My newest obsession

Before we moved into our new house, i knew there were certain things i wanted differently in terms of furniture. I wanted a lot of new furniture but wasn't willing to pay full price for something new. So over the last month or so, i have slowly worked my way up to refinishing a few peices of furniture! I started with something i already had.... our nightstand. I sanded, primed, then painted it a pretty light green from leftover paint we had from painting our old kitchen. Then i sanded the edges & went back over it with a quick rub of some stain we already had. Then i decided i needed another nightstand. So i got a cheap $25 nightstand off of craigslist & started all over doing the exact same thing to it. Plus i added a layer of polyurethane on top to protect it. (i took no pictures of these, can you believe that?)

Anyway, then i started searching Craigslist again for several things i have been wanting... side tables & some sort of storage space in the living room. Our TV is now in an alcove so i needed a place to store all the DVD's etc out of sight as well as some shelving space for books/pictures. I stumbled across this bookshelf (actual bookshelves aren't pictured) for $75, but i talked the guy down to $50. It was pretty beat up & even had a few hand cut holes in the back of the unit where the previous owner apparently wanted to plug in something. It also had a built in light up top that we removed.Over the course of a long weekend, i turned it into this..... I primed, sprayed 2 coats of Rustoleum paint in Black Satin & then sanded the edges with 80 grit sandpaper. Then i went back over those exposed edges with Ralph Lauren Glaze tinted to "smoke" color (got at Home Depot). Don't think i got all this on my own. I have been following a blog for awhile called www.shanty2chic.blogspot.com that has lots of great information!

I haven't added any hardware back on because i haven't decided just what i want yet. In this photo you can also see those holes pretty well. I did cut down a small peice of black scrapbooking paper to cover it up from the back of the unit. I was going to make a whole new backing, but decided that 1) i didn't want to put that effort into it right now 2) the books will most likely cover most of that up and 3) i might actually want those holes some time myself! So i just went with the paper method!
Here she is all set up in the living room! And i did it all with out any help! I am so proud of myself!
And i already have another project primed in the garage ready for a first coat of spray paint.... stay tuned!

Eerie!

So along with the purchase of this new house, we inherited vultures. Yep, that's right. VULTURES. What gives?? At first, they would just hang out in the big trees in the wooded part of our lot... WAY in the back of the woods, but because they were high up, we could see & watch them. But they are getting more & more comfortable with our lot apparently because when i took Zack out this morning, i looked up & this is what i saw in our tree!!
Yikes! There were actually 11 of them at one time in this tree in our back yard! I'm talking about within our fenced yard! They just give me the creeps... i know they do good and all, but they just make me shiver!
When we tap on the windows... they spread their wings out & watch..... then they settle back down again. Ugh! Go away!!!

raingutter bookshelves....

So, i have a little addiction.... that is... i read a LOT of craft blogs. I can't help myself- they give me lots of inspiration to try new things. And one of those new ideas was the idea of these raingutter bookshelves. You just take a vinyl rain gutter (they come in 10ft sections at Lowes) and cut it down with a hacksaw.... place endcaps on either end & attach to the wall with gutter brackets. Viola! You have a great bookshelf that holds lots of books in a fashion that encourages children to read because they can see the titles. We don't need encouragement over here, because my boys already love to read, but i had been wanting a bookshelf that displayed books in this manner. And i couldn't believe how easy & cheap these were! We put a 5 ft section in the playroom in our "quiet reading area" and a 2.5 ft section in each of the boys rooms because they take books to bed every night.....They are thrilled... and so am i because all three shelves came from one $6 gutter! (granted, the endcaps and brackets were $2.50 a peice, but it was still a frugal fix!!)

If you want step by step directions... visit here.....

Finally.... a Fence!

The week of Halloween, we finally got our fence put up! Yay! We knew as soon as we put an offer on this house that it was in desperate need of a fence. The back yard backs up to thick woods & the left side of the back yard is on a deep slope. I didn't feel safe letting the boys play out back without a fence because i didn't want them back in those woods or anything "from the woods" coming in the back yard. We are so excited it is finally up & it only took them 3 days to get it up! The first day was all posts, the second was the fence boards, & the third day they made the gates & cut out the scallop along the top!

i think it makes the yard look great! At first, i thought it made the back yard look smaller, but i realized that this was because i was looking on from the deck, which is high up on the back of the house. This is my view from the deck... Once i walked to the back corner of the fence, the yard seemed MUCH bigger to me! We have a double gate on one side of the house.....
And we have a walk gate on the other side...I realized after uploading pictures, that i didn't take any from the front of the house (the outside of the fence where it looks the best.... but oh, well! You get the idea!!

The boys have already enjoyed running loose back there & i have already enjoyed having them out there (safe) and i not have to watch their every move!

Wildlife

When we came home from getting Jackson from school this past Tuesday, we found this in our backyard..... (the only reason i posted this blurry one is so you can judge how close to the house they were.... that wood in the bottom left of the photo is the side of the back deck that i was standing on.....)Now look who's peeping around the right side of that tree.....The boys were thrilled, but their noise from trying to get a good spot to see them sent the two deer running in no time!

Boys Art.....

What's gonna work?? Teamwork! Randy & I worked together to make some canvas' for the boys bedrooms to match their bedding...... Randy agreed to sketch them out from these vehicles on the bedding.... with the plan that i would paint in the lines!
Which ended up looking like this on a blank canvas..... (you'll have to look really close to see the sketch marks in pencil....) So one night i started & got the backgrounds done.....
Then another night i did all the yellow & some black.....By this point, i was sick of painting... i can craft, but i am no novice with a paintbrush... it took me forever! So i bunkered down & finished them in one evening. My back was killing me, but the end result was worth it! I thought they turned out pretty cute & they boys like them in their rooms!

Being married to an artist has perks!

We had a little "situation" with the wet oils.... so there are a few spots to fix (and add a few more flowers back in....) but basically, she's done! Isn't she pretty? Thanks, Randy!!

Boys Bathroom

The ONLY room that is finished in the house, including wall decor.... is the boys bathroom. Sad, i know! But anyhow... it was easy enough because we just kept the same stuff from the old house! I bought this bathroom set from pottery barn kids when Eli was a baby because it was on clearance. I had no idea how much he would LOVE letters of the alphabet.... so it really suits his personality now! He knew every letter of the alphabet (& it's sound) by the time he was 2 and a half! Anyway.... Here is the bathroom looking in the door....This is the wall next to the door....
Every little kid's bathroom needs a step stool & Nanny bought this one for us about 2 years ago?? It is perfect!
The wall decor consists of the pictures of the boys in washtubs... (Both at 6 months old..... eli is on the left, jackson on the right)......
And little 5 x 7 frames i made years ago of letters.... C is for cars, W is for wagon.....
And finally, i added hooks to the back of the door at their level for their towels.... can you tell who's goes where?? That cricut! I love it!! It makes me fun projects with vinyl..... Maybe i should give her a name..... carly the cricut???

Playroom

Well, i haven't posted many house pictures because, well, no room is completely finished yet. Everything is mostly unpacked, but little decorating has taken place. But the playroom is close, so i took some pictures to post! It still needs wall decor, which will take some time for me to get the projects done. I want to make two boards with clips for the kids to hang their art work on (since it piles up on my counter in the kitchen!) and i am either going to use my cricut to make wall words or cars/trucks or i will hang pictures of the boys in there. The ceiling slants down, and that makes the walls short, so i don't have too much room to work with since the toys are up against the wall too. When we first moved in, and i pulled all the toys out, the room was a disaster because there was no organization to the room.... so i labeled all the containers with a picture of what goes in it along with the name of what goes in.The above picture is looking in the door and the the bottom picture is to the right after walking in.... it is the dress up area & the green tote holds "tools". The toy chest is empty at the moment, but it used to hold the geotrax train set... but i found that it collected EVERYTHING because it was easy to just throw it all in there (for the boys).
This is the reading/quiet area. Don't worry, we own MANY more books than this... but i rotate them out to keep things sane.
The table has a tote on top that has bristle blocks and the basket beside it holds magnadoodles (yes we have many). I think the other tote is explanatory, but to those who have girls.... it holds all the peices to the GeoTrax train set.
This picture needs to be retaken, but i am too lazy! :) I couldn't find the big area rug that is a town for cars to ride along on top of.... so i settled for the tiny little one I had in my work stuff. BUT, i found it in Mema's attic! Yay! So now there is a big area rug in the middle of the room, by these totes..... the blue tote holds "Big vehicles" and the green roller cart has three drawers. The top holds geotrax vehicles and people, remotes, etc. The second holds matchbox cars, and the bottom holds action figures, animals, etc.... The large chest is just storage for extra toys that they have outgrown that i can't part with yet.
We have had this room organized for about a month now, and honestly when it is time to clean up... it goes very smoothly. The kids know where everything is supossed to go! I think the labels have worked & it helps mommy & daddy know where everything goes as well!

Cute Curtains!

Today officially marks the 2 month mark of living in our new house. And by looking at the house, you wouldn't know it. The dining room still has home decor scattered all over the table with totes & a few boxes on the floor. The master bedroom is still un-decorated, as well as the boys rooms. However, most everything is unpacked aside from about 5 boxes total (for the whole house!). Those boxes require a project of some sort in order to utilize what is in the boxes.

But anyway- i say all that, to say that tonight we FINALLY hung the curtains in the kids bedrooms. I am so excited because they turned out so cute! My mom & i (who am i kidding?), i mean, MY MOM, took the curtain from their old room which was a navy panel along with a plain red twin sheet & we made the valances from those two things to coordinate with the colors of their bedding. They both have the same bedding because they were sharing a room with bunk beds that now are un-bunked & in separate rooms. So their rooms look basically the same, but i did want to make them "their own", so i decided to have my sister monogram the curtains so that it would give them a special feeling to their own spaces. (I got this idea from a friend who has her girls' valances monogrammed, so thanks, Mere!) One room has a red top & blue bottom & the other is vice versa. Rebecca got them back to me tonight, so after church we put them up! THe kids were in their jammies, waiting for bedtime, watching us hang a rod & curtain! It was kinda funny, but Randy appeased me & went with it (he knew i was excited!)

Check them out.......... and did i mention that the boys love them!!

Next up.... i need to paint the coordinating pictures that Randy sketched out for me on canvases that also match the print on the bedding. Projects, Projects, will they ever end??

New House, New Problems....

So, you think moving into a new house would mean that you are "scott- free" for awhile in your fair share of homeowners problems, right?

Wrong. Try Again.

We are finding all kinds of things to deal with lately!

First off, we have ants. Not really a big deal... except these ants are ants on a MISSION! Apparently, the cat food bag had a teeny, tiny hole in it & that was all it took.....
Because, these ants decided they wanted a new place to live themselves, so they built it.....
RIGHT IN MY LOWER CABINET! Can you believe that? They took tiny cat food crumbs from the bag & were building an ant hill inside my cabinet! Eeeeeekkkkkkk! I am shivering just thinking about it! Gratefully, Randy & i had bought some pesticide for our yard & we threw some granules in there & around the cat food bowl & in about 5 minutes, they were all dead. Clean up was a breeze after that! So i went the next day & bought an airtight container for the cat food!

Another issue we quickly discovered after moving in was that this house was in serious need of gutters! We couldn't hear the TV when it was raining for all the water plopping down in puddles outside. It was bizarre! Apparently the roof line has such a steep incline to it, that the force of the water was making incredible holes in our yard....THe above pitch made this spot all splattered in the front & even with guards around the crawl space, there was water splattering all in there!
However, this pitch line above the garage was by far the worst.....
It made this huge puddle in the mulch (this picture does NOT do the damage from the rain justice. This was DAYS later.) When it was actually raining, i think the puddle would have been up to one of the boys' knees! No kidding!
So, we sent an email out to our church family and got a great contact to get gutters put up for an unbelieveably great rate. We are so excited & when it rained for the first time after they went up... i didn't even know it! It was blissfully quiet!

You know what else we have?
WASPS! Yikes! And on the FRONT porch! I guess the pretty little porch will have to be just that.... pretty & unused! No, i am sure we will use it.... because i am calling the pest control place THIS WEEK! I can't take much more of the ants, WASPS, and ticks.... oh i didn't mention the ticks???? That's for another post...... (poor Lola!)