Free pastry, broth bowl, and drink at Panera Bread!

In a matter of 5 minutes, I earned a free pastry; $5 off their new broth bowls; and a free coffee, hot tea, or soda at Panera Bread! Here's how:

If you haven't already done so, sign up for their free Panera Bread Rewards Program by clicking here. (Click the "Not a Member? Join Now" link under the orange/brown Sign In button or there is another link at the very top of the page.) A free pastry reward should automatically show up in your account!

Next, click here while still logged in and watch the first three videos at the top. A $5 off a broth bowl coupon should show up after you've completed this.

Finally, watch the bottom three videos on that same web page to get a reward for a free coffee, hot tea, or soda.

To be honest, I didn't really watch the videos. I just played them through while working on other stuff. Good enough, right?

Thanks, Panera!

How to lay tile

We decided to lay tile rather than carpet in the basement bar room. Probably a smart move. I envision my husband hanging out down there a lot drinking Jack and Cokes, throwing potato chip crumbs, while lounging in his sweats. Okay, he's not that big of a slob, but I'm sure some Jack and Cokes will get knocked over. And this way company won't have to worry about spilling in this room.

Gallo wine $0.97 at Super Saver

Wine stock running low? Head to Super Saver and pick up Gallo Family Vineyard Wine for only $0.97 each after a $24 mail-in rebate!

Pay $35.64 (12 at $2.97)
-$24 rebate  
$11.64 ($.97 each)

Super Saver Ad

This deal is good through February 24th!

Painting the bedroom + adding character to brick walls

Yesterday's post was about how to texture ceilings on your own. Once the ceiling was dry in the basement bedroom, we moved onto painting. I forgot to get before pictures. Fail.

Here are the pics after one coat of Glidden primer:

I'm standing in the living room looking into the bedroom.

How to texture a ceiling (cheaply and easily)

I promised that I'd show you pics of the bedroom now that it's painted, but before I can do that I have to share how we added texture to the newly drywalled ceiling for the cost of a bucket of mud ($10). It's so much easier than I thought it would be! This needs to be done before painting the walls.

Step 1: Take regular drywall mud, add it to another bucket (we used an empty drywall bucket), and add water until it's about the consistency of brownie batter. We used the drill with the following attachment to mix.

Painting the basement living room

We have painted our little hearts out over the past week! Thank goodness the colors I chose are neutral because I am never painting again. Okay, not really. I have to paint the bar this week. My poor body is screaming "noooo"!

Anyways, here are before and after pics of the basement living room:

Before adding primer, I used the shop vac and good old fashioned sweeping to get rid of the drywall dust. I then washed all the walls twice with a damp sponge.

Painting the basement bar room

Thanks to a quiet weekend and a snow day yesterday, we were able to paint the bar room in the basement! We finished the drywall by ourselves and I am truly shocked at how well it turned out. I thought "this is an absolute disaster" while we were in the thick of it - taping, mudding, and sanding. It's amazing how much of a difference sanding makes. Back breaking work, but oh so important. The really good drywall finishers hardly have to sand because they are able to get the mud on so smooth. Yeah, that's obviously not us.