15 May 2009

7 Quick Takes: The mostly-about-domestic-stuff edition

1. Only 1 week 'til we close on our new house! We're so excited to get to work on it, we can hardly stand it. We drive by the place three or four times a day. And we talk about it constantly. The wait is kind of excruciating, but good for us. We're doing lots of planning and dreaming. It's fun to allow our imaginations to run wild. We basically will have a blank slate at the new place. I think it's going to be a blast to figure out how to fix it up beautifully AND frugally. Endless entertainment!

2. The Habitat Restore is my new favorite place. Both cities near us have a location, which is amazing because there is such wonderful stuff at both places! I love just going in there and drooling over interior doors and crown molding! Last week, I got a $1500 cooktop for $100, a $2500 jacuzzi tub for my sister for $119 and a $350 sink for $25. This week I found a $185 chandelier for $25. I think we are going to furnish our entire house with recycled goods by using Habitat Restore and supplementing with Craigslist. Those two resources are pure gold for people with fixer-uppers.

3. Speaking of recycled goods -- I have been browsing through some antique stores lately and I am wondering why in the world anyone would ever go to one of those furniture places like Oaken Dreams, or whatever they are called, and spend several thousand dollars on fake wood when one could find a decent antique made of real, solid wood for a third of the cost. I wonder if people know that antiques are not that expensive, comparatively? Especially when one compares longevity of the piece in question. To each one's own, I guess...

4. While at those antique stores, I bought a really great quilt. It was inexpensive because it had big brown stains all over it. I brought it home and soaked it in hot water with TONS of Oxyclean. Now I have a beautiful antique quilt with white areas that are really, really white. It's so pretty and it's a relatively uncommon pattern called Arkansas Snowflake. I just wish it was big enough to use on our bed. I don't think my children will properly appreciate its rescue or beauty! :)

5. We are purging again before we move to the new house, whenever that is. We started with the kids' toys. We sorted out two huge containers of toys that are going to the local thrift store and/ or Goodwill. So far, they haven't missed any of the toys we've put aside. And I love how easy it is for the kiddos to clean up their rooms now. In fact, their rooms are some of the only clean spots in the house at this moment! :)

6. My mom and in-town sisters and I figured out menus for the next three weeks the other day.(We each cook one night of the first four days of the week and make enough for the other families and my Gramps.) Since we started sharing cooking duties, we are eating such a variety of foods we wouldn't normally eat, spending MUCH less time cooking, and I'm saving a lot of money! It's WONDERFUL!

7. Tomorrow I get to spend the afternoon completely by myself doing whatever I want to do. Dennis has to work in the morning and I'm going to take the kids to have breakfast with a couple of college sorority sisters and their children (3 adults and 8 kids -- we're crazy) and then I get to be BY MYSELF for a few hours! I'm so excited!

For more quick takes, see Jen's spot.

1 comment:

Cara said...

I love hearing about your recycled goods! That's amazing. We're planning on building in a few years (doing Dave Ramsey now) and you've motivated me to look for those kinds at Habitat Restore or something else like it if we have that here.