Backsplash

While my hubby does the majority of the sanding on our upstairs floors (prepping for a baby room), I've been feeling kinda useless. That's our big project at the moment, and I may or may not have broken my sander (we do a lot of sanding). So I decided that instead of sitting around reading baby books, I'd start my own home improvement project. Which I may or may not finish first (especially since I'm only doing part of the project for now--I'll explain later).  

Our kitchen isn't ready for a baby. Most of our cabinets don't even have doors, much less baby proof latches. But before we do cabinet doors, I want to cover up the dingy off-white paint and replace the ugly backsplash. I thought the backsplash was tacky (it's tiles that have clearly been painted various colors at various times). 

But I was in no way prepared for what was underneath. 

Who the hell thought this was a good idea? The red and checkers and hearts appear to have been hand painted (which is impressive, if appalling). The teacups and kitchen-y stuff is (gasp) wallpaper or something else glued on. So now, I'll be spending my afternoon soaking and scraping wallpaper behind the range. Maybe I should've been more satisfied feeling unproductive...

Start a fire

On warm, sunny days like today, it's so easy to be productive. Even taking frequent breaks so I don't over exert myself (not something I worried about before I started growing another human), I've already finished two (albeit small) painting projects, cleaned up the yard, gathered some firewood, washed the dishes, and done a load of laundry. And there's still another 5+ hours of daylight (okay, 4 now... The Avengers was on tv). Have I mentioned that I'm solar powered?

Even in sunny Southern California, days aren't always warm and/or sunny. This past weekend, we got an inch of much-needed rain. But, I'll admit, it's hard for me to want to get anything done when it's gray outside. Especially if it's chilly, too. Like I said, I'm solar powered. 

When it's chilly, I tend to huddle up with whichever warm bodies are readily available (any combination of hubby, dog, and kitties). Over the chilly, damp weekend, my hubby got the fireplace going to the point where I was comfy in just a t-shirt. Until I needed to take the dog out, obviously. 

The point is, I was warm enough to be productive, at least a little bit. And I worked on something that's going to help me be warm next time it's chilly and damp out. In less than an hour and for almost free, I made 84 fire starters. How, you ask? Let me show you!

First, gather all your supplies: as many cardboard egg cartons as you have (free), sawdust from cutting firewood (also free), candle wax (I got 10 pounds of wax on Amazon for less than $20, which is enough to make more than a year's worth of fire starters), and a double boiler (which prevents the wax from behaving badly while you melt it).

On the kitchen counter, fill each egg carton well with sawdust. 

Then, melt the wax in the double boiler (I think I spent $10 on my double boiler, and I only use it for melting wax, which means I literally never clean it. Hooray!). See the melty wax in the middle?

Pour enough melted wax on top of the sawdust to almost fill each well. 

Here's the tough part: let them cool on the kitchen counter until the wax is hard (tough for me because this literally takes up ALL of the counter space in my tiny kitchen). 

That's it! They might not be the prettiest fire starters, but trust me, popping one of these little guys in the fireplace under some tinder (little pieces of wood, for you city dwellers) is SO much easier than crumpling up every piece of scrap paper you can find! And cheaper than the store-bought fire starters (that don't work as well, anyway). I'll follow up with instructions for how to use your homemade fire starters next time we have a day that's chilly and/or damp, but until then I'll be outside recharging in the sun!

Painting

My honey and I have been working on painting our new home. When we bought it, the exterior paint was peeling away like crazy. Not exactly weatherproof. The trim was the worst, so we started there. Scrape, sand, wash, paint. Scrape, sand, wash, paint. Scrape, sand, wash, paint.

There's a lot of trim. 

Finally, we're done with that (at least as much as we can reasonably reach). So we picked out a color for the main body of our home. Before, it was a deep red. By the time we're done, it's going to be what I've fondly been referring to as really f*cking red. 

The color we picked for the house is called Burning Bush. The color we picked for the trim is called Snowbank. Fire and ice. Seemingly opposites that complement each other. Like a lot of things. Including my honey and me.