With all these printables you probably thought we’d forgotten Christmas?…Nope! We may be on a tight budget but that doesn’t mean we’re Scrooges. Luckily decorating a house doesn’t have to break the bank. Most of our decorations were hand me downs from family and gifts from friends, which makes them all the more special. Although we still haven’t upgraded our “dorm room” sized tree, but the hubby ensures me it’s his favorite spot in the house to enjoy a Christmas cocktail. (He loves his vintage, “Mad men” chair) Here are a few pictures that will hopefully brighten your morning all via the iPhone. We’ll be back next week with last minute Christmas gift ideas. Happy holidays!

All was quiet on the blog-front last week…(Sorry guys!)…And thank you for the reader emails and messages of concern. #Thanksformissingus! (That was sort of cool!) Anyway we had a couple good excuses for no Sunday morning blog post. The first and biggest was our water heater met an untimely death, and flooded our basement. We lost several boxes of photos, books, craft supplies, wine, electronics and a desktop computer. We also had a massive amount of cleaning, and lost hours of our lives dealing with the home warranty company plumbers. Yet in the end we have a new water heater and some new knowledge about home insurance policies.

  Home Inventory Checklist printable

Create a Home Inventory Checklist

In the midst of damage control you may have forgotten what was in those boxes or rubbermaid containers. Whether it was a storage closet, a basement, or even in a room we often don’t remember what we were storing away or had in the first place. Essentially print one checklist for each room and itemize all valuables, furniture, etc, in it. Don’t forget to list whats in the closets, basements, garages, guest houses, and attics.

Make a Home Movie

Walk around your house with the video camera. We often narrate and describe the items we are recording. Luckily we do this every year usually around New Years and/or tax time. There is a reason for the timing, 1) we normally have some new things after Christmas, and/or 2) taxes always brings out the organizer in us and when we finally pull out that ol’ receipt file.

Don’t Leave them at the Home

Store your video and home Inventory checklist off-site from your actual home. This can be with a trustworthy family member, or in a safe security box at your local bank. We chose the later, because our bank offered a safe security box for free to us anyway, and what should happen if that family member has their own fire or flood?

Hopefully you will not need to use your Home Inventory, but as we all know…Life happens.

Its fall and in Sacramento this is the perfect time to plant trees and shrubs. Also a great time to start our $20 Challenge. We’re going to see how many house updates and projects we can come up with under $20. With the holidays approaching, new roof installed and financial goals in 2014 its probably a good idea. Luckily the SMUD (Sacramento Municipal Utilities District) Free Tree program and our friend Erik at Healthy Turf Lawn Aeration made our first $20 Challenge possible. Our back fence line was incredibly bare with only ugly telephone poles, until we added our privacy screens this last spring. Here is the latest pic of our trumpet vine filling in the screen nicely.  (Unfortunately the honey suckle next to it needs some more time)

First as part of the challenge we decided to install a submerged drip system by changing an old sprinkler pipe into a spigot. This required $4 worth of PVC connectors and a spigot, along with some leftover soaker hose.

The last part was easy, we planted about 12 different shrubs and trees, including flax, nadina, and golden boxwood, thanks to a Home Depot $10 special and our friends at HTLA maintenance and landscaping . Oftentimes their clients want them to tear out perfectly good plants and trees. These guys don’t want to see good plants go to waste so we were able to snag a few free ones for our project.  Also with SMUD’s free tree program, and a little palm from the side yard,  we hope this will jump start our tropical dream backyard. The backyard still has a long way to go but hopefully with budget friendly ideas and a bit creativity, our bare and ugly backyard will have some worthy “after” shots someday. Grow little plants grow!

Has anyone put together a piece of furniture, toy, anything pre-fabricated and somehow ended up with extra pieces? You sort of scratch your head and wonder what to do with them? Case in point: “Ummm, honey what are we going to do with these extra bed slats?”

Hence the inspiration for our next Ikea Hack! We had leftover Hemnes bed slats from our last hack, Bench Seating Trundle Dog Bed and we weren’t sure whether to toss them in our scrap wood bucket, or actually create a whole new project. Luckily,  I had stumbled onto this lovely pic, seen on Traditional Home Magazine’s website:

Unfortunately as I searched through Pinterest, this inspiration appears to be the “Big Foot” of the blogging websites. (People have seen it but does the “how to” really exist?) A quick trip to Home Depot for some hardware and rope, and we sat on the floor of the “Girl Cave”/studio trying to figure out how to make them…

Hubby: “Are you sure you want to try this?”

Me: “Why not? What have we got to lose?”

Hubby: “What mad engineering skills do you think we have?”

Dogs: “Oooh, tug ropes!…”  (the dogs were officially banned from the project for obvious reasons)

First we stained the slats with Minwax gray stain on both sides and once they were dried drilled larger holes on either end (the width of the rope). We did not drill holes for two of the slats (the top and bottom)

Next you’ll need the following materials and tools for installing the shelves, (including eye screws, and horseshoe nails which are hard to see in the picture) Then with a level and drill, we positioned and attached the top and bottom slats to the wall and screwed them into the wood paneling.

We also found it easier to add the eye screws into the top and bottom slats once they were positioned and attached to the wall.

Finally we lay all the shelf slats on the ground and looped the rope through the slat holes we made, so they resembled a ladder. Laying them off to the side and giving ourselves ample slack and length, we cut the rope to the length we thought we needed. Then added the hardware to each end of the rope length and tied knots. (Just be sure the hardware was fully extended out). Once the hardware was looped and tied onto each eye screw, you can easily tighten the rope by retracting the hardware)

The final part is to set the slats/shelves in the position you want, using a level. Once you’re satisfied with the shelf placement, place two horseshoe nails facing towards each other and use pliers to clamp the middle of the rope (see below and close up). Just be careful not to get your fingers poked by the nails. (Gloves help)

Position one slat at a time, and one side at a time working downward until they are all in place and level. You may need to retract and adjust your rope length to make it tauter since it can loosen up during this process. We ended up using a total of 6 slats, 2 for the top and bottom, and 4 for the actual shelves. Of course these rope shelves are not meant for heavy items or kids trying to climb them like ladders, but they are great for displaying small items, beach combing finds and a few votive candles.

Our one regret is that we didn’t line the eye screws on the top and bottom, with the shelves’ actual holes. However not bad for a nearly free shelf display! Do you have any ideas from your wood scraps, Ikea slats or project leftovers? In the words of Madam Stewart…DIY project from scraps, its a good thing.