Family

Family
You MUST Chase Your Dreams, For Your Dreams Will Not Chase You

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

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!

Outdoor Lighting
Better Homes & Gardens




Monday, May 23, 2011

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 



Polly Want a CrafterDittle Dattle


Thursday, May 19, 2011

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!

Remodelaholic