DIY Shoe shelves..

...well, *I* didn't do it, but Chance did! My shoe situation has been a problem for about ten years now. When we got married Chance built me THESE in our old house:

I came home from a shopping trip with my girls and he had them trimmed out and everything! 😍😍

So naturally, we had to have some in the new house! The layout of our master bedroom is odd. It's a farm house that was built in the 70s, so I'm unsure if this is the norm for the era or if it's just ours, but the bathroom sinks and vanity are outside of the actual bathroom in both our and Chesney's bedrooms. I actually LOVE IT because when you're getting ready you're in the bedroom watching Vanderpump rules while your husband is behind closed doors showering and NOT steaming your blowout to death. 

Chance whipped these up from scratch Saturday morning while Layla and I lazed around catching up on Wendy Williams.

TAAAHHH DAHHHHHH!!

As soon as the paint was dry I started color coordinating heels! Please excuse the loungewear, my excitement was too over the top to contain long enough to put real clothes on. 

The Pistol Annies say it best in their song "Being Loved by a Workin Man". (If you haven't listened, you must do so now!) 

Until the next project! 

Xoxo

Lo 

My new favorite red!

I've been a fan of Revlon's lip butter for YEARS! It's so moisturizing, and unlike most lipsticks that boast that quality, Lip Butter doesn't lack in color opaqueness! 

I've carried their Creme Brûlée in my bag 24/7 because it's the PERFECT nude for my complexion. 

With the holidays approaching, I really need a good RED that doesn't dry out, bleed into lip lines, or fade awkwardly. (Do you know what I mean? Some lipsticks wear off unevenly like a bad Mystic Tan.)

Of course the first one I tried was Revlon's lip butter in Candy Apple, and for once the search was over after the first trial! It. Is. PERFECT! Not too pink, not too orange, just the perfect red, no liner or gloss required. 

Pop into your local drugstore and pick up a tube; you won't be disappointed! 

What I learned from my first cruise:

I plan on doing a full post on our latest vacation, but want to share a few things I wish I'd known ahead of time! Thankfully my friend Kristi is a freaking cruise expert so we weren't going in blind but there were a few "ah-ha!" moments that I wish I had thought to ask her about! 

Tip #1: Wear things you can repeat.

We flew out of dallas at 7am in November and it was chilly, so I wore skinny jeans, a 3/4 length t and booties. Stupid outfit for cruise wear seeing as to how as I soon as we reached Miami I was dressed as an idiot! 

I would suggest a maxi dress and cardi, maybe flats but sandals would be a better choice. 

tip #2: Pack more casual outfits. 

When you get up early and go to breakfast, then go on an excursion, then back for lunch, then another outfit for dinner (if it's casual, which is mostly what we did) you run out of shorts and tanks quickly. I made the mistake of taking super dressy dresses, and cut offs with racer back tanks. No in between, and I felt like an ass at the bar with smartly dressed women while I had a plain tank and white skinnies on, but the night before had a silk dress on and was over dressed. 

Tip #3. Be smart about your drinks. 

Luckily, we were gifted with the Ultimate Beverage Package, so we didn't pay for any Cokes, beer, liquor or wine, but we had to sign for every one of them, so I noticed that a bottle of beer was $6.50, a mixed drink was $10, and a COKE was over $3! Bottled water was $4.50! Lunacy. If you don't intend on spending over $150 PER DAY for you and your boo to drink all day, look into the rules for your specific ship on what can and can't be brought on, or do what I would do and smuggle it. 

Tip #4: pack odds and ends you MAY need. 

For instance, tweezers. I don't carry them in my bag, but I have a pair in my car and one in my desk drawer. On day one I was wishing I'd brought mine. I was glad we packed sunscreen, Chapstick, our own bar soap and toothpaste, ibuprofen, heartburn pills, etc. Small items to include, and they cost A WHACK on the ship. 

Tip #5: Don't pack:

*Beach towels. They give you these to use! 

*anything that wrinkles can't be steamed out of by hanging in the shower. 

*a blow dryer. The one we had was pretty snazzy! 

*a watered down version of your hair and makeup routine. When we go to a beach resort, I always decide to just go with my natural curl since we're mostly outside and it will frizz all the way back to Texas anyway, and I never pack any kind of makeup besides tinted moisturizer and mascara, but you shouldn't do this on a cruise because what I didn't realize prior to this one is that YOU'RE INSIDE the whole time! Eyeliner and a flat iron don't take up enough space to leave home. 

Tip #6: Take advantage of the buffet! 

We made a lot of friends on the cruise who went out of their way to make reservations, dress up WAY more than I like to on vacation, and paid extra to go to specialty restaurants. Chance and I never planned to do this because we have a SUPER laid back vacation style so we would split from them, go have a burger by the pool or hit up the seafood night in the main dining and then meet back up with everyone afterwards. Not ONCE did any of them so "oh the food and service were AMAZING and well worth the extra $75!"  They always said "it was okay. My shrimp was bland/my steak was over cooked/it too forever/ potatoes were instant" and we would say really? We had ALL the things and are almost too stuffed to drink these beers!" 

If fine dining is your thing, by all means, go right ahead, but don't think you'll be missing out by not hitting the sushi bar on the boat. (There was sushi on the buffet that same night! And no closed toe shoes or slacks required. Pretty sure Chance wore a tie dye tank top.)

tip #7. If you'll be flying into or out of the Miami airport, they are SERIOUS about carried on luggage. 

Luckily, Chance and I packed one large duffle and I carried my purse on, but there were other people we were LIVID that the luggage they carried on without a bat of an eye in DFW wasn't allowed on in Miami. One lady had to pay $25 to check her PURSE because it was wider than the example bag! Crazy. Be prepared! 

Lastly, Tip #8: if you've ever had even a HINT of motion/sea/car/morning sickness, buy a box of 24 hour Dramamine. 

(I actually bought the off brand!)

The boat moves....NON STOP. So many people told me I would never feel a thing, and every one of them turned out to be a teller of lies. Since the formula I bought was 24 hour, I took at right before bed and although I felt the rocking constantly, it didn't upset my stomach or make my head swim. You MUST take it before bed though, because for the following 30 minutes after you dose yourself you will feel as high as the grocery bill on Thanksgiving week. This was me after making that mistake on day one:

Please comment if you have great tips I missed! 

Until next time, happy cruising!

Xoxo

Lo

DIY Laundry Room Re-Vamp!

As mentioned previously, Chance and I bought a 1970's farm house a couple of months ago. I bet the distributors of wood paneling are STILL living high on the hog because apparently is was all the rage during that decade. 

I'm not one to decorate a laundry room, but when you spend as much time in one as I do mine, you don't want to be swallowed by brown. Before Chance flipped it the were brown paneling walls, brown faux wooden laminate, brown doors, hell even the DOORKNOBS were brown. Oh and I just remembered the brown crown molding. So glad they threw that fancy touch in. There were double cabinets on either side of the window that Chance had already taken down before I got a picture. I'll give you ONE guess as to what color they were. (Hint: rhymes with Crown)

Before: 

I chose a deep blue for the walls. Chance thought I was crazy for selecting a darker color for a room that's not too terribly large, but with the window and a (soon to be) white door on each wall, I was confident. 

I'm CRAZY about it! 

Chance had this old door in his shop, so he slapped a couple coats of paint on it and it became my counter. 

HOLY LAUNDRY BASKETS. Everyone has their own "clean" basket that they take to their rooms to put up after everything has been washed. Yes, there really are that many of us! Chance and I share a laundry basket because we don't have 12 foot ceilings and he likes to live out of his clean basket. You remember how we all did that in college? He never really shook that habit and his would stay filled, so I put all of his clothes up while doing mine. I bitch about it under my breath and put hexes on everything while I do it, too. 

Each basket has the kid's name on the handle, and is hung by a screw, which is surprisingly strong enough to hold them up even when they're filled to the brim, as they usually are!

Here's Chesney's full of clothes, shoes and two full sized towels. 

I realize one basket is blue while the others are white but when it starts to bug me I'm reminded that there are people dying all over the world and I have bigger issues to worry about. 

To make up for the loss of storage space after removing the cabinets, Chance built a shelf with drying rod on the perpendicular wall. Perfect!

Until the next project, I'll leave you with this vision in a tuxedo Tshirt. 

Xoxo

Lo 

This is why we can't have nice things!

Have you ever heard that phrase "Sometimes I open my mouth and my mother falls out!"? (Trumped only by my friend Matt's "he opened his mouth and a purse fell out." But that's another post entirely.)

I've been experiencing this quite a bit here lately. The most recent event happened this morning when I went to brush my teeth and noticed my eyelash curler in the sink. Not too terribly strange, but upon further inspection I realized it's not exactly in the condition I left it in. 

I'm not even going to waste my time asking around to see how it met its untimely death because I'm positive that "no one" has "a clue" as to what happened. 

On Sunday my girls were all playing in my make up, which is fine, until I realized that the shortest one went a little emo on me. 

Would it have been too much to ask her to waste the $7 Voluminous instead of the $30+ Younique? That's what I get for having nice things. SILLY ME. 

Friday afternoon REALLY got the ball rolling. My dear, sweet, wonderful husband ran to the store really quickly to get me a Cherry Coke while I was getting ready to head to the football game. He's so considerate. Sure wish he had considered his surroundings when he put my beautiful, brand new (to me!), suburban into drive and nailed a pole. 

Look, even the dogs are upset. God love him. He was so upset and worried I would be mad. Okay he was right because I was PISSED but I tamped it down. We haven't even made a single payment on it yet! I knew he required a lot of extra love when I got into this deal though. I'll just have to burn his dinners for a few more days to get the hate out of my heart. 

Yall, THIS IS WHY WE CANT HAVE NICE THINGS!

Xoxo

Lo

Caycee and Layla's bedroom revamp!

Chance is breezing through these rooms like a hot knife through butter! Immediately following the kitchen, he started on the bedroom Caycee (7) and Layla (2) share.

When we bought the house the tape was still up on the freshly painted walls.  It's a shame yellow isn't my color!

Chance decided to paint the walls before pulling the carpet out, which turned out to be a great decision since he used an OUTDOOR SPRAYER to coat the walls with 4 gallons of white paint.  By coat the walls I actually mean walls, window, floor, ceiling AND himself.  So pissed that I didn't get a pic of that fisco, but if you know him, you've already got a good visual.

*I* measured off the 13 inch stripes. (Notice the emphasis on the one task I had a hand in.) Chance taped them off because I lost interest/ran out of patience immediately.

Two coats of hot coral paint later, the man admires his work.

Now the good part: THE FLOOR! As you can see, the concrete below the carpet was NOT in mint condition.  If yours has splatters, cracks, stains, DON'T THINK YOU CAN'T STAIN IT! I actually like the look of less than perfect stained concrete better.

Here's the product Chance used:

We picked up a book at The Home Depot and checked out the color options in the lighting in our house, opposed to choosing on the spot in the store, and went with Dark Coal. They tint and mix your color choice into it using the same process of tinting a gallon of paint.

In our old house, Chance rolled the stain on, but this time around he invested in a $6 Round Up sprayer and it made a HUGE difference in the end look.  

Initially, it was going on too opague, and was looking more like a paint than a stain, but after cutting it almost in half with water (even though the directions say this CAN NOT be done...whoops!) it was perfect.

A coat of BEHR Wet-Look sealer topped it off, and I couldn't be happier!

Metallic furniture and plum curtains finished off the look, and we called it a day.

Until the next room is done,

XOXO

Lo