Furniture, Moving, Animals

I’ve been meaning to make this post for a few days now, but haven’t had time. After two weeks of sanding and refinishing furniture, packing up everything I own, and moving to a new town — things are finally starting to slow down.

First, I’ll start with the furniture refinishing. I followed the advice of The Frugal Girl (How to Paint Wooden Furniture) and decided to paint my desk and dresser, rather than buying new ones. They were always very beat up looking — well, for as long as I remember. They were previously owned by my uncle when he was growing up (he’s in his 60’s now), and he built model airplanes on them. So there was plenty of cuts, dings, scratches, and glue marks. Despite how ugly they were, I always loved them. They’re very modern looking, and really simple.

I decided to give them one last chance by repainting them. If my endeavor came out poorly, I could always just get new furniture anyway. Worth a shot, right? Here’s how the desk looked beforehand:

So Rob and I sanded, sanded, sanded, and sanded some more…

Until finally, things started looking like they were ready to prime.

So we primed and primed until my wrists were sore.

Painting took two coats over the span of two days, and involved me getting covered in paint. So there’s no photos of that step. However, you do get a somewhat crummy picture of the final product, located in my new room!

Now, onward to the rest of the house photos. These are from my first day officially living at the house — so I was doing a lot of cleaning. A lot of things have since been moved around, and I’m currently waiting on some art pieces to arrive. There’s a lot more stuff I plan on buying (throw pillows, curtains, clocks, plants, more art) but I must wait for my funds to replenish. I’ve done a LOT of heavy spending just to get everything in place, so over the next few months will come the fun, interior-design-y part.

This is our uber-floral kitchen. Part of me hates it, because it’s overwhelming. But part of me loves the kitschy-ness of it. We may opt to take the wallpaper down and just paint the whole thing white, but that won’t be for awhile. For now, it’ll be known as my Kitsch-en. (PUNS!)

Please ignore the garbage bag on the floor — we’ve since got an under-the-sink can, but need to install the slide-out tray part. The counter has room for my blender, microwave, coffee maker, toaster, bread/cheese displayer, crock pot and bread maker. Had to ditch the microwave oven (cry).

Here we have the living room — looking messy. I was in the middle of steam-cleaning our new (pre-owned) couches. Apparently I’m immune to doggy smell and didn’t realize they stunk.

Lots of odds and ends have since found homes and are no longer being displayeded on our bookshelf. The TV is now on the TV stand, but will soon be replaced with a new HDTV.

I’ll have more photos of the rest of the house, plus decor progress to share soon. I also need to get some gardening supplies and rip apart the backyard, but that’s a whole ‘nother monster.

Last but not least, I’ve got my animals here. Perry is happily housed in the living room, where he’ll once again be a sociable bun with company. Chase, the ferret, has been situated carefully in her new high-rise style apartment. I let her free to roam throughout the day, and Dexter has been very gentle with her. I realized after she got loose in my previous house and Dexter found her for us, that he wasn’t going to hurt her — he had every opportunity to, but he didn’t. So now they’re allowed supervised play together.

The cats alternate between closets and beds, staying hidden most of the time. They’re still unsure about everything.

Princess has gotten over her fear of Dexter, but still hates him. Matilda is afraid of Princess, but food overcomes all her anxieties. All in all, I think my pack is settling in quite well.

Monthly Expenses, The Future, Etc.

For over a year now, I’ve been living with my parents — well, sort of. I’ve been living in the lower half of their duplex-ish house. I say “ish” because it’s not legally a duplex, and we have rooms in our portion that my parents still use. No big deal, my parents are very cool. Plus, they only charge me for my share of utilities, so I’ve been able to save a ton.

Despite all the perks, I’ve been very eager to get my own place. There are a lot of silly reasons (like I want to decorate and buy my own furniture), but also some legitimate ones (like how I want to feel like an adult). After looking for months and months, I think we’ve finally found the perfect place. I don’t want to jinx it, so I won’t write too much about it yet — but it seems the landlady really liked us, so our fingers are crossed.

I do want to write about my current lifestyle, and what will change upon moving out. Like I said, right now my expenses are minimal. I pay my dad $150 to cover the utilities I use, along with $90 for my car insurance and $60 for my cell phone (we’ve got family plans for both, so it’s just easier to pay my share directly to him). After those bills, I spend around $150 on groceries each month, plus about $50-100 in pet supplies (the summer costs more because of Dexter’s flea and ticket preventatives). I usually spend around $60 on gas each month, and I’m not sure if this will go up or down once I move. I’ll be working from home, but I’ll be driving a little further to see friends, so I expect it’ll be around the same. Oh, and I pay $8 a month for my web space.

After what I have to pay for, there tends to be a few things I enjoy spending money on. Primarily going out to eat; a budget I set and regularly go over. I could easily spend $200 a month eating out — but I’ve been keeping it at about $75 a month as of late. Then I budget myself another $75 for random fun, like going to the movies or seeing a concert.

So all in all, my monthly budget is low. Right now I can get by on under $1,000 a month — however, I usually end up spending around $1,200 to $1,300. It seems each month I have a $100-200 unexpected expense (car trouble, sick pet, doctor’s appointment), so I usually factor that in when I do my monthly planning.

That being said, I will have some new expenses upon moving out. Of course, first and foremost will be rent. I’m prepared to pay up to $700. Then utilities are an add on, however, the house we’re looking at has everything but electricity included — so that’s a huge bonus. Electricity and internet will probably cost me around $100 a month (since it’s split between house mates).

So all in all, I can expect my monthly expenses to look something like this:


If I keep up my current trend of spending an additional $400-500 on top of this, I’ll be spending roughly $1,900 a month. Since I get paid around $2,400 a month, I’ll still be able to save about $500, which I’ve set as a goal saving mark for myself. However, I think I can cut back some of my spending and keep my monthly expenses around $1,700. The more I can save, the better, since I’ll have a lot of big expenses coming up soon (new car, laptop).

Lastly, I should apologize — this post is extremely boring, I know. It’s really just for myself, so I can ease my worries about moving out. I cling to the money I make, so it’s going to be tough to drop a bunch of it on a security deposit, furniture, etc. But it will be very exciting. I love change!