{Only 9 More Days}

We leave for Texas in 9 days & I am so excited! 

I cannot wait to see my family & friends. 

The best will be showing Landry off to everyone!  It's so important to me to show her my roots as well as her dad's.  My family is definitely a lot closer than my husband's so it'll be nice to show her a different family dynamic.  I love my husband's family but there's nothing like your own family. 

We've been busy finishing up projects.

The kitchen floor is finished.  I hope to post pictures before we leave.  It turned out beautifully!  We are both pleased with it & love how it doesn't show every single piece of dirt like the last floor did.  We were definitely sore for a few days afterwards but it was worth the pain. 

I have major OCD when it comes to packing so I've been working on that the last few days. 

We'll be gone for 3 weeks so it's not like packing for a weekend trip.  It gives me anxiety to be honest.

I am super excited because I was commissioned to do my first job last night.  It's a huge one too!  I cannot wait to share our new business with y'all.  It's perfect for our family!  We are finalizing some details & hope to reveal soon! 

Well, I'm going to try & get some sleep. 
Hope everyone had a great Monday!

{Grrr....}

Last year I bought a thing called Chalk Ink.  I thought they'd be easier to write with than regular chalk & they are but they DO NOT remove as easily as chalk. 

I purchased a pretty Santa Claus at Hobby Lobby that I hung on the chalkboard wall at Christmas & wrote part of Twas' the Night Before Christmas around it.  It was really cute & I'm almost positive that I have a picture somewhere. 

Anyway, I went to erase it today & this is what happened....

I scrub the top part for probably 30 minutes to get it to go away.  The bottom part will not erase no matter how hard I scrub!  I'm so upset because now I'm going to have repaint the chalkboard wall. 

So a lesson learned.  No more Chalk Ink pen.  There's a reason the old school chalk has been around forever.  If it ain't broke don't fix it right?

I'm working on the window above the sink right now.  I had a curtain there & had my husband take it down tonight to fix the hems.  They were way off.  I used one panel & made into two. 

Upon taking them down I realized that I never painted the sides & top of the window. Oops. I'm working on that now & trying to decide if I want the curtains back up or if I want to do something else. I have a gorgeous piece of art that I'm thinking about hanging there. It won't block the light coming in from the laundry room but still block enough of that room that you can't see the madness happening in there now.

If any of you have tips on how to get the chalk ink off the wall I'd greatly appreciate it.

Hope everyone is having a great Wednesday!

{Kitchen Floors}

When we purchased this house 5 years ago we knew that we were taking on quite the project especially where the kitchen was concerned.

It had to be completely gutted.

It was a process.

One that isn't finished.

The floors in the kitchen, living room & hallway were disgusting.  It was the ugliest thickest linoleum I have ever seen.  Our original plan was to pull it all up & refinish the hardwood floors underneath.  That didn't work out the way we planned so we bought a cheap peel & stick floor from Lowe's.  My husband & his best friend put it down & we've been living with it until December 26th. 

One of my Christmas presents per my request was a new floor.  I didn't want to invest a lot of money because we have some major plans for this room & will eventually refinish the hardwoods that lie underneath the madness of linoleum. 

After many nights of research online we decided on the Novalis luxury vinyl plank in Cherry from Lowe's.  

It received great reviews & after seeing that House of Smith's & The Lettered Cottage used it I knew it would be perfect for our home. 

It goes down so easy.  And it looks amazing.

We got more than half of the floor done when we hit a snag. 

This piece is not level.  There used to be a cabinet here but we took it out to make room for the refrigerator we wanted.  There wouldn't have been enough walk room had we placed another cabinet here.  We never fixed the problem before because the guys were a tad lazy in putting the checkerboard floor down. 

You can see here the difference in height from the hardwoods to the floor we have now.  My husband is going to work on this tonight so we can finish this floor.  It's been driving me crazy not having it finished. 

This really is a beautiful floor for cheap. 

Each box covers 40 sq ft & we purchased 4 boxes. 

I don't remember what the exact price of each box was but they were around $46.00. 

So for around $184 we have a brand new floor.

Fingers crossed this project is done tonight & we can mark it off the list!

{365 Days of Landry: Week 2}