check please!!

papa smurf has been out of town for 3 weeks.  3 weeks!  there was a total dryspell in the house. 

get your mind out of the gutter. 

actually there was that dryspell too but I digress.  what i am referring to, however, is 3 solid weeks of nothing going on at home.  no hammering, drilling, sanding, screwing, painting....nothing.  the house was quiet as a church mouse.  boring too.

then papa bear returned home.  the drywall was hung!  i mean totally hung.  every last bit of it was screwed down.  we're done for now.  there is nothing more for us to do but outsource the taping at this point.  the estimates will roll in this week....ready, set, go!

a rug was bought too.  there is a new rug now adorning the living room to keep our tootsies toasty. 

then sears arrived.  they cleaned the bejeezus out of our ducts.  we were told not to waste the money having the heating ducts cleaned and that it was only a scam but one time we lost our cat in the vent.....if you could only see what we saw.  your eyes would burn.  so we wasted the $200 but now we turn the heat on.  yippee!

last but not least, we replaced our bed this weekend.  when we moved in, we were unable to fit the boxspring to our mattress upstairs.  we made a makeshift bed with two heavy duty pieces of wood on the bed frame supporting our delectable mattress.   honestly, temporary meant 3 weeks but we stretched it into 6 months.  we went to ikea and picked up a hemnes frame that will support the mattress without any bumps in the night.  i already took a nap today :)

we're on a roll right now.  obviously, my little temper tantrum incited some house work. i'll remember that for next time. 

forever after....

people keep telling me that this is not forever.  i think i am starting to lose faith.  it feels like forever.  it's only been 5 months but these 5 months feel like forever.  i am losing steam and losing faith right now.  i've never been homeless but sometimes i feel homeless....seriously.  i go to work, come home and feel like i am living in an abandoned house.  an abandominium.  i am still living out of boxes and bags.  my clothing is in 5 rooms.....5 rooms people!  i can't find my shoes or clothes half the time.  not one room is complete.  not even close to completion.  is anyone else in the throes of living like a hobo?  has lived like a hobo?  how did you cope????

make good with wood: haan fs20

i have struggled to find a way to clean our hardwood floors since we moved.  the swiffer and it's compadres just seem like i am running a dirty diaper or maxi pad over my floors.  the traditional mop and bucket routine felt like trying to bathe in the river with soap.  sloshing dirty water around on the floor just didn't seem sanitary....ewwww. 

maybe it's just my neuroses. scratch that.  i am sure it is my neuroses but i needed to find an alternative to cleaning the floors....STAT! 

so i started looking in to steam mops and stumbled upon the haan fs20.  i looked at bissell, shark and some other contenders but ultimately it was the haan that won me over.  it received glowing reviews on the amazon, home depot and walmart websites too.  some of it's competitors were not so lucky to receive a medal in olympics of floor cleaning. 

it is not available in any stores around my way so i ordered it from walmart.  with tax and 97cent shipping, the haan cost me only $86 and arrived only 3 days after i ordered it.  it arrived yesterday and i was so excited to try it.  my haan fs20 did not disappoint!!

it was a snap to put together.  a small stick vac approximately the same size as the swiffer.  it packs a powerful punch though and steams at 200 plus degrees!  this is not for the faint of heart...ha!  it boasts the ability to clean and sanitize without the use of chemicals.  makes me love it even more.  it took about 5 minutes to assemble and about 2 or 3 minutes for the water to heat up and another maybe 10 minutes to clean the floors. 

in under 20 minutes, i had cleaned and sanitized my floors.  i would eat off my floors now because they are so clean.  my uggs actually emitted a tiny little squeak when walking on the floors....like the old school gym when i was little and the hardwoods had the crap waxed out of them.  that kind of squeak. 

the haan fs20 did not disappoint.  it was easy peasy lemon squeezy.

hello fall

nice to meet you!  with your to cool for school blustery chilled wind.  i love you.  please come back soon.  i am feeling underwhelmed by the massive heat waves and sticky air.  you have been a very nice intermission today.  please enjoy the rest of the show!

winds are a-whipping!

dropcloth slipcovers

we are still plugging away at drywall.  just a few thousand more nails to go.  i am sure of it. 

in the meantime, i have been obsessing over slipcovering the couch.  we have a 2 piece sectional.  it's green.  it has served us well for many years.  it was one of the first purchases papa smurf and i made together when we moved in many moons ago. it's really comfortable.  i won't lie.  in fact, papa and i can each lay down on our couch while watching a movie.  it makes for a very homey couch for snuggling on rainy days or watching freshly fallen snow while sipping cocoa. 

however, it is green.  i don't really like it.  i want a new couch.  i can't justify spending the money on a new couch.  there are about 95 bajillion other things to do with our money than buy a new couch.  oh...the thought has crossed my mind though.  several times. 

instead of a new couch, i settled on some $10 dropcloths from home depot and a $2 bottle of bleach!

somehow, i though that it was entirely possible to transform my 2 piece green monster into a svelte little baby like this!!

restoration house

i will sip some tea while bleaching and trying to locate my sewing machine which has gone m.i.a.  in fact, i'm really not quite sure that i ever had a sewing machine or knew how to sew in the first place.  wish me luck.  other bloggers make sewing slipcovers look so darn easy!