Category: Current House

Etsy Favs: May

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Another month, another round of Etsy favs.  I added 10 things to my Etsy favs in May, despite being insanely busy.

Blue Garden Original Painting by Ohchalet, small and cute.  What can be better?

Large Aqua Flower Ring from Nangijala Jewelry is interesting and sculptural.

I Lied Pillow by My Bearded Pigeon don’t we all?

World Map Poster from Macanaz Print makes me smile.  The colors are great for any room, especially in a kids room.

Shiny Forests by Emerald Snow; geometric shapes with fun pops of color, need I say more?

Blue Feathers from Miles of Light, great color and the feathers look so real.

Custom Return Address Stamp by Primele makes sending mail out easier.  A hand written look for those with terrible writing.

Raven Feather Ring from Moon Raven Designs.  Yes, I still love feathers.  And the detailing on this ring is fantastic.  Even better, the ring can be worn any way to show the overall design.

The Yellow Bowl by Terttulla, a fun poppy color for summer.

Paperclay Filigree Bowl from L’Officina, the crazy open swirl design of this bowl makes it a perfect candidate for a fruit bowl.

Which one is your favorite?  How was your weekend?  What fun things did you do?

Our Humble Sponsors: May

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This month, we’ve happily welcomed two new sponsors to our sidebar.  Vistaprint, a go to for professional, affordable printing makes ordering invitations, thank you cards, and business cards easy.

If you’ve recently moved, check out the stock moving announcements or design your own, upload, and print.

Do you recognize the header above?  Yep, Chris Loves Julia is a humble sponsor now!  And I’m thrilled.  Seriously, their blog is a daily read  and Julia’s artistic talents never cease to amaze.

You saw a few of Julia’s chalkboard drawings in our recent giveaway, but her newest shop addition, Wall Frames, is so cute.

Lucky for us, Julia has started selling abstract paintings, too.

Stop by the Chris Loves Julia blog this week to enter a giveaway we’ve teamed up on!

Scissors, Paper, Mouse is a little Australian based shop is filled with cute and colorful prints like Singing in the Rain

And I am Woman Hear Me Roar.

Of course, there are plenty more designs to choose from, so stop by the shop and show Yasmin some love.

Joseph Thompson Woodworks is another Etsy shop with cool kitchen gear.

This striped serving/cutting board is a perfect addition to any kitchen, adding function and style.

Or go all out with a large butcher block board.

E-Meals, is an online meal planning site designed to save you loads of time and oodles of money.

E-Meals offers a variety of meal plan options including vegetarian, gluten-free, and low carb.

S and S Babee is continuing to support us, too.

S and S Babee is a small shop with hand sewn baby goodies. Jenna takes custom orders, so if you’re looking for something, give her a holler.

Last but not least, my blog bud Jen at IHeart Organizing is showing us some love.

Jen has re-released her all-inclusive Household Binder Kit, complete with three cover sheets and customized pages.

Don’t need a whole kit? Jen offers single pages, too, so stop in the shop and browse through the options.

Interested in advertising with Our Humble A{Bowe}d? Here’s some info to get you started.

P.S.  We’ll be back in a few hours with our Etsy Favs.

Gimme a Giveaway Winner: Jillian Rene Decor & Purchases

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We’re excited for the weekend.  Cooler weather is on the way and we get more time to work on a few house projects.  The Jillian Rene Decor pillow giveaway reminded me of pillow fight fun.  My sisters and I had pillow fights and now V and E do.

Liz S, the winner of a $50 Jillian Rene Decor store credit, was involved in sock fights.  Ha, never tried that!

On a more serious note, we’ve been busy buying things for the mountain house.  50 4 foot by 8 foot by 1 1/4 inch sheets of recycled (pulled off a remodeled building) polystyrene insulation thanks to Craigslist.

Similar products cost $18 per sheet at Home Depot.  Ben will use this to insulate the back basement wall, which now has only framework and sheet rock.  We’re hoping to score more through Craigslist and local recycle companies to wrap the house before we install new siding.

Another necessary addition is this Killer Whale by Pur Vac.

Sure, we have a central vacuüm already, but it is super lame.  It sucks so little that it sucks so much.  And only low voltage was run to the outlets, so it can’t support a rug attachment head.  Oh, and it turns on as soon as the hose is plugged in, which has worn down the motor.  Cleaning dog hair out of our rugs with the current vacuüm and hardwood floor head is not easy.

 

Ben has some wiring to run to get this behemoth hung in the garage.  Actually, we don’t have enough room in the house electrical panel, so Ben is working on adding another to the garage.  The previous owner ran wiring for a future shop/garage and we’re using that.  As if we didn’t have enough irons in the fire, Ben tore down the wall separating the two storage rooms in the garage area.  One month ago, after closing on the house, the storage room looked like this:

As of this morning, it looks like this:

Notice the square on the floor?  That should help you get an idea of the wall placement.  Soon, Ben wants to tear out the rest of the walls in this area to make room for his boat and give us room to park two cars in the garage.

Between knocking down walls and installing vacuums, he’ll have to add wire to each vacuüm port to power the new attachment kit we ordered.

That’s on our agenda this weekend.  Maybe a little bathroom work for good measure.

What are you working on?  Wall removal?  Weekends just aren’t the same without demo work.

Tile on the Floor

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I’ve said it before, progress on the bathroom is slow.  We’ve got a million and ten projects we’re working on, some more pressing than others.  First removing the water heaters to make room for the geothermal.  Then installing a new dishwasher.  And a whole house fan to keep us cool.  All necessary things that have taken focus off the bathroom.  Such is life, I guess.  In the video tour, you caught a glimpse of the newly installed floor tile.  So here’s how we got to that point.

Before we could install the tile, we had to determine the layout.  We knew we wanted a brick pattern and preferred the look of it running parallel to the door.  Then, Ben measured the distance between the wall and the bath tub.  Centering the middle of the first tile on this portion looked best, instead of centering the first tile over the entire room length.

More of the room is this width, not the full 8 foot span.  Ben marked the center of the tile with a pencil, making it easier to line everything up.  After nailing that down (figuratively, of course) Ben measured and cut the rest of his pieces.

Including this hole for the floor vent.

Sometimes tiles are finicky and break while cutting.  Well, not these.  Ben said these tiles are crazy strong and a dream to work with.  A happy Ben means a happy tile job and very little complaining.  And, this is his best toilet cut out to date.

Turns out a paint can is the perfect template.  Knowing this is a small space, Ben pre-cut and fitted his tiles before mixing the mastic.

Install was crazy quick because of this.  Seriously, I watched him set the first few, walked down the hall to clean up a few things, came back and saw this:

Sure it helps that the tiles are 1 foot by two feet, but it went fast.

The following morning, V helped me pull out the 1/16 inch spacers and I got to work cleaning the floor.  Wetting the mastic with a rag makes clean up super simple.  Then I used a utility knife to scrape the higher sections of mastic out of the grout lines.

Bring on the grout!  And a toilet, please.

Airing Things Out

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Montana summer is near, and we love enjoying the warm weather outside.  And we want that warmth to stay outside.  In our first house, keeping it cool wan’t too difficult.  Ben super insulated the walls and we had a functioning geothermal to cool.  Well, the mountain house has neither and we’ve got loads of large windows and southern exposure.  It heats up in here.  Luckily, our nights cool off nicely this time of year. Ben came up with a genius idea to tide us over during these in between months; a whole house fan.

After some discussion and weighing our options, we decided to remove the ugly fluorescent light in my office to make room for the fan.

The electric from the light made install easier.  Removing the light was easy enough, then Ben located the roof rafters using a stud finder.

Typical install involves cutting the rafter to make room for the fan.  Not cool with us.  Something about tearing out part of a structural element seems wrong.  Instead, Ben used the fan template and cut the sheet rock around the beam.

Here’s the big guy now.  The fan, not Ben.  🙂

Ben used 2 by 4s to build a brace around the outside of the opening, then put the fan in place.

I’d love to give you a detailed tutorial of everything he did, but I wasn’t in the attic.  However, I can give you this shot of how it looks from afar when on.

The fan sucks warm air from the house and puts it in the attic, which also pulls the louvers up.  The beam across the middle blocks the center louver from moving, so Ben cut it loose from the rest.

When off, the louvers kind of look like a vinyl fence.  Still, it is a far better look than the huge oak encased light of yore.

Even better, when on, the fan does a great job pulling the cold outside air through the open windows.  If we close everything early enough, the house stays cool throughout the day.  What a smart man I have.