Homemade laundry soap experiment.....

Ok, now this post has been a 3+ month project!!  I found a really awesome homemade laundry soap online that I wanted to try out.  So I bought all the stuff and wanted to wait to post until I had used it all up so that I could say how long it lasted me.  The original poster said this soap would last her for almost a year!!  Well......mine only lasted a little over 3 months!  The recipe said to use 1-3 Tbsp of soap per load.  I think psychologically I didn't think that 1 Tbs of soap would really clean my clothes, so I always used 2-3 Tbsp per load.  Small loads I would use 1 Tbsp, but usually 2-3.  It all depended on load size.  And maybe I just do a lot of laundry!! With 4 kids and a hard working husband, I have LOTS of clothes to wash.........

So here are the ingredients for the first batch that I made and started using March 1st.  I ran out July 11th.  Not bad for only costing me $25.63!!  This recipe called for some kind of Fabric Softener crystals.  Our clothes still came out staticy, if that's a word, and I ended up needing a dryer sheet. Maybe I needed more than one bottle? It wasn't too pricy, but I decided to leave it out of the next batch since it didn't seem to do anything, and I don't mind using dryer sheets.

This is the second batch that I just made tonight.  So I will start using this July 13th! I'm hoping this will last me longer than the first batch.  I made a few changes.  I left out the Purex Crystals, and used a cheaper type of Oxy clean that was also double the size!! So my price change was $6.76 cheaper!!

I didn't take a picture of my first batch, but this is how much soap it makes.  I remember that the two jars with the green lids were not this full the first time around.  The Oxy Clean bucket is being reused from my first batch.  I just keep some soap in that with a Tbsp measurer and refill when it's low.

This soap is super easy to make and I don't notice it making my clothes feel any different than other soap we have used before.  All you do is grate the Fels Naptha bars with a cheese grater, and dump everything into a tub and mix!!  Just be careful of all the powder in the air!! I sneeze a lot while making this! I did notice that the first time around the soap pieces would sometimes still be left in my washing machine if I did a quick cycle or used cold water.  So my wonderful mother-in-law told me that she blends hers in a blender!!  I did that this time and now the soap is super fine and I shouldn't have a problem with it dissolving! I'm so glad for that useful tip!! Be careful when blending, you have to blend it with one of the other ingredients or you get a hot chunk of soap in the bottom of the blender! Not very fun to try and get out!

So good luck and let me know if you try it and if you do or don't like it!!

Bedroom #1 - Adriann's Room

BEFORE

These are the before pictures of our oldest daughter's room.  She is a 10 year old girl, so we knew this color had to go. 

AFTER

These pictures do not really show the true color of her walls.  They are a light purple. And remember this is a 10 year old girl's room, remember being 10? She likes to hold on to EVERYTHING, so there is a lot of "memorabilia"! So with that being said, I will not post pictures of the inside of her closet! But she loves her room and that's really all that matters.  

MY NEW HEADBOARD!!

We have never had a headboard and we have been married for almost 12 years.  I'm not exactly sure why this is, but that's the case.  I have been looking at tons of different kinds of headboards, but couldn't find one that really fit with us.  Then I came across this idea and showed it to my husband and he actually liked it, so I had to go for it! The original one I saw had 4 boards that were smaller.  I liked the idea of just having 3 boards. This was the easiest project to make.  I sanded the boards and stained them twice.  I wanted them to kind of have a shiny surface, not glossy, just shiny, but couldn't figure out what to use.  Then I found CLEAR SPRAYPAINT!! This sealed the wood, gave it a shiny surface and made the boards look sooooo perfect!!!  I couldn't have been happier with how they turned out.

Now for the hard part........hanging them on the wall. I finished with the wood and they sat in the garage for a week and then in my bedroom against the wall for another week.  I DREAD hanging things on walls! My husband was gone for a week and so the day before he came home I knew I HAD to get these on the wall. I wanted to surprise him with it all done. Well I somehow managed to get them up and straight.  The only thing now that I still need to do to them is to cover the screws with something. I still don't know what to do to them, so the screws will have to show for now.

Finished with my bed actually made.  Don't mind the mess on the side of the bed.  This room is still a work in progress......But hey, I have a Headboard!

Kids Bathroom Before and Afters

BEFORE

Here are the Before pictures of the kids bathroom.  I HATED this bathroom.  I didn't even want the kids using it because I thought it was so dark and disgusting! It was just a sad room.  It had new nice flooring, so at least I didn't have to do anything with that.  I absolutely despise these kind of showers with the sliding doors.  They just get so gross.  I dug out all the old caulk and recaulked the whole shower, so it does feel a lot cleaner when taking a shower in there.  

The vanity is nice and I couldn't replace it (major low budget to work with), but a pink counter top? I have 2 girls and 2 boys! That had to be dealt with! 

Ugly mirror, but decent light fixture. At least it's not gold!

AFTER

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this bathroom now!! I let the 4 year old pick the wall color and he wanted Yellow! It makes the room so bright and warm now. I went and got the kids each a new towel in bright colors and they look great. I put up a simple white shower curtain to hide the ugly glass sliding doors. It completely changes the room just by doing that!

I added this Vinyl to the wall after I took the original pictures, but I didn't want to retake all the pictures. And I got this cute bath rug from IKEA! Love them!

Here is my new painted countertop! Yes, PAINTED!! I didn't know that you could paint over linoleum, or vinyl or whatever it is that the counter was made of.  I found a tutorial about doing it was SOLD on doing it! I think it turned out great! It was super easy, but since it was my first time doing it, it does not look professional! But it's the kids bathroom so I'm not gonna lose sleep over it.  And it can always be painted over if we want to change color or if someone spills nail polish remover all over it! FYI-DON'T DO THAT!! It will take off the paint. Not that I would know from experience! But otherwise, it's very durable and washes up easy. 

This is the product I used. I got mine from Home Depot. It's under $20. You basically scuff up your countertop and roll it on.  You have to use pretty straight rolls and make sure your paint is even and do it quickly. But you can do multiple layers if needed.  I think I did 3 layers to make sure it was all even looking.  It SMELLS REALLY STRONG, so have good ventilation, which I did NOT have in that small bathroom, so I had to keep taking breaks and walk out of the room.  And then I would shut the door, leave the fan on and not have anyone use the room for a few days to let it completely cure! That's the key, it has to fully cure or you will get dings in it.  

The one and only downside is that it can only be tinted in these 16 colors.  I tried to have them tint some black for me, but they said they couldn't do it.  Bummer, but that was for a different room, so more on that later.  I picked the Coastal Blue for the bathroom and figured it would hide the most toothpaste and dirt from the kids than a lighter color.  I loved how the color turned out.  I would absolutely recommend this paint.  I was so happy with it.  

* I am still thinking of painting the vanity white, but can't decide? And I still need to do something with the mirror. I want to frame it somehow, but not sure yet. So stay tuned for updates!*

Game Tile Wall Hanging

I found this on Pinterest, pretty much everything I do I find there, and just HAD to make it! In our family we LOVE scrabble, so I knew this would be something fun for our house.  We have this huge wall behind our couch in our front room and I couldn't figure out what to put there, so when I saw this I knew it would be perfect.  I even showed it to my husband and he liked it!! Bonus!!

I ended up making the tiles 9X9 size.  The ones in the picture are rectangles, but true Scrabble tiles are square, so I did mine square. I had Home Depot cut all my squares for me, then I took them home and sanded them down and stained them.  

I applied 1 coat of stain, rubbed them gently with some steel wool, and then applied a second coat of stain.  I LOVE how the wood turned out!

This was the first arrangement that I had made.  But if you notice in the next picture I had to change the word Home to Ganir, our last name.  I didn't have enough room on the wall to have 2 letters above the word family.  The R and E would have been behind the couch. 

This is the final product and I am in LOVE with it!!  The hardest part of this whole thing was getting them to all hang straight.

This is what the kitchen looked like when we bought it.  The walls were ugly green and they had these really ugly curtains  hanging up from a metal wire.  And upon close examination, the bottom of the curtains were COVERED with dog hair.  Disgusting!

So we painted the kitchen Blue, more on that later, and I hung up the only 2 brown curtains that I had and used a blue table cloth to cover the other two windows.  It was sweet! The problem with finding window covering was that the side windows are smaller than a standard window, so I couldn't just go out and buy blinds.  But after a long search I found that a home improvement store here will cut blinds to any length that you want!!

So I took the ugly curtains and wire thing down and installed these delicious blinds!! I LOVE them! They are the fake wood blinds, but I think they look great and they were not expensive.  I would have probably spent the same or more if I had bought nice curtains, which would have looked ugly and have gotten dirty from the kids and so I would have to be washing them all the time.  These are super easy to wipe clean.  So happy with them!!

Table and Chairs

We bought a new house.  Well, it's new to us and I am trying to make it ours! I am having a blast and want to document this crazy process so here are things that we have done, or plan to do:

1. Kids bathroom
2. Master bathroom
3. Kitchen
4. Home decor
5. Window treatments
6. Master bedroom
7. Kids bedrooms
8. Laundry room

So basically most of the house! Here is something that I have actually finished.  We have a kind of a nook in our Kitchen and we couldn't figure out what to put there.  We wanted some kind of a table, but weren't sure what kind.  My Mother-In-Law had given me 4 chairs that I was going to recover and paint, so we just needed to find a table.  Well Fred Meyer was having a sale on furniture and so I went there and found a nice wood circle table with no chairs for $130.  I thought it was good and would fit perfectly and I could paint my chairs anything to match it since it was just a wood table.  So I bought it. Across the street was a Good Will. I figured I would just swing by and see if they had anything there.  We had been looking for weeks and couldn't find anything, but when I walked in they had just put this table out on the floor!!

I was thrilled!! And it was only $12.99!! I bought it, returned the other one to Fred Meyer and headed home.  I ended up just staining it and sealing it so I could clean it since the kids would eat most meals on it and do their homework.    As for the chairs, I painted them black and recovered them each with a different fabric for each kids so that they could have their own chair and HOPEFULLY wouldn't fight over chairs!! I must say it was a brilliant idea! So here is the finished table and chairs!

I love that the table is already broken it and distressed.  So when the kids pound it with their forks I don't even care.  It just adds to the character of the table.