HOME TOUR // THE GARAGE

*FTC disclosure: I was provided one free storage item from Monkey Bar Garage Storage Systems from their local dealer, Garage Solutions Minneapolis in connection with this review. All opinions are my own. 

M and I live in a little one and a half story home in a suburb of Minneapolis. 

This means we have a proportionally little garage to complement our little house. 

SO, the garage had never been a huge priority of ours in terms of beautifying and organizing, until recently when it reached max-nasty and upon pulling the car in one night, M said to me, "ACK, I need to organize the garage. This is a mess."  

Picture the perfect timing then when I was contacted by Monkey Bars Garage Storage Systems about a product review for a storage solution for our garage. Yayyy! Above you can see our previous "storage solution" (a term I use loosely), which was haphazard nails rammed into a 2 x 4 leftover from the previous owners. 

{the other side of our garage, equally a disaster}

The other side at least had some shelving, but that was organized quite haphazardly as well.

I selected the large tool yard rack, and it arrived less than a week later. So on Monday of this past 3 day weekend I approached M about hanging it. We'd been pretty busy doing house stuff all weekend- organizing closets, tossing clothes, painting the kitchen and hanging shelves (stay tuned on this one!), and cleaning, so his initial response was something more than a groan and just shy of a full fledged grunt. I told him it'd be easy and we trudged out to the garage.

Upon opening the package I found the bar (le duh), some hanging accessories and 2 brackets. Instead of mounting it to the old 2 x 4, we pulled down the old board to keep a lower profile and so tools wouldn't bump the car as we drove in.

I skimmed over the instructions and relayed the info to M who replied, "wait, that's it? Ok..." (the lack of readily apparent difficulty was met with heavy skepticism by M, who by now knows with house projects, nothing is as easy as it looks).

But nope, it seriously was that easy. Each bracket got 2 screws with washer heads, and the bar itself slid through one hole and into the other and was secured by those little push-button locking devices.

It seriously took 10 minutes. We spent more time tinkering around with the multiple styles of hanging accessories to determine how best to hang all our tools, and we didn't even use every hanging bar. The accessory pieces just kind of "clip" on the bar and are held by a tiny lip that catches on the bottom or back end.

If anything, this bar is too nice for our garage. I told M we need to keep a running list of "fixtures and appurtenances" to take down or make sure to keep out of any future purchase agreement because they're coming with us.

Now all our tools have a nice little home.

This of course spurred M to say, "aw screw it, let's just clean up the rest of the garage right now."
So we grouped fishing, outdoorsy stuff, and yard stuff together and tossed a bunch of scrap wood.

We still need to borrow the neighbor's push broom to sweep it out, but now it's actually become a place I feel comfortable storing some "nice" "outdoorsy" things vs. a place where things that we don't care if they get filthy land. 

So THANK YOU Monkey Bars Storage Systems and Garage Solutions Minneapolis (LOCAL company, FTW!), for helping us organize and clean up our garage!

I'll definitely be keeping them in mind for when we have a bigger garage someday that I can fill with useful (and PRETTY) storage items (like these beautiful garage cabinets/work space area. Swoon.) Getting excited over garage organization.. does this mean I'm officially old?

M and I hung some pretty sweet shelves in our kitchen this weekend too, which has me itching to properly photograph and update the kitchen home tour post, so stay tuned for that!

GALLERY WALLS// AN EASY CANVAS PRINTS REVIEW

I'm a huge, huge fan of a good gallery wall. 

I'm also what I would consider a bit of a gallery wall snob. 

One of my favorite ways to do a gallery wall is with mixed media: canvases, monograms, framed photos, etsy prints.. some subtle variety adds interest and looks beautiful. 

M and I used our $300 "store credit" that came with our photographer package to order a canvas through our photographer. We decided to get a larger size than our credit would afford, so we had to pay an additional $50 on top of our $300 credit. It is a 16x20 and turned out incredibly beautiful. 

SO, imagine my chagrin upon seeing the reviews for easy canvas prints circulating the blogs, and I realize that with their frequently offered discounts, a 16 x 20 through them would have only cost us about $70, total. 

All this happened shortly before the Christmas season, so when M told me that his sister wanted a photo of the entire family from the wedding as a Christmas gift, I suggested we take it up a notch, and pulled up easy canvas prints' website. (This was before receiving an offer from them to review an 8 x 10 canvas on my blog!) We ordered her an 11 x 14, and with a Christmas sale they had running, it only cost us around $25. We decided it was such an affordable and beautiful gift, that we bought one for both his dad and his mom as well. 

(His dad's canvas, still in the plastic (hence the ripple/shine) before we wrapped it).

The canvases turned out BEAUTIFULLY (M's sister may or may not have shed tears over it- she LOVED it), but that wasn't even the best part of this story. We ordered them dangerously close to Christmas and paid for the shipping that would get them here "by Christmas," only, we didn't account for the fact that it meant on Christmas Eve potentially, and that we'd be up north already by that point. M shot off an email to customer service at easy canvas prints once we realized this in the hopes they'd be able to help us, and within a day someone had gotten back to him and re-routed the 2 canvases for his dad and sister to be delivered to his dad's house (3.5 hours away from our house) by Christmas Eve. They showed up that morning in a blizzard, and were wrapped in time for Christmas morning! I was SO impressed by the warm email and fast response. You just don't see customer service like that anymore.

After all of this, I was contacted to do a review of my own... which meant: BONUS CANVAS for our house! We are in the process of revamping our wall above the couch, so this came at a perfect time. I was already confident in the product so I hopped on and set to work designing my canvas. 

It's seriously the easiest process ever, and was all of 3 screens:

First: select a single canvas or a gallery

 Second: select your size and wrap preference. (I like that they give you the little graphic on the right to give you a sense of how big the canvas is that you're ordering! I have questionable spacial reasoning skills, so, this is perfect for me :)).

Third: upload your photo (you can pull pictures from Facebook and Instagram!), and select your display option (hanging or standing) and border option. Then you can drag the photo around so it's where you want it.

and then, ta da! Canvas is done.
Here's a peek of it in action, I plan to post the rest of the living room this week :)

{my well laid plans to print photos for those remaining blank frames clearly didn't pan out. Alas, sometime soon. :)}

I know there are some of you who tune out reviews, and if you're anything like me, it's because a teensy tiny part of you is jealous and want free shtuff... well, easy canvas prints wants to offer you the next best thing to free:

50% off code for your own canvas! 

The 8 x 10 is a perfect sized canvas- makes a statement on a wall without being too overwhelming, and at 50% off, it would only be $22! You can't buy picture frames that cheap, folks. So take advantage of this.

Pssst: Easy canvas prints also has a couple affiliate sites for other types of customization, custom T-shirts, and custom signs.

Full living room tour coming atcha later this week :) 

[FTC disclosure: Easy Canvas Prints gave me a free 8 x 10 canvas, with free shipping, to review for this post. I was not otherwise compensated for this review, and the opinions expressed are my own.]

Four-eyes

 

I'm here today to talk glasses. 

I know, I know, you've seen a few of these reviews before and are probably rolling your eyes, but hear me out. I'm not going to be so noble in saying I would never do reviews on this site, or give you some kind of a disclaimer that I'll only do reviews that are a good "fit" for me. 

Actually it kind of took me by surprise since I have like, an M&M bag worth of followers (but I lurve all of you M&M's). 

Bottom line is: I wear glasses and contacts and my glasses are scratched to shit and 5 years old SO when Firmoo contacted me about participating in their blogger affiliate program I was all HECK YES!  

Actually, I let the email sit for a while because I'm lazy sometimes and then Antonio at Firmoo sent a follow up email and despite my poor response time and bad manners, still wanted me to participate (YAY!), and despite my usual "eye roll" at reviews, I am so glad I did. 

Their website was clean and easy to navigate. First, choose your glasses (I tried to find my exact pair on the site but they must have been a  HOTT seller because they're MIA. They have similar styles however in the #BD30003, #CP6061, and #SD2326). 

They asked for my prescription, obviously, but also the distance between your eyes so they can fit them to your face. After a quick phone call to my eye doctor to figure out how to read my prescription (der.) I was a few quick clicks away from a confirmation email! As I'm sure you know I've been trying to get more comfortable with my personal style, so I was excited to try a pair of glasses that weren't so "safe" for me, and were more trendy.

Imagine my delight when these pretties showed up (10 days after submitting my order, nonetheless):

They also came with a pink glasses wipe, and a teensy tinsy screw driver and spare screws to fix my glasses, should I ever need to! I have never seen anything like that included with the glasses, so that was a really nice assurance to have!

See!? teensy tinsy.
They also came with a pretty, solid case, which is good, because tossing my glasses in my purse pocket is what got my old pair scratched. That AND my old pair's case wouldn't snap shut fully. 

I LOVE my glasses. They're very "hipster" but they make me feel more sophisticated. They have a pretty studded detail on the arms, and they fit perfectly. They're light on my face and don't give me headaches the way my old glasses used to, because there was so much pressure on my head from how snug they were. 

They also make me feel more studious. I was inspired to read an old book about the Ojibwe from college. Just kidding, I thought it'd make for an appropriately dorky blogger-photo-op. 

The nice thing about them is they DON'T make me feel so dorky when dressed up, and that if I hadn't already put in my contacts, I would've actually worn them out to my work party Saturday night (which is what I took these photos before).

I'll admit, I feel like kind of a hypocrite for saying all this, after seeing 100 reviews for the Hana products that I was all "OK, we get it, whatever." and ignored the overall message. Also, I was a twee bit jealous of peeps gettin' free stuff.

That being said, I think it'd be 100% worth the 5 minutes it would take for you to participate in Firmoo's "First Pair Free" program which means you get to try glasses FREE by only paying the shipping.

Want to hear something even better? Glasses aren't just for four-eyes like me anymore. Glasses are trendy, and Firmoo has all of the trendiest frames, in prescription or NON-prescription! They also have sunglasses available in both options!(Do I sound like a salesman? I feel like one right now. Oh well, these glasses are awesome. I'm wearing them RIGHT NOW).

Worried about ordering from an online store? I'd be lying if I said I wasn't, but while I took a leap of faith in the fit/look, you don't have to! They have an option to upload a photo of yourself to virtually "try on" the glasses! I didn't have a good photo of myself to use whilst at work, which is when I ordered, but it's nice to have some visual confirmation that you won't look like a total dweeb in your new specs, even if they ARE fo free.

I found myself excited on Saturday night at the prospect of wearing glasses on Sunday, and giving my contacts a break. You guys, that NEVER happens. I avoid my specs like the plague. I'm so thrilled I got a chance to participate in this program and M has told me no less than 4 times how much he likes my new glasses.

GO GET YOURSELF A PAIR, stat.