PITA Bookshelves . . . Following-Up

Remember those PITA Bookshelves???

Well, once the Christmas decorations were packed away until next time and we had vacuumed, I set out to copy-cat Pottery Barn as much as I could!

My Goal: To have beautifully arranged shelves by mixing up books, picture frames, candles and other knick-knacks . . . all already-owned . . . so that this would be a makeover on a low budget

End Result: I am so very proud of my bookshelves . . . and we already owned everything so no hit to the bank account!  Always a bonus when you can home improve using stuff you've already got . . .

What do you think??


The Before . . . . Right Side of the fireplace . . .

After . . . 

A close-up . . .

And the left side of the fireplace . . . . Before . . . 

And After . . .

A close up of Ada's first art project . . . (I framed it, of course!!)

Another close up . . . frames galore and books







Believe it or not, it took me 3 hours to do this.  Maybe I have too much time.  Maybe I screw around too much.  At any rate, I big-time HEART these bookshelves!!  =)

New Year's Resolutions

I am feeling ambitious this Year and wanted to make a lot of resolutions . . . so here is my list!  =)  Let's see how I do . . . I'll follow-up with a "How-these-resolutions-turned-out" post at 2012 Year End . . .

1.  Learn how to upload videos to the blog

2.  Continue to update the blog -- shooting for about 10-15 posts/month to keep everyone updated on the chaos that is my house  =)

3.  Lose 12 pounds . . . preferably by Amy's Wedding  =)

4.  Make Ada's 1st year scrapbook

5.  Finish my Ohio scrapbook (from our visit to Ohio in 2009 . . . I'm so behind . . . )

6.  Spruce up my deck -- plant flowers in flower boxes, get a shelf and have potted plants on the deck, keep all of these future plants alive and revitalize my bistro set on the defck with a new paint job and some pretty chair cusions

7.  Take golf lessons with Harley

8.  Convert our kitchen eat-in area into a playroom for Ada:
     -Paint a current piece of furniture white as a tv stand for Ada
     -Hook up our "tailgate tv" (small flat screen) and DVD player so Ada can watch Looney Toons and   
      other kiddie movies  =)
     -Get a rug for the playroom so crawling/toddling isn't so rough on the knees/booty 
     -Get a shelf unit for Biscuit's toys
   
9. Paint kitchen and get new kitchen floor 

10.  Organize my closet (I do this EVERY year and it looks awesome for about 3 months . . . then slowly goes back to total chaos . . . but let me add it to the list again) / Closet makeover - hang up full length mirror, paint inside of closet and put some contact paper or something over the super ugly clothes bars

11.  Take a vacation to the beach with Harley - ALONE (no offense Biscuit, but Mommy and Daddy need time to hang out)    =)

12.  Print out pictures and update the photo albums

13.  Get all Christmas shopping done and gifts wrapped before Thanksgiving

14.  Install a vent/fan in the master bath . . . for some reason we don't have one and the shower makes things STEAMY in there!

15.  Take lots of pictures and videos of Biscuit.  =)

16.  Clean out the attic and re-arrange the guest room furniture.

17.  Ponder baby Campbell #2





. . . I'm sure there may be a couple more that I'm forgetting . . . I can always add to the list . . .

I told you 2012 was going to be an ambitious year . . .   =)

Anybody else have an ambitious year lined up??

Christmas Evening in Cullman

Last Christmas stop for 2011 . . . Cullman for Christmas Evening.

We spent time with the extended Campbell family . . . spent the night . . . and enjoyed a yummy, country breakfast the next morning before heading home to play with our toys!!  =) 

Here are a few of my favorites from Christmas afternoon . . .

Biscuit on her Pink Pony from Nanny & Pa . . . I pretty much have the "Pony Song" in my head 24-7 now

Opening presents and enjoying watching what everyone else is up to . . .

Three rounds of presents and family . . . what a great Christmas!!  This was one for the record books.  We may need to move since Ada has so many toys now . . .   =)

Christmas Morning @ Home

I love Christmas!  Always have . . . always will. 

This year was on a whole new level . . . honestly . . . I felt like I was 5 again!  I was SO EXCITED for Christmas morning  that I could hardly contain my excitement!  This is excitement is due entirely to Biscuit.  Although we knew that she wouldn't get Santa or the happenings, we got it and LOVED it!!!

Harley and I got the house all cleaned . . . breakfast set-up . . . living room re-arranged (for maximum-present-space-opening-area, of course), got the presents all arranged prettily [yea, its a word . . . :) ] and the fireplace all set-up for the Christmas morning fire.

Here is our living room . . . the before  =)

Christmas morning was a sucess.  This time, we hosted my parents for Christmas morning . . . we opened presents, had tons of Keurig coffee [thanks Mom and Dad for my AWESOME birthday present], ate yummy Christmas breakfast and enjoyed each other.

Here are a few of my Christmas morning favorites . . . .

Merry Christmas!!

Taking a break from presents to get some Daddy love . . .

Yay for Grandma and Grandpa

Admist the Aftermath . . .

 Family pic . . . excuse the tired parents!  =)  Biscuit got up at 4:50AM . . .

Biscuit's Christmas afternoon outfit . . .

Next stop . . . . Cullman for Christmas Evening

Christmas Eve

Finally getting caught up on blogging . . . sorry for long delay . . . so without further ado . . .

Harley, Biscuit and I spent Christmas Eve at my parents' house.  Basically, it was Christmas Morning . . . Take 1.  =)  We opened presents, ate yummy eggs benedict (a family tradition) for breakfast, cooed at the baby and enjoyed each other.  We spent most the day in jammmies . . . minus getting out for a bit to enjoy the beautiful Christmas decorations @ The Preserve.

Here are some of my favorites from Christmas Eve. . .

Getting onto her alaphabet train for the first time . . . it's a hit!!

Climbing on Mommy in between opening presents

Investigating her presents . . .

Thanks Mom and Dad for hosting us . . . =)

Next stop . . . Christmas Morning @ home

PITA Bookshelves are DONE-ZO!!!!!!!!!!

This whole bookshelf project has been a total PITA [pain-in-the-ass].  Seriously.  Like, I'm not AT ALL KIDDING.

Here's where we started . . . [and for some reason this is the blurriest picture in the whole world]

Our landlord [at work] owns a Christmas Shop that has gone out of business.  He was selling fixtures and I got the total "brain-i-ac" idea to buy these shelves, refinish them, prime them and paint them white for our living room. 

I figured . . . how hard could this be, right? 

Why do I continously do this to myself???!!!!  I always think a home improvement project is 500% simplier and will take about 5% of the time it ALWAYS ends up taking . . .

In future home improvements projects, I'll be better about documenting the progress.  The thought of documenting my progress crossed my mind several times during this project but, honestly, I was just too pissed throughout most of this to stop and take pictures since it took 4 . . . count it . . . 4 . . . weekends to finish these bad boys.  I guess I didn't want to re-live some of the memories  =)

Needless to say . . . I have a new respect for anyone who refinishes furniture.  I also don't see myself doing this again . . . EVER.

Why, do you ask, was it one of the most un-fun things ever??

I didn't count on 2 coats of primer being necessary . . . which, when I look back on, was pretty dumb of me . . . the back of the bookshelves was very DARK blue. . .

I also didn't get the hang of the sander right away . . . so when I was smoothing out the front bottom panel and front top panel, I actually made quite a divet on both shelves and on both panels.  It was SUPER noticiable.  I mean . . . we had valleys all over both shelves and both panels.  At least I was consistent and jacked up both shelves.  =)

Hubby suggested that we use some wood filler to even it back out.  Turns out . . . we needed A LOT of wood filler . . . so after a trip to Lowe's for more and several hours for it to dry . . . sanding re-commenced.  Wood filler worked like a charm.  Those wood filler people are freaking geniuses!!!!!!

We FINALLY were ready to paint . . . and this step, believe it or not, took a lot less time than I thought.  I thought we would be painting for a few hours and it was really only took about 45 minutes for both shelves.  SCORE!!!!  This usually NEVER happens in home-improvement-land so I was beyond THIRLLED!!!!!!

And the last insult to injury . . . just when we thought we were ready to put the actual shelves into the bookcases and start getting all of our crap up out of the floor before Biscuit chewed on all of it . . . we looked and realized that the small front side of the shelf [that would be visible when looking at the bookshelf] needed another coat of paint.  Son of a . . . .

So we painted, waited about an hour . . . and then were able to put up the shelves.  I guess looking at the bright side, at least we still had paint!!  =)  That would have been terrible to run out . . .   

So here are those bad boys . . . in all their semi-gloss glory . . . resting in their new home on either side of the fireplace . . . right side of the fireplace . . .

And left side of the fireplace . . .





Like I said, there was a lot more involved with these than I initially thought . . . but they are done!!! WAHOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 And I can FINALLY park in the garage again.  =)  WAHOOO times 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All I've got left to do is to arrange everything on the shelves . . . I'm a little bit of a copy-cat . . . I like to look through the Pottery Barn magazines to see how they've got everything arranged on their bookshelves. . . then I use my non-Pottery-Barn accessories and do my best copy-catting.  I'll follow-up with a post once I've got it looking "Pottery-Barn-Esque"  =)

Christmas Open-House

I love Christmas and Christmas decorations!!!  =)  I'm still working on accumulating decorations . . . get a few more every year . . . but I wanted to give you a tour of what our casa looks like all decked out for Christmas.

So, come on in . . . just be careful not to step on the baby . . .

Here's our mantle . . . waiting for Santa . . . even got Santa's milk mug and cookie plate ready [just have to keep it out of Biscuit's reach]

And our living room Christmas tree . . . decked out mostly in ornaments from my childhood  =)

I love nativities . . . and so here's a close-up of one of the nativities I have sitting on our mantle.  



And the other nativity on our mantle . . . 

And the nativity on one of the bookshelves . . . [sidenote: post on bookshelves coming soon!!]

The Christmas tree in our dining room . . . "the fancy one" . . . with all purple and gold ornaments [It TOTALLY slipped my mind that these are LSU colors when I was accumulating the ornaments. . . so this is a total FAIL from a Bama fan standpoint.]

Our dining room table . . . 

Our kitchen nook . . . aka: where Ada eats  =)

We did not get around to the outside this year . . . but we have B-I-G plans for next year . . . so stay tuned!!  =)

I'll leave you with one more pic of Biscuit . . . just because she is so dang cute!!!  =)  This was at about 4:00AM on a weekday . . . Mommy and Daddy weren't exactly thrilled to be up, but Biscuit sure was!!  =)



Merry Christmas (a little early) from our home to yours . . .