Phew. Crisis averted.

When I found out we were moving to Japan, there were many question I asked myself. Where would we live? Would I have a job? Would we take out dog, Paul? Will I ever be able to find pants that go past my knees?

As we started working on the details of our impending move over the fall, the answers to those questions became much clearer (on base in a townhouse, yes–I would begin telecommuting part-time, we had the option to bring Paul–but  because of our small yard we elected to send Paul to live with family in North Carolina, no–but  thank goodness Gap and Banana Republic mail to foreign bases). But one question that I was never able to find the answer to was “Would I be able to feed my addiction to spray painting?”

If you’re a longtime blog reader–you know that many of my home improvement projects involve spray paint. Don’t believe me? Check out the guest room, the nursery, and the man cave for just a few of the many items in our house reinvigorated with the elixir of life…ahem, I mean spray paint. Would I be able to continue repurposing? Friends…I now have that answer.

Ta Da!

Yes…only five minutes away from me right here on base at the Navy Exchange Depot (kind of like a mini office max/home depot) is a great little selection of Krylon Spray paints. Boy am I relieved! So you can look forward to many more spray paint projects over the next few years. It’s the little things…

A few weeks ago we had a contingent from Missouri descend upon our house. My dad and my youngest sister Sydney came to see the boys.

And my cousin Steve and his son Travis tagged along (That’s Steven with Miles not Steve with Travis…Travis is 16 and is much larger than that ).

They held lots of babies, ate a lot of good food, and while they where here they knocked quite a few things off my Honey Do list!

This is a shot of our kitchen (please excuse the awful curtains by the sliding door and the boob lights…this was before we replaced them…oh and the dog treats and hairdryer on the counter). See that random little cabinet? I HATE it. The placement is great for holding spices and such for cooking on the stovetop, but it’s so tiny that when I get the spices out I ended up knocking half of them down practically every time! Arrrg. And it looks so strange, this one random little cabinet.

So when the Missouri clan came to town they immediately took to work

Here is the Hubby and my dad evaluating how to best take down the cabinet.

Well once they took down the cabinet, they discovered that the wall behind it was the original 1963 wall. So they had to build it up a bit, sand it down, and then paint it yellow to match the rest of the kitchen. This part actually killed me a bit, because I hate the yellow paint in our downstairs, but we couldn’t repaint everything right now, so, we had to buy MORE of the paint I hate for now. Grumble grumble.

While the paint was drying, my cousin Stinky Steve (that’s his nickwhipped up some shelves and brackets based on these that I found online. Yes, I decided it was time to jump on the open shelving bandwagon!

And this is how they turned out! I just love them. I bought these baskets at Target (they’re dvd storage baskets) and plopped all my spices in there. My spices all have black lids, so I used a silver sharpie to label them all, and now I have easy access and it looks so much nicer!

I just love my new little shelves! Thank you so much Steve, Dad, and Hubby!

My very first craigslist purchase ever was this little desk that I bought for my Hubby. I bought it for $50 or so, and it was great because it matched these two bookshelves we already had (this is before the Man Cave redo last summer).

*As a side note, my hubby was gone when I bought this, and I tried to move it upstairs in our condo by myself. Bad idea. I ended up punching a hole in our wall. Oops.

When we redid the Man Cave last summer, I moved the desk up to the guest room. It didn’t really match the decor of the guest room as a wood desk, so I painted it white. It looked so sweet tucked in the corner.

Alas, it lost it’s place in that room when we started making the guest room the nursery. That’s when I decided to make it a changing table (but later almost regretted that decision in great the boot meltdown).

But sanity prevailed and my hubby sanded her down:

We slapped a quick coat of teal paint on her, and then the Hubby sanded her down again. And this was the end result:

I just love how it turned out–it was so EASY! I’d say all together it took about 30 minutes to complete. And that’s how one desk has had three lives in just three years!