Life is Short Make it Count. #13

Since our last update we've been trying to get back into our routine. We've done food prep each weekend and we've also hiked each weekend! We love it that we are about 30 minutes closer to our favorite hikes since we moved. The last three weekends we've climbed Blood Mountain. It's a short hike but a fantastic workout (with killer views!). The trail climbs 1,400 feet in elevation at 2.15 miles (total hike is 4.3 miles). It's the highest-elevation summit on the Appalachian Trail in Georgia. Two weekends ago we had blue skies and great views from the top (picture above) and last Saturday it was pretty spooky (picture below) but beautiful in a different way. We're still doing the She Sweats 12-Week Run Builder and we can definitely tell we are getting stronger on our hikes (we swap some of the running for incline training and/or hiking). It's good to be back on a plan!

P.S. I've shared these pictures on Facebook and Instagram so make sure you are following us there!

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Home Updates:

We had our mattress on the floor for over a month because we didn't have any bedroom furniture. I sold our last set before we moved because I wanted something new. So after we got back in town from Arizona and Chicago we had to find some furniture! I wanted someone to build me a farmhouse style bed but a lot of the people I spoke with had a crazy long wait time and I'm not a fan of waiting... ;-) We found some furniture that we both loved. We were told that our new furniture wouldn't be in until mid-June but it thankfully came in early! We also had to get a new couch because ours was too large for this house. We gave our old couch and recliner to my parents. So we ended up having to buy a new couch, king bed (headboard, footboard, rails) two nightstands, and a chest (good thing I sold so much stuff before we moved!). We knew the set we wanted but because I hate spending money I called the outlet center for the store we were shopping at and knew that they had the gentleman's chest (that's what they call it!) that matched the bedroom set. We ended up getting that at the outlet for $400 off because of a small scratch INSIDE of one of the drawers. It gets better though, when we went to go pick up the chest we saw the exact same couch we just ordered full price at the store for $800 less at the outlet because of a small stain on the side (which came out immediately). We canceled the order for the new couch and ended up getting the couch at the outlet! #winning. I had a family member that owned a furniture store so I had our last furniture since my first year of college (over 13 years!) (yes, I had a king bed in college!). While it was still nice, I was ready for something new. We also went from having a chest, dresser (and mirror) to just sharing the gentleman's chest. I'd say we did a good job at downsizing!

Below are our "before and after" pictures. I'll share more once we get the other items into the rooms. You can't really tell from the pictures but all of the walls are gray. It's called Agreeable Gray by Sherwin Williams. We are thinking about painting an accent wall in the living room and one in the bedroom but we haven't decided yet.

I'll share more of the house once we have more of it put together. Since this house is a lot smaller than our last house and is laid out differently we've had to change quite a few things but we are loving it so far!

P.S. You can read more about our moving situation here.

Grocery Shopping:

(Visit this link for our shopping lists and this link for ways to save money grocery shopping.)

Costco:

• Cottage Cheese (We eat this plain, add to oats and eggs --- it's so good!)
• Greek Yogurt (We eat this plain and also use it for Clean Eating Chicken Salad)
• Organic Orange Juice (Copycat Chick-Fil-A Egg White Grill)
• Frozen Wild Blueberries (Scott uses these in his shake every single morning. It's this shake.)
• Organic Kale (Juice)
• Balsamic Vinegar (Marinade for grilled chicken - recipe coming soon!)
• Energy Bars (Those are actually for my cousin we used to live with - he loved them!)
• Avocados (Used in Scott's breakfast shake and also for avocado toast.)
• Eggs & Egg Whites
• Pistachios

We also went to Publix but I didn't take a picture. ;-)

Until next week, have a good one! Let us know if you ever have any questions or comments! I've loved hearing from you about the updates! Click here to read all of our updates.

Update Doorknobs with Paint

I'm all about saving money - where it makes sense. I would much rather have a plane ticket somewhere than buy doorknobs. People ask us all the time how we save money and it's little things like this that really add up over time. Replacing the door knobs would have been at least $400. This project costs us $36 - a savings of $364.

Scott and I bought our home December 31, 2007 - the same month we were married (December 1, 2007).  We have spent a lot of time in the yard...cleaning out the backyard, re-doing the islands, and laying sod in some places.  We also had most of the house painted as soon as we moved in but other than painting and changing the hardware knobs on the cabinets, we pretty much left the inside the same.

RELATED: Our Kitchen Remodel

However, the brass everywhere was driving me CRAZY. Our house had brass doorknobs but to update the hardware it would have been $20-$25 PER DOOR.  We have over 20 doors in our house and I was not going to spend that money on just DOOR KNOBS but the brass had to go.  I saw all over Pinterest (follow us there!) where people were updating their door knobs with spray paint. We were both skeptical but figured what the heck, we should give it a try and if it doesn't work we will just have to buy new ones.  It WORKED and it was worth it!

It's pretty simple, all you have to do is remove the door hardware and spray them with spray paint. We used Rust-Oleum's Metallic Spray Paint in Oil Rubbed Bronze. Once they dry you just put them back on!

Notes/Tips:

• Set aside a full day and a half for this project.
• We purchased 6 cans and still have part of the 6th one left.
• We tried to keep each door together at first but with so many doors it was very difficult. Try to be more organized than us and keep each door together.
• Find or buy Styrofoam and boxes for this project.  We used the Styrofoam from the new fans we just purchased and they worked great.  You will need these to poke the door knobs and screws into so you can paint them properly.

It has been over a year since we did this project and they are holding up very well. The doors that are used most often like our door going into the garage and our bedroom door needed touch-ups but we are very pleased and glad we saved the money!

What kind of home renovations have you done?  Were they DIY or did you hire someone?

- Whitney

Our Kitchen Remodel

We had our kitchen “remodeled” a few years ago, if you consider new countertops a "remodel". I posted this on my personal site but wanted to move it here since you see a lot of our kitchen when we post food prep.

We had a builder (remodeling business) come out to give us a quote for the kitchen, guest bathroom, and master bathroom. We went with him because he did some work on Scott’s sister’s house. Well, it turned out to be a nightmare. Thankfully we did not pay him for the other rooms in advance because the kitchen countertops were the only thing he finished before we never heard from him again. We have since made our own updates and saved a lot of money anyway.

Although we want to eventually sell our house and move into a small house (I would say tiny but we don't want one of those 300 sq ft houses...just something much smaller than what we have!), we knew that we needed to update our countertops. While all of this was going on, in January, I spent an entire two weeks completely cleaning out our kitchen: throwing stuff away, organizing, scrubbing, etc. I was also without a kitchen for almost a week – my worst nightmare! We had been wanting to update the kitchen since we moved in almost 7 years ago because it was ALL white. You could see every little thing that was dropped on it and it stained instantly because of the type of surface. We finally bit the bullet and did it and I am so happy we did.

We were actually going to get the backsplash updated as well but every picture that I saw and liked online (aka Pinterest – you should really come pin with me there!) had a white backsplash. You should know how frugal I am by now so I wasn’t going to pay someone to scrap off the white tile we already had just to put another kind of white tile back up…even if it was a little different. Most of the white tile I liked was small rectangular pieces – ours is white squares…not a big difference! It was an instant savings for us!

Below is the “big picture” of the before and after!

This one is actually embarrassing for me but I guess you just don’t realize how dirty white grout gets! Since I spent DAYS cleaning this entire kitchen grout with a toothbrush. Since I spent so much personal time with my grout, I’ve noticed that other people who have white tile and grout have the same issue and sometimes I just want to clean it for them now! Ha! I used a toothbrush and a product called Polyblend Grout Renew. I have since used this on the floor in our guest and master bathrooms and it works great!

The sink was the main thing I was happy to see updated! We food prep every week because it makes our lives easier but trying to clean up after food prep with the old sink was very frustrating! Water and/or food would go everywhere because it wasn’t deep enough.

Now for the close-ups! I can’t stand things on counters (even appliances – they drive me crazy). I was so excited to find inexpensive matching baskets that I could use for different areas of the kitchen. Why are baskets so expensive? I don’t get it and I wasn’t about to pay a huge price for them. I found these for $5-$10 each and I love the way they look!

Of course 2 months after the countertops were installed our microwave quit working so we had to purchase a new one – stuff like that always happens…doesn’t it?!

This basket on the island holds our mail and other random things.

The basket on top of the toaster oven holds the things we typically use to make protein shakes or other drinks. Ours currently holds cocoa powder, stevia, turmeric, etc. We keep our Vitamix out because we use it all the time!

We elevated our soaps with a cake stand – it makes the area around the sink so much cleaner!

This is another close up shot of the soap dispensers. I LOVE them!

This is a “paper towel holder” I got for Christmas a few years ago and it has been the best thing ever. I think we only used 3 rolls of real paper towel per year now. These are basically just washclothes that have snaps on them so once they get dirty I just throw them in the washer. They were ordered from Etsy.

This was another Pinterest idea! I never liked the stainless steel utensil holder that came with our utensils so when I saw this on Pinterest I had to have it. It is just a white pitcher that I found at TJ Maxx.

This is another one of the baskets that holds the items that we use on a normal basis and sits next to the oven. It’s the perfect size for our Olive Oil, Balsamic Vinegar, sea salt, pepper, cinnamon, and ACV.

Talk about a time saver! I put our commonly used dry goods in these glass canisters. Not only is it pretty but very convenient for us as we use them almost everyday. These hold gluten-free oats and gluten-free oat flour (sometimes we have a 3rd one with quinoa). These glass canisters were actually used at our wedding for our hot chocolate bar. They were originally purchased at Ikea. I also keep the measuring cup in them so that it’s just easy to scoop and go!

The builder loved the storage I had under our sink so I might as well share that too in case you are looking for ideas! All I did was purchase a shower curtain rod and hang it in the cabinet under the sink so that we could hang our bottles on it! It makes everything so much neater!

This is obviously not part of the remodel but something that Scott does. Seriously, does anyone else do this?!?! He even start doing it at the condos and houses we stay in while traveling. It’s like his mark and he’s been doing it since he was a kid!

So, there you have it. That's what our kitchen looks like now!