A Big Girl Room

A couple of weeks ago, we took on a new house project -- making Bean's big girl room! Since new baby is a girl, she'll be going into the nursery as is, which allows Bean to get a brand new room.  We let her help in making some decisions (like bedding, lighting, and paint options).  She was very excited in the process which we were hoping would translate into her being excited about the new bed.  I was worried about all her picks and didn't think her room would ever come together, but in the end, she loves the room and so do we!

(This room is painted wallpaper and I REAAAAAALLLY wanted to take all the wallpaper off and start from scratch. However, my heart was never fully into that portion of the process and I didn't get started on it earlier.  So we just decided to paint over the existing painted wallpaper and pretend the wallpaper doesn't exist.)

(Bean loved every step of the transformation process.  Especially when she got to just sit and play with some of daddy's tools.  Her favorite pastime involved taking all the Allen wrenches out of their case and put them back in - which is what she's doing in the picture.)

(Steve HATES painting, but he sucked it up and helped me out a ton.  He painted a lot of the trim while I did all the taping and rolling.)

(Did I mention how much she loved to help?!  She thought it was great fun to help with the paint roller.  Little did she know, there wasn't much paint on her roller.)

(More painting with the roller!)

(She was also a big help in taking all the tape down.  Even all the trim, windows, and doors got a fresh coat of paint!)

(I got the brilliant idea to have her help me build her new bookcase/organizer.  About 3/4 of the way through I almost called the whole "have Bean help" idea off, but we managed and made it successfully.  She then helped to put a few books on it until it was time for her move to the new room.)

(Steve helped on the weekend, but I did a lot of the work on my own during Bean's naptimes.  I built the dresser and bed during 2 separate days.  I had her help me put the sheets on the bed - bad idea, should've done it by myself! She did, however, enjoy eating her snack in her new bed.)

(The color pallet I had to work with after she picked all the different items.  Not shown is the dark blue star light for her wall (purchased from Ikea) and teal curtains that I bought to finally finish her room.)

(Ta-da!  The room is complete! I might cut the curtains in half so that they hang on both sides of the windows, but for now they are serving their purpose to keep the sun out as one whole piece!)

(View from her bed.  Bean helped put all the different stickers around her room on the walls.)

(From this view point, the bed is to the left and the book shelf is to the right.)

Once her room was all complete, I let her decide if she was ready to sleep in her new big girl bed. I told her that her paci (pacifier) was for the crib and that she couldn't have it in her big girl bed.  She told me, "ok, I don't need paci! Sleep big girl bed!"  I had her sleep in it during nap for the first time, just to make sure she'd sleep okay.  It took her almost 2 hours to fall asleep.  I wasn't sure if it took her so long because of the novelty of the new bed/room or if it was because she didn't know how to fall asleep without sucking on her pacifier.  She slept really well once she passed out.  I had to wake her up because I didn't want her to sleep much later (or she'd never fall asleep for bed).  That night for bed, she went to bed like a pro and fell quickly asleep!  She's not mentioned anything about her pacifier since then, and she's been in her room for over a week now! 

(I'd say her new bed is a success!)

Kitchen Remodel -- Phase 3

Our last phase in the kitchen remodel was painting and final touches.  It took us longer to pick out a paint color than it did to tile the kitchen.  I thought I wanted something with an orange in it (to match all my orange appliances and utensils), but Steve wanted something more neutral.  We went to Lowe's together and each picked out a sample color.  Turned out that Steve's pick was the exact same color already on the wall.  It was an instant veto.  My choice was a "peach" color, but it ended up looking more pink than orange on the wall.  So it was a veto, too. Back to the drawing board.

We have a ton of extra paint around our house from all the samples and painting I've done.  So I pulled some out and painted swatches all over.  I started to lean towards the same green in the dining room.  But then that's a lot of green in those two rooms.  So then I thought maybe I'd repaint the dining room a different color (Steve thankfully vetoed that crazy thought).  I finally came across the gallon of blue paint I used to paint the kitchen bathroom.  I still had almost a full gallon and really like the color.  Steve isn't the biggest fan of it in the bathroom, but I decided to gamble with it anyway.  Besides, there's no loss of money in it since the can was just laying around!

So while Steve was at work, I pulled the trigger and started painting the kitchen the same blue from the bathroom.  I immediately fell in love with it.  It was brightening up the kitchen right away. Plus, since blue and orange are opposites on the color wheel, it made my orange appliances pop!  Steve wasn't as excited as I wanted him to be when he got home, but he didn't hate it either.  I'll take it! (For the record, the color has grown on him.  He just had to adjust to it at first!).

It took several coats and almost a full week to paint.  I did most of the painting during Bean's naptime.  In the afternoons, the neighbor girls would come over and entertain her so I was able to continue my painting.  Wins all around! Once I got the blue on the wall, I taped off the trim and repainted all of it, too.  The trim was all mismatched and in dire need of painting.  Once the painting was done, the kitchen felt like it was brand new -- almost.

The big changes made everything look so much better, but also pointed out what we didn't change - the cabinets, appliances, and floor.  I spent a couple days using some good old elbow grease and cleaned everything up really well.  Now we truly have a brand new kitchen!

(You know you're kitchen remodel is taking too long when your child prefers to play with paint cans and not her toys.  I was at least smart this time and did NOT let her help paint.)

(It's amazing how a little elbow grease and cleaning something can change it.  I spent several days cleaning cabinets and the floor.  Look at the difference of the kick board under the cabinets - left side is cleaned, right side is not.  Once I cleaned the kick board, I repainted the trim.  There was years of neglect on and under cabinets!)

(I should have taken a better side by side photo of the grout cleaning process, but I didn't.  Here is CLEAN grout! I used a toothbrush and a spray cleaner and just went tile by tile.I also learned in this process that my tiles aren't supposed to have nearly as much "black" detailing in the veins as they appear to.  In other words, there was a lot of crud stuck in the tiles.)

(Here's a better sot of the difference in clean vs. dirty grout.  I started from one side of the room and worked my way out.  In this photo, the grout from the window to the stove is clean, and the bottom 3 rows of tile are still dirty.)

(Kitchen is so much more bright and light with the light blue paint!  I still need to paint the tiny hallway by the entrance.  It will get a coat of the beige from the main hallway.)

(Brand new kitchen!)

(I love how the blue walls makes my orange accents stick out! The clean grout/tile on the floor now blends in to the cabinets, too, making the counters pop all the more.)

(Pictures don't adequately capture how bright and new this space is.  Guess that means you just need to come visit and see for yourself!)

Kitchen Remodel -- Phase 2

I was skeptical about putting in subway tile.  First off, I thought it was going to be waaaay to advanced of a project for us (I had nightmares of all the tiles crashing and shattering as they fell off the walls) plus I thought it'd be too much white.  It was the cheapest tile option, so I trusted Steve and gave him the "OK".

We had plans of knocking the tiling out in a weekend.  I didn't think it was going to be possible to tile with Bean in the house.  We didn't want to ask my parents to come back and help again, so we just made do the best we could.  Steve had to do a lot of prep work with the tiles -- measuring off straight lines, marking tiles to be cut, etc. He worked on the prepping while I kept track of Bean.  Once she went down for nap, I joined in helping.

Really, Steve did all the first round of tiling.  We were given a bunch of tiles from friends that needed cleaned.  So I went through and cleaned them all.  Steve got to work on putting mastic and tiles on the wall.  He started on the smaller area behind the stove and worked his way up to the big area on the other half of the kitchen.  I was pretty much moral support.  Once Bean got up, we called it quits (could've done more time-wise, but we were tired and got a good portion done).  We changed our desire from getting all tiling and grouting done by the end of the weekend, to just getting the tile up.

(Steve started in the middle and worked out to the left and right to ensure everything to look right!)

(He put a good layer of mastic on the wall, would score it, put some on the tile, score it, and then apply to the wall.  He used even used spacers to ensure straight lines!)

(It was a lot of hard work and we were both sore from all the bending over.)

(For Christmas, Steve got this portable work bench. It came in really handy on this job! This is where all the tiles were prepped and staged for application.)

On Sunday, we got a late start in working (church came first!).  Once we got home, we quickly ate lunch, got Bean down for nap, and went back to work! Steve continued on putting tiles up on the west wall while I started grouting the tile behind the stove.  I watched a couple YouTube videos and decided I could handle it.  I couldn't quite get the hang of using the sponge without having too much water in it (in other words, when I wiped off the grout, there was too much liquid and it would streak).  I figured out my own system of using the sponge some and paper towels some.

(All the tiles are up and ready for grout! I worked on this area while Steve continued laying tiles on the other side of the room.)

(He used window as the centering for this section and then worked his way to the left and right.)

(He would work in small sections at a time.  That way, when it was time for grout, I could use his same sectioning to ensure it was dried and ready for grout.)

(We chose to do a fancy edged tile on this section since it had weird placement between the cabinets and counters.  I kind of got a little crazy with the grout on the wall.  Good thing we still had to paint!  You can see on the right side how some tiles were still missing.  Those needed special cuts on the wet saw and were added in later.  Best part of the grout/tiles being done -- the stove got to be put back in place and was usable again!)

There were a few areas that we couldn't finish during our intense work weekend.  We had a few tiles that needed to be specially cut to fit around outlets, cabinets, and corners.  Steve got all the tiles up and I was able to grout the tiles (after they'd been up 24 hours).  I continued to work on the grout over the next few days (during naptime!).  Steve borrowed a wet saw from a coworker, cut and laid the tiles over the next few days as well.  I finished up the tiling by using a grout caulk to seal up all the seams.  We may not have met our weekend goal, but I'd say a week isn't too bad!

(This area was hard to grout with the faucet.  We debated on taking it out, but I really liked being able to use the sink while we worked.)

(All done! I was skeptical about there being so much tile on the walls.  I liked the concept of the backsplash behind the sink - as the wall often got dirty from the sink - but didn't think it would look good on the whole wall.  Boy was I wrong.  I LOVE the tile!)

(I used a caulking gun - with grout caulk - to fill in the space between the counter and bottom tile and edges of the tiled area.  It took me forever because I am a perfectionist.  I used my finger to scrape a straight line along the tile.  My fingers were very sore from all the scraping.)

With the counters done and the tile up, we were able to start clearing up all the paper and use the counters again!  Steve then switched gears to the lighting issues.  He hated the fluorescent box lights and wanted to change them to something more "sophisticated".  I personally didn't care.  I just wanted to be able to see when I'm in there!  He found some school house lights on Amazon and ordered them.  We decided to gamble and take down the old lights and install them.  We weren't sure if the school house lights would provide enough lighting.  In the end, they did, and we loved them!  Only issue we have is that there are 2 light switches.  The switches operated the lights separately.  Steve decided to rewire 1 so that both lights worked together.  Here's the issue though -- the other switch only operates the 1 light.  So it can get confusing which switch to use at which time.

(School house lights!  You can see the area on the ceiling where the box light used to be.  We bought ceiling paint to try to mask that area, but I haven't gotten the courage to paint it.  I'm afraid the paint won't match and I'll have to paint the whole ceiling -- I'm not looking forward to that!)

(School light in action. It actually lights the space really well.  I'm mostly in the kitchen in the morning and in the late afternoon.  Our kitchen faces the west and the sun shines in nicely in the windows.  So the lights on the ceiling just add light from above (and of course at night when the sun is gone!).)

We had plans of getting a matching drop down school house light to hang over the sink.  We ordered it and discovered when it showed up, that it was a big one -- the same size as the lights we installed on the ceiling! So we scrapped the matching light idea and hit up our local hardware stores in search of a small light.  We found we liked and fell in love with the Edison bulb look.  It doesn't match the other lights, but we still love it!

(Over the sink light.  We really don't use this light often - we didn't the old one either.  I just don't think about needing light over the sink.  But I love the look it adds to the kitchen.)

(Who can't resist an Edison bulb?!  Don't know what I'm talking about - google it! It just looks like the old fashioned light that Edison created. Just adds a little touch of a classic look.)

Brand New Kitchen

It's amazing how a few changes here and there can make a space feel brand new.  Last winter, when Steve proposed a summer kitchen remodel, I thought he was crazy.  I mean, the cabinets looked good; sure the counter top was a bit outdated; and it definitely needed paint; but a whole overhaul?!  He proposed new lights, tiling a backplash and then painting the countertops?!  I thought he was crazy. I couldn't envision his proposals.  I begrudgingly went along.

1 full month of hard work and I now hate myself for ever doubting!  I LOVE the new kitchen.  It's beautiful and bright and I actually WANT to spend time in there.  We still want to switch out 1 more light, and I need to do some ceiling work (touchup/paint).  But overall, it's checked off my list.

It's hard to capture the change in the entire room in pictures.  I'll break down my blogposts over the remodel into each phase:
*Phase 1 - Countertops & Sink
*Phase 2 - Tiling the Blacksplash & Lights
*Phase 3 - Painting & Clean-Up

But I'll leave you with some brief before/after shots!

Before/After:

April Showers bring April? Flowers?

Ha, I crack myself up sometimes.  The weather was gorgeous this past weekend, so we randomly decided to work on our Flower boxes! Since we've moved in a few years ago, we noticed that the boxes were starting to fall apart a little.  So Steve took the front box down and used screws to secure it back together.  Some of the wood is rotting and will eventually need totally redone; but for now, some simple fixes will get them through a couple more years.

Once he got it put back together, I did a quick sanding and then gave it a fresh coat of paint! We decided we wanted to repaint the numbers and brackets as well, but didn't have the paint.  So I just painted it and moved on to the other box.

The box on the side of the house is a different story.  The bottom board was pretty rotted and slanting.  We couldn't get the box off the house, but the bottom board easily popped out.  So we decided it was worth buying a new board for the bottom of the box.  The insides are rotting pretty good, but again, it'll last a couple more years.  So Steve screwed together the sides that needed it and I painted it!  Once Bean woke up, we headed to Menard's to get the paint we wanted for the numbers/bracket, new board, new plastic planters, and flowers.

We had to put the project on pause until Sunday afternoon.  Once we got home from church, Bean went down for a nap and we headed back outside.  I worked on painting the numbers and the brackets while Steve cut the board for the bottom.  I should have taken a photo, but forgot.  I taped a bunch of paper all around the brackets on the brick so that I didn't get paint all over the house.  It was windy and the wind kept moving the paper which really annoyed me.  Steve had to come help hold the paper while I painted.  I used a really cool textured black spray paint with copper flecks in it.  It turned out great!

Once the painting portion was done, I moved on to planting the flowers in the plastic planters that would go in the boxes! We picked petunias (loved them so much from last year!) and dianthus.  I had just finished the planting when Bean woke up.  While I went and got her, Steve drilled the new holes for the bottom board and put it into place.  While she played in the driveway with chalk, I quickly painted the bottom board (not for looks, just to help it last longer).  Steve put the numbers back on the front box, put it in place, and put the flowers in it.  Now to wait for them to grow bigger!

Front Before:

Front After: 

(I realize there's not much of a change.  Just a lot brighter and fresh looking!)

Side Before:

Side After: 

(This one to me looks tons different!)

(Close up of the flowers -- Purple Petunias on left and right, White Dianthus in the middle!)

A Big Mulch Porject

We got really lucky when we bought our house, in the fact that all the front landscaping and been professionally done.  Unfortunately, not all of it had been kept up.  The first summer we lived here, I spent a lot of my time outside pulling weeds, laying landscape fabric, and putting mulch (purchased in bags from Menards) all around.  Then the next summer, I spent zero time on the landscaping since I was pregnant and had other things to accomplish.  This summer, we kicked it into high gear and both of us spent a lot of time outside working!

We had a goal to fix all the landscaping just in the front of the house.  For a couple weeks, I would spend a couple hours each day outside working on pulling up the landscaping fabric I laid a few summers ago (weeds were poking through and we deemed it a lost cause), pulling weeds, and trimming all the bushes.  On the weekends, Steve would work outside with me and he would cut and prep all the edges for the mulch.  We had most of the area ready for mulch by the July 4th weekend.  We took advantage of that 3 day weekend and had a huge truck load of mulch delivered from Resource Recycling the Thursday before (we got a discount for advertising for them on Facebook!).  We were able to spread the mulch quickly in that same evening.  Only, we didn't even make a slight dent in the mulch pile! We quickly changed our goals and busted our butts to get a ton done that weekend!

We ended up getting the entire front landscaping done, as well as the landscaping that rounded around the side of our house.  I'm pretty sure that area hasn't been touched in 5+ years.  Steve cut out about a foot of grass along the edge while I spent my time weeding.  After a section was all weeded and edged, he'd lay Preen down and then mulch.  There were a couple of bush/trees that drive Steve crazy.  They were overgrown and hide the house.  He wants to just tear them out, but I compromised with trimming them way down.  This project wasn't even on our to-do list, but after a quick decision and an hour of work.  That area looks tons better!

So what about Bean?  Well, she is an absolute trooper!  She is pretty adaptable to going with the flow.  On the days where I'd work out in the yard during all the prep work, I'd take her jumper outside. She'd play in it for awhile.  Then I'd put her down for a nap and continue working while she slept.  On the weekends when Steve and I were both out in the yard.  I'd work along with him during her naps.  When she was awake, I would have her play on a blanket in the yard for a little bit.  But the blanket play wasn't the best solution.  She liked to pull at the grass and swallow/choke on it. So usually one of us was playing with her while the other was working.  A couple of times while we were outside, the neighbor's grandkids would come and play with her on the blanket.  They all loved it!

So usually I'm fairly good about doing before and after photos, but I didn't get many before photos.

(Bean hanging out on the blanket playing.  The first couple of times we had her outside, she wouldn't go off the blanket.  She didn't like the feel of grass so we didn't have to worry.  But then she got adventurous and would not only go off the blanket, but would eat the grass!  Or at least try.  She had one attempt that resulted in a huge gagging fit that nearly put Steve over the edge.)

(Before photo of the mulch freshly dumped!)

(Here's a good in action shot.  You can see Steve's edging and my weeding!  Notice all the weeds in the back corner?  The entire landscaping from this edge all the way around the house was just covered in hundreds of weeds.)

(Close up of the weeds.  We also tore out a bush that wasn't doing much since it didn't get good sunlight.)

(Debating on whether or not we should tackle these bushes. There are three of them that hide the side room on our house.  We've tried to trim them in the past, but haven't had much luck.  We decided to really cut them back, just wasn't sure how to get it done.)

(Steve started with using the loppers, but wasn't having much success.  He went to set up our little chainsaw while I took over the loppers.  He was able to cut through the thicker branches with the chainsaw while I continued trimming one branch at a time. )

(The finished product.  We wanted to trim them down even more, but then they just wouldn't been heaps of sticks.  So we decided to leave some leaves on, even it it looks strange.  Ha.  Notice how half is mulched and half is awaiting mulch.  Steve also had to finish the edging along the side on the right.)

(After doing all the landscaping on the front and right side of the house, and even putting some in the back.  We decided we were done with the project for this year.  We were burnt out from all the work.  We probably spent about 3 weekends and two solid weeks on this project.  I could've gotten it done quicker without Bean, but we still exceeded our goals! Our neighbor took the rest of the mulch off our hands.

(We still have a few things here and there to work on - like weeds popping up in the patio sidewalk.)

(When we worked on the landscaping a few summers ago, we only got the landscaping done just to the right of the blue door.  We never got to in front of the window, or around the side of the house.  Our original goal was just to get done to the front living room window.)

(This opens up the house so much!)

(We got the mulch all done along the side.  If we were overachievers, we would have continued in the back around the patio with the grill, but that didn't happen.  I guess there's next year?)