what happens when you go to target for jeans

Last weekend while at my cousin's house, she mentioned that she went shopping for jeans and found that Mom Jeans were coming back into style. All us women had the same reaction: Hellll no! Though we then lamented the perils of lower-cut jeans, which lead to muffin top. Another cousin said forget the muffin top; he had an entire Bundt cake! 

(My kind of muffin top) source

On Sunday when I was looking through the Chicago Tribune, I noticed the Target flyer was advertising that they were having a "buy one, get another one 50% off" jeans sale. The models on the front of the flyer were wearing different colored jeans - not Mom Jeans! -  and it looked like they had some nice colors for fall. I need a couple of pairs of new jeans, so I headed to Target.

This is what ended up in my cart.

Notice you don't see any jeans. More on that in a minute.

Ooh, hello pretty fall placemats and wooden bread bowl and pillar candle holder. And Target is no dummy with that cute little dollar section the minute you walk in the door. That's where I found the pumpkin string lights ($3) and the recipe box ($5).

 

When I got home from shopping and unloaded my wares onto the kitchen table, Clementine immediately claimed the bread bowl and Monkey, the Trader Joe's flyer.

 Loafers.

I ended up using the placemats as a runner. My kitchen table is small, so store-bought standard sized runners are way too long. The bread bowl makes a nice centerpiece and I'm currently using it to hold cloth napkins and the hurricane lamp with a flameless candle. I might change it up later with a grouping of mini pumpkins and apples. Lots of possibilities with this bread bowl.

The recipe box on top of the fridge...

and the pumpkin lights strung across the fireplace mantle.

Notice anything else new on the mantle?

We love our new mirror! It's the IKEA Stockholm mirror.

I had been looking for a big mirror for the mantle and when I saw this photo on Instagram, it was my inspiration.

Back to the jeans at Target:

I could not find any colored jeans for women; only typical blue jeans. And the only styles they had were skinny jeans - which, to me, are only attractive on super skinny women...and I'm not one of them - or boot cut. Where these colored, "normal-fitting" jeans were that I saw in the ad was beyond me. I even asked a salesgirl in the women's section and she said all she knew of was the colored cotton chino-type pants.

Maybe I'll have better luck at Kohls. 

At least I'm not tempted by their housewares section. ;-)

all done

The contractors actually completed everything in just four days! That was making the pass-thru, making a custom mantle, ripping off the wainscoting in the kitchen and installing new drywall, priming and painting the entire kitchen, tearing out the old range hood and two small cabinets above the stove and installing an over-the-stove microwave, painting the living room wall of the pass-thru, and replacing a couple of ceramic tiles and cracked grout in the master bathroom. 

I spent 12 hours straight on Friday putting the house back together. I made at least 40 trips down to the basement to get the furniture (nothing too heavy - I left the kitchen table and living room console table for Brian and Tim) and every item that was in the living room and kitchen. Because of the drywall dust, I also mopped the kitchen and living room floors three times, plus a fourth time on my hands and knees.  Let me tell you...I hurt from head to toe by the time I went to bed.

I wasn't able to get any decent photos until Saturday morning due to the continual dreary weather, but the sun came out for a few minutes and I ran to get my camera.

Ta-da ~ the completed living room pass-thru! It is amazing how much bigger the house looks and how much light now comes into both the living room and kitchen.

Other side of the pass-thru, as seen from the kitchen.

Don't the walls look totally different without the wainscoting? And no more blue! I know it looks bare and plain, but I'm actually enjoying the "clean" look for now. I want to change things up a bit with wall decor and want to make absolutely sure of what I want before I start putting nail holes in the walls.

In case you forgot what that kitchen wall (above) looked like before:

The completed fireplace. (Decorating not complete.)

The only problem we ran into was discovering some spots in the kitchen that needed paint touch-up and a portion of baseboard shoe molding that needed more nails, as it was arching a bit. We think they got a little sloppy near the end on the last day because they were in a hurry to finish. They had a new client to go to the next day. We had to contact the owner of the business and he sent the main contractor back this morning to touch up the paint and fix the baseboard shoe.

Was all this work worth the anxiety and stress? I would've said no in the thick of it, but now that it's over, of course my answer is yes. I'm just glad it only lasted four days. ;-)