A few new buys...

I've been crazy busy between a paid project, a personal project, and a couple design "favors" for family/friends, but I wanted to stop in and show you what I've been shopping for lately...Here's a few of my recent buys...at least the house ones...

This new white bowl, has been deemed affectionately the onion blossom bowl, by some friends...and later my husband. I love it regardless, it has a really interesting shape and was...wait for it....$6.00! It's from Nebraska furniture mart (surprising right?). We were actually shopping for televisions, but as usual at that store, got diverted.

My sister and her beau (boo? hmm...) found these antique keys at a flea market and promptly sent me a picture; to which I replied "yes please." Also, ignore the awful pictures, most were taken with my phone.

I am completely in love with this table. I actually saw it months ago and imagined it immediately sprayed gold. However, the original $70 price tag kind of turned me off (I hate paying that much for something I'm going to paint anyways.) Last week, I ran into Target only to go to the Starbucks inside but had some time to kill so went to the clearance section, where I found it for $20, but because I'm never happy, I asked the manager for a discount because the top was very scratched up, and he gave it to me for $10...I think he likes me :) Once, I got it home I was kind of digging the green. It actually looks a lot better in the space than it does in pictures, I think. You can't tell in the picture but it brings out the little bits of green in the chair and pillow. Now I can't wait to add more green throughout the rest of the space. 

The brass G was another vintage find. At $2, it was a perfect fix for my gold and monogram obsession.
I also bought a lot of organization supplies for my "in progress" office, but they aren't really worth a picture :)
What have you guys been buying lately?...

Just cleaning the driveway....

So this last Saturday, the hubby and I spent several hours working outside. One of the projects I'm super excited about (I know I'm weird) was cleaning our driveway. Awhile back Race was working on his truck, and somehow spilled battery acid everywhere, leaving a huge stain in our driveway, which literally made me insane....and angry....and slightly bummed every time I pulled into/out of our driveway. We had tried everything we had heard/read online to get rid of the stain, including; laundry detergent, bleach, and cat litter. Each of these worked a little but nothing truly got rid of the stain. Then I called my trusty, genius-when-it-comes-to-this-stuff Dad, and he suggested muriatic acid, and it worked like a charm....Here's a quick how-to for anyone else who has the same problem :)...
We bought this at Home Depot:

Klean-Strip Green 1-Gal. Muriatic Acid....We went with this one because it was the only "green" option, and we like to do what we can. Plus, like Race said, anything that's better for the environment, is probably better for us to be inhaling or in case we accidentally got some on the lawn.
The first time we tried we followed the instructions to a T, but didn't get the greatest results, so we used much less water the second time, and diluted the acid much less than it recommended and it worked like a charm. Of course, I always recommend following the directions and it's probably the safer option, but we weren't getting the best results so we did it our own way. (We're guessing since we used the "green" version, it was probably already too diluted).
All we did was mix the acid with water in a 5 gallon bucket and used a dollar store broom (so that we wouldn't feel guilty, if we needed to toss it afterwards) to scrub the spot with the solution. You should wear protective eye wear and gloves. And REALLY, you should wear long sleeves and pants (don't judge my husband, hes a rebel) because the acid can be very dangerous if you come in direct contact with it.

You can see how bad/large the spot was in this picture...
The acid turned almost a green color and you could hear it sizzling and see it steaming while it w as  eating away the damaged layer of our driveway...which was scary...
Then we used our hose to rinse it off...

 We did have to do this all a couple times before the spot was fully gone, but it looks 100% better...

And now the driveway looks as good as new! The newly cleaned spots are lighter than the rest of the driveway now (we thought about doing the whole driveway, but this would be quite the endeavor), but eventually they will become as dirty as the rest :)....What did you guys do this weekend?