Kitchen Paint Touchups

In my ultimate house to do list post I shared that I wanted to get touchups done on the paint in the kitchen. Mostly on the cabinets next to the oven and the little areas above the cabinet where we had raised the cabinet up. I knew neither area needed to be super intensely painted but I just needed it to be the same color as the rest of the cabinets. 

When I moved the stove it was pretty gross underneath so I made sure to clean the floor while I was back there. 

It's amazing how things get gross so quickly! 

Sorry for the blurry picture but this the side of the cabinet where I needed to paint. 

Ptimed and ready for some paint!

So much better!

Like I said, it didn't need to be perfect. It just needed to be painted to match the rest of the kitchen and now it does! A lot of our projects are ones to get us buy until bigger redos in the future. I love our white cabinets, but someday we might completely redo our kitchen and that would probably involve all new cabinets. So this project is to hold us over until we can afford a full kitchen renovation. Or until we decide to move or add on one day. Who knows what will happen!

The cabinets look so much better with that small touch up! Now there's no more wood poking out!

Same on this side! Now Tim is just going to touch up the paint under the microwave and the kitchen will be pretty much all set!

What projects did you work on this past weekend?

Social Isolation = Yard Work

Hey everyone! How is everyone doing with the current situation? Here in RI we were told to isolate at home which I'm not going to lie is kind of nice. There is a ton to do around the house so it was nice to have an excuse to make no plans. As an introvert I totally love staying home, so I don't mind being told to not go out at all!

On Saturday morning one little girl was ready to wake up!

Hello mom, it's time to wake up!

I know last Wednesday we talked about the front gardens so here is what it looked like on Saturday...

I think that these might be true forget me nots. I used an app that identified all the plants in the fall and based on that I think that they a forget me nots. We shall see!

I think these are crocuses, so soon we will know for sure!

There are a few other things poking through. I can't wait for a month from now to see what it looks like out here.

Now up towards the street (we have a big front yard so this is kind of far from the house) we have our well cover which needs to be replaced. I'm not sure what is around is but I'm thinking about putting common ivy here so it will be more covered and look nicer. 

I'm not sure what this tree by the road is, my mom thinks it is something that will flower this spring. I can't wait to see what happens!

This is a tree on the other side of the yard. I'm also not sure what this one is, but we will see soon!

This is a Siberian elm which is Sophie's favorite tree! She loves to run underneath it when the leaves are all on it.  I'm honestly not a huge fan of it and think it's really strange looking, but I will keep it up for her!

You can see the buds on the trees which is super exciting!

I worked out in the garden quite a bit on Sunday. I finally bought a rake so I was able to rake the garden out and clean everything up!

Now I just need to figure out what to plant in here! I would also love to get some window boxes but that is a long term project that I'm not sure will get done this year. As Tim reminded me on Sunday, "Everything costs money" so we need to prioritize what we want to get done this year. 

Here are my loves on Sunday morning. Sophie is so happy that Tim and I spent the entire weekend with her! She also got quite a bit of outdoor time too which she absolutely loved. 

I picked up a fiddle leaf fig plant which I absolutely love the look of! At the end of this post I'll show you where it ended up.

I also worked on raking some of the backyard and cleaning up the sticks that I found. We have a big backyard and are still figuring out exactly what we are going to do with it. The firepit is going to be disassembled and rebuilt on the side of the yard instead of the center. We also talked about where we would put a shed in the future. 

There is so much to do! Do the projects ever end??

We hooked Sophie up to the long leash so she could hang outside with us and we wouldn't have to worry about her.

We have forsythia bushes on the side of our yard and I can see the yellow flowers already! I can't wait till they fully come in.

Here is a glimpse of whats to come.

Another picture of the backyard after a bit of raking. 

These pictures are weird because of the way the sun was coming over the house, but the garden looked so good by the end of the day! Just raking everything out and getting all the dead stuff out made such a huge difference. Now I can see where things are growing and go buy some plants. 

Tim also started working on installing the lattice on the side of the deck. The whole deck will be stripped and restrained this spring.

The rest of the lattice needs to be cut in order to fit along the deck. Tim is going to get that done and then Sophie will no longer be able to get under the deck. Eventually we would love to put up a composite deck but right now since we aren't really ready to add onto the house, we are just making the deck we have look a little nicer. 

More pictures of the backyard.

Here are some of the plants I'm planning to plant. I think I'm going to put the hosta in around our mailbox.  I'm not sure where I'll be putting the sunflowers. I also picked up lupine because I thought it was pretty and I think I'll plant it in the front garden. 

I definitely have quite a bit more to buy though! I was looking for boxwoods but didn't find them yet and also definitely want some hydrangeas. 

Meanwhile, my fiddle leaf fig is hanging out in the corner of the living room and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays green! I really want to add more plants into our home, so any tips would be great!

I'm also watching Garden Answer on Youtube and after watching her garden tours I'm now obsessed with at least making my yard presentable!

Have a great day and stay healthy ya'll!

Adventures In Gardening: The Beginning

Something super exciting and terrifying for me with owning our own home is having an outdoor area to decorate and maintain.

Now, I have a lot of ideas and a ton of decisions to make as far as our landscaping in both our front and backyard. Since spring is about to finally roll around, the weather is finally not frigid, and it actually is light out when I get home from work at night I've decided to start taking a look at our front gardens.

When I walked outside last week here is what I saw:

Last fall I trimmed nothing down, I just let everything sit the way it was throughout the winter. I really have no clue what is going to pop up in this garden since we are just passing the 6 month mark of owning this home (TOMORROW!). I only had a few minutes since Sophie was barking at the front door but I ran outside with my new clippers and gardening gloves and got to work.

All I wanted to do was trim down all the stems and get some of the junk out of there. There were a ton of dead leaves and remnants from whatever grew there last year. I figured that by cleaning it up a little bit I would have more of a clean slate when I finally make a decision on what to do out here.

There is still a lot of junk that needs to be pulled out but I ran out of time.

Like I said, I don't know what everything is but I do not that nothing survived the winter. I want to make sure when I do plant new things in the front gardens we have at least something that will last and show some interest in the winter.

My first thoughts are boxwoods or some sort of dwarf pine but I am open to suggestions if anyone has ideas! I also would like to plant a few other things our here because I wasn't a huge fan of what I saw here in the fall.

There is some sort of plant coming up under the leaves! I will have to get back outside soon and clean this up a bit more. This also reminds me that I need to buy a wheelbarrow and a rake....home costs never end!

Also we have some crocuses poking out near the stairs! I do think these will be pretty so I am planning on leaving them for now.

If you are curious what the garden looked like in the fall when we moved in here are a couple of pictures...

I did download an app last year so I could identify what everything was, but honestly I didn't recognize a lot of it. I am definitely going to add some plants in here and freshen it up a bit and I'll take you guys along for the journey with me! 

Also please send me any and all of your gardening expertise because I am in way over my head here!

Weekly Couponing Deals: CVS and Walmart

Happy Monday everyone! 

We are finally over the winter sickness and hopefully that will be it for us this year!

Yesterday we headed out shopping and there are some pretty great deals you can snatch up so I want to share them with you guys so you can get them too!

If you aren't following me over on Instagram definitely do so because I try to share couponing deals as I do them so you'll often get them faster if you follow over there.

Also before I share these deals, make sure you have the following apps:

Ibotta, Fetch Rewards, Receipt Pal, and Receipt Hog.

These apps are rebate apps and give you money back for purchases you make every day. I use these to my advantage to lower the amount of money I spend on groceries. 

If you use this referral code for Fetch Rewards you will get 3,000 points when you sign up with is the equivalent to $3. It's a great way to get started!

My referral code for Ibotta is: tjq9bq  if you want to use that as well!

Okay, so lets talk about Walmart. If you like ice cream then run!

Some of the ice cream is on clearance for $1 including the Ninja Turtles ice cream you see in my cart above. My store didn't have as much as other stores I've seen on Instagram but we still managed to find a few things. The Breyers is NOT on clearance but there are points on Fetch Rewards so you can get it for a decent price.

Fetch is amazing for giving out free products! I was able to buy this Ready to Heat Chicken Broccoli Rice and I received the full amount back on Fetch Rewards. You still have to put the money out initially but getting a free product after the rebate is still amazing! 

Another great deal at Walmart is the clearanced baby pouches. Some of them are as low as 25 cents! I  checked the expiration dates of the ones I found and they were all 2021, so no reason to worry about that. If I had a baby I would definitely stock up!

One of my favorite people to watch for couponing deals is Coupon Katie you can find her through that link on YouTube or on Instagram or TikTok. I love that she doesn't overcomplicate things and doesn't go overboard. She also just seems like a super cool person and I think we would totally be couponing friends in real life!

Now lets talk about CVS.

Buy 1 Crest Toothpaste for $3
load $2/1 coupon to your card in your CVS app
Pay $1
Receive $1 back in ECB (ECB= Extra Care Bucks)
FREE

Buy 2 Garnier Fructis (I purchased one shampoo and one conditioner) for $7
Use $3/2 coupon
Pay $4
Receive $3 back in ECBs
50 cents each

I truly don't think you need to go overboard and buy 100 of something just because it's on sale. I see a lot of people buy a ton of one item and then resell them and if that's your jam then that's great! I would prefer to just get what is free or super cheap and slowly build up my stockpile. I want to make everyone understand that in order to coupon and stockpile you can build it up slowly! You can buy only one or two items and still be building your stockpile.

Well that's all for today, I hope you are able to get out and get some deals! Have a great day!

New Page Update!

In case you haven't seen it, check out the new "Our Home" page at the top of the blog!

This is where I will link to all our home projects and share pictures as we update our home. 

Due to the sickness in my house this week I don't have a regular blog post today but I will be back next week with regular postings.

Thanks for your understanding!

Cleaning After Sickness

Have you been sick yet this winter? Unfortunately the flu hit our house last week AND Sophie was spayed and is recovering from her surgery.. .meaning my house has become a disaster which I absolutely cannot stand.

Let me paint a picture for you....

Tuesday: Sophie gets spayed. Tim and Melissa decide the best thing for her is to sleep on the couch in the living room. Blankets are laid across the floor along with Sophie's bed to make everything comfortable for her. Melissa and Tim are up half the night with a crying dog who is in pain :(

Wednesday: Tim wakes up super sick. Sophie still in recovery.

Thursday: Tim even worse. Sophie now has energy and it's tough to keep her calm and resting.

Friday: Melissa joins in with the sickness. Tim is miserable. Sophie wants to play but no one will play with her they are trying to make her rest.

Saturday: Tim still sick, Melissa feels worse than the day before, Sophie is still angry no one will play and can't sit still.

Sunday: Tim feels better, Melissa still down for the count, Sophie still irritated no one will play.

....and here we are!

Now my plan this week is to get all the sickness out of our house. Obviously there's not too much we can do with Sophie who is still in a cone until next week when she has her sutures removed but we are going to try to get as many germs out of the house as possible.

I started cleaning over the weekend even when I felt pretty horrible because I knew that getting things clean would definitely help.

• Wash all things linen!

 This involves any clothing, bedding, towels, etc that you have come in contact with while sick. I washed everything from our clothing to Sophie's blankets. I generally do all the laundry on the weekend anyways but I made sure to include everything I thought might be slightly infected. Changing your pajamas often can help as well as things like blankets and pillowcases.

• New Toothbrushes

I coupon and get new toothbrushes all the time for free so the moment we feel better after being sick we change out our toothbrushes. No one wants that yucky toothbrush full of germs back in their mouth. 

• Disinfect all Surfaces (Including Doorhandles!)

I looooove my Clorox wipes and although I usually just use them in the bathroom but after we've been sick I wipe down every surface with them. Everything from our kitchen counters to our doorhandles to our cell phones...no germs will survive.

• Take out Trash/ Recycling

When we are sick we get super lazy and tend to let the trash and recycling build up. We also got a ton of packages last week so there was quite a bit to bring out to the outdoor bins.

• Vacuum and Mop!

I love to vacuum and mop regularly but this is a quick and easy way to get germs out of your house. There's always stuff all over the floor that we track in the house on our shoes. Vacuum it all up and mop down the floors to give it a good scrubbing.

• Bathrooms

For some reason it seems like bathrooms always have a ton of germs in them. I make sure to clean ours really well.

• Open The Windows!

It was far too cold this weekend to open the windows but this week its supposed to warm up a bit and you better believe we will be letting in some fresh air! 

Now, I want to know....  what are the number one things you clean once you finally feel better? If we had kids I think I would be disinfecting toys and washing stuffed animals!