Project #1.....and #2, and #3.....

We are giving each other the gift of time this Christmas.  Remember how I said that the basement was pretty much in shambles when we moved in?  Well, we've not really had our bedroom situations.....ah....situated.  We've had 2 kids in a room, 3 kids in a room, 2 kids in the TV room, 1 kid in the music room, and for a while we had 2 kids in OUR room.  So the boys are finishing each others bedrooms for Christmas this year.  Any money they would have spent on each other got put together to pay for the few things we would need to finish the rooms.  It's been a great lesson in Math, planning, and SERVICE.  

So Projects #1-3 are 3 bedrooms in the basement that need some work. 

One of them is functional, but the carpet is horrible and the walls are this horrible orange.  Try getting boys to actually SLEEP in a bright orange bedroom!  It just needs a little TLC and a new coat of paint.  Think dusty blue....yep.  Much more relaxing than orange. lol 

The other 2 bedrooms are next to each other and the wall with the closets was missing and there was no flooring when we moved in.  Apparently the basement residents (a family upstairs and a family downstairs) were going to make it one big bedroom.  We've already rebuilt the wall and 1 closet and have the drywall and first coat of mud on one side.  We just need to drywall the other side and paint both rooms.  Then all 3 bedrooms will be getting carpet.  But how are we doing carpet and doing this for as close to $0 as possible?  You'll see!  Remember......we're creative!

Why a blog?

Handy Man is, well....Handy.  I'm creative.  It's a wonderfully lethal combination when it comes to remodeling and decorating.  Neither of us is afraid of the other's power tools.  He'll sit down to my sewing machine as comfortably as (okay, probably MORE comfortably than) I'll run out to use his compound miter saw.  We're not afraid of picking up a paint brush and roller and not afraid of painting something the WRONG color and doing it again.  And by golly, we're every bit as creative as all the other building/decorating/design bloggers out there! :) (And humble to boot!)  The biggest problem we run into is that we're both sold on our own ideas by the time we pitch it to the other.  So it usually takes a while - sometimes weeks or months - to come to an agreement about the details of a project.

Where we're different than most is that we're going to do it for as close to $0 every time and still be able to turn our house into a "Dream home".  We love the challenge of NOT just consuming goods.  We love to build, re-use, and re-purpose existing items instead of buying new.  God gave us these talents for a reason, so we're going to share with you, and hopefully inspire you to dream your home into your "dream home".  Having a nice home doesn't have to break the bank.

Meet the Fam

There are currently 7 of us, with one more joining us Mid-April-ish....you know how due dates go. :) 
Handy Man - That's DH.  The name says it all.
Mess-maker - That's me.  Handy Man started calling me the Mess-maker shortly after we were married because when I'm being creative, I make a biiiiiiiig mess.  (I always clean it up!) lol
Beaver - DS1 will be 12 this Spring and the boy chews on EVERYTHING!  Wood and paper being his favorites.
Magician - DS2 is 10 and loves doing magic tricks.  All he ever wants for birthdays/Christmas is more magic supplies.  He's also a science project lover.
Tornado - DS3 is 8.  Another VERY descriptive name that needs NO explanation.  Fortunately he's as impulsive with his love and kindness as he is with everything else. <3
Nater - DS4 is coming up on 6 and loves to entertain.
Bob - DS5 just turned 3 and when he first started talking, he would raise his eyebrows and bob his head. So we call him Bob.  Of course, now that he's 3 and ultimately more aware of himself, he keeps telling us his name is NOT Bob. lol
Baby - DS6 will make his arrival sometime this Spring and I'm sure over time a TRUE nick-name will reveal itself.

Join us while we turn our house into a home

Not quite a year ago, we moved into a new (to us) house.  Any time we've moved, I've found that it really takes about a year to figure out where I REALLY want things and who I REALLY want in each room, etc.  Well, I've finally figured it out for this house. =D 

Architecturally speaking, this house drives DH & I batty!  Weird layouts, awkward spaces, a lot of "what was the purpose of this?" types of things.  It's in disrepair after years of being a tenant property as well.  The banister is broken in a couple of places, and wobbles about 8 inches in either direction. Tiles are broken, carpet bleached in some spots and stained in others, kitchen cabinet doors randomly fall off when you open them, drafts around the doors, broken light fixtures, carpet in the only dining area in the house, and the basement.......well, a previous tenant decided they'd "remodel".  What that really means is that they ripped out nearly all of the flooring in the basement and entirely gutted a bathroom and that's how it remains.  Most people don't notice this stuff when they come in our home, not that I really care.  My house is not who I am.  It's only us who notice most of it because, well......we live here. lol  Now, don't get me wrong.....I'm not complaining.  It's a large home, approximately 5000 sf, and we have 1.17 acres.  PERFECT for raising 5 (soon to be 6) sons.  Is it our dream house? Certainly not!  I have THAT floor plan on Pinterest along with a billion ideas for how I want to build and decorate it.  But that's another conversation.   (Sorry about the tangent.)  Financially, we had a few really rough years in California before we left, so our credit wasn't exactly in our favor when we were looking for a new house.  We were sure we'd have to rent for a few years, but God was smiling on us and we were able to get into this house because we took it "As is" and it's owner-financed.  So we get to own it, and we get to fix it up.  We'll take all the disrepair and awkwardness because of a few things:

1 - The yard is AWESOME!!!!!  Anywhere they skimped on the details IN the house, they made up for in the landscaping.  It's in need of a few years of TLC, too, but nothing like the house.  I can rebuild a gutted bathroom in about a week and have it look fabulous!  I can't plant a dozen fruit trees and have them mature and producing more fruit than I keep up with in 5 years!  The front lawn is HUGE!  We play dodge-ball, football, you can realistically even play baseball out there.  There's a large triangle-shaped portion that's native vegetation (ie sagebrush and wildflowers) that will be perfect for when we're finally able to fence it and get some chickens again.  There were 2 playsets already here and we brought another one with us.  We have our own playground! lol

2 - The garage is huge!  It's an over-sized 3-car garage, so there's plenty of room for all of  hubby's tools, our 3 vehicles and room for building the myriad of wood projects you'll get to see.

3 - The kitchen is huge!  Homeschooling 5 boys requires a lot of kitchen.  We have a lot of kitchen now.  Lots of kitchen = happy mama!

4 - There are lots of rooms!  Right now we have it planned out with 4 bedrooms for kiddos, 1 bedroom for us, an office for Hubby, a sewing room for me and my sewing business, an Entertainments room, a Living Room (someday a formal dining, if we decide to go that route), a music room, family dining room/aka homeschool room, family room, 2 laundry rooms (one is a closet, one is 9' x 12'), and 5 bathrooms, and 3 large storage rooms.  Phew!  Lots to clean, but enough room that everyone has somewhere to escape to when they need some space.  That's a whole lot more than we had in our last home at about 1700 sf.

5 - We love the area.  We have beautiful views from all sides, we don't get an over-abundance of snow, we have plenty of wildlife - great to watch, not so great for my garden this Summer - the Wintertime smog inversion is slightly lower in elevation than we are, so we have clear skies all Winter.

6 - We have great neighbors.  This particular neighborhood is THE first neighborhood in this particular community and a lot of the originals are still here.  So we have a great mix of older and younger.

We've got a lot up our sleeves right now, so stay tuned!