New tattoo for Grandma June.

My grandmother June always had butterfly figurines throughout her house and yard. And butterflies have reminded me of her since her passing. I felt like I could hear her saying to my conscience 'where is my tattoo think I have tattoo?'  I have 5 others and one that is dedicated for my other grandparents on my mom side. 

I went to the same tattoo artist that did the quote on my right foot and also where I got my mallard done (different artist) Blue Flame in Raleigh. 

Rip Grandma June.  Hope you like your butterfly. 

Ps: I totally forgot how much tattoos hurt!! But love the end result! 

The before 

My side tattoo is from the same artist a couple years ago "wherever you go, go with all your heart"

The hens...its been a while.

Currently have 6 hens. 

I thought I lost one when I saw this in my yard 

I still don't know what it was or what killed it 😁

Toilet handle upgrade (seriously)

Old toilet handle lever broke away so decided to upgrade to match the other oil bronze fixtures. 

Easy and $16 later it works and that's all you want in a toilet ;) 

But now mine is also pretty 😀

Still in shock over Prince rip

http://youtu.be/6SFNW5F8K9Y

#nationalpetday

And let's not forget the hens 

Dogroom remodel.

Ever since day one I'm living in my house my dogs have always had their own bedroom that they share as the dog room. Since it's traditionally a bedroom it had carpet in there. After living here couple years it was definitely time for that carpet to go especially after Benji potty training in my house. He really has been good about that except for that room and it wasn't accident peeing it was more of him marking. The new set up is essentially the same as the old. Just with 12"x24" porcelain tile. (See previous post) One thing I have realized though this last week is that Benji has no problem being in a plastic crate even, if it's just big enough for him. And he seems to be calmer in it than the wire one. I went to tractor supply and got the a new one that was the next size up, which is the middle crate (size large 36" crate). I also got new beds for all the dogs since they were on sale. I did shift the crates closer to the wall to so I didn't need the dividers between each crate since they had more space. And generally sydalee doesn't get locked up during the day lately so I turned her crate to the side and open the side door. Before I've always it tied the shut because she such a jailbreaker but she does do better out of her crate with her separation anxiety. And said she'll probably be walking in and out of the room so she'll have access to the hallway I figured I'd put Benji back in the middle. He was in the middle once before and it didn't go so well but maybe that was partly because of the wire crate? it's always easy enough to shift the crates around if need be.... But I'm sure the change will have them playing musical crates for a couple days trying to figure out where they belong Lucy should be OK since she's in the same spot. 

Here is the before to refresh your memory 

So glad to have the carpet out of this room! 

Grout color.

One major thing I've learned this week with my home's renovation is that grout color is not always as it appears. 

My contractor knew I wanted the dog room and kitchen room to be a gray grout and he went to Home Depot and purchased two different grays that he thought would work great with the two tiles I picked out. 

The kitchen was Delorean Gray and looks awesome! It dries is a very light gray and works great with the lights tones of the tile.  However for the dogs room he went with what was called an oyster gray grout. We did show it to me and I approved it looked gray on the bag: 

With this color looks are deceiving to say the least. When it went on it was looking awesome: 

As it dried it turned to a white.  Even my contractor didn't understand it. Really change my opinion of the room and not in a good way: 

I definitely wanted to grout to blend with the tile and not stand out.  As it was drying and I saw it turn whiter and whiter. I went to Home Depot's app on my phone and pulled up the oyster gray color to see what it looks like online and it definitely looks different online than it does even on the bag.

Since I was really not feeling the color

I turned back to Pinterest for solutions. Saw many pins about using grout colorant to renew or change grout color. My contractor said the gray was more of a green gray so I decided to go with what looks to be a green gray called natural gray colorant. And now I know to go by the online colors for a more realistic scheme after drying instead of looking at the bag color.  (I assume the grout color would be similar but I'm only using it in the colorant so couldn't vouch for that.)

I did this right away, not want to live with the way it was looking. Also being a new floor I wanted to be able to show it off and I do not want to show the white lines. It was easy enough to apply. I did buy a fine brush at Home Depot but I ended up not even really using it. A toothbrush was the better option. I would basically just do a line at a time and put the colorant down and then quickly wiped away the excess on the tile and worked my way out of the room. One bottle was plenty for the whole room which is 100 sqft. So it was like a $15 fix and makes a world of difference. 

Now I love this room so much I'm not even sure I want to give it back to the dogs as a dog room.