Yup, that’s what I did. Well, technically 14 months and three days if you’re really counting. And yup, this really is a post about breastfeeding, so feel free to skip it (you know, if you’re my brother for example). I never thought I’d be writing about it. But I actually get a lot of questions on the subject. And since I blather on about other random things (like cloth diapering) and this blog is really just a way for us to remember things that we might otherwise forget (like paint colors and vacation happenings), I figure that something I did for so long (around 425 days straight) deserved a post about the range of emotions
Archives for July 2011
Finding Children’s Chairs At A Yard Sale
This weekend we got these vintage kids chairs (they’re just 2 feet tall) for $7.50 each at a local yard sale. They were marked as $10 a pop but we bartered using the old “how about two for $15?” method. Sold! We knew they looked like oldies (we loved the solid construction, steel legs, clean lines) and were pleased when we tipped them both over and saw the word “Brunswick” engraved on the bottom. Not that we knew what it meant, but we thought google might. A little bit of searching turned up this description here: This original vintage 1950’s children’s chair, with its mid-century danish-modern design is actually made by Brunswick – the same
Fab Freebie: More Than Words
***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below (along with some sweet discounts)!*** Before we announce our winners, let’s first get to two consolation prizes: discounts! Get 15% off your WordGarden order with code YoungHouseLove15 and get 15% off of your Everywhere We Look order with code YHL15. As for our two winners, random.org has selected… Leah (who “definitely” loves typographic art) and Rebecca A. (who loves books and typographic art – which seemed to be a trend). Congrats ladies! This week’s pair of prizes (for a pair of winners, no less) come from two Etsy sellers who have a way with words. Namely, they turn the written word into stylish
How To Add Built-In Shelves Next To A Washer & Dryer
Laundry room update? Don’t mind if I do. To jog your memory, so far we’ve replaced the washer/dryer, taken down window shutters & cluttered shelves along with frosting the door (all here), filled some ceiling cracks, and painted the room the same color (Benjamin Moore’s Sesame) as the kitchen. And voila, we’re all up to speed. Well, if you really want to be up to speed, now it looks like this: But let’s back up so I can blather on about how those shelves came to be. Even during our initial walk-through of this house we decided to maximize that sliver of space with some built-ins to add a lot more function. Did we mention the
A Weird Milestone
We passed a weird milestone on Wednesday. On the surface, it just marked seven months of living in this shouldn’t-call-it-new-anymore house. Then we realized it also marked the point at which Clara has spent more of her life living here than at our first home. We always knew our first house would just be a foggy blip on Clara’s memory radar, but passing this milestone feels like it’s actually happening. The house that we spent renovating/loving for over 4.5 years meant so much to me and Sherry – it wasn’t just our first home, it was our wedding venue, our DIY testing grounds, our inspiration to start this blog, and where we took our baby
How To Spray Paint A Metal Outdoor Patio Set
Waste not, want not. That was my attitude when it came to using up the rest of the oil-rubbed bronze spray paint from this project that I had leftover. So I turned my attention to the mismatched patio furniture that we inherited from the previous owners (seen here in an old photo with my dearly departed ceramic dog, sniffle). Sure, I like painting things white (and white ceramic animals, and white chocolate among other snow-colored objects) but sometimes white things outside = grungy. As this shot demonstrates, any time it rained little dirt and leaves splashed into the crevices of the table and looked all grubby. Parts of it were peeling too: And you should
How To Use Polymeric Sand To Block Weeds In Our Paver Patio
Let’s talk about crack sand. You know we love to save a buck wherever we can. Sometimes to a fault. And as any scrimper knows, sometimes it can bite you in the a-dollar-sign-dollar-sign (a$$). Though I’m not sure we ever expected that we’d wish we had splurged on “the fancy sand”…but that was the case after living with our finished patio for a few weeks. If you recall, we used some leftover paver sand to fill the cracks between the stones instead of spending the $95 that the stoneyard would’ve charged for a delivery of the polymeric stuff (which has some cement-like qualities to help keep it in place and block weeds a little better).
How To Paint Your Fuse Box So It Blends In
Our freshly painted laundry room is so bright and happy that makes me want to sing and dance like a crazy person. First I repainted all the trim (with Olympic No-VOC semi-gloss off-the-shelf white) and painted the annoying brown quarter round near the baseboards, so it blended in with the white trim. I applied three thin coats of the same Olympic No-VOC paint (no primer because I used the same method with success in the living room five months back and I’m lazy). Then when it came to the wall color, we decided to use the leftover paint that we used in the adjoining kitchen (remember when we painted that beastly paneling here?). Why that
Celebrating Our Fourth Anniversary
See what I did there? If our 4th wedding anniversary were a movie sequel I’m sure that’s how the title would be treated on the movie posters (and yes, it would be dubbed a blatant rip off of Scream 4). Anyways, as is the tradition, we’re dropping in with our little rundown about how we celebrated four years of marriage last Thursday (see our three year anniversary post here and our two & one year anniversary post here). This year it kicked off, as most days do, with breakfast. I made this particular breakfast (Strawberry-Orange Stuffed French Toast with Raspberry Butter) as an homage to our so-good-we-took-my-picture-with-it (here) favorite meal during our Alaskan honeymoon. Of
Spray Painting Chair Legs Oil Rubbed Bronze
Spray paint. Again. Who’s surprised? I’m nothing if not completely predictable when it comes to spraying my troubles away. I mentioned wanting to ORB (that’s “oil-rubbed-bronze” for those not privy to ridiculous decorating abbreviations) the legs of this old chair in our living room for a while. They’re clashy and red in real life… … as opposed to the nice dark ORB legs that we addded to Karl The Sectional: They also didn’t exactly “groove” with the gray-washed beams overhead and the deeper more brown-based wood tones in the console table that we made for behind the sofa (seen fully accessorized here). We plan to refinish the floors someday too – probably in the same
Fab Freebie: Matchmaker, Matchmaker
***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Our winner, thanks to the willy nilly matchmaking skills of random.org, is… Sharon (who’s hoping to be matched up with a piece of art to finish off a master bedroom renovation). Congrats! Art.com is full of affordable stuff to help solve Naked Wall Syndrome (like these horse prints that we recently purchased) so we’re psyched that they’re giving away an $250 gift card to one of you lucky folks this week. They’ve launched a new tool called Match My Image that promises to come in handy next time you’re hunting for the perfect piece. You just upload an image – maybe of a
How To Fill A Wall Crack So It Doesn’t Come Back
Crack is still whack. I couldn’t resist breaking out that Whitney Houston inspired one-liner, even though we already used it here. Why? Because this is a serious hard-hitting blog about real life issues. Just kidding. This time my fifth grade crack joke is in reference to a giant crack that was running across the side of the ceiling in the laundry room. Here’s the craggy before: And the much less craggy after: We had them check that beast of a crack out during inspection and learned it’s nothing like foundation issues (just normal house settling). Whew. And it was nothing that a little paintable white caulk couldn’t fix. Double whew. Tip: always make sure it’s