Spare Bedroom

When we moved into our new house, it was bigger than we needed but figured it would come in handy.  With combining our two apartments, this instantly gave us a fully furnished guest bedroom.  In our guest bedroom, we have a double bed.  This is great when we had friends over but for our parents, they weren't going to sleep in a double bed together.  This meant one parent got the bed and the other got the aero bed.  If we were tight on space, this would have been fine but we had a perfectly good bedroom sitting empty. 

After struggling with what I wanted to do, I settled on wanting a twin bed with a trundle.  This would provide us the most flexibility without taking up a ton space.  Here's the room as it is now.  I HATE the color it's way to dark and makes the room feel small.  I'm reaching out for ideas on what to do with the room.

Any thoughts?  Paint colors? Bed spread? Layout?


I'm hoping to update this room this fall!

Pantry Challenge: Completed!

Live has been crazy the past few weeks and I really haven't had time to post.  I'm getting back into it now.  We've gone on vacation, I've traveled for work, and Tony has officially moved to first shift!

We completed our pantry challenge at the end of July.  It worked out really well!  For the month of July, we only spent $38 on groceries.  Here's the final comparison!

Freezer

Fridge

Cabinets

Thanks for stopping by!

Garage Makeover

When we moved in, the garage was a holding place for a long time.  A couple of weeks ago, my parents came to visit and we built the workbench.  In anticipation for the project, I took an hour and moved stuff around or put it away.  There was a huge improvement.  Sweeping out the floor and cleaning up the cobwebs also helped tremendously.

After we built the workbench, we moved other stuff around and swept up.  The garage is now so neat and organized that it's one of my favorite places to be.

Thanks for stopping by!

Pantry Challenge: Update - Week 3

Tuesday was the completion of week two of our pantry challenge.  It is going pretty well!  Last week, we ran out of milk and eggs (and dryer sheets and hair gel).  I had to make a grocery store run to grab those few items. 

In the past two weeks, Tony and I have cleared out our crackers, tuna, yogurt, ground beef, lean pockets, juice and pop.  We ran out of bread so I made wheat bread from some flour we bought when we went to Tennessee.  Last Friday, we had Chicken Continental for dinner.  My mom made it a while ago and it's been in our freezer since.  Since Tony's parents came into town this past weekend, we picked up a few items (milk, cheese, and crackers) at the store before they came in.  We still kept it pretty minimal.

Here's where we are:

Freezer

Fridge

Cabinet #1

Cabinet #2

Cabinet #3

I think that we'll last until Friday but after that, I think we may need to end this and make a run to the store.  It's getting pretty sparse!

Stay tuned for the final outcome!

Pantry Challenge: Update - Week 1

Today marks one week of the pantry challenge.  The weekdays went well but the holiday weekend not so much.  While we were home, we were good.  I made spaghetti with meat sauce a couple times and had sandwiches, yogurt and oatmeal.  With us traveling 5 1/2 hours Friday, this led to lunch in the car (~$15).  Saturday night, we went out to dinner with friends which added to our food bill for the month (~$20 thanks to having a gift card).  Then traveling home on Sunday, things fell apart.  We stopped at the Italian bakery where our wedding cake was from and picked up way to many sweets (cannolis, wedding cake, cookies) (~$18) and then we stopped for dinner (~$15). 

This week should be better since we'll be home all week and Tony works next weekend.  This week, I plan to do something with the frozen ham in the freezer and finish up the ground beef that I cooked and re-froze last week.

Here's where we are now:

Freezer

Fridge

Cabinet #1

Cabinet #2

Cabinet #3 

We'll see how long we can hold out...

DIY Workbench

This past weekend was filled with a quick and easy project that made all the difference in the world.  My parents came to visit and my dad helped us build a workbench.  I wanted something that had a table top, a bottom shelf, a peg backboard, and an upper shelf.  My dad had built a workbench years ago when they moved into their current house.  We were going to build something similar. 

When he built his, he used RTC2Z Rigid Tie Connectors.  We used the same ones and they made the whole thing so easy!!

We also used plans from DIY Done Right as the starting point.  We did modify them to create a 6' x 2' x 6' work bench rather than the 4' x 2' x 5' one that the plans had.  We lifted the height of the table top as well since Tony and I are taller. 

Here's what we did.

Step 1: Determine the size of the workbench and the materials required.

As I mentioned, we modified the design to give us a larger workbench.  See our new plans below.

Here's what we needed for our larger workbench:

Tools Required:

• Saw
• Screw gun
• #2 Phillips head bit
• Tape measure
• Clamps
• Framing square

Materials Required:

• 2" x 4" x 8' lumber - 6 pcs 8 pcs
• 24" x 48" - ⅝" plywood sheet 48" x 96" - 23/32" plywood sheet
• 24" x 48" 48" x 96" - ¼" pegboard sheet
• (8) Rigid Tie RTC2Z Connectors
• (1 box) Strong-Drive® SD #8 x 1¼" Screws - 100 ct
• (20) (36) #6 x 1¼" flat-head screws
• (4) #6 x 2½" flat-head screws

You can also buy a workbench kit from Amazon here or here.

Step 2: Purchase Materials.

The Rigid Tie connectors and SD Screws came from Home Depot.  I had gotten them earlier in the week.  Saturday morning we went to Lowe's and got the lumber, plywood, and pegboard.  The nice thing about Lowe's, or any of the big hardware stores is that they will rip the large sheets for you.  We had them cut the plywood and pegboard down for us.  If you have this option, take it!  The pieces are perfectly square and it saves a ton of time!  This gave us:

• (2) 2' x 6' - 23/32" plywood sheets + scrap
• (1) 3' x 6' - 1/4" pegboard sheet + scrap

Step 3: Cut to length


We had to cut our 2x4's to length.  We followed the modifications that we made in Step 1.

We needed:

• 1 - 72" piece for the top rail
• 2 - 70" pieces for the rear corner posts
• 4 - 69" pieces for the rails
• 2 - 38" pieces for the front corner posts
• 4 - 17" pieces for the end rails

Step 4: Assemble end pieces.

Make sure you make opposites ends.  You don't want two of the same ends.

Step 5: Install rails.

Step 6: Attach top rail using 2-1/2" screws.

Step 7: Corner out plywood and install.

Step 8: Attach pegboard

Step 9: Organize!

The larger size gave up plenty of room for our small and large tools.

The actual assembly of the workbench took us about 1-1/2 hours.  Not bad at all!

Enjoy!

July Pantry Challenge: Day 1

I have seen Pantry Challenges all over social media.  Tony and I decided to give it a try.  From January - June, our average spending on food is $650 per month.  This includes eating out, lunches, and groceries. 

The (30-Day, New Mom, The Great) pantry challenges all have different ground rules.  If you read through them, they talk about well first you have to re-organize, then plan your meals, and sometimes fill in the gaps.  This fill in the gaps is the thing that get's me the most.  If you are trying to not spend money and empty your pantry, then why do you fill in the gaps?  I wanted to do something more passive.  With Tony and I working opposite hours, it's hard to plan big meals.  Our pantry challenge would make do with what we have.  It'll force us to clean stuff out but also get creative with what we make.

Here's the ground rules that we agreed upon:

1. The pantry challenge would last as long as possible without running out of food.
2. When Tony's parents come to visit, we will take a 3-day pause.  During this time, we will only buy what we need for those meals.
3. Okay to buy only if/when we run out and it is needed - milk, eggs, yogurt, bread (if Jen's homemade bread doesn't come out), meat
4. Try to cut back on eating lunch at work and eating out (plan ahead)

Fortunately for us, we don't have a large pantry so we are limited to our fridge and freezer and three small cabinets.  I'll be surprised if we make it past week 3.

I did a quick survey of what we had where and did a quick date check.  This whole process only took me about 15 minutes.  The biggest concern I have is with our meat supply.  We'll see how things go.

Freezer

Fridge

Cabinet #1

Cabinet #2

Cabinet #3

With today being day 1, here's where I started:

Breakfast - yogurt and iced coffee
Lunch - yogurt and oatmeal
Dinner - pasta (cabinet #1) with meat sauce (freezer ground beef & pasta sauce)

Since I cooked a pound of ground beef, I didn't mix it all with pasta sauce.  I only used a what I needed for dinner.  This allows me to have ground beef for the next few meals.

I think Tony's probably looked like this:

Breakfast/Lunch - yogurt with granola
Dinner - Sandwich (bread, turkey, ham, cheese) and yogurt

Stay tuned for updates on our pantry challenge!

Pin·cesses

We've all heard about pinstrosities (http://pinstrosity.blogspot.com/). A pin·stros·i·ty is 1. a pin of great and often frightening size, force, or complexity or 2. A real life result of a pin. 
What happens if a pin is a success? I call this a pin·cess. 

Here are the original pins along with their successful completions. 

Charger Clip  
In the original pin, they used a binder clip.  I used a clear Command clip so it is less noticeable.

Dish Soap Dispenser 
I love how this one turned out.

Styling Tool Holder 
A metal file folder plus a few command clips keep my hair tools contained.  Tony greatly appreciates this pin·cesses.

Ticket Shadow Box 
Mine is not as elaborate as the original pin but I still love it and it looks great on a shelf in our living room.  It has tickets from all of our Penn State games along with old movie tickets and even my ticket to Taipei 101.

Here are some pins that I have tried and they really work! I don't have my own pictures of their pin·cesses. 

Homemade Goo Gone

Lint and a toilet paper roll as a fire starter 

Sheets in a linen closet 
Folding all sheets and placing them inside one of the pillow cases keeps everything nice and tidy in the linen closet.

Wood spoon to stop water from boiling over 

What pins have you tried that work??

Password Tracker - Download!

When Tony and I bought a house and combined finances, I started to think about what would happen if something happened to either one of us. What would happen if I was in an accident and he needed to get into my medical files online or he had to pay a bill that I always took care of? Would he know if we had an online account? Would he know the password? What if something happened to him and I had to take care of his car payment? Where do I go online... What is his log in information... His password... I had no clue. 

I decided to create a Password Tracker Binder. This binder allows us to keep track of all of our passwords from my Amazon log-in to our wedding registries to our online account with the Water Board. The sheets have a place for the website, username, password, the e-mail linked to it, and any notes.  I have alphabet dividers in the binder to keep it organized by the website.  

Password Tracker Sheet

Download: Password Tracker

I do recommend keeping this in a very safe place! There's a lot of sensitive information stored in this little binder. 

This is great for the two of us but this could also come in handy for loved ones. I know that if something ever happened to my parents, I wouldn't know about all of their accounts. A Password Tracker Binder or Accounts Binder would be a good place to start even if it were a year or two outdated. 

Enjoy!