The Painted Walls

We have lived in our house for almost four years.  In those three plus years, I have only painted three rooms, (the three smallest.  And when I say small, I mean small: the half bathroom, the laundry and the girls bathroom.  I think I only needed a gallon per room, if that!  Well, the kitchen-family-dining area combo was in bad need of a paint job.  I had washed the walls down to sheetrock in several places, that wasn't very hard considering we have the worst builder paint EVER!

I decided on a couple of colors and brought them home.  The little paint chips are never enough, so I bought the samples at the Depot-LOVE them!  Well, everyone hated my favorite, so I went back for some different colors.  We lived like this..

 And this..

 And this...

And this..for quite a while.  I'm talking months, people!

 I still couldn't decide. There is such a range of lighting in this space, one entire wall is windows and yet, it can seem so dark in the kitchen sometimes. Once I finally decided on a color, I waited until Dee was away on a business trip.  He is a little like a cat and doesn't do well with either change or chaos, so it is best to do it while he is gone.  I did as much prep work as possible with the girls awake, but after the fourth time of cleaning caulking out from between Jensyn's fingers and out of Carly's hair, I put the girls to bed at 8:00 and began to paint.  This is what it looked like around midnight.  I HATED it!   But, I had just purchased five gallons and there was no going back.

 This is around 3:00 a.m.  I'm liking it better, but there is so much more to go.

 And this is 7:00 a.m.  I was just finishing the first coat and thought I would be able to rest for a couple of hours, not realizing the time. 

  I made the girls breakfast, took them to school and then got back to painting.  I didn't dare to paint through the night again, for fear I would fall off the ladder and the girls would find me in the morning, so I cleaned up and went to bed shortly after they did.  I was able to finish the second coat while they were at school the next day.  Dee came home that night and I finished the woodwork.  We moved the furniture back and enjoyed how clean the walls looked. 

 I started hanging some things up and was not liking my E-A-T.  I am going with a whole new scheme in the kitchen.  I am over the apple thing.   I still love apples, I just don't want them EVERYWHERE.  I have plans of painting the table and chairs black and thought maybe a change of paper to black and white. 

 That didn't do the trick, so I tried painting the shelf black.   There that's better!

Now, I just have to paint the doors, touch up a couple of places and find/make and hang up the rest of the wall decorations.  Oh, and paint the rest of the $*#%$#@* house, woodwork, doors, ceiling, outside shutters, and front door.  Tell me again why I want to own a home!?!

A Quick Fix

I was so sick of buying shampoo, conditioner and body wash. It seemed like I would put a new bottle in the girls' bathroom and the next night, it would be empty. Not just empty, but emptied all over the walls and bottom of the shower. Jensyn's baby wash came in a pump and it gave me an idea. I took some empty soap dispensers (okay so I bought some 79 cent soap dispensers of my favorite flavor at Kroger), cut out letters with my handy dandy Silhouette and put them on the front. I filled them up from the original bottles. I told the girls they could have 6 pumps of each.
They are lasting forever. I can even buy the more expensive stuff now that I am not buying two bottles of each every shopping trip.

Dumpster Diving

Yes, I am a huge germ-a-phobe. However, I am not willing to pass up some great junk, even if it is in a dumpster. I actually did not dive for these, there was a door on the side and my friend Lisa, was the one who reached in for me. What a true friend. She even let me put them in the back of her SUV. Here they are in all their glory.Another view.A close up on the lovely sponge painting.I took the mirror out and sanded, sanded, sanded. Then I sanded some more. I spray painted them Colonial Red. Then I sanded the edges and wiped on some dark walnut stain. I put the mirrors back in, but wasn't loving them. I took the mirrors back out and hung them up. They were still missing something. Then it hit me! Letters! I found some large letters at Michael's, spray painted them black and then let the girls pick some Halloween paper to cover the front. What do you think?Don't mind my paint chips, I am trying to decide on paint colors for this room.When it is not decorated for a holiday I purchased the word EAT and used brown spray paint on the letters and then covered them with distressed paper. I thought I could use other three letter words for different holidays/seasons. The ones I have thought of so far are SUN, JOY, BRR, XOX, USA, EGG. Do you have any good ones? As I am sure you can tell, I have now moved onto painting the chosen colors and 'living' with them for a while. My walls look like I am trying to paint camouflage.

It is Finally Done!

Well, as done as it's going to get for a while.

Do you remember this post? or these pictures? I couldn't stand it any more. The Aileen's tacky glue finally got to me. I couldn't find it. I knew that I had at least three unopened bottles and at least two opened ones, but couldn't find any of them. If I dug into these piles, I might find them, but then I couldn't shut the door or get out! (Keep in mind, these pictures were taken in November, it was sooo much worse.)

So on Saturday, I just pulled everything out and put it in the playroom and started going through it all. I found the glue along with the two boxes I thought I had lost in the move and a box that I thought I had lost in the orginal move from Utah. Is is exactly as I want it? No, but I find myself thinkng of reasons to go in the bonus room now, instead of opening the door, tossing unneeded items and then quickly slamming the door shut.

My next project is shelves in the garage above the garage door. I can put all my totes up there and get the bonus room ready for Jensyn-and me. I have grand ideas for a craft area outside her bedroom.

Can You Spot the Difference?

After nearly twelve years of service, the cream couches have gone.They have been replaced with these chocolate microfiber beauties. Now I must revamp my entire decorating scheme in this room. (Yeah, right! Maybe next year.)

At Least It has ONE good purpose.

We have lived here for nearly three years and the girls have used our 'big tub' at least 50 times more than I have. I know a lot of you love a bath. I on the other hand see it as sitting in your own dirty water. It is nice to wash all three at once and serves as a good swimming pool if the weather is bad. If the girls are not using it, it serves as a great dust catcher or holder of anything Jensyn decides belongs in there.

If we ever redo our bathroom, this will be the first thing to go. Sorry, girls.

It's Up!

The tree is up.




Decorated. (The tree is Dee's domain.)




And lit.
(the star broke and we have yet to run to the store to get another one)



The kids are so happy!




I even put lights up outside this year. When I was a kid my parents always had all white lights, real wreaths and tree, all ornaments were white porcelain with red ribbons, etc. That is what Christmas should look like, so I put up garland and white lights. I was very excited for the kids to see. They said, 'That is nice Mom, but we like the Patterson's better.' The next door neighbors have all red and green lights, they even changed out their porch lights, one red, one green. Oh well! I like it!

And Vanessa, I think it is all about me!

Mission Organization

As a kid (note: I just googled the copyright information on this book. It was copyrighted in 1983, I was nine), I used to spend so much time looking at this book..... The final page being my favorite.

I can remember lying on the floor, looking at this page and being so happy.

Just look at that organized closet! This picture just fills me with happiness.
This is my version.
My door. A close up of the top shelf. In the past it would have really bothered me that the containers didn't match, but I have come a long way in that regard. And all without therapy!
Remember the attic? Click here, if not. That project is much too daunting, so I have decided to tackle it a little at a time. Starting with this:
Moving on to this:
and this:
and lastly this:
ALL crafting supplies. Hopefully after that, most of this:

will be cleaned up.

It's like Christmas all over again!!!

I took some advice from another mom and took away half of my kids toys.

WWWHHHAAATTTT!!!!!

Let me finish. They then trade the remaining toys for the new ones that you took away. My kids really enjoy these new toys, they act like they have never seen them before. Another great benefit to this method is a CLEAN playroom.

Note the empty spot on the shelf. They traded babies and paraphernalia for ..

a kitchen set.

When they tire of a toy they can just trade Mom for a new one. The only problem is...........

Mom can never find the toys!!

This is actually a new year's resolution for me. Since we are DONE (Yes, Mom I said DONE) having kids, we can get rid of the tons of baby stuff. I have set a goal to have the attic clean and organized by June. We would like to finish it into storage and a bedroom for Jensyn. As you can see from the picture, that is pretty much impossible right now. Hopefully by putting it out there, I will be forced to keep this resolution.