Happy Halloween

We had a Star Wars theme this year.

Queen Amadala (for those of you that are not die hard fans--Luke Skywalker's mother.)

Yoda

Anakin Skywalker (Darth Vadar before he turns to the dark side)

The Loot

Progress on the Stairs

Jim did inset panels up the staircase and in front of it. We're still in the finishing phases but I had to share.

World's Smallest Vacuum(er)

Benny was helping Daddy with the stairs. Jim is currently working some magic on the stairs with some inset frames. More pictures to come as he progresses...

Pillows for Benny

Funny Things...

that Nora has said lately:

It was late on a saturday morning and I had been hinting at the kids to get dressed and get outside. I saw the neighbor's kids dressed and outside so I said, "Wow, look at them. They're already outside, dressed and everything!" Nora looks outside and says, "Well, we're not that kind of family."

Nora was telling me one of her long stories about something that happened at school. I was listening but I was saying, "yup, yeah, wow, uh-huh" while she was telling me the story. So she stops and says, "Are you really listening because those are the things that adults says to kids when they're not really listening."

Downs of Renovation...

So, I haven't blogged for awhile but there is a reason. The reason is our living room floor. When we last left you we were excited to begin sanding, staining and varnishing our living room floor so that the entry way into our house would be done. Well we spent a weekend sanding the old floor down to the bare wood. We had to rent two different sanders as well as an edge sander. Then we had to use a hand sander to take out any gouge marks from the edge sander (which we called "the destructor"). In short we did a lot of sanding. Then we were ready to stain. We went over and over which stain to use to match, or at least come close to, our stair treads. We tried plain stains, we tried mixing some stains. We tried everything and finally found one that we thought looked good. So then we stained. We did it in the evening, when the kids were in bed, so that it could try and air out over night. And this is what it looked like:

We went to bed that night thinking that it looked good and we were happy.

But then the next day, in the light of day, we realized that the stain looked purple! Ugh! We don't know what went wrong. Did we mix the wrong ones? Did they have a reaction? We didn't know but we weren't happy with it. So we tried putting some stains over a sample piece that we had but that didn't look right. It just looked muddy. So we gave in and we sanded the entire floor again! Then we carefully tried another set of stains to see if it would match and we stained in the light of day. The next color looked good but there were some spots where the stain wouldn't absorb so we sanded that off and applied more stain but the edges of those spots looked darker than the rest of the floor so we lightly sanded those. We were so tired of dealing with this that we considered just ripping up the whole floor and putting down prefinished. But we decided to stick with it. So finally we put down some poly last night and I think we're good (see top two pictures). Finally...

Movin' on Up

Now that we're done with the mud room, it's time to tackle the stairs. I painted the ballusters and stained/varnished the railing while Jim is working on the floor. There was some debate on whether to rip up all the floors and replace them or to just try to patch and match. We decided to go the patching route. In the end it will mean less money and less waste. We're going to put in the new floor and sand it all down, including the old stuff, stain and varnish. It should be messy but what house project isn't right? Jim is planning on showing off some of his crazy carpenter skills on the stairs case. I'll show you plenty of pictures as he gets going. I just can't wait for people to walk into our house and not say, "Oh you're under construction, still..."

Here you can see the new floor and what we have to match. Wish us luck!

First Day

Built-in Complete

Sorry for the grainy pictures. I took them last night. Anyway, we're done!! Another thing checked off the to do list, a big thing. Eventually we might build some open shelving above the taller portion but for now it will serve it's purpose of keeping our junk out of sight. I was going to make a cushion for the bench part but we were thinking that we might just paint it the same charcoal color of the surface of the taller part, or maybe both? I feel like we need some color or pattern in the room but maybe do it with window treatments? What's your opinion?

BTW-can you see Benny in some of these pictures? The whole time I'm taking them he's following me saying, "take picta uh me, take picta uh me!"

With or Without?

What do you think?

Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate...

My nephew wanted a chocolate cake with chocolcate frosting...he loves chocolate!

Benny tested the frosting and you guessed it, he loved it. Look at that smile...an orthodontist's dream!

Mud Room Built-in

Jim has been building the mud room bench and storage. I can't wait to have a place to put everyone's stuff as they come in. No more tripping over stuff!! The big drawers will be for the many shoes that we've managed to accumulate and each person will get a smaller drawer for their stuff. Hopefully this will stop all the stuff that seems to pile up on my kitchen counters.

Jim put on the drawer front with the hardware that I picked out to see how it would look. I wanted something simple and durable looking. I'm going to paint them a darker gray and make a cushion for the bench.

Porch Details

I realized that the last post did not do the porch justice, especially after all the work JD has put into it. I decided to post again but with more detailed pictures so you can see all the hard work!

We were originally going to paint the ceiling the typical blue but the wood looks so pretty, knots and all, that we decided that we're going to do a light stain and then clear coat it.

The cat hangs out here almost as much as we do...

My coleus is potted in pots that are too small. They dry out by the end of every day and look wilted. The secret to my huge impatiens...miracle grow every couple weeks. The ones on the right were planted a couple months before the ones on the right (I didn't want to plant them just to have them stomped on).

We've been Busy...

We've been keeping ourselves busy this summer. We finally finished the farmer's porch so it's on to some other projects inside and around the house. I just finished touching up the old bathrooms and I'm moving on to the guest bedroom. Jim is putting together the mudroom. He's started with the bench/storage unit in it that I can't wait to have! Other than that we've been busy hiking, swimming and the kids have been in a few camps. I can't believe that school is just a few weeks away!

New Kitty

Nora and I finally got a new kitten. I say "Nora and I" because the boys didn't seem that interested and Jim was difficult to convince. We adopted her from a cat fostering group in a nearby town. She came with the name Sugar but the kids kept calling her "shuga" which was driving me crazy. I renamed her Daisy because she is a "cow cat." We'll see if that sticks...