Home improvement--The Mrs' Way

So, yesterday I got to do one of my favorite things in life--go shopping with gift cards. I bought all kinds of stuff and didn't spend a dime. Oh, how that makes my heart sing. I've also been doing some decorating around the hacienda and have been holding out on you, dear readers. Today is the day to come clean. First, let's start with a little of yesterday's purchases.

One of the things on our wedding registry was a utensil holder. That served us well...kinda. It really wasn't big enough to hold all of our cooking utensils so I have been on the hunt for months for something that would accommodate all of them. Yesterday it occurred to me to "think out of the box" and consider containers that aren't labeled "utensil holders". This is what I found at the lovely Hobby Lobby--another love of mine:

First off, the color is divine. It's the sage green that I have going in the kitchen and which will hopefully grace one of our walls in there eventually. I love the rusticness of it as well. It's shabby chic, but not so bad that I feel like I need to paint it RIGHT NOW. That's one thing I dislike about shabby chic style. I think all of that peeling paint would drive me nuts. To me, this little beauty has just enough that it won't drive me crazy every time I look at it. Plus, it's big enough that we have room to grow our utensil collection.

Next up was getting another pair of pillows for our bed. We got the loveliest, most heavenly pillows ever for our wedding, however, they cost a fortune, especially for a king sized bed. Yesterday Macy's had all of their pillows on sale--big time. I decided not to get the exact same kind we had, but still luscious. The cost of 2 of these was less than 1 of the other kind.

Yes, this is kind of a dorky picture since it's already in a pillowcase. And yes, the pillowcases are 2 different colors of beige--one isn't just dirty. The top one is our new one.

Now for the pictures I've been holding out from you. I've hung 2 pictures in our spare room which were crying out for something on the walls. This guy has been hanging up for quite a while.

While on the other hand, this little guy just got hung up this week. This is above the headboard.

Can I just say that I got this guy for $4!!! Yes, I did. You know I never pay full price for anything, but this deal made me almost sing out loud in the aisles of Kohl's.

Something else you may know is that Mr is the designated "wall decor hanger upper". One of the reasons is some of the stuff we have is too heavy for me to hang up myself. They require anchors and all that other crap. The other reason is because he's very precise. He measures lots of times, does math calculations, whatever it takes to get the picture centered precisely. Me--I'm an eyeballer. I look at the space, figure out where I want the picture that looks centered to me and then start nailing away. In my defense, let me just say that this has worked pretty damn well for me in the past. There wasn't a crooked or uncentered picture in my house. However, after seeing the precision with which Mr approaches hanging stuff, I thought maybe my method isn't the best. So, for the picture above the bed, I measured, remeasured, calculated, re-calculated and recalculated again. I figured out pretty quickly that I should've paid more attention in my high school math classes. Anyway, I got the measurements marked and proceeded nailing. Here is the result:

Yes, that is a nail hole that wasn't in the right location. How could this be after all of the measuring and re-measuring? I still don't know. Nevertheless, the mother is hung in the center of the bed now. Next time I will stick with my tried and true method and Mr can stick with his.

I've saved the best for last. These little beauties have been on our kitchen table for months. Ta da!!

Yes, I found a way to incorporate my love of damask. These placemats are to die for. At first, I was going to return them because black and white really doesn't fit into the color scheme of the kitchen/connected living room. Then I thought what the hell. I love them. It's hard for me to go against my matchy, matchy, poo poo compulsion, but here they are and I love them. My justification is there is black in the living room so it's fine.

So, our stroll through the recent home improvements is over. Hope you enjoyed it.

P.S. Sorry for the screwy spacing in this post. I don't even want to tell you how long I have been editing and re-editing this effin' post to try to get it to do a stupid paragraph break. Blogger sucks BIGTIME!!