Little Girls and Home Depot

So last night was fun-ish.

We had dinner plans with my dad and step-mom at 6:15 at Big Fred's...

 

In case you don't know about Big Fred's, well, shame on you. It's the best pizza in the city and it's commitment to '90's décor is nothing to laugh at...it takes a lot of effort to stay that dated. But like I said, awesome pizza, awesome salads... and I'm pretty sure our waiter asked me if I wanted my wine "to-go" so I'm going to use that to my benefit next time we go.

 

Anyways, before Big Fred's I had to run a couple errands for work, and one of the stores in particular closes at 4:30.  So we went as a family to avoid 2 trips into Omaha within an hour of each other, and figured we would just walk around Home Depot as a solid, focused, family unit for an hour and a half until it was time to head to Big Fred's....

 

...It got a little hairy at times...

 First stop, Wendys.  I figured we better get the girls some "tide them over" nuggets and a small fry to share while we walked around the store...

...They were gone before the automatic doors slid open and the smell of lumber and potting soil hit our faces...

...luckily my girls love Home Improvement stores as much as fruit flies love my wine glass...

 We headed for the paint aisle.  I had my Wythe Blue paint swatch from Benjamin Moore in hand and had heard that other paint brands can create that exact color for you, except in their brand. Well, Behr is cheaper than Benjamin Moore, so sure, why not?  When I went to tell the paint lady," YES! lets do this before I change my mind again!, I got distracted by a pretty, shiny paint sample booth with Earthy vintagey colors and thought, "WAIT! maybe there's any even better color!!" So I told her to chill for a sec and I went paint exploring"...

 

Now, the colors I was searching for are for the entry doors that are on either end of our wrap-around porch and our back deck going into the great room..

Here's the door going straight into my kitchen...

Just the border will be painted because the grills are inside the glass (a mistake made by whoever ordered them at the store...a mistake that almost made me crazy, but we have to pick our manic episodes, right?) ...and ignore the siding and trim colors right now, that's just the primer color...

 For those of you wondering, I decided to keep our Main entry doors wood toned...for now....

 

 

So, this accent color I was in search of is for "secondary entry doors"..

 

...by the way, did I mention we have 7 entry doors?! Oh yeah, its true. Hence the reason we will have a security system, our own personal cameras with a secret screen in our closet to watch any potential trespassers (perks of having an electrician husband).  Oh, and we have a really old, cranky dog and an old sawed-off shotgun that I found in the walls of our current home, Spider Manor.  No joke. I was doing laundry one day a few years back and in our little "under the stairs" laundry "room", there was an area of exposed stairs and wall.  It was dark back there...and spidery...so naturally I stuck my arm way back in there, and low and behold, I pulled out a really old, sawed-off shotgun...

 

...It was like the wardrobe to Narnia...except instead of a beautiful antique wardrobe, it was a dark, dusty hole in the wall, and instead of mystical creatures like goatmen and talking Lions, it was just a bunch of spiders and dead rolly pollys....

 

...Anyways, I thought it was a pretty cool find, and you can imagine my husbands reaction when I walked into our bedroom holding a sawed off shotgun and sporting a weird smile...

 

 Back on track...

 

...paint aisle at the Home Depot...

 

So I grabbed some paint samples with the help of my youngest daughter and her shoeless toes ( she kicked them off in the car and no one seemed to notice until we were in the store). Anyways, we ended up with random, toned down shades of Robin's Egg Blue, and a couple lovely, rich Cranberry red colors...

 

 

...laid out like this under bad lighting, they kind of blend in with the dated red and gray décor of Big Freds...

 

I'm kind of liking that greenish blue one in the lower left-hand corner.  I have found afterall, that when it comes to choosing a light blue, you want to make sure it has a little green in it, otherwise you're going to have that "baby boy nursery" feel. Or make sure it has a little gray in it for a cool, steely look.

 

Write that down...that may be the only helpful information you get from this ongoing random babbling of mine.

 

I really love those deep reds though too....

 

I can feel my "paint color decision making" induced brain-bleed acting up again...

 

Anyways, I grabbed my samples and met the rest of my group around the corner in the tile aisle.  We have been trying to decide on the tile we plan to use for the girls upstairs bathroom as well as our master bathroom.  I am 97% sure that I want to stick with an old fashioned farmhouse black and white hex pattern, like this lovely little gem of a bathroom...



image from Houzz

 

 

I've been told that I may grow tired of this black and white pattern and that I will regret it... I'm not so sure. I mean afterall, it's a classic look, and you can pair any wall color with the black and white floor. I'm really trying to stick with an old fashioned look for our home, and I think this tile is a good fit. Plus, it's inexpensive :)

 

So, I confirmed my love of the black and white hex and we moved on to the outdoor garden area to search for a couple big planters for either side of our big French Entry doors....but instead we ended up here...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My little ladies love them some riding lawnmowers. 

 

So I let my little ones man handle the lawn equipment while I listened to my husband give a speech on why we ABSOLUTELY must have a riding mower.  Obviously, yes, we do, I mean we own 10 acres and unless we want to let our cattle loose in our front yard to eat down the grass, then I guess we will in fact be needing a rider mower.  He also convinced me that we need one of the trailer buckets to pull behind it so that when I get around to making my raised garden beds, I can just toss the weeds in the bucket and then drive my little rider mower down to the pasture and dump it out....

...I'd never tell him, but this made my heart squeal with excitement....

....I'm going to need a big floppy hat and some overalls....

 

...usually when he's trying to talk me into something I just smile and nod while I think, "Do I want popcorn or Raisin Bran?" or, "I wonder if they'll ever be able to freeze people and then thaw them out 100 years later?" or, "I wonder what kind of crazy looking fish are in the Marianas Trench?"...  but this time he got me.  Now we have to add a rider mower to the list.  Oy...

So, after we peeled the girls off the mowers we wandered over to bathroom faucets which is when the meltdowns finally happened....it's inevitable when you are trying to keep two little girls happy at a home improvement store for an hour and a half...Luckily it was time to head to dinner.

We finished our eventful evening off by eating delicious pizza with the parents, losing $3 to the Claw game (those stuffed animals are wired down I tell you!), and watching a naughty baby run around the restaurant barefoot....yes folks, she belongs to me.

Oh, and my little Lucy had her very first ever Shirley Temple!
Her mama is so proud :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we couldn't leave Olive out of the excitement, so she got a little bowl of ice cream...

 

That's my girl. She's falling off her chair but she won't let go without that bite!

Again, mama is so proud :)

:) ashley