The funny thing is that we realized I’ve been cutting John’s hair for seven whole years! And I’ve probably dished out 50+ other haircuts to other friends and family members throughout the last ten years (why yes I have cut my brother in law’s hair in the backyard of John’s parents beach house). So take this post for what it is, one not-professional gal’s take on how she grooms her man. An above the neck manscaping lesson if you will.

But since it’s extremely impossible to tell you how I cut John’s hair and a lot more descriptive to just show you, we actually made a video, thanks to the help of our handy little tripod. Look at that shaggy hair John had going on in this “setting up for the video” shot:

It’s amazing what a little at-home clippage can do. How YOU doin’ hubby?

But on with the video! Let’s get up close and personal with those light brown locks, shall we? Oh yes, and I have primer/paint all over my hands from Clara’s birthday dollhouse (more on that tomorrow).

For anyone who can’t watch the video with the sound on (mehaps you’re at work?) it’s actually still pretty easy to understand on mute (since you just have to see what my hands are doing to get the gist). And I’ve included a few written tips in bullet form below, just to help anyone with a sucker on standby who’s ok with you experimenting on their head. I say that in the most kind and loving way, since all of my friends and family who have let me go to town on their hair are pretty darn awesome. I actually haven’t had an oopsie since college (I went a little shorter than I meant to on a gal in dorms, but she totally had the bone structure to work it). Although now that I’ve made that claim I feel like I should knock on wood. Or John should, since he’d be the most likely person to have to walk around with a potential hair snafu if it ever were to happen. Anyway, on with the tips:

• I cut hair when it’s dry or very lightly misted with water because my experience when cutting wet hair has been that it “shrinks up” and is always shorter than I mean for it to be – which can lead to profuse apologies. Also hair that’s wet might not “lay” the way it does when it’s dry (ex: a cowlick might make itself known when hair’s dry and result in an uneven effect).
• I cut John’s hair at night after Clara’s off to bed so we can get ‘er done without distractions (no toddler running through the hair pile on the floor- which Burger thankfully avoids like the plague).
• I don’t use a buzzer and just shave John’s neck for him after the haircut with a regular shaving razor. That always makes things look nice and polished, and this way we don’t have to store a big hair buzzer (or pay for one).
• I use hair-cutting scissors that I got for like $5 from CVS. They don’t even have a brand name on them to pass along. Sorry!

• I use my fingers to keep things even. For example, when I cut John’s hair I cut it one-finger-length from his scalp, so it all stays that length. I go a little longer on top – maybe two finger lengths (see the video for more on this).
• I always try to cut hair vertically (ex: parallel to John’s spine) – except for trimming the line around his neck – since it can look dorky and block-ish if you cut things horizontally (parallel to the shoulders). It’s really hard to explain in words, but the video makes this much more clear.
• I’m not a pro, so this isn’t real hairdresser scoop. Haha. I’m just a crazy girl with a penchant for pickles and cutting hair – so this is just what works for me (and John, my sweet hair-model hubby).

Oh and here’s an after pic from the back, since that might help you guys visualize it from that angle.

Hope that helps any DIY-haircutting-hopefuls out there! Does anyone else host haircuts at their house? The craziest thing is that I just calculated that we have probably saved at least $700 in the past seven years just by me cutting John’s hair (not counting all the times that I cut my own hair or ask John to snip a straight line in the back when I need a little trim and can’t reach – which might be an additional $500 in savings over the years). That’s a lot of cheddar ceramic animals…

There was nothing especially offensive about the existing fixture – nor anything especially exciting about it. It felt sort of builder basic to us. And kind of “backstage make-up room” to us thanks to the long line of bulbs (long vanity + long mirror + long fixture = lots of long things). So we always told ourselves if we saw something that we liked better (maybe with more height and less width, without looking too pidly and delicate over such a large vanity and mirror) we’d upgrade and then donate the original – since we’re sure someone else might love it more than we do.

We randomly checked out a few home improvement stores over the past year and a half, but nothing really got our figurative motors running. That moment finally came about a month ago while Sherry was on Joss & Main and saw this:

We obviously liked the dark bronze finish and also liked its sort of industrial / outdoor feel. It was mildly reminiscent of both our guest bathroom light (an outdoor fixture we installed inside for that industrial feeling) and our front porch light (which came with the house).

And at $60 (down 40 bucks from the original $100 price) it was less expensive than a lot of the alternatives we hadn’t liked as much at the home improvement store. So we pulled the trigger.

The breaking news is that we finally got around to putting this baby in (first it sat on the counter for a few weeks, taunting us). Thanks to the position of our mirror, I had the pleasure of photographing myself a lot in the process. And thanks to the bathtub being in my way, I also got to play the role of the tripod a few times. Apparently my head isn’t very level…

You guys have probably seen me remove a light before, but if not – after turning off the power to the whole house (our fuse box isn’t labeled carefully enough for us to trust it blindly) I carefully removed all of the glass shades and bulbs (I’m a smidge accident prone around those things) and unscrewed the fixture from the wall.

That revealed this big metal plate that was secured to the wall… along with lots of nasty dust (hence my expression).

When I unscrewed the plate I was left with this imprint of what once was: some unpainted areas, a bit of rust, more dust, and some old paint drips.

After Sherry broke out a lead paint test stick (we got a pack of them from Home Depot about a year ago and they’re still coming in handy) we were relieved to get a negative result so I broke out my cheery little palm sander to smooth out those ridges left by the previous paint job so that our re-paint job will have a better chance of looking seamless. But re-painting’s a future task since we still have to settle on a color for this room (but you know we’ll keep you posted!).

With the old fixture successfully down, we brought in the new guy. Here’s what he looked like out of the box.

I screwed in the mounting bar (a simple task that took longer than usual because the included screws didn’t fit my junction box so we had to run to the hardware store to get different ones).

Then I attached the wires and screwed the new fixture in place. Pretend that giant unpainted spot isn’t there.

Once the metal shades were affixed and the bulbs were back in place, we had our new and improved light ready to go. My head-tripoding skills also appear to have improved.

We’re charmed by the extra bit of character this light brings to the otherwise still-ignored bathroom. Thankfully, the two 100 watt bulbs are more than enough to illuminate our small bathroom, and we’re excited about how the dark color of the fixture balances some of the dark accent tile around the room. We also like that it looks sort of old (like our house and many of the other industrial lights we’ve brought in). We have big plans for framing out the mirror, painting the walls, painting the vanity, getting new vanity hardware, doing something to the window, hanging some art, etc. So although it’s not looking too amazing right now, we’re inching towards something that might look cool someday. We hope. Haha.

We like how our new fixture better fills the space above the mirror (thanks to more height, which balances the ceiling-height shower curtain on the other side of the room). And we’re actually really happy with the quality of this light. It looks a lot more expensive than 60 beans, just because it’s not flimsy and the dark color is really matte and authentic looking if that makes sense. The little distressed areas don’t feel too country for our tastes, but they make it feel less mass produced and more “oh this old thing, we actually inherited it from Uncle Merlin and it has some great story to tell” – even thought that’s totally not the case.

And we already dropped the old light off at our Habitat For Humanity ReStore, so the switcheroo is officially complete. Hopefully we’ll have another update post with a paint color sometime soon-ish. And that giant mirror will look a heckova lot more legit once it’s framed out. But at the rate these hall bathroom posts have been appearing so far (along with posts about the guest bathroom, the playroom, and the sunroom – which are our other virtually untouched spaces thus far), I probably shouldn’t make any promises. We’ll get there someday!

What have you guys been hanging in the bathroom? Art? Lighting? Mirrors? Any favorite bathroom paint colors to share? Do you get nervous ordering a light you haven’t seen in person? We must admit we were a little sweaty when we clicked “buy” but we’re glad we took a chance.

Our second $200 prize comes from Oilo Studio, who designs chic housewares for nurseries and kids rooms that are totally worthy of a grown-up room too. So you can make like some of their celebrity clientele (Christina Applegate & Rachel Zoe to name two – there’s that number again!) and score some lighting, pillows, furniture, or bedding. They offer bedding in crib, twin, and even queen sizes so you don’t even have to have a kid to enjoy the 200 beans they’re tossing your way.

• PRIZE: $200 to Sarah + Abraham and $200 to Oilo Studio
• TO ENTER: Comment on this post with the words “TWO ME!” and tell us…
• BONUS QUESTION: … your latest / favorite funny kid moment. We’re sure most of you have a good tale of something hilarious your (or someone else’s) child did, said, or wore. Heck, you can even share something wacky you did as a kid.
• GIVEAWAY CLOSES: Wednesday, May 16th at 8pm EST or at 10,000 entries (whichever comes first)
• NUMBER OF WINNERS: One
• PRIZE SHIPS: The United States & Canada (although we do try to wrangle as many international giveaways as possible)
• USUAL STUFF: One entry per e-mail address is permitted. The winner will be selected using random.org and announced on Thursday as an update to this post. That’s right, come right back here on Thursday for the announcement of our winner. Good luck…

Note: We aren’t paid or perked for hosting these giveaways, we just do ‘em to thank you awesome folks for stopping in. See our Giveaway FAQ page for more info. Pics courtesy of Sarah + Abraham and Oilo Studio.

But let’s start at the beginning. Clara was born two years ago today. Wait, that’s too far back. Let’s just cover the party. Here’s the sunroom all decked out for the big day. Nothing too fancy, just some balloons and streamers from Target, a colorful tablecloth from HomeGoods, and lots of worm-a-licious food. But we’ll get to that in a second.

We decided to use the sunroom, the patio, and the carport for the entire gathering, which was about 30 people total (ten were kiddos under the age of four). Of course if it had rained we would have partied inside, but it felt especially wormy and fun to have kiddos running around outdoors in the fresh air. Having the sunroom (which is located right off the patio) for food and drinks was also really nice since we didn’t have to worry about finding actual bugs in the food (fake worms = ok, real bugs = not ok).

Here’s a close up of the table seconds before everyone arrived. Fun fact: the table is actually a secret book project covered with a tablecloth since we can’t reveal it on the blog – and also since we didn’t have room to stash it anywhere else. Haha. We figured we might as well put it to good use for now (we’ll be auctioning a bunch of book projects off for charity this fall once the book is out and they’re allowed out of the proverbial bag).

We set out worm-ish food with worm-related labels (made in photoshop and printed at home) like “worm crudités” (long skinny slices of carrots, cucumbers, and cheese), “puffed worms” (white cheddar cheese puffs), “salted worms” (pretzel rods), and “worm dogs” (hot dogs that we cut into fourths and boiled to make them all curly as so many of you recommended in the comments of this pre-party post – thanks!!).

See those pretty flowers on the table? They were from J-boom for Mother’s Day. Love my hubby.

Here’s a close up of the worm dogs. They were a hit among kiddos and adults. I think we moved more of them than we had people at the party.

All of the bowls and plates were just things we had in the pantry. Nothing really matched in shape (round, scalloped, rectangular, etc) but it all worked because it was white – which was actually a nice combo with the crazy-colorful tablecloth (bright platters and bowls might have been a bit much with such an in-yo-face pattern).

We also set out little cups of gummy worms. Hanging a few over the rim like they were crawling out was my idea of a good time. Oh yes, I live on the edge.

We had another small table for the pizza – which is always a party pleaser. We did our take on worm pizza by ordering one with worm-like peppers & onions and topping one with pre-cooked spaghetti. The other two (cheese and peperoni) had a label that said “dewormed pizza.” Oh yeah, we ran with this worm theme, baby.

Everyone got a kick out of the bird napkins (birds eat worms, right?) that we found at Ikea.

On the other side of the sunroom we set up a little drink station. See this table covered with another HomeGoods tablecloth? There’s another secret book project under there. Haha. As for what drinks we served, we went with some cute glass bottles of orange soda and Coke for the 20-ish adults and also had Izze, water, and sparkling water in the beverage tin along with apple juice and water for the kiddos. Oh and see those apples in front of the drink tin? We plopped a gummy worm on each one. Ha. They actually got eaten, too!

And check out those worm-like pink straws…

Since this room is still completely untouched, there was no wall art going on (we just plopped down furniture 16 months ago and haven’t done anything but shove book stuff in there since). So we taped up Clara’s monthly pictures from this year along with 12 fun worm facts on a nice bare expanse of wall above the table. John just googled around for worm trivia and typed each 4 x 6″ card up in Photoshop.

For anyone who wants to see the whole shebang a little closer, just click this photo for an enlarged version:

Oh and here’s the carport all snazzed up with pink & orange streamers. When it comes to bang for your buck, they’re pretty festive (and so cheap!). It’s hard to see in these pics, but we swagged them so they were sort of wiggly and worm-ish. And I proudly hung the fabric banner that I made for Clara’s first birthday on the half wall that looks back onto the patio. We brought a few chairs and a garden stool out from inside as well as all the sweet little watering can favors for each of our young party-goers to take home.

I can’t tell you how happy it made me to see all ten of those little watering cans lined up on that wall. As I mentioned here, they were each filled with a bottle of bubbles, a pink or orange shovel, and a stuffed snake-turned-worm that we found at Ikea for 49 cents (we cut off the forked tongue to complete the conversion). We also grabbed the watering cans at Ikea for 99 cents each.

Other than streamers and balloons, we just hung three paper lanterns that came in a pack from Target and some funny worm-like pink swirlie paper things that we found for a few bucks at Party City. Then we brought out a low table from the sunroom and made a little play station for the kiddos with things like bubbles, a puzzle from Melissa and Doug that has bugs/worms on it, a box of crayons, and a bunch of color-the-worm pages that I sketched before the party.

I just took cardstock and a gray marker and drew a few happy little worms for the kiddos to color. It actually went over pretty well. It was so much fun to see all those colorful scribbled worms at the end of the day.

Here’s a people-milling pic for ya. Is there anything better than a patio full of people you love?

Sidenote: Clara was kind of hilarious about the pizza. She took a big bite of mine and then moved over to her cousin Jake and asked for a bite of his and when we all stared laughing she went from person to person, requesting a bite of each slice (thankfully there were only two other people nearby so it didn’t turn into a giant germ-sharing fest). It was very “welcome to my party, now feed me” of her. At least she wasn’t asking us to bow to her and fan her with leaves.

The other crowd favorite of the afternoon (besides our sweet little pizza-mooching bean) were the dirt cupcakes. We just picked up tasty little 40 cent vanilla cupcakes from a local bakery here in Richmond (Ukrops), pressed them icing-side-down into crushed up Oreo cookies, and plopped a gummy worm on top. We also made some that were dirt free (just squished a worm into the white icing) but the consensus from the crowd was that the Oreo ones were the best since they had some crunch.

Here’s the birthday girl getting her special cupcake (she hand-picked that green gummy worm before the party) in her favorite yellow chair. We stuck two worm-ish pink candles from Target on top, sang our little hearts out, and blew them out fast (since she’s still mildly afraid of fire from a certain Hawaiian hibachi incident).

She did momma proud with her cupcake-eating skills.

We even remembered to try to take a few family photos. Of course we didn’t get any with all of us looking at the camera and smiling (what are those odds, one in a million?), but we did end up with some sweet candid ones (yes that is a random bubble floating by in the foreground).

Clara took the worm theme very seriously. For example, she took great pleasure in feeding them to me.

She and her daddy even got all Lady and The Tramp for this shot:

We all seemed to gravitate to the carport after a few hours in the sunroom and on the patio, and then we decided to open some presents. This wooden worm (well, actually it’s a snake) from one of Clara’s best buddies was a huge hit. The funny thing is that John and I played around with that exact same thing (from Michael’s) for this old Halloween post before we had any idea Clara would develop a deep, strong love of worms.

Clara was seriously smitten.

Here’s another people-milling shot in the carport. As much as we would someday love to convert that space to a garage, it sure is good for friends and family (and balls and balloons). We ended up bringing out our dining chairs with their slipcovers back on (so any rogue icing could just be washed off) and we did what we do best: hung out and watched those sweet kiddos of ours. Although there are only three out of ten kids in this pic, so there must have been a gaggle of them staring at a spider in the corner or dunking by the basketball hoop (a sweet gift from my brother Dan, which you can see two pictures up).

The general gist? It was a great day. We are so thankful for our friends and family and our sweet, happy little girl. I always cry at her party. Just can’t help it. She’s our little miracle (birth story here, sniffle sniffle). And we’re so grateful to have awesome folks like you guys to virtually attend our weird little worm party. Haha. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.

But perhaps Burger had the most fun, gazing dreamily up at all the leftovers at the end of the festivities.

He even got lucky and found a cheese puff under the table.

The End.

Oh wait, we made a little Clara video like we did last year – not to show at the party this time, just to have so we can look back on it (and watch it with Clara, since she loves the one we made for her first birthday). So here’s her last year in seven minutes. My favorite parts are her Britney Spears impression near the beginning and some Flash-Dance-ish ottoman dancing in the outtakes at the very end.

Love that girl. Love you guys too. Lots of mushiness flying around. Haha. What did you do this weekend? Any Mother’s Day fun? Any worm eating?

Psst- We have a bunch of outtakes for this month’s Clara picture in front of her homemade fabric, so you can check those out here on Young House Life.

A: Haha, it’s a great question and we actually get it a lot. I really think because this blog and our DIY love started as a complete hobby (we did home improvement stuff on nights and weekends and started this blog just to keep our friends and family posted) it’s totally something that we still enjoy doing – and are thankful to have the opportunity to do full time. We actually still do most projects on nights and weekends since during the day we’re tending the blog/answering comments/writing posts/doing other office-job stuff like arranging giveaways and managing sponsors (and watching the bean) and then at night when Clara’s asleep we can actually get our hammer on.

Bit since fixing up our home wasn’t something we did to make money or start a business, and was actually what we opted to spend our free time doing without making a dime after a hard day’s work – it really is just the definition of FUN to us. To be very honest, the business side of running a blog can be pretty hard work  – so the coding and the technical stuff and the other behind the scenes being-a-small-business stuff (like filing quarterly taxes and paying for our own health insurance, etc) can be stressful (more on that here). But the DIY stuff is always our favorite! It’s the fun part. The cream in the middle of the Oreo, if you will.

Even picture taking/uploading/sizing can sometimes feel like busy-work, but projects and planning and painting and all the fun physical you-see-the-changes-as-you-go stuff is the thing we always look forward to! It’s so rewarding and personal that it never gets old. I definitely don’t think it would be that way for everyone, but just as someone else might have a passion for numbers (and take great joy in being a professor or an accountant or a financial adviser) we have a passion for getting to plan/rethink/paint/upgrade stuff. It’s a fun challenge for us and no day is ever the same. I certainly think some folks would rather just do it as a hobby (maybe five hours a week is their cap) but we’re happy to do it day in and day out. Heck, for the last four consecutive Christmases we’ve taken on some of our craziest house projects (what’s wrong with us? haha). But honestly, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

It wasn’t always an enjoyable, balanced, healthy thing for us though. In our first house we found that in the first few months after moving in (about a year before we started this blog) we felt rushed and put all of this unrealistic pressure on ourselves. And it sucked! We wanted our house to be completely made over in a matter of months and anytime someone was visiting we freaked out and tried to do ten things before they arrived, which left us feeling burned out at best and frustrated and deflated at worst (when we didn’t get everything done in time). The freeing thing was realizing that it takes years. Our den actually looked like this eight months after moving in. And that’s more than ok – it’s par for the DIY course.

A house that needs serious love isn’t going to look amazing overnight or even in a month or a series of months. Unless you have a crew of people and unlimited funds. Plus, if you take your time you’re more likely to love the result since you actually think it through instead of rushing in and having all those shoulda-woulda-coula feelings later. This room took 4.5 years to evolve and was one of our favorite spots in our first house – not only afterwards, but along the way. Once we learned to chill the heck out and relax. Haha.

So “relax, it’s only decorating” is kind of our mantra. We’ve had family visit us in the middle of our most recent kitchen reno (there were no doors on any of the cabinets) and we all just laughed that there’s always something disassembled at our house.

Guests know it’s totally normal to come over our house and see something mid-project, and you know what? They still love us! It was a revelation. We don’t have to go crazy trying to finish every last detail when family and friends are en route. They will love us and enjoy our company anyway. Liberating, I tell ya.

In short: now we feel a lot less time pressure (haha, yes, even with such a long list and so many people watching) because we have learned that it’s not a sprint and it’s more of a journey that we need to stop and enjoy. We always say it’s not about the destination, it’s about the ride. And the ride never gets old to us since we get to switch things up and tackle different tasks all the time (painting trim for five years would definitely get old, but getting to do a bunch of different challenges and have various adventures along the way really is our idea of a good time).

Plus we get to live IN our progress, meaning that everything we have accomplished surrounds us and reminds us how good it feels to get ‘er done. I suppose it’s like hanging your degrees on the wall in your office, and putting up photos that make you smile – the environment is a good one because it reminds us how far we’ve come and how rewarding it is when we get our hands dirty and make something lackluster into something that we find beautiful and functional. Even when we’re living right smack in the middle of a project, we try to enjoy that time, snap photos, revel in the fact that a doorway might exist where one didn’t a few months ago, etc. Even if the counters aren’t in and the new floor isn’t down, there’s something nice about enjoying each step of progress as it comes.

So our #1 advice to folks is to enjoy the journey and stop rushing around. Which means while you DIY your way to a new home, you’re required to stop to enjoy your handiwork and appreciate where you were and where you’re going and all that stuff. What’s a renovated kitchen if you can’t enjoy it? Since we finished that looooong project we have entertained a bunch of family and friends in there and every time we find ourselves beaming at a bunch of people milling around in our new space, this wash of gratitude and happiness comes over us. We’re proud and excited to share our hard work and so thankful that it’s functional and beautiful to us!

And not only do we get that giddiness when we entertain, but a quiet evening at home on a random Wednesday night might mean that John cooks while I read to Clara in the chair by the fireplace and then we eat at the peninsula. And this is the view.

Sometimes we take Clara outside to play on the patio, so we’re here:

… instead of here, which is what that area looked like before we got our DIY-loving hands on it.

So we’re soaking up the gratitude and enjoying our ever-evolving home all the time. The same is true when we work towards upgrading our bedroom or our living room or our curb appeal – all those spaces are areas we can enjoy and they fuel us and excite us and inspire us to keep at it. They remind us how much fun it is and how rewarding it can be. So try not to put pressure on yourself to get to this imaginary finish line and just have fun and take your time and tackle things one day and one small step at a time! It really keeps it manageable and spurs you on to make other parts of your home just as personalized and special.

What do you guys do to keep your DIY spirits up? Do you find that it’s possible to enjoy your home improvement triumphs along the way? Have you ever felt the it-must-be-done pressure that we put on ourselves in the first few months of living in our first house? I’m telling you, it’s crazy-liberating to just say: it’ll be done when it’s done and we’re going to have fun getting there. Booyah.

In 11 years of marriage, my husband and I have lived in seven cities and sometimes have moved multiple times in each city. Needless to say, I have become a pro at making each house a home. One thing I have always wanted to do, but have been too chicken to tackle it – is paint my kitchen cabinets. Now, in our seventh home, I finally decided to do it. All. By. Myself. When we moved in, things looked like this:

After priming and painting several coats, I rehung the cabinet doors and began sanding the edges. I then used some distressing oil around the corners where I’d sanded. After letting the oil sit on the door for a minute or so, I simply wiped it off (you can see the oil sitting on the picture on the left below, and what it looked like after I wiped it off on the right).

I love the way the oil brought out all the little scratches in the wood and created a sealer of sorts. Once all the cabinets were distressed, I replaced all the knobs that I bought for a steal! I chose an antique pewter for a nice contrast against the cream, but to tie in with the stainless appliances.

One thing I had always hated about the kitchen was the apron that connected the two cabinets on either side of the sink. My awesome husband took down that piece along with the cabinet molding. Then he recut the molding to fit around the two cabinets. It is amazing how much more light came in with that simple fix.

In addition to refinishing the cabinets, I also made new window treatments. I used a tutorial from Little Green Notebook for some awesome pelmet boards that were so easy to make!

That old pendant has been broken forever (despite me fixing it once already) so that half of the room has been cloaked in darkness for months. Well, or least in comparison to the rest of the room which has been light and bright since our little lighting overhaul during the kitchen reno.

Our temporary lighting solution has been this floor lamp tucked in the corner. But it too has woes of its own. One of the switches broke, so leaning over behind the chair and unplugging it/plugging it in is now the only way to turn it off or on. Not the end of the world, but not the nicest thing on the ol’ back when you’re doing it multiple times a day. We were over it after a few weeks and it has been the routine for a few months now.

We even grew to call it the Bend & Snap (Legally Blonde, anyone?) – and although it makes the “exercise” mildly more entertaining, we were always keeping our eyes peeled for the perfect replacement for the broken ceiling pendant. And it took a while to find it.

The struggle that we were having was finding something that doesn’t compete with the other pendants in the room. We wanted something pretty flush (since I’m a tall guy and I didn’t want anything that felt too close to my head in such an open area), but nothing boob-light-ish. Oddly enough a ton of flush mount lights in our price range were what Sherry affectionately calls boob lights. Any lighting industry peeps listening? There’s a hole in the market for good clean-lined and simple, not-curvy flush mounted fixtures that don’t cost an arm and a leg. Sure there are a few crisp drum shade-ish options, but not the same insanely wide variety that there are for their buxom counterparts (frosted boob lights, marbled boob lights, ORBed boob lights, etc).

Finally, at our recent trip to Ikea, we came across Aläng. Let’s just call him Alan for short. No wait, let’s do Alän since I just learned how to type that umlaut and I’m feeling proud of myself (ALT+U then whatever letter you want under it, fyi).

Anyways, Alän came in two sizes and we got the larger 18″ version for $40. Gotta love Ikea prices (many 18″ drum shades alone are around $40 without the light itself). But like most Ikea pieces, he required assembly – giving me flashbacks to assembling Max in our bedroom.

It wasn’t that bad, though. First I had to pop each of the three light sockets into the central fixture. Easy. Though it created a bit of a jumble of wires that made me raise an eyebrow.

But it looks like Ikea was one step of ahead of me, having already placed clips and channels to wrangle the cords. My eyebrow returned to its default position.

You can see how the wires are held against the sides of the central fixture in the pic below. Though I actually took this picture to show off how Space Invader-y this thing was starting to look once I added the spokes that would eventually hold the shade in place.

With the light as assembled as it could be without actually attaching it to the ceiling, I flipped off the power to the whole house (since neither our fusebox nor my memory is labelled well enough to be sure what breaker controls what) and began removing the old light.

With old light out, Alän could begin taking his pläce. Here’s he is all wired up and ready to be set flush against the ceiling.

The system that secures the central fixture to the ceiling is kinda just a glorified zip tie, which was a little strange to me – I’m used to screws and bolts for these things. But it was easy and seemed to work great, so I shouldn’t complain.

Then came turning the power back on to make sure my wiring was successful (it was). Oh and these incandescent bulbs were the only bulbs that we had three of at the time – but we’ve since replaced them with… wait for it… LEDs! And we love them so far. We’ll have to give you a full report down the road as to how they last and how we like them over time. But they give off a really nice bright glow and we love that they should last an unbelievably long time and save us loot in the long run.

But back to hanging the shade. You may be wondering how it’s secured. Well, those little spokey dudes are MAGNETIC. Yup they’re tiny, very very strong magnets. Like the Altoids of magnets.

This, like the zip tie, they had me doubtful at first – but as soon as I felt the shade snap firmly into place with pretty surprising force I was all smiles. It was easy and quick to do and I’m pretty sure I don’t have to worry about it falling on my head anytime soon (but if I did, the shade is pretty darn light anyways).

This is one of those can’t-capture-the-true-beauty items that we own, but in person everyone who walks in comments on it. This picture is the closest thing to showing the pretty subtle woven detail and the soft glow that it gives off. Update: lots of folks are asking if it gives off a lot of light, it’s not a glowing beacon that blinds you or anything but it should definitely be bright enough for a decent sized room or hallway. It only takes three twenty watt bulbs, but if you use CFLs or LEDs, they give off a lot more light at lower wattages.

Of course that awesome subtle texture is lost in further away pics (but oddly enough, not in person – maybe because these pics are much smaller than life sized?), but here’s Alän from further away. Ta-DÄH!

I don’t know why I stood semi to majorly off-center to take the shot above and the shot below, but in person it’s centered exactly between the two beams and it lines up with the mirror if you stand in the right spot. Düh.

But enough with the celebratory umlauts. In short: Sherry and I are thrilled with it. It’s pretty much exactly what we were looking for. Something that doesn’t fight for attention with the other pendants. Something that we’re not going to bump our heads my head into. And something that’s not very boob-like. Plus it helps define that area over by the fireplace and feels more in proportion with that space than a single can light (or a directional light aimed at the fireplace) that we could have installed instead (we weighed both of those options and decided a nice clean-lined shade really helped add to the “casual living zone” feeling of that side of the room).

Heck, from the kitchen side of the room when he’s off, you hardly even know he’s there.

Though when the light switches are flipped on, we definitely appreciate his presence since it means the room is (finally!) evenly lit and we no longer have to bend over to plug in that darn floor light in the corner. In fact that light has since been banned from the room. We just don’t need it anymore (huzzah! no more bending and snapping!) and now that corner with the chair looks more balanced.

It’s hard to tell in these wide room shots since it just gets kinda blown out and the detail is lost because they’re small pictures (as opposed to actually standing in the room with it, where things are all life-sized), but in person the texture is such a nice detail that makes the light look special – but not so special that it’s fighting with the more special over-sized globe pendants over the peninsula (don’t tell Alän I said that). It’s a delicate balance. Wish we could capture this guy better for you, because the photos here really don’t do him justice. You’ll all just have to come over for tea and scones or something.

So that’s one thing off of our lingering kitchen to-do list. Although Sherry and I have been talking about spray painting our stools at the peninsula (we wanted to live with them as-is for a while before making any rash decisions) and we’re still not sure which way we’ll go. We’re hunting for a more permanent rug for the living area of the kitchen (the zone in front of the fireplace), so we’ll wait to get that pinned down before making any final stool decisions. You know in case we find an awesome rug with some tone that we wanted on the chairs that would then be overkill if it was in both places. But we promise we’ll keep you posted! For now we’re just trying to enjoy having a nice, well-lit spot for our nightly dance parties with Ms. Clara. Have you guys installed any lights lately? Or had any issues finding the right flush mounted fixture? Are you currently debating painting metal stools or some other accessory in your house?

It’s the same thing every nap. Worms. And sometimes a boat. With worms on it.

So the first thing on the party agenda was settling on a date (this Saturday the 12th, two days before her actual b-day on the 14th) and figuring out the guest list (our closest family and friends totaling about 30 people, ten who are kiddos under the age of four). Then it was the fun part. Invitations! We made three versions of them before picking our favorite (yes, making invitations is our idea of a good time). For the first one we used some shots from her 22 month photoshoot and although we loved the shapes and the fabric and that cute smile, it just didn’t have any worminess.

So we played around some more and came up with this guy, who runneth over with worminess:

As cute (and worm-ish) as we thought it was, we just kept playing around (yes, we’re nerds, and we only get to do it once a year) and came up with this more graphic – and just as wormy – alternative:

Third time was the charm. Yes, we made chevron worms (maybe worms are the new chevron?). Of course we thought any of the options above would be great (and some folks might prefer #1 or #2 more), but we just loved those three little worms inching their way onto the number two with our smily girl in the middle of the number and the promise that “there will be worms.”

So we ordered just enough to send out to our crew, and even saved $15.77 thanks to googling around for a Winkflash coupon code:

It ended up being $1.58 per invite including an envelope ($28.54 for eighteen 5 x 7″ invites on matte card stock – not photo paper). Which isn’t  pennies, but definitely was a nice discount from the original price of $2.19 per invite. As for why we went with Winkflash, we used them for last year’s invite and were really happy with them. A lot of services offer templates for folded cards but it’s hard to find postcard-ish offerings that are completely blank (so you can upload your entire design without them putting a frame or some type around it).

And when they arrived? Love! They do such a good job- no weird printing lines or cheap-o feeling – we liked going with the larger size (5 x 7″) and the thick matte card stock paper. So that’s probably more than you’ve ever wanted to know about a two year old’s party invitation, huh? Haha.

But now for the party deets. Of course we’ll be back with a post after this weekend’s festivities, but just like last year, we thought a little sneak peek of our supplies might be fun (here’s last year’s). This is our table o’ stuff, some of which we had around already, like the yellow napkin dish ($2 from a thrift store a few years back!) and the fabric banner I sewed for Clara’s first birthday (we’ll re-use the runner I sewed too) along with a paper one I made for that party as well and some cute bird napkins we grabbed from Ikea about a month ago (birds like worms, right?). Some of the stuff is new of course, like the plates, worm-ish candles, some balloons and streamers, some paper lanterns, etc (all hailing from Party City or Target).

Oh and see that pink arrow in the top left corner of the picture above? It’s pointing to this ice tray that we picked up at Ikea last month, because we thought we could even make some worm-ish ice. Or fill it with jello and make little jello worms.

So that’s on the agenda along with blowing up some polka dot balloons and some worm ones too (there is close to zero actual worm paraphernalia at Target and Party City, so when we saw worm balloons we couldn’t believe it).

As for all of the worm-related ideas, here’s what’s on our crazy brain dump list:

• Make pipe cleaner worms to hide outside for a worm hunt
• Make a grass runner with gummy worms (or plastic worms) on it
• Collect paper towel rolls for some sort of worm craft…
• Use streamers taped in little swags to look like worms (maybe across the beams in the living room and out on the patio somehow)
• Serve apples with a gummy worm coming out and other worm-ish snacks
• Cut peppers, cucumbers, and cheese into worm-like sticks and serve with dressing (worm crudité? how fancy)
• Skewer grapes or other sliced fruit onto straws (less pokey for the kiddos than skewers)
• Worm pizza (we’ll serve regular pizza for adults but put some cooked spaghetti on the slices for the kids)
• Worm dogs (these are just hot dogs, haha, but we could make ketchup or mustard eyes and a smile)
• Make white frosted cupcakes with oreo “dirt” sprinkled on top with a gummy worm (we thought about “dirt cake” or “dirt pudding” in a mason jar but it’s just too messy and hard to eat for all the 2-3 year olds)
• Worm jello (we could just toss some gummy worms into jello sort of like a jello mold but instead of fruit it’s worms…)

Who knows what we’ll end up doing (definitely not everything!) but it’s fun to write down a bunch of things to see which ones stick. Oh and check out the favors I love so much that I assembled them a full week before the party. Nerd alert.

One of Clara’s favorite things to play with outside is our watering can (filling it with leaves, rocks, sticks, you name it) so when we saw cute green ones at Ikea for 99 cents we grabbed one for each kid (hoping they’ll like them just as much as our girl does). Then in the toy aisle we came across tiny stuffed worms for 49 cents each! Just kidding, they were snakes, but we cut off the pointy red tongues and voila: happy little worms. We also tossed a bottle of bubbles in each watering can along with an orange or pink scoop from Target (50 cents each). Brown tissue paper (aka: dirt) finished things off and gave us a spot to stick our scoops full of worms. We’re so excited for Clara to see hers. We’ve been hiding them all (I made them during a nap and stashed them all in the guest room) so it should be a pretty good time when she realizes that everyone gets a watering can, bubbles, a scoop, and a worm of their own at her party.

Oh and look at these candles we found at Tar-jay. Wormy, right?

This = a typical trip to Target. We thought grabbing two outside balls for kids to play with on the patio might be a good idea. And of course Clara picked her two favorite colors (orange and pink – which are one of the reasons we picked those colors for things like her invitations and her streamers).

So that’s the deal with party planning. The basic gist is that I’m wishing we bought one more watering can, scoop, and stuffed snake worm so I’d get one of my own. I’m totally 30 going on 2.

Any party prep going on for you guys? Do you have any tips for keeping it simple and fun? We generally like to order food (something inexpensive but crowd-pleaser-ish, like pizza) so we’re not slaving over the stove all day. But cooking is my mom’s favorite thing, so she’d rather cook for thirty people and just grab ready-made invites. So there’s definitely more than one way to get your par-tay on. Can’t wait to share pics from this Saturday! And we’re building Clara something for her b-day. Something big. Ok, I’ll just tell you – it’s a dollhouse!!!!!!

So excited to share the breakdown with you guys when it’s done (as expected, we’re just getting started so we’ll be working overtime!). And now for the general trite mom statement (but it’s painfully true). Oh my gosh,  how is my baby two already??? Dude, she was just turning one like three months ago.

Psst – You know $herdog loves her some Eminem, Snoop, Dre, and Biggie, but the new Karmin CD is uh.mazing. Seriously. Anyone else in love? I’ve been “YouTube in love with them” for a while (since this) and adored when they were on Ellen. Their new songs make me want to finish that dollhouse double-time (while pausing for a few obligatory dance breaks).

Most Addicted: Me, when it comes to Instagram. It took us a while to jump on the bandwagon, but now this iPhone app is basically to me what Pinterest is to Sherry. You can follow us (username YoungHouseLove, shocker) for random life/behind the scenes pics – pretty much just things we think are pretty, random shopping pics, and plenty of cute photos of the kids. We’ll also be posting most of our shots to Twitter and Facebook so you can catch them there if you’re not an Instgrammer yourself. Just another way to over-share…

Favorite New Hashtag: When our bathroom window frosting project inspired @kandisebrown to frost hers, this hashtag was born: #nomoreeyecontactwithstrangerswhilepeeing

Most Improved: The toilet situation in our master bath which (thanks to a little loo-switcheroo) has gone from squat space-aged almond toilet to normal-height classic white toilet. Thank goodness. We were so happy to Craigslist the old one and purchase a new one for a family in need. Update: we got a letter from Habitat For Humanity saying that lots of you guys very generously donated to that family as well, so they’re one step closer to their new home! Thanks for rocking.

Phat-est: Eminem, at least according to a 17-year-old Sherry when she met him as part of MTV’s Fanatic. After long ignoring its existence, she finally owned up to the clip that’s been floating around YouTube lately. But she still puts her hands over her face if I mention it.

Biggest Succa: These succulents (well, technically the one on the left is the biggest) which Sherry simply planted in some glass containers. They’re still doing well and have all grown a bunch. We’ll have to share some update pics soon.

Most Transitional: The, well, um transitions that we installed in our kitchen to smooth over the slight drop between the new and old floors.

Most Inspiring: Our visit to Richmond Homearama, where we toured eight houses that were full of fun ideas. We still haven’t picked a favorite.

Most Avant-Garde: Clara, whose squiggles – which we turned into fabric – supposedly contained lots of worms (which made her very proud).

Most Helpful: The LivingSocial deal we scored for some professional landscaping advice. We got some great tips, but even better it was the kick in the pants we needed to stop hemming and hawing and just do something outside.

Best Worn Out Face: Mine, from digging up some not-doing-so-hot bushes around the front of our house so that we could put some fresh plants in and transplant the survivors.

Least Likely To Share Her Worn Out Face On The Blog: Sherry, who tried to play it cool while digging up all of this brick in our front planter bed so it could actually become a planter bed.

Narrowest: The walkway to our front door.

Well, at least before we cleared out the bushes that attacked you from both sides.

And hopefully soon we’ll have an update for you about trying to grow grass there.

Most Problematic: Our patio, which had gotten kinda overgrown and leaf-strewn over the winter. But a big clean-up and a bit of fresh planting finally got things under control again.

Most Likely To Be A Rockstar: Clara, at least in terms of how much she uses the rock box we built her. Rainy days = the end of the world for Clara: The Girl Obsessed With Rocks (say that with conviction, as if you’re saying Katniss: The Girl Who Was On Fire).

Most Fleeting: The rock box in its pre-rock days as a sandbox, which was the original idea behind the structure.

Most Delayed: The building of the aforementioned sand/rock box, which had been on my to-do list for nearly a year. Better late than never right?

Spring-iest: Our mantle, which Sherry remixed a bit to bring in some seasonal colors (while taking a moment to look back on our its past).

Least Straightforward: Simply swapping out our bathroom fixture, which turned into a “hey, let’s patch this giant hole of drywall hiding behind the boob light” project.

Class Artist: Sherry, for the painting she did a while back, which we decided to hang in our bathroom to bring in more color.

Closest Shave: Our bathroom door, which got a little piece cut off the bottom so that it could open all the way (over our grate) and accommodate a much-needed bath mat.

Weirdest: Sherry, for bucking logic and deciding we had nothing to lose before getting down with her bad self and some ORB. Side note: about three dates in, Sherry warned me that she was unanimously voted “weirdest family member” by her dad, brother, half brother and step mom at some point in her teenage life. Glad she’s still proudly holding that title.

Most Likely To Get Replaced: Our HP printer, after this post updating you on how some of our purchases are holding up. We got lots of recommendations for better options, so he may be getting the boot if we can’t get to the bottom of his issues soon.

Most Likely To Induce A Whale Obsession: Our visit to the Richmond Craft Mafia’s Spring Bada-Bing show where more than one piece of whale art caught our eye (along with alligator, ostrich, bird, bacon, cactus, and zombie creations).

Longest: Our updated to-do list. Admittedly not as long as it used to be, but still long enough to keep us plenty busy…

Most Unintentionally Naughty-Sounding Post Title:  This one (“You Down with O-R-G“) which raised some eyebrows when some folks misread it as having a Y at the end (which would be a totally different way to kick off a week of posts about what we’re up to). Sherry swears she just liked that it rhymed with OPP (ok, and sounded sort of like her other love, ORB).

What did you guys get done in April? Did anyone else turn do any spring organizing or reveal some “vintage” footage of their 17-year-self on video? Have you ever made a list of accomplishments to look back on? Feel free to use the comment section of this post to list what you’ve done (or just toss out a few highlights). It’s always fun to take a break from adding things to the to-do list for a second, just to look back and appreciate the things you’ve checked off. We totally think it helps us keep up our momentum – especially when it comes to tackling things like the deck and Clara’s big second birthday party this weekend!

You might remember that we started with this:

The first step was to call Miss Utility to make sure digging things up and building a deck wouldn’t endanger ourselves (or our house) by potentially hitting an electrical line or a water pipe or any other booby trap that might be lurking below the dirt. Thankfully we got the all clear. So we transplanted that big bush (seen above hugging the side of the house) to a spot in desperate need of some greenery: the left side of our house. It looks kinda lonely by itself, but right now we’re filing this under “it’s better than nothing.” Someday we’ll get him a line of friends (the same bushes – called Gold Dust- grow along the bedroom addition and look great, so we have high hopes that this spot works for them too).

Next up, digging up liriope. Our favorite thing! Not. But at least we had our favorite thing to cheer us on: Burger. Here he is giving the “glad I’m not the one who has to dig up all that liriope” look.

I think it took a little over an hour of digging (with Clara inside napping with her monitor on blast by the door) for the space to go from this…

…to this.

We dumped the dug-up monkey grass on our side yard in hopes that some of it will survive and fill in (that stuff is crazy-hardy). Also, under the balcony are pallets that we’ll get rid of when we demo that thing out.

Unfortunately the clearing task didn’t end there. We also had to take care of this weird assortment of bricks, weeds, and lawn ornaments that we lovingly call “the AC shrine.”

We can’t quite figure out what its purpose was – besides maybe putting some leftover bricks to use. They were arranged kind of like some permanent four-square game, with the stone pagoda in the middle. It earned the name “the AC shrine” because between the mini-temple and unusual layout we decided it must have some greater, cosmic meaning while being located right in front of – you guessed it – the AC.

In digging it up we didn’t find sacrificial animal bones, but we did discover that the bricks were laid two levels deep. Awesome. It gave us flashbacks of this and this. Yes, we’ve done our fair share of brick-digging-up around here.

Around 160 bricks later, we had everything dug up. Oh yeah, don’t mind the pile of paver stones in the background. Those were leftovers from the patio project. Guess now you know where we’ve been hiding them for the past 12 months. But we’ve got plans for them someday…

Several sweat-inducing wheelbarrow loads later, to take them to our brick stockpile next to our carport – future use still unknown (but possibly for when we convert the carport into a garage), the area was officially clear. Well, clear of bricks at least.

A bit more digging later, and it was also mostly clear of weeds.

We still have to move our paver collection, demo the existing balcony, and get rid of the pallets it’s shielding – but the area is much more ready for a deck than it was last weekend.

Now we just have to:

• continue weighing the pros and cons of different decking materials (we’ll share a lot more on that when we make a final decision)
• get some estimates for our materials
• get that dang permit thing taken care of

Oh yes, and then we have to actually:

• build a deck

Haha. You know we’ll keep you posted! Oh and speaking of keeping you posted, we called our power company to make sure those electrical meters on the side of the house won’t sabotage our deck plans (we have heard in some places they have to be at a certain height so people reading them don’t have to crouch – which would mean no deck) but thankfully our meter readers are happy to crouch, so there’s no issue with them! Wahoo! One of them is actually not active anymore (the extra low one) and the other one will be about 2.5′ above the bottom of the deck (and since they do most of their reading remotely now, it just needs to be accessed to be serviced, which they say is no problem at that height). Whew. And we’ll paint it to blend in like we did at our first house.

Have you guys been clearing things or digging up any areas around the house? Did you find anything cool while digging? We once found an old milk bottle cap at our first house…

… and actually hung it up on our gallery wall to commemorate it.

Someone tell me they found a box full of money or gold bars or something. Or a dinosaur bone.

Psst- In one of our quickest giveaways in history, we hit 10,000 entries within six hours of posting it, so we’ve already announced this week’s winner here.