one night at Ruth's Chris and now we have to order it every time we go. Doc took at stab at making it himself and he did a great job. He bought lump crab meat, tossed it in a vinaigrette, and squeezed in some citrus fruit juices. Deeeee-lish.

For the main course, we had pan-seared and then oven baked filets that were topped with heart-shaped pads of flavored butter. On the side was rice and roasted asparagus. It was all so, so yummy. He really out-did himself.

Today was pretty uneventful, but still very good. We got up early and went for a walk around the neighborhood. Then we headed to church and had lunch at my parents' house afterwards. Dessert was, of course, another round of cupcakes. This time we had the bailey's (awesome!) and the chocolate banana nut.

I'm sad to say that Valentine's day is almost over now. It really has just been so perfect. I love days that I get to spend every minute with Doc, even if we don't do anything at all. Right now, we're snuggled up on the couch watching The Holiday and its starting to snow outside. Maybe we'll get a snow day tomorrow and drag this goodness out one more day! Hey, a girl can hope, right?

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...

As Doc and I were laying in bed last night, he commented that he did not feel prepared for the coming work week. I asked what part he didn't feel prepared for - the next morning in the office or later in the week when he would be traveling. His response was that he just felt like the weekend flew by and he hadn't had time to think about what was in store for this week.

"I don't even know what the weather's supposed to be like tomorrow."

Fast forward to this morning and it turns out that was the understatement of the year. I don't even think the weathermen were prepared for this morning's weather! This is what I saw when I looked out our upstairs window.

"What the...."

Walked downstairs to get a closer look:

That's a lot of unexpected snow! Doc got out early and headed in to work. It took him over an hour to get there. I called my work hotline and at first we were scheduled to open at 10, but now we are officially closed for the day.

SNOW DAY!!!

Unfortunately all of the projects I'd like to work on today are at my parents' house. So I guess I'll have to hold down the couch and watch TV all day. I can think of worse ways to spend a day...

And I'll be able to count on Minnie to keep me company. She doesn't like going out in the snow.

Hope the rest of you are enjoying a snow day too!

Old Mantle, New Look

Well, with the Master Bedroom Re-do done, it was time to move on to the next project.   This one had been sitting in the shop for a month (or two?) while I pondered what exactly I could do to it.   You see, this project was a really old mantle that my friend bought and asked if I could work some magic on.  But it wasn't just any old mantle. Oh no, this mantle was covered in paint. Lots of paint. Lead paint. And yellow glaze. And it had rotted wood. And termite damage. And had possibly caught on fire at some point. So, yeah. I pondered. Plan A was a good one. I was going to soak that bad boy in the strongest stripper I could find, let it sit, and then just easily scrape all the paint chips away. Except no, that's not exactly what happened. I did soak it in the strongest stripper I could find, and I did let it sit for a while. But then guess what happened? Um, nothing. Nothing happened at all. Not even a little bubble for me to just scrape away. By the time I wiped all the stripper off, you couldn't even tell anything had happened to it. It was still covered in paint. Lots of paint. Lead paint. And yellow glaze.

Sigh.

On to Plan B! This is going to be great! I will put the roughest, toughest sand paper on my mouse sander and I will just sand that paint right off! I will have it down to its bare bones in no time! Except no, that's not what happened. Let me tell you something - whoever put that yellow glaze on the mantle was serious about glaze. Seriously. That stuff was on for life.

At this point, I had to come to terms with the fact that I was not going to be getting this mantle down to its bare wood. I decided Plan C would be to make it look as best as I could with all of the paint staying on. I continued on with the sanding from Plan B and tried to get it sanded as smooth as possible. I sanded for seven (seven!) hours in one day and decided that was a smooth as we were getting. I tore off a couple of pieces of rotted wood and used Bondo to fill in the termite damage. After washing off all the dust and caulking any cracks, it was finally ready to be painted. Here's a couple pictures from this point.  (Sorry, bad quality...iPhone pics.)

I was so glad to be done with all the prep work and ready to paint. Normally, I'm lazy and skip the primer step. But, because I did not want any of that yellow glaze making an appearance once the mantle was white, I decided I better put on some primer.

Well, hmph. Now I'm confused. I thought that after sanding on this thing for seven (seven!) hours that it would surely look all nice and smooth and pretty once it was painted a solid color. Right? Wrong. The white primer did nothing but highlight all of the little chips and scratches and glaze drippings that I had worked so hard to try to sand smooth. After a quick email to my friend we agreed that a distressed look was going to be best. Thinking ahead, I decided it would look better if I started with a brown coat, painted white on top of it, and then sanded the white off as opposed to continuing with the white and then adding brown glaze to the top. I knew my friend wanted the mantle to still look white and that sometimes glazing brown over white can make the white look dingy. Plus, this thing had most definitely already met its quota in glaze.

Bring on the brown paint!

I know what you're thinking and yes, you're right. The flaws are much less noticeable with it painted brown. But remember, my friend wanted a white mantle, not a brown one. So, bring on the white paint!

The picture above is after only one coat of white. I had to do two, obviously, but I forgot to take a picture after the second coat. Use your imagination.

With the mantle solid white, it was time to distress it. Which means...more sanding! This time I kept the electric sander in its case. The goal was to sand through the two layers of white to show some of the brown, but NOT go through the brown and expose the yellow glaze. I was afraid the electric (mouse) sander would sand off too much, too fast and I did not want to have to paint this thing again. The white paint that I used is the same that was used on the trim at my friend's house. It had a little bit of a shine to it, but as I sanded, I sanded off some of the shine. Because of this, I painted on a thin thin thin coat of polyurethane after I was done sanding. I was very careful to wipe up any drips or puddles because I didn't want it to make the white look yellow.

Here's how it all turned out:

I really hope my friend likes it. She is scheduled to come pick it up this weekend so I guess I'll find out then. I can't wait to see how it looks in her house too. As soon as they get it secured to the wall and I make it over there to see it, I'll post a picture!

Before and After :: Bedroom Reveal

I love it when friends ask me for decorating advice, and I love it even more when they let me spend their money. I just finished doing a master bedroom re-design for a friend and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I have to say, one of the hardest parts for me is starting to put it all together. I do all of my shopping and designing ahead of time and then try to have one day where I take down their old stuff and redecorate. I get so nervous that this image I've had in my head isn't going to turn out looking good when we put it all together. Luckily, this was not the case here. For this room, the homeowner had a great area rug that she had inherited from her grandmother that we definitely wanted to keep. It had great colors in it, but for the most part was dark. Her furniture is also all dark and at the time, her bedding was too. We decided we wanted to find something to lighten things up a bit.

After lots of online shopping, this is the bedding we decided on.

Pretty, no? It's Marimekko Tamara Linen bedding from Crate and Barrel, and while it's very soft and pretty, it's also a little pricey.  We were working with a small budget so the homeowner only purchased the duvet cover, two shams, and two matching hand towels for the bathroom.

Since the duvet cover was going to be a pretty neutral palette, we needed to find ways to bring in some pops of color. After laying the shams out with the rug, this is the color scheme we decided on.

Not sure how these show up on your computer, but it's a coral-ish color (more on the orange side than the pink side), a light blue (with a hint of mint green mixed in), and then a light brown and white that match the colors in the duvet.

So, with that decided, my mom and I headed to the fabric store! We got GREAT deals on fabric in all 4 colors. We bought enough to make curtains (2 windows in the room), a bed skirt, and some additional shams and throw pillows.  My mom is an awesome seamstress and made all of these for me. (Thanks, Mom!)

How 'bout some before pictures of the room?

Oh, but first I should note that the room had already been painted at this point. We went with the light brown color for the walls and a fresh coat of white on all the doors and trim. The homeowner did not re-hang her pictures so that's why the walls are naked.

(View from the doorway.)

I had decided I wanted a shelf to hang above the bed and since I couldn't find one long enough in any stores, I just made one. I'm glad I did because it ended up being one of my favorite things I've made. I just love the color of it. I also painted some frames to go on the shelf and since we didn't have any pictures to put in them, my mom and I got creative and filled the frames with different designs from fabric scraps.

Here's Doc and my dad hanging the shelf.

Ok, are you ready to see how it all came together? Here is the completed shelf and the new bedding.

And a view from the door.

Didn't my mom do an awesome job with all the sewing? I think the pops of color in the curtains and pillows really add a lot, and I love that the clean lines of the bed skirt break up the patterns in the duvet and the rug.

Here's a view of the other corner of the room. Ignore the green chair - it has been removed and a new chair (that matches) will eventually go there. And we have since added a picture frame to that wall that is painted to match the shelf.

On the opposite wall are two canvases that I painted. That table has been re-accessorized now; we ran out of things that day.

And the wall art I made for the bathroom:

And that's it. The homeowner purchased all the bedding and had the room painted. My expenses ended up being about $225 and included wood, paint, 2 canvases, candles, picture frames, curtain rods and rings, vases, fabric, and a few miscellaneous items.

So, what do you think? Is it an improvement from the before pictures?