of caricatures, vinyl and doorknobs

Those three things don't really have anything in common, but I'm throwing them together anyway.
I'm just plugging away at my to-do list around here today... trying to get the house in order before the weekend is officially here so we can spend most of it just relaxing.

We finished painting the laundry closet room yesterday, and I spent my morning laying down a new stick-on vinyl tile floor in there. The majority of our main floor is maple hardwood and the bathrooms are tile, but for some reason the laundry room, which adjoins the hardwood floored kitchen, was done in cheap white linoleum. It's bugged me from day one as it's visible from the main part of our home and butts right up against the hardwood making the cheap dingyness even more obvious. Knowing we were painting in there I decided to change it up while we had the washer and dryer out of the way. I grabbed a few boxes of stick on vinyl tiles in a "wood" finish with a herringbone-ish pattern. Yes it's obvious it's not real wood, but at least it's the same color and finish as the adjoining real wood floor. Much better I think!

I'm also spending my day spray painting doorknobs and hinges. :) We have the cheapo brass knobs on our all doors and while we replaced all the exterior locks ( and knobs) when we moved in and put in nice, solid, oil rubbed bronze handles on those doors, these few more shiny brassy ones have been taunting me ever since. I did the hinges in the laundry room on the garage door because that doorknob had been changed and the hinges had previously been painted over and looked terrible. A quick spray of oil rubbed bronze spraypaint worked wonders. Once I did those and realized how simple it was, I did the laundry room-to-kitchen door. And that leaves only three more doors in our main floor so those doorknobs will all get a turn with the can of spray paint today. I'm not tackling the upstairs doors today... or anytime soon. There are 12 doorknobs (making that 36 hinges) up there, so that'll be a job. But I'm excited about the difference this one little thing makes. I know, I'm crazy. :)

And last but not least, the Caricatures. Just wanted to share these real quick 'cuz they make me smile. Our closest Chik-fil-A restaurant has family night every Tuesday (with free kids meals and free ice cream!) and each week they have a fun entertainer/activity for the kids (also for free!). Usually it's face painting or airbrush tatoos or balloon animals (and the balloon guy is AMAZING!). There has also been a singer and a comedian/entertainer. This last week there was a guy doing Caricatures. He asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grow up/in the picture and here's what our kids came back to our table with:
(you can click on them to see them larger)













Love them! I was watching Sawyer sit for his and this guy caught the exact sideways half-smirk Sawyer had on his face.
I told Savannah she looks like Brooke Shields in hers. ;)

Happy Friday all!

ten things for thursday

1. I slept over nine hours last night. Crazy. But good. :)

2. Feeling much better today.

3. And much more accomplished... I trimmed all the bushes in the front yard, watered, and got back inside and painted all the trim in the laundry room already.

4. It's not even 10am yet!

5. I cannot wait for the weekend. It's been one of those weeks where we have had something going on every single evening and feels like we haven't been home at all. We still have soccer tonight, a seminar at church plus a birthday party Friday evening and then soccer first thing Saturday morning, but then nothing else planned the whole entire weekend. So looking forward to that!

6. I broke out a little fall decor this week. I'm usually not one to sweep summer under the rug too quickly and don't normally break out the real fall-ishness around here until October, but despite our sunny almost eighty degree days, the mornings and evenings have been cool and crisp and very fall like and I've just been feeling ready for the season change lately. I bought mums for the front steps and put an autumny wreath by the front door. Starting slow. :)

7. Speaking of October, how on earth can it be here this week already!??!

8. Which means I really need to get on the ball with the kids and their Halloween costumes.

9. And a six year old birthday party.

10. And Christmas gifts. ;)


What are ten things that come to your mind this Thursday?

wed nes day

What I wanted to get done today:

• walk with friend
• paint trim in laundry room
• paint walls in laundry room
• lay new floor in laundry room
• clean kitchen
• make dinner

What I actually got done today:

• walked with friend
• stopped by Lowe's to get a new sprinkler
• spent a total of about three hours methodically watering our whole yard (we had all the lawn in our front, back and side yards killed off, raked up, aerated and seeded so now we need to keep it damp but not too wet with a gentle sprinkling and no pooling.)(of course we've had a surprising amount of rain in the last few weeks, but now we get our seed down and have eighty degree days with no rain in sight. suffice to say, it's not a quick or easy job keeping a decent sized yard -which is basically just dirt, hence mud- damp but not too wet on a sunny day.)(I am now taking donations for an in-ground irrigation system.)
• cleaned laundry room baseboards, doors and floor. took much longer than anticipated.
  
• tried to take a 40 minute nap in efforts to get rid of this ugly headache I've already had all day before the kids got off the bus.

Now kids are home, they haven't stopped bickering since they walked in the door, the house is a wreck and I'm thinking take-out sounds reeeeallly good.
In short, this Wednesday day has left me daunted by our mudpit of a yard, discouraged with the lack of progress on painting, perturbed by the mess my house is in, irritated with this stupid headache I can't get rid of and with not much patience left for my kids.
I wouldn't mind ending this day already.
Maybe I'll send Ryan to our small group meeting with the kids without me and I'll just take a hot bath and go to bed.

Happy Hump Day... weekend, come quickly. Please

in the dining room

{I'm doing a weekly "tour" of a room in the house in celebration of one year living here!

You can find looks at our family room here, and the kitchen here.}

In the dining room we have...
painted (same paint as in part of kitchen, had to buy second gallon, Lowe's Valspar Cottage Linen $30)
replaced chandelier (Lighting Direct= $34)(yes, $34!!!) and added a simple medallion ($15?).
new window treatments (existing wood blinds, existing rods spray painted black, curtains from Target: $30 for pair)
added new cabinet (Craigslist $30, painted with Lowe's Valspar English Bulldog from past projects, new knobs $2.50 x 4, new feet constructed by Ryan appr. $6 x 4)
removed wimpy beadboard and replaced with board and batten
all decor (including area rug) was owned previously: table runner and plate collection from Dayspring (no longer sold) I bought long before we moved but saved to put in the new house and mixed with (the white plates) other goodwill/Homegoods
scores here and there.

total: $160

Stepping back and looking at it, I feel like maybe our dining room is a little boring. Don't get me wrong, I really really like it... I think it's big and bright and cheery. It's just that other than slapping some paint on the walls, there's not much here saying it's us who live here. I'm thinking about how to change that since I do actually spend a lot of time in here, as it is my "craft room" as well. I like the simplicity of the room, but I feel like it's just missing something.

I had wanted to take off the beadboard with the too short chair rail and replace it with nice, big, chunky faux board & batten, like this transformation here. (and that's why you may notice my candle sconces are hung too high... I was planning ahead for the taller board & batten. Which Ryan has pish-poshed for the past year.)
I did refinish a little "sewing cabinet" that with it's plantation shutter type doors mimics the big china cabinet in the room. I still want Ryan to help me add some "feet" to it as then it will look more like the furniture goes together and they will be exactly the same height as the bulk of the big cabinet (minus the hutch) balancing out the room a little more.

Pictures:

Before:


listing pic
(can you believe how dark this room is? whole house, I'm telling you...
whole. house.)












and empty (this is looking into the dining room from the front living room)









check out this chandelier that was in here... it was huge and dark (the dark shades over the lightbulbs did not help) and it was a no-go from the start.



Also, again with the is-this-supposed-to-be-yellow? dingy paint color and the dark heavy drapes.


And our dining room now:
please excuse the slightly different tones in color... I took these some of these on different days (sunny vs. dark & rainy)































































































before and after of my sewing cabinet...
(this houses my sewing machine, fabric, etc.)


















and the light...


















and of course I have to highlight my most favorite piece of furniture ever,
my china craft cabinet and all it's glory...































































So there you have it.
What do you think? Taller board & batten in the dining room, Yay or Nay??

weekended

I am so exhausted.
I may just sleep all day tomorrow while everyone else in my house is gone.

It was a long (rough) week and a long (great) weekend. And I'm pooped.
I spent last Tuesday in the ER with severe back (kidney) pain. After xrays and a CT scan; kidney stone diagnosed. Sent home with painkillers and anti-nausea meds. Layed low for a few days.
Skipping ahead to Friday and Saturday, Ryan and I spent all day attending an amazing conference here in Nashville and while we absolutely loved the time we spent listening and learning, they were two long days with a lot of heavy stuff being thrown at us. Wonderful but exhausting. I want to share more thoughts here about the conference later for sure. After I've processed a little more. And had some sleep. :)

Friday evening after our sessions, we went out to dinner with the friends who were helping us with the kids for these two days and got home pretty late. Saturday after the conference we rushed home, picked up the kids and had our neighbors and a friend over for dinner and the Oregon/Arizona (some of these friends are from AZ) football game. Of course, being a west coast game it was super late, with the last of our visitors leaving after midnight. Then for some crazy reason (or, likely, way too much going on in my brain) I could not fall asleep. I know I didn't actually get to sleep until after 3am. And we were up at 7 this morning. Not a great idea.

We went to church this morning and then joined some church friends for an early lunch -including grilled salmon caught by one of the friends on his trip this summer to Alaska! YUM!!- which turned into a several hours of visiting and games before we finally headed home after 3 o'clock.
We immediately set to work in the backyard as we're having a guy come tomorrow to work more on our lawn and Ryan had to dig out five or six concrete post bases left in the ground by one of our neighbors who redid and moved one side of our fence before we moved in. Ugh.

In the midst of that, our backyard neighbors invited us to share braughts and mac&cheese with them for dinner.

Ryan's currently cutting Sawyer's hair and after I throw him in the shower and then tuck both kids in, I'm planning on flopping immediately into bed myself!

That's our week/weekend in a nutshell.
How was yours?

hello fall

Today, as fall starts, I am...
wearing: white tank, silver, light, wrap/drapey sweater thing, cuffed jean capris and flats
playing: lots of the new fall tv on the dvr

wanting: a maid

needing: to get walking more again

eating:fruity cheerios

drinking:lots and lots of lemonade

enjoying: the cooler, rainy "fall-like" weather

not enjoying: the sun setting so much earlier

daydreaming: of the nice lawn we'll have next summer as we're in the middle of completely killing off our current weedbed lawn and reseeding the entire thing

anticipating: the adoption/foster care conference we're attending today. :)

Hello First Day of Fall...

what are you up to? :)

i've discovered one perk of moving a lot

... is that it makes for pretty fun art:




















These are all the addresses we've had together in our 9.5 years of marriage.
--current addy blocked out, obv.--

(and that's not counting the two apartments Ryan had in Nashville last year!)
Couldn't really make cool, personal art like this if we'd only have lived in one or two houses, right? ;)

I've been wanting to make some sort of canvas to hang over the big breaker box that's smack dab in the middle of our laundry room wall. I had decided to hang a canvas over it with hinges so we can hide the box and still have it easily accessible, but I couldn't decide what to paint on it for the longest time...
I have a "home sweet home" sign I kind of wanted to hang in there alongside it, so I finally threw together my love for subway art style words, and the fact that we've been around the block with addresses so to speak, and ta-da... A graphic statement of us being the nomads that we have been our whole married life!















(project note: doing vinyl letter "stencils" is much easier using a wood board rather than canvas. The flatter surface works better for less bleeding with the paint. I needed to use canvas because I needed a lightweight and open in the back piece here, however, for any future subway word art, I'm sticking with wood!)

So all I did was type up all of our past addresses in my Silhouette program (or you can use Word or any other graphic/photoshop program), size them and stretch them to fit into my puzzle, and then sent it through the machine using regular, cheap old contact paper. (no way was I going to waste my good vinyl for such a big piece!) That all took me about an hour.
















Getting the letters on the canvas, straight and spaced right? That was a whole nother challenge. Contact paper doesn't stick too well to canvas. *see note above! Getting the letters and numbers situated took me probably two hours.




I gave it all a quick spray with white spray paint to try and get the letters "sealed" into place and prevent bleeding.













Then I used some leftover wall paint and went to town covering the whole thing.

Then.
I peeled some vinyl off.
And the paint had bled so badly. So, so badly. Ugh.
I tried painting the letters back in with white paint, but it looked horrible.
So. Frustrating.
Meanwhile I tried spray painting over the top few lines that I hadn't painted yet, to see how that would turn out. It worked like a charm.
I don't know why I didn't just spray paint to begin with. Well, I do know, it's because I wanted it that dark orange color. :(
But, brown (spray paint on hand) it shall be.
So. I removed all the letters, sprayed it all down white again, printed out the letters again, put them all on again (which was much easier and faster this time because I could see where they had been before!) and then painted it all with my dark brown spray paint...
















After a few coats of spray paint and a few minutes drying time, I simply peeled off all my letters & numbers and...
Finally.





















Okay, so if I hadn't basically had to do it twice? It was a super easy project (with the vinyl cutter!) and I absolutely LOVE the piece. We're painting the laundry room (and cabinets!)(and hopefully putting in a new floor!) this weekend, and I can't wait to show you it in it's place!!

weekend in st louie

Our weekend:

-Picnic dinner w/ the Malones + some visiting time w/ the Mohrs at the Balloon Festival.
-French toast, bacon and kids' soccer in the park w/ the Malones, followed by lunch w/ the Coxes, the Morts and the Lowers at Red Robin.
-A drive through the old neighborhood w/ some quick chat time w/ neighbors.
-Chili night w/ the Malones followed by a football game for the boys and a movie in the park for the girls.
-A morning tour through Malone's new start-up charter school before heading over to have lunch and hang out time with the Swinigans and then a long, rainy drive home.

in the kitchen

{I'm doing a weekly "tour" of a room in the house in celebration of one year living here!

You can find last week's look at the family room here.}

In the kitchen we have...
replaced hardware ($1/handle on ebay= $30)
replaced faucet (Lowes= $218) and garbage disposal (Lowes=$?)
framed out windows (used 1 1/4" molding, about $4 each, four pieces total= $16)
replaced blinds (Lowe's= $30 x 3= $90)
painted walls (two walls Lowe's Valspar Green Apple $30gallon, two walls Lowe's Valspar Cottage Linen $30gallon)
painted all the trim (paint leftover in garage= free)
[still need to] paint doors (free)
tiled the backsplash (3 boxes of special order subway tile @ Home Depot= $150)(we have leftovers)(we also already had all other supplies from previous tile job)
replaced light over eating area (Menards= $110)
covered side cabinet w/ sheet metal -we wanted a magnetic space since the fridge is stainless steel- painted w/chalkboard paint (sheet from local metal place= $40, paint on hand)
other decor:
barstools (Ikea, off of Craigslist=$25 for both)
new extra large canisters (Target= $50)(but I used birthday money for that, so I'm not counting it in the total)
new phone holder/cabinet thingie (Home Goods= $12)
all other furniture and/or decor was previously owned or made from stuff on hand (free!)

total: just over $700
This is definitely the most money spent on any room. It's a big kitchen and it was so blah, and kitchen stuff= $. But at least we didn't have big stuff to do like counters or cabinets (although someday...) or appliances.
Still want to add under cabinet (and maybe above cabinets) lights and I would love to remove the microwave from above the stovetop with and put in a nice hood and replace one of the wall ovens with a microwave there. But for now, it'll do!

Before:

(listing picture and when we moved in)




























Thiss kitchen is kind of dark since there are no real exterior windows due to the sunroom/florida/our pool table room added on the back of the house. The walls were the same dreary dull yellowish as the rest of the house and while the cabinets (maple), counters (corian) and appliances (stainless) were nice and beautiful, with the dreary wall color, no backsplash, oddly out of place cheap fixtures and details and the kitchen was just dim and blah.


And Now:






























































here's a shot of the big window before we put our fake trim "casing" on it. also notice how the lighting in there made everything so yellow! (nighttime pic too, so it's even worse, but still!)






and after



















before, with no backsplash...








during














and after

















the original faucet and the much more appropriately proportionate one we switched it out for