Happy Memorial Day

Nolee counting - she can get to 2

Superstar!

Our Front Porch

Since starting this blog I have never

shared any real pictures of our front porch

or really any outside area of our home

This is what it looked like the day we took our first tour

When we first moved into our house

we completely concentrated on renovating the inside

and the outside areas were just pushed aside until "later"

You see when we closed on our house

I was 8 1/2 months pregnant

and in full crazy nesting mode

I was convinced to make it a "home"

prior to Nolee's debut

So in about a 2 week time span

we primed & painted every room on the main level (minus the living room)

Totally should have taken pictures of me

and my giant belly scooting around edging all the trim

ugh my back is starting to ache just thinking of that

We pulled up the nasty stained carpet

because I seriously had nightmares

about my newborn baby crawling all over

who knows what was ingrained in the old stuff

...cuz newborns can crawl you know

so we had new put down

and got new furniture for the front living room

...because we had to have it

Luckily for us our family was wonderful

and helped out so much

otherwise it would not have gotten completed in time

and being the wonderful gal she is,

Nolee made her debut just a few

days after the furniture arrived

(you do not even want to know how much I stressed

that she would arrive before the furniture...crazy I know)

Anyway we did eventually start working on the outside

and boy did it need a TON of work

We started out with neglected overgrown plants

and the plant beds consisted of sand/dirt a few rocks and an abundance of weeds

Slowly but surely we have been hacking away at our "list"

staining the decks (yes that was plural) was at the top of the list

and that was done last year

and after finally getting mulch and some new plants

this past weekend the outside is now starting to reflect

"us" a little more.

I love driving up to our house now

and of course I feel a sense of pride that we did that

...and our neighbors tend to shun us less ;).

They may even feel inclined to come and sit on the porch and visit!

Look no dirt!

still need to get landscaping stones (or something)

for under the back deck

Ahh we've come a long way in under 2 years

it will be fun to see how much changes in the next 2 years

(I think I just heard my husband groan...and he is at work

15 miles away from me)

Ohhh and I've just gotta use these as outside lights somewhere!
How stinkin cute are they!

Better Homes & Gardens



What Happens at Bedtime

Toy Chest Makeover

I found this old tired toy box at the Restore

for a whopping $12

The bottom was nasty and falling apart

and it was in dire need of a good cleaning

the hinges were missing on the outside

and the inside hinges were missing a few screws

Before I left the Restore I grabbed

some hinges and a partial piece of panelling

to complete my renovation

And the design on the front was so not my taste

After giving it a good scrubbing and removing

all sorts of dead insects (ewww!)

I gave it a base coat of gray

After the gray dried

I dry brushed on a coat of white

and then decided this baby needed some stripes

After adding the stripes I attached my new bottom

stained the inside

and reattached my hardware

It fits almost perfectly at the end of Lilly's bed 

And will be the perfect place to store all her doll stuff

Or to sit for a spell as I already caught

both girls up there giggling and reading books 

Love, Laugh & Craft



Repurposing an old cabinet door

I picked up this little treasure the other day

on the side of the road mind you

Someone is renovating this awesomely beautiful

old home in our local downtown area

They had placed a bunch of stuff out by

the curb, so of course I just had to

stop and check it all out.

I found this little guy

and just couldn't pass it up

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it

but I knew I would think of something if I gave it long enough

It definitely required a good scrubbing

and I sanded it down

After sanding it though I decided against painting it

I liked all the character coming through already

I even decided against filling the holes from the handle

and not solely just due to laziness :).

We have 3 full albums of wedding photos

that we have basically done nothing with for the past 5 years

So I grabbed a few of my favorites

used a glue stick to adhere them to my door

to get this...

I think it will go perfectly in our bedroom!



White Plank Wall

Well after only a week of painting

every night

 the plank wall is now painted a nice off white

I don't know if I ever shared a before

but here it is

there was absolutely nothing wrong with the room

it just didn't have a very open, airy, relaxing feel to it

I didn't say "ahhhh" when I walked into the room

it was more of an "mehhhh"

This is where we were after 5 hours of putting up the

plank wall using toe board from the Restore

for $28 total!

And here it is now

Yes I know we still need to put the vent back up top

and add some corner trim

(which I found for free yesterday - score!)

but I'm already in love

At first I thought I was going to have to paint the

entire wall with a paint brush, but the roller worked fine

(thank goodness)

So the majority of the wall was pretty easy to paint

but I still had to get between each board

and to do that I used this brush borrowed from

the girls' craft supply

It only took about 3 hours total to do that part

which I split over two nights so I didn't pull my hair out

Here's one more shot of the end result

It adds so much character to the room

Now we only need to get a grown up bed

some decorations

new/used lamps and new/used end tables

hopefully we will be able to slowly accumulate those!

http://serenitynow4amanda.blogspot.com/2011/05/weekend-bloggy-reading-link-up_20.html

http://www.remodelaholic.com/2011/05/remodelaholics-anonymous-72.html

A Bowl Full of Lemons