Running Chick

Check out my new spice rack:

My old spice rack was a plastic lazy susan and a bunch of bottles of various sizes that didn’t turn properly and took up a ton of space. It drove me nuts. I mentioned to Josh that I wanted a new spice arrangement and he came up with this idea (smart!).

I found these little containers on the web (of course). All sorts of places carry them, but I got mine here. The lids are twist off and have a clear plastic top.

Josh found these little magnets on Ebay, and they worked perfectly. I can’t believe how strong they are, either. It took me forever to pry one off of the rest of them so I could take a size reference shot.

Why my hands look so wrinkly, I do not know.

We spent one evening gluing the magnets onto each container. Josh made up a template so that each magnet went in the same, perfectly centered spot. And he accuses me of being OCD. Sheesh.

Josh got a piece of tin from the local tin piece store. I made that up, I have no idea where he got it from. Some place where guys shop for guy stuff, I assume, because no store that I patronize carries it.

He cut it to size and screwed it to the cabinet door and I spent the rest of the afternoon going crazy with the label maker and emptying old spice jars into their new containers.

Then, presto! New magnetic spice rack!

Except for one unfortunate incident with the peppercorn container – note to self: make sure the lids are securely closed before pulling the containers from the board – it’s been working pretty well and I now have a ton of extra space in my cabinet to fill up.

As usual, Scout is super impressed.

I put the second coat of paint on the walls, then finally took care of the rest of my oustide stuff. The weather has been crazy - no snow, and in the mid to high 40's for about two weeks. I read somewhere that this time last year, we had 19" of snow on the ground. Not that I'm complaining, but it's been a long time since we've been snow-free at Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow I'll decide if the walls need a final coat. If not, then the tape comes off and I do touch-ups. Josh wants to fix the heater vent, put in another electrical outlet and add a light switch and light to the closet, so I can't move my stuff back in until that's done. Right now, it's all crammed in the back and middle bedrooms. I'm having a few friends over for a dinner party on Saturday and hopefully they won't end up weaving their way to the bathroom through all my stuff. It could make for an interesting party game, once the booze starts flowing. Kinda like a real-life version of Jenga!

Paint!  I finally got fed up with the mauve-ish color I selected for my bedroom way back when and after much pondering, selected a really nice green/brown color called Sierra Taupe.

Saturday and Sunday were spent clearing out the bedroom, removing the outlet covers, washing the walls, scraping, patching, sanding, washing again, taping and finally putting the first coat on.

My helper

My other helper

Sierra Taupe

The first coat is on, and so far I’m happy.  Painting is always a little bit stressful for me because I’m always afraid that the color I spent agonizing over will look like crap once it hits the wall.  Fortunately I like this right away.  Tomorrow, coat #2 goes on.  Hopefully I’ll still be happy.

Later on, we made Pizzas of Awesomeness!

Mine. Awesome!

Josh's. Awesome!