BE WARNED

July and most of August have been INSANE. So please forgive me as I back-blog....

Savers Haul

I don't typically shop at Savers. I have to be in the right mood, and for sure have to be going on the right day. Some days I can find a lot of great stuff, some days I feel too grossed out, or just can't find a damn thing!!

This weekend I went up to the Savers in Salt Lake, and holy cow!!! I came across some amazing finds!! (Including a European designer shirt!!!) Most of the clothes I found were either brand new, or lightly used. And they looked to be mostly from boutiques.

Butterfly Shirt

Cosmos Shirt 

Flowy shirt/Kimono

Long Sleeve Pattern Shirt

Polka Dot Sweater

Red and white blouse (European Designer!!!)

Purple Sweater

Polka Dot Skirt

Yellow embroidered top

The best part of this haul....it was only 33$ for all of these clothes!!! This averages about 3$ per piece!!! I love shopping!! Especially for great deals.

ALL THE FURNITURE (DIY)

Dave and I have been refurbishing all kinds of furniture. I don't believe in paying full price for anything (and truthfully, our furniture budget for our house is pretty tight, so we're just making it work). We have created some beautiful furniture, and I'll post before and after pictures just to show ya!!



Dave and I were passing down the street when we saw some big cabinets with a free sign on them. We thought about it for a while, and decided that we did want to expand out entertainment center (that Dave had refinished before we were married) and make it much larger. We grabbed my mother-in-law's truck, and hauled them away to her garage to work on them. They were solid wood!! SCORE! I love high quality things, and solid wood is a great place to start. There was a lot of work that had to be done. Here is the picture story.

This is what the looked like originally. Pretty damn ugly.

We pulled off all the cabinet doors, and pulled out the drawers.

Adding trim to the edges to give it a nice finish

Dave had to carefully cut down the edges of the drawers so the fit flush with the cabinet

Added an additional shelf, and finished the trim

All the components together

Dave custom made the drawer fronts to match our existing entertainment center

All painted. It took two days, and lots and lots of patience.

Finished product. We love it!!!!!

We had another big project to work on. We had purchased a beautiful kitchen table with a lovely dark top at the RC Willey Clearance center. (We got it for a steal. Dave had to fix a few components, but Dave is handy, and it was worth the discount.) However, the table didn't come with chairs. I had seen a lot of kitchen inspirations on pinterest, and I decided that I wanted 4 matching chairs, with 2 captain chairs. (I'm pretty sure that's what it's called.) It took a ridiculously long time to find suitable chairs off of KSL. We didn't want crazy old chairs, or chairs from dining sets in the 90's. Dave found some incredible soft seated chairs, with a modern frame from a woman in SLC. And we got all 4 for about 75$. It was very exciting. We knew we had to stain and reupholsters the chairs to match the captain seats we had purchased at Target. Here is the process.

This is what the chairs looked like originally

Close up of the cushions. They were in good shape, but the wrong fabric.

This is the cushion we were trying to match

It took FOREVER to pull out all the staples from the chair. 2 bruised hands, and 100000 staples later, they were ready to reupholster

Finished cushions. We went to pretty much every fabric store in Utah  Valley to find the same fabric in charcoal. We found it in black instead. We figured it would match just fine.  It took lots of trial and error to get them to fit correctly.

Frames of the chairs



We had the leg from the chair we were trying to mimic matched at Kwal paint to get the right color of stain. We used my dad's stain gun to get an even texture. BIG difference. We love the color!!

Finished product. They look great, but most importantly, they match!!!



 These projects took about a week's time to finish. I'll post more DIY's as we finish them. But overall, I'm very happy with the progress we're making towards being homeowners!!!

Thoughts On Saying Good Bye.

As some of you may or may not know, my dear Grandpa (Don) Friske passed away a few weeks ago. In my final moments with him, I had scattered thoughts that I would like to share.




+ Flying still freaks me out. My dad is a pilot, and I'm still a basket case during take off and landing.

+ Flying with my mom is the absolute best. (Especially in first class...) I adore my mama, and I was so grateful to have her there with me during such difficult moments.

+ Montana is truly a magical place. It doesn't matter the circumstance that I'm there, it's simply magic.

+ Hospitals make me uncomfortable. Even though my husband works at one, I still hate spending time in hospitals. They are freezing, they smell funny, and they provide sandpaper as tissues.

+ Holding hands with Grandpa was an incredible experience. He needed to hold a hand. And I needed to hold his just as bad.

+ I believe people can see the Other Side as they are passing. And I'm pretty sure Grandpa was there long before he passed.

+ Thank you Uncle Ryan for letting me stay with you at the hospital for so long.

+ "You're pretty." Grandpa said to me as he watched me for a few seconds before he fell back asleep.

+ After 10 hours at the hospital with Grandpa, I walked out to flowers illuminated by a hospital light. I felt God's presence with me.

+ I hate good byes. My final good bye to my Grandpa was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. We shared "I Love You's" and he asked me for a kiss. After a soft peck on the lips, I left the room in a flood of tears.

+ Families are Forever.