So Fresh and So Clean Party!

I apologize now for the OutKast song that will now be playing in your head for the next 24 hours. (At least.) Buwahahaha!

So it’s time for a new kind of party at TDC. I’ve told you before I’m a bit of a weirdo (which you know on many different levels). I like to clean. It makes me feel good. I mean, again, if I could go shopping or clean the house – I’d probably pick shopping. But if it were laundry or cleaning – hands down cleaning. My favorite part of it is vacuuming – but more on that later. ;)

First of all – a few of the products I use constantly and love. (No, I’m not getting paid for any of these. I just love em!) I told you about my love of the green Shaklee products last weekend. They are quickly replacing most of the products I use because I really do love them and they WORK. There are still a couple others that I use and love for certain areas, mostly because of their ease of use.

I use Clorox wipes for ev.er.y.thing:

Counters, sinks, baseboards, window sills, toilets (eww!) – I use them constantly. We get the ginormous packs of them at Costco or wherever so I can keep one or two on each floor of the house.
I guess you can use them on mirrors too, but I haven’t tried that. Mostly because I think of this commercial every time I think about trying it. Ummm…that commercial totally grosses me out. I mean, I’m not even kidding. Ew.
Speaking of mirrors – this Pledge stuff is fanfreakingtastic:
I use this one for anything I need to dust – even electronics (spray the microfiber cloth, not the electronic!). It’s also awesome on mirrors, window and stainless steel. It’s hard to find cleaning products that work well on stainless well.
Anyone else ever tried olive oil on their stainless? I saw that on HGTV last year and gave it a try – HUGE mess. Didn’t work for me.
I have, however, had luck with using newspaper to clean windows. It’s crazy weird, but it works. No streaks, no mess on the windows. There is, however, a mess on your hands, so I stick with paper towels and microfiber clothes now.
Umkay, I’ve mentioned I detest laundry, right? Oh yeah, I guess so. (With a burning passion, in case you didn’t catch that.) Well, this weekend was spent decluttering and organizing our master closet. It looks AMAZING!! (Sing song voice.) Although, it took doing about 12 loads of laundry to get it the way I wanted, which just about put me over the edge.
There is a product for the laundry we starting using a few months ago that I LOVE. It at least makes the whole job just a teensy bit easier. Those Bounce bars that you stick in the dryer ROCK my WORLD! Awesome! You just stick it on the inside of the dryer:

When it is worn off, you will start to see the word “replace” --

When that shows you just slide it out and slide the new one in. They work! Maybe it’s the lazy in me, but skipping the step of grabbing a dryer sheet (or two) is awesome. Our last bar lasted at least three months – I bet it was more like four. I think they’re about four bucks.
Has anyone tried the Purex sheets? The ones with the detergent, softener and dryer sheet in one? I’ve always wondered if those work.
Finally – my two favorites. I love to vacuum because my vacuum sucks:

BIG TIME! Oh my heart goes pitter pat when I see you, you Animal. I LOVE TO VACUUM! The Dyson is one of the best investments we’ve ever made in our house – I highly recommend it.
One of my girlfriends got one a few years ago, and was going on and on and ON about it so I finally borrowed it. Um. Helloooooo AWESOME! It wasn’t even two weeks later that I went out and got our own. I even vacuumed with our (decent) vacuum before I went to the store on that glorious day and then vacuumed the same room again with the Dyson when I got home just to see the difference.
Uh, I don’t know if it was good or bad that the canister was FULL. Good that this purple little guy SUCKS. Bad that we had been living with a vacuum for didn’t for so long. With three cats, it’s a necessity in this house.
It is an investment. I got ours years ago when we used credit cards – which we don’t anymore. ;) At the time I think it was about $350. I always said I would never in a meeeellion years spend that much on a vacuum and yet again I have eaten my “never” words.
My other vacuum I love – the Shark dust buster. Perfect for those quick trips around the hard floors – especially in the kitchen. It’s powerful enough to pick up the trail of crackers the Bub leaves behind and also for all the cat hair around this joint.
Love it!!:

Yes. Oh yes. I took a picture with my sweet little Shark. It’s that awesome. I lurve it.
Because the Dyson was jealous:
Oh my word, I am SO glad my husband did not walk in on that picture. He would know for a fact I have lost my mind. I was laughing so hard I was crying when I looked at that picture after I took it. Ha! That’s me with no makeup, hair up after a day of decluttering. Ahhhh yes…bliss!
Now share your cleaning gems with us! Great organizing and decluttering tips are welcomed too! Anyone find an easy way to clean out the oven? Know how to fold a fitted sheet? Let us know!
Only links to your post will be accepted – not to your blog. Right click on the title of your post, copy, then paste it into the linky. Have fun! You can add to the party till next Sunday evening. (The linky is being touchy -- come back soon if it doesn't show up for you.)

Girls’ weekend

Well HELLO there! I’m back, I’m back! It was a whirlwind of a weekend, for sure. We had a BLAST in the city that never sleeps. I’ve told you before how much I adore NYC, and this trip was special because I brought two friends with me who are now in love with the city as well.
It is now my mission to make every single person I know a NYC lovah. :)
We were there for three days, which translates to about 300 pictures. I’ve seen it all a million times but I never tire of the sights.
It was HOT, but it was a beautiful, sunny weekend. Times Square was hopping Friday afternoon:

We stayed at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square (to the left by the Bank of America and Kodak signs above). We used to stay there ALL the time – in my opinion it’s the best spot in the city for a tourist. We don’t stay as often anymore because the room rates have gone up so much – ours was $350 a night!
But divided by three, it was way affordable for a Times Square view!:

Geez, I am SUCH a goober.
That first night was the main reason for our trip – the last NKOTB concerts ever (at least that’s what they say now.):

There is something really special about going back in time like this – we felt it at the concert last summer and at this one as well. You are in space with thousands of women, all who grew up having so many of the same experience you did. And when you get together again 20 years later, there is such a wonderful feeling of camaraderie that is so sweet:

Of course, just like last year’s concert, we followed the instructions on our tickets and DIDN’T take in our cameras. WHY do we listen and follow rules? WHY?!
Um, every. single. person. had their cameras. We had our camera phones.
Translation – crapola pictures:

Actually that one isn’t so bad. ;)
Radio City was a an absolutely fantastic venue – amazing! Even though our seats were closer last summer, this seemed more intimate. At one point Joe and Jon came up to the side we were at:

Of course I ran down there. :) I may or may not have been screaming. I will never tell.
Back in the day, Jon Knight was my fave – something about that tall dark and handsome – I married one of those. ;)
So I figured this was going to be the closest I would ever be to him. But I was WRONG my Squeezies!!
After the show, we went around the side of RCMH and found a gaggle of women and decided to see what we could find. There were many large men walking around with walkie talkies, and barricades up everywhere.
We waited around for a while and then were about to take off, but I had a FEELING. A white van pulled up, and all the sudden there’s SCREAMING and who walks out but Jordan, his son and JON.
This is the part where my eyelids flutter and hearts fly out. :)
The crowd rushed them, of course, and the bodyguards were SERIOUS. (I don’t blame them.) I pulled back a bit (I was about five feet from the van) and then my smarty little head was a thinkin’ – and I realized they would pull out and have to drive away, so I ran down the street about ten yards and waited.
I’m smart. :)
And as the van drove my way, the gaggle ‘o women came with it, but I was in the perfect spot to put my hand right on Jon’s window as they drove away.
And he LOOKED at me. And smiled. SQUEAL!!! :)
Let’s ignore the fact that there were women all around me, umkay? Whatev.
Did I mention, I didn’t have my camera?! Good Lord, when will I learn?
So I walked away a happy camper. I checked one off the bucket list folks.
The next day I took the girls to Ground Zero (more on that in a later post!), Little Italy, and Chinatown and the shopping commenced! HA!
There is NOTHING like the shopping in NYC – the variety of stores is one thing. The street vendors (especially in Chinatown) are another.
Want (cheap, really cute) earrings?:
   Pendants?:

Blingity bling?:
 
Purses and scarves?:

Belts?:

:) Those New Yorkers are funny.
The prices are great, and you can usually get them down even more if you try. Some of my favorite jewelry pieces are from NYC – they are the cheapest I own and they’ve lasted years.
I thought of you all as we walked down 6th Avenue and saw M&J Trimming. You’ve NEVER seen such a selection of buttons:
That was just one wall!
Nailhead trim:

Ribbon:

And trim:

Isn’t that insane?? It was GORGEOUS! :)
If I had only thought to bring my fabric swatches for the office redo, I would have had it made!!
Oh my goodness, we smooshed a LOT into three days – I can’t even begin to tell you all of it! Well, I could, but I got 14 hours of sleep in four days, so I need to get to bed. :)
We truly took in the sights and had a blast – our last night there, we were up till 5:30 a.m.:

That’s me at 5 a.m. See the sun coming up in the background? CRAZY!! (Notice the pic of Sean Hayes to the right? We saw that show last month and this time I came within feet of him as he left the theater that night!)
We weren’t even that tired – there’s something magical about New York City. It has my heart.

That’s the view from the Top of the Rock, all the way up there…

:) Sigh.
I love you New York!!
I am so glad to be home sweet home though – and looking forward to getting back into my crafty mojo with a fun item I got last week.
And I’ve got a little surprise for you tomorrow! Whoohoo! Stay tuned!

What to do with the STUFF?

Well THANK YOU for all of your sweet comments and thoughts on my last post! I’m so excited about the kitchen redo! I’m pretty sure I’ve been to Home Depot nine times in the last three days, so they should know me by name soon.  ;)
I hope to get our sink and faucet installed this week, but it’s not an easy job I know, so we’ll see. I’m being patient. Being patient. Being patient. (If I keep saying that, it will be true, right?)
So I wanted to talk about a topic I get emails about ALL the time – and I figured it’s about time I do a post on it! The question is – when you do all that decrapifying that I KNOW you all are doing, (ahem), what do you do with all of the stuff you want to get rid of? 
There are many options available -- some will make you some money, some will make you a tax deduction. ;)
The first option is probably the most obvious:

The majority of my stuff goes to Goodwill – like new, nice or just OK condition. I find it’s the most convenient option for me, but that’s mostly because I’m insanely impatient. And I can’t stand crap. So when the crap sits around, it drives me mad. Even if it’s something nice, I’d rather just drop it off to Goodwill, get it out of our house, and move on.
That being said, I’ve had a Goodwill pile in our foyer for three weeks now. The good thing about that is friends stop over and take most of the stuff in the pile, so I have less to lug to the drop off.  ;) (Thanks K!)
There are other options as far as donation goes – Dress for Success is a program for women who are trying to find jobs and need professional clothing. I know there are other similar programs out there as well.
When I did the major decluttering of our basement earlier this year (I still need to finish up a few things and show you!), I took a TON – and I. mean. a. TON. – of stuff to a local women’s shelter. (Two SUV’s full!) It was a lot of baby gadgets and clothing, and I just felt like the shelter was the best place for them. The battered women who stay there often leave home with very little for their kids or themselves and need to start over – so it felt good to donate so many things I knew they could use.
And of course there’s ways to make money while getting rid of crapola, which is a total win-win. A biggie this time of year is the garage sale, of course!:

I have to tell you, I’ve never been a huge fan of hosting garage sales. It may or may not have to do with the fact that I have to be up at 7 a.m. on a weekend to get it accomplished – which is just absurd. I mean, really. I sleep.
Secondly, I hate the haggling. I mean, you should see me in NYC’s Chinatown – I’ll go after a price with the best of them. But something about going back and forth about $2 just rubs me the wrong way.
And it’s usually hot.
And early.
Oh, I mentioned that. :)
Instead of hosting my own, I prefer to take a carload of my crap to a friend’s house for their garage sale, and let them get up at the crack o dawn and sit in the sun all morning. Works for me!!
When it comes to home decor items, I’ve had GREAT success with consignment shops:

They are shops filled with great stuff people don’t want anymore that you see and you totally didn’t know you wanted (but you do). You’ll find furniture, dishware, art, light fixtures, accessories – it’s a treasure trove!
The shop I use goes through my items when I bring them in (this depends on the shop – you have to make an appointment at some places), picks out what they want, then keeps a record of my items. When they sell, I get a percentage of each item, and then I get a fun little check in the mail every month.
Or…I may or may not go in and check my balance and then spend said balance in the shop. Maybe.
I always make more than I would at a garage sale. And I have to do very little make that cash. Awesome. Some shops will give you money when you drop off items – they’ll determine what they would sell it for and give you your percentage up front.
There are also consignment shops for men’s, women’s and children’s clothing and baby gear. I find these are much better to shop at than to sell at – I just don’t get the same return that I do at the home decor shop. But that could be because I spend $4 on Wal-Mart t-shirt and call it done.  :)
The Web is another option for making money off your items – eBay is one site of course. I used to sell junk great stuff on there all the time and made good money. The fees seemed to get higher though, and all of the buying shipping supplies, finding boxes and packaging items just became too much.
There’s another option I know many folks use – craigslist:

Something about craigslist has always given me the heebies. I just have never felt comfortable having complete strangers come to my house. The few times I have sold items on it I have been a nervous wreck the whole time – and I don’t use my name, a email with my name in it, I don’t give out my cell number – and it still makes me queasy.
I have only had two buyers come to our house – one picked up the items from the front porch and left the cash under the mat. The other came in because I had called her and talked to her for days and felt comfortable with her coming in. And even then I still regretted it when she left. Every other time I have met folks at a public location to give them their item.
It’s a personal thing – I’m a freak, as you know, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt. ;) I know many who have made great money and found some fantastic items through craigslist!
I tried out one final option a couple months ago and absolutely, positively loved it. I hosted a swap for a few friends – everyone brought their goodies and we piled them up:

Obviously, we ran out of room. ;) Next time, I’m borrowing a bunch of tables!
I prepared a few snacks, some drinks, and we had fun just hanging out. Because there weren’t many of us, we just kind of had at it and grabbed what caught our eye:

There was very little hair pulling and just a bit of pushing.  :) Nahhhh…we all behaved. But I expect the number of attendees will grow next time I host this, so we may have to draw numbers in the future. I’m considering a “holiday” swap as well – just for Christmas decor. Wouldn’t that be festive?
I highly recommend the swap – I can’t tell you how fun it was! I got a fab find from my friend Beckie – I’m still trying to figure out what to do with it though. I have to sit on things for a while. And leave them in my foyer. Yes…it’s still there, two months later.
So did I forget anything? Any other options for donating or selling that stuff you don’t need anymore? You know I’ll keep harassing you to decrap your place, so you might as well get to it. Seriously. I can be very irritating persuasive.

Kitchen redo: Week three!

HELLO! So are you tired of hearing about the kitchen redo yet? Yes? Too bad. I’m back for more. :)
Thanks to American Express, I am redoing our kitchen using Membership Reward Points – and this week they asked me to use the remainder of the points – 150,000! If you have an Amex and you use the points to shop, you know that’s A LOT of  points.
Still pinching myself. :)
I told you in my last post how I took my first trip to IKEA to get a butcher block countertop that will replace our island counter. I love the look of butcher block and love the idea of changing up the counters just a tad – the different textures and tones will look great! (Um, I HOPE.)
This part of our redo is out of pocket, so I was obviously trying to keep the cost down, and a 73 by 40 inch board from IKEA was $195:

I’ll have to get it cut to size to fit the island, but I couldn’t resist that price! It’s oak (the darkest wood they had), and I’ll be sanding it down a bit and staining it an even darker tone. Not sure what the tone will be, but it will be dark and rich and luscious! :)
While I was at IKEA (twice!), I found a few more items for the kitchen that were must haves.
The little spice jars and racks were too cute to pass up:

I see some apple green in it’s future. :) Still not sure where they are going though. (By the way, I think I got four of those jars for $3 I think? I have spent almost $2 for ONE at Hobby Lobby!)
Because I took down our pot rack above the island (it made the room feel twice as big!!), I was on the lookout for cookware storage:
   
LOVE these!!! I have a little rig up my sleeve for the one on the right to make it even easier to access. I’ll let you know how it goes. :)
This strainer was a lot for IKEA -- $25 – but I loved it!:

Another example of unbelievably inexpensive (I want to say cheap, but that just sounds cheap. But…it’s cheap.) this stuff is – I able lost it when I saw the woven chargers for only $5 each!:

I think the cheapest I’ve seen these is $15 each. Score! Because so many of you told me to check out the “as is” section at IKEA, we strolled in before we checked out and found the green plates and bowls (that I had almost just bought on the floor!) for a buck each! They are in perfect condition, so I have no idea why they were as is? I’ve washed them already and so far so good!
I knew I wanted to bring the white/cream and yellow I’m using in the kitchen onto the table, so I looked online at a place I’ve never ever bought one item – Williams Sonoma.
It’s usually WAY over my head price-wise. But because I could use points, when I saw those lemon napkins above, I was HOOKED. They are adorable! And the price really wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be – $7 a napkin. Usually I spend about that much on four, but it really wasn’t bad.  :)
So I used some points to print out a WS gift certificate, and there I was buying those napkins, and some perfectly perfect matching wash cloths:

I have to tell you it feels incredibly weird to shop at places like Williams Sonoma. Like, “I have money to shop here” kind of places. When I soooo do not have money to shop there.  :)
It’s been a bit surreal. And VERY fun. This is a once in a lifetime kind of opportunity and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. :)
I’ve gone to Pottery Barn for a few accessories as well, and guess what I see online after I get home from buying my cutie little lemon napkins?:

Argh! Those are too cute too!
The white salad plates in the place settings above are from Pottery Barn, and I found these awesome napkin rings there as well:

But I think they’re too much with the chargers so they’re going back. :) They were only $4.50 each, not too shabby! Aren’t they so fun? I bet they would be easy to make – just braid some thick jute rope together!
I showed you the new light from Home Depot here. I got the round rug from Target ($80 I think?) last year:

And have loved it there. For those who have asked, I LOVE having a rug under the table!! I swear clean up is so much easier than the hard floors. My trick is to let food dry a bit and then vacuum it up – no cleaning of the rug (usually) required!
Anyhoo, because the kitchen will have a new color scheme, the rug just won’t work anymore. And it’s not the best quality. It has a kind of haze of fuzz on the top that just doesn’t go away. You don’t notice it at all far away, but it bugs me up close.
Enter a round Pottery Barn rug:

It’s an outdoor rug made to look like jute. I love jute but it’s usually super thick and I knew that would be an issue with our kitchen chairs. I want the chairs to easily be pulled in and out from the table, so this was a perfect option!
I hope. We’ll see when it gets here.  ;) Hopefully it will make our kitchen look something like this:

Complete with a pool. ;)
By the way, Stink Eye Sister, you owe me BIG for all this awesome stuff I’m passing your way for your new house. BIG TIME.
It has been SO EASY to use these Membership Reward Points from Amex! At first I was thinking I would have to wait weeks to get started on anything, waiting for gift cards to be mailed to us.
But I was giddy when I realized they have many options for egift cards:

    

You just order them and an email is sent within about 20 minutes or so. All I have to do is print them out and go! It’s been fantastic!! If you’ve done any size renovation in your house, you know it’s hard to plan when you’ll need to make one more trip to Home Depot. :) This has been great because I’ve been able to print them as I need them – awesome!!
Speaking of Home Depot, did you know they are affiliated with Home Decorators? I had no idea! When I realized that, I picked out this cutie console table for behind the sofa:

But when I went to buy it, I found out you can only use the Home Depot credit card – not a gift card. It was then (at midnight) that I realized I must go back to IKEA to get this one instead:

And I’m SO glad I did!!
I made a change to the Bub’s chalkboard this week and absolutely positively LOVE it:

I used to have it framed out with thin molding I had stained dark, but when I saw Katie’s chunky green frame around her chalkboard, I was in luuurve! So I beefed it up and it is AWESOME.
Cause I like em big. And chunky. (Sorry. I will use that movie quote every time the word chunky is ever used. You’ve been warned.)
I got a new fabric for the window treatments at Joann’s last week that I have fallen in LOVE with:

Ack! It’s gorg! I still have to decide on the type of treatments I’m going to do. I can’t decide between my no sew roman shades:

Or something a bit simpler like cornice, maybe with just a hint of curve to it?:
I can’t decide! I got a bamboo roman shade for the window above the sink at Home Depot today, so I’ll have to get that up before I decide. Hmmm…
So I need your help once more! I’ve been keeping a dirty little secret from you. I painted my beadboard kitchen island. Well, not the whole thing. Just one side. To decide if I like it.
And I do. :) (I did this about three months ago – it’s been sitting like that all this time.) It is going to be a cream color – a bit darker than the new backsplash I think.
My original plan was to paint the island and the base of the kitchen table cream, then stain the tops (butcher block and the kitchen table top) both the same tone:

THIS look is exactly what I had in mind for the island:

But I’m wondering if that’s too much cream and brown, cream and brown. I LOVE at least one black piece in a room to “ground” it. I still really want to do the island in cream, so I’m wondering if I should perhaps paint the base of the table black, then stain the tops the same?
I’ve been worried that a cream base on the table is asking for hives – I can’t even imagine all the scuffs from shoes, etc.
What do you think? Black on the table base? Since the rug will be lighter, I think it will pop off of that and look great.
Or do I match the island and the table and do cream on both bases? Decisions decisions!!
What do you think Oh Brilliant Ones? Please share!! And thanks again in advance!

TDC is one of five blogs picked to promote the Amex Membership Rewards program.
I have received reward points to use as I wish to redo a room in our home.

Thank you to this week’s sponsor!: