Summer Lovin. My Favorites.

I won't lie, I haven't had time to do anything at all exciting in terms of DIY this week. I've been overwhelmed with finals, teaching, projects, and assignments. I must confess I will be relieved when the semester is over and I never have to do a group presentation again. They are definitely my least favorite thing.

But anyways! I thought that I would share my favorite summer products! Just for fun. As a redhead summer is one of my least favorite seasons. I feel as though the sun is seeking out my poor white flesh and that I smell like coconut sunscreen for three solid months. The last couple summers I've tried to find the perfect mix of products. 

Let's call it: "Summer Survival of a Classy Redhead Tool Kit"

or something like that.

First and foremost to understand about redheads is we generally don't tan.

At all.

Whatsoever.

Period.

So I love sunscreen! But hate the smell. Here's some of my favorites:

 I've found this great Cetaphil facial moisturizer that contains SPF 50. Doesn't block your pores, doesn't smell nasty. Awesome. And Neutrogena SPF 100+ is my absolute favorite sunscreen. Especially for my neck and chest. It's light and doesn't have the consistency of glue, which is refreshing if you've ever tried to rub on anything over 60 proof.

Since I can't get a tan I love this Mario Bedescu lotion. It adds some fun shimmer and hydration plus it makes my legs look less shockingly white when I very occasionally wear shorts.

Makeup is also a hard one for redheads. Here's a few of my favorite makeup hits:

I worked at Ulta, the beauty store, for quite awhile and have since developed a fondness for high end makeup. I figure I'm single so I can buy the good stuff. Plus I have always struggled with acne so spending the extra cash on quality is totally worth it to me. BareMinerals Original foundation in "Fair" is my staple item. I love it. It matches my skin tone without making me look ghastly or masked and it keeps me from breaking out a whole lot.

BareMinerals Faux Tan (shiney metallic lid) is also a favorite because it allows me to add a controlled bronzed look without actually having to go into the sun. Total win if you ask me.

Pink nail polish in "Butterflies" by Orly, some volumizing mascara, and fabulous chap stick complete my easy redhead summer needs.



Luckily I do have some house related things to show you!

I've purchased some awesome flower pots! They're from Ross and ranged from $2.99 for the little one to $5.99 for the big ones. Cheap. Even more awesome.

Now just to plant some things in them and try to get them to grow. That will be the challenge. Oh and that's the table from my "Summer to-do list" that I need to put another coat of paint on. Yay.

What is your favorite summer product?



*all products were reviewed by me independently. cuz I'm like that. independent, I mean.

Welcome 2012 Good Bye 2011

It's still hard to believe that 2011 is over! I felt like that year was never going to end. It was a crazy year in my little life, but I definitely have no regrets from last year. One of the greatest things that happened? I started my blog! So let's see what happened in The Messy Business house during the last year...


I redecorated the guest bathroom, updating the light fixtures, decor, vanity, and paint.

Tore out the ugly and weird vanity and replaced it with an IKEA shelf for more storage.

 One of the biggest, and still probably my favorite remodel, Renovating the laundry room to make it actually a useful space!

Finally got a new rug for the living room from Target!

Another favorite project... the master bathroom!! Remember how awful it was before??

And now the beautiful after!

My friend Stephanie moved out of her old house and gave me all of her patio furniture. It just needed a little elbow grease and paint!

Turned out great don't you think?

 The most recent project has been the master bedroom! It has also gotten a totally new face lift with the bathroom. It's such a great fun space now! I am totally in love with it!

We also figured out a way to dress up a cheap bookshelf. I will say that it looks great in my bedroom where my home office is also located.

Another Kitchen To-Do list

So yesterday I mentioned showing the major problem areas in the kitchen that I absolutely want to fix.

The big one is the little doors above the refrigerator. Luckily I'm tall so this space is really useful for me in storing things like cook books and decorations.

But the previous owners of my house (like many other things) decided to do some of their own modifications in order to fit in a larger fridge. Who needs to cut a straight line on the cabinets, as long as it's in a line, right? Right?

Wrong. It looks terrible really. And the exposed nails underneath? Mmmm. Yeah. Beautiful. It almost makes the western woodwork look good. 

Almost.

 

There's also this weird notch out thing in between the two cabinets up above the stove. It's weird because it eats into the space of the cabinets and there really isn't anything that fits on those little shelves. I don't know exactly what I'll do there... maybe just paint them and put up some new small accessories. We'll see.

Here's a shot of the beautiful ceiling. This is my least favorite thing about a modular home. The flourescent light fixtures (one of which doesn't work) and the slanted ceiling with the stripes. The problem with this is that I have a huge open layout in the main living space which would require having to paint all of it.

I'm thinking a paint party! Whoo! My friends and family are going to love me. It will make the space seem so much bigger and less... well... let's be honest here... dumpy. Much less dumpy. I may not be able to do much with the lights except for maybe fix one of them but I can paint the holders so they blend a bit better.

My skylight is pretty cool though. The light shines onto the tiles and Lucy likes to roast herself on the hot tiles, which is kinda cute.

These are the only 4 drawers in the entire kitchen. I don't know why there are so few drawers but alas, you do what you can with what you have. I wanna use my oil-rubbed bronze spray paint for the hardware. It's a huge money saver to not have to buy new hardware. $5 dollars on spray paint or $50 on new door pulls.

Yup. Spray paint is what I do.

These are the doors just beneath the sink and they have been totally brutalized over the years. In fact the one on the left tends to fall off. The 'wood' is destroyed along the top and little bits of it fall off. The same problem is going on with the bottom also. These two doors are going to have to be completely rebuilt. I'm thinking of using my favorite material-bead board- to replace these two. It might be a cute accent. Of course all the cabinets will be painted white.

This weird underneath the counter bar thingy area will also get a new white paint job to blend it in with the rest of the house and with the kitchen as well. Its sort of a transition area between the spaces so I want it to flow as much as possible. 

And maybe I can paint the bland bar stools!

Another project that I have to do that is kitchen related is to reupholster my dining room chairs. When I moved out I was lucky enough to inherit this solid cherry table from my aunt. It's a beautiful set that they rarely used, which would explain why the upholstery hasn't held up over the few years they've been at my house.

A close up of just how stained up they are. Icky. I have been pondering over what kind of fabric to put on them instead. I want something relatively neutral but that will stand up much better to people, roommates, and cats.

Once again there's Lucyfurr creeping around in the corner of the picture. The table and chairs really are very beautiful and sturdy. 

It seems lately I've just been making lists and lists of what I want to do... I promise very soon I will actually get to the doing. Well relatively soon. As soon as I possibly can.

My Master = Desperate.

As I mentioned the other day my master bedroom is desperate for some new-ness. It is not very pretty right now. Its really just somewhere that I go to sleep and that's it. I don't spend time in my room at all. I spend more time in my amazing bathroom or the office. I think it would be great to have some sort of retreat for myself away from homework, schools, blogging, DIYing, etc. Not to say that I dislike any of those things but  you always have to give yourself space. 

Here is a shot when it was a lot cleaner. Lol.

Here's the curtains. I have the sheers over the windows because my large window actually looks over the car port and that's not very pretty really.

You can also see how obnoxious those stripes on the ceiling are. Seriously if you have drywall ceilings I am the face of envy. These things are ugly. Even painted you can still see the weird stripes.

Also these are my gigandor closet doors Each closet in the bedrooms has this same set up. I'm stumped on what to do with these. Tension rods and hand made curtains maybe? Certainly would allow for better access. But how would that translate as far as being able to resell? Hmmm....

My bed is a mess but you can see those same mirrors. The too small lamps. The breaking side tables. Those actually aren't in that bad of shape they just need a little help as far as fixing the drawers and maybe some new paint or something.

My closet organizer is a life saver! I do color coordinate my clothes. I worked at Hollister from the ages of 17-20 and we had a specific color order that everything was coordinated by. That has definitely translated back into my closet. Looks nicer though.

Weird conundrum ofdoors constantly clashing together. You can see here how the room just doesn't flow with the bathroom anymore. They are totally different spaces now! It's weird. And I have a chair with no seat cushion. Cuz that is cool.

Another door over here and my dresser with a random assortment of things on top. Also an ugly and sad vinyl wall decal tree that is stuck underneath of my floating shelf that is housing an empty box of kleenex. Random string hanging on the wall. Beautiful.

The room is so short on character, function, warmth, and anything else that would be a happy bedroom related pronoun. The space is pretty large but it has weird wall space. Because of the massive doors and windows the bed can only be in one spot, so there won't be any rearranging here. Whatever shall I do? 

I'm thinking...

• New paint color
• paint ceiling and trim white
• new wall decor
• take down doors and put in curtains. (keep doors in garage in instance of resell)
• Leave dresser but get a large mirror for weird space next to bedroom door to prop against the wall and find a small cozy chair to repurpose/reupholster. 
• Buy a rug from IKEA or somewhere similar that would be easy to repaint with either chevron stripes or just regular stripes. I want to anchor the room but cozy up the wood flooring a bit. I found this great rug painting tutorial
• new lamps (okay I have the lamps I just need to get the lampshades finally)
• update or change curtains

I'm not going to jinx myself and say I'll do it in a week. But hopefully this reno will require much less construction then the master bathroom. I'm thinking redecorating not totally renovating lol.

Do you guys have any other ideas that I could use for updating my master bedroom?

80's bathroom Horrorrrrrr!

My guest bathroom is very small. By very small I mean.... very small. But it does have a full tub/shower as well as cabinet and the other necessary devices one would need in a functional bathroom. What wasn't so functional is the weird sand brown paint color. We reused it in the bathroom after it looked so great in the living room, you know thinking it would be a really cohesive look and would flow....

The maroon trim is beautiful don't you think? Also the trunk looking strap thingys on the door are really great I think. A total decorative touch! It appeals to every traveler who is a'traveling.... in the... bathroom... really?












I would like to say that modulars do not necessarily come with thick sturdy dry wall... so my cute floating shelf   idea... well obviously they weren't really floating. They were definitely sagging and the cute little vases were sliding towards the abyss that was the edge.

I 

But with a bit of assistance from my trusty helper! (cue boyfriend Justin...) It was remodeled and made beautiful! (with a bit of credit to our friend... Uncle Sam)

OOOO!!! So pretty now! The blue color was not supposed to be so blue... we were going more for a very light pale blue but lesson learned... cheap paint is not worth the savings... sorry Walmart... anyways! We painted the weird trunk style cabinets a dark charcoal that hides the wood grain and actually worked well with the wall color.

I'm partial to brushed nickel/silver so we added some new handles on the doors for about 3.50. The major difference was the counter top. It was bad when we started taking the tile out... we actually realized that there was no actual support for the counter or the sink and it was starting to sag into the
wall.

Voila! An all new counter! It was a one piece set from Home Depot that we paid only 89.00 for. It works really well and we even got a new faucet for it! It really makes the whole place seem less dreary and dingy.

I love this angle now! Before it had the saggy supposed to float shelves. With some cheap "L" brackets we hooked them back up and I bought some great neutral/earth tone accessories to kinda tone down the whole nursery blue color. The white shower curtain keeps the room from getting too dark and my new light fixture that I found on clearance for only.... 16.00 was an amazing deal!









We painted the door and the ugly yellow stripes on the ceiling. I really reallyyyy REALLYYY wanted a new light fixture for the ceiling... but I had already maxed out my budget so I used my left over Hammered Krylon spray paint in silver and simply primered and painted it... Not bad for 4.97 in spray paint ey?

And thus is the story of my $250 dollar-ish total guest bathroom renovation and deliverance into the present century. Yay!











Budget Breakdown:

• counter top: 84.00 @ Home Depot
• light fixture: 16.00 @ WalMart
• new handle/lock: 10.42 @ Home Depot
• paint, Colorplace: 46.97 (3 gallons) @WalMart
• ceiling light: FREE! (came with the house and already had paint)
• new fluffy bathmat: 14.00 @ Bed Bath and Beyond
• framed flower wall art: 20.00 for both @Bed Bath and Beyond
• Candle holders and flower: 11.00 @ Ross
• towel bar (not shown): 11.00 @ Walmart
• new hand towels: 14.00 @Bed Bath and Beyond
• TOTAL: 228.00 (not including taxes)

The party is at The Shabby Nest!