1 year later

I really have a lot to get caught up on.  I'd hate for you to think that I didn't do ANYTHING this year, just because I haven't POSTED anything. ;) 

Yesterday marked exactly 2 years in this house.  Knowing that this deadline was coming up, I worked REALLY hard in November and December so that I would be able to show you that my house no longer looks like it did the day we moved in.  It's been a crazy busy year, but I'm going to try to blog more frequently and catch you all up with all the work I've done in the house.  I had big plans to be finished with the current project by the 29th, but we all got the flu.....all 8 of us.  So, it's not quite finished. lol



But, stay tuned!

Another score from Re-Store!

So, we've been in this house now for almost 20 months and we've had a handful of different sofa sets. 

Cheapies

Freebies

Hand-me-downs

This'll-do-for-nows

I'm a firm believer that you can have anything that you want.....you just have to know what you want....and you have to get rid of the things that aren't working, to make room for those things that you want.  We homeschool and spend a LOT of time reading.  Really....hours a day during the school year.  We have a SUPER comfy leather sectional that used to be in our family room/learning room.  But it just didn't fit this awkward living room.  And it is awkward.  I should draw it out for you in Visio one day.  But not today. ;-)

Anywho...

The sectional is leather and leather isn't exactly the most comfy thing to sit on for long periods of time.  It gets kinda....sticky....

So I thought...

and researched...

and thought some more...

and researched some more (those who know me will NOT be surprised by ANY of this)...

I drew out some sketches of the room with different furniture I'd found online.  I knew I didn't want leather, but with 6 boys, I was worried about being able to keep it clean, so I figured slipcovers were the way to go.

I settled on 2 large sofas from Ikea.  They have deep comfy seats and cushy back pillows.  Comfy enough to sleep on, so definitely comfy enough to read in for hours at a time.  And I wanted 2 sets of slipcovers for the inevitable.....testosterone. lol  But I wasn't exactly thrilled that the sofas were $500 each before tax and the slipcovers were another $250 per set.  So were looking at $1500 for the furniture I wanted.  So I kept the above mentioned cheapie/freebie, etc. furniture.  But what I wanted couldn't come because there was something in its spot!  So I got rid of it.  It was a little awkward for a few weeks while we didn't have adequate furniture in there.  But it had us really focused on finding what we needed.

Enter Handyman and Re-Store.  We have weekly meetings called FEC (Family Executive Council) where we plan out our week, discuss the needs of the boys, projects we're working on, and what we need to do for our homeschool.  Right now what we need for our homeschooling is to have our learning areas set up to facilitate learning.  We also REALLY don't want any of the projects in this area - kitchen, dining, family room - to disrupt the school year, so we're working to get them done ASAP.  SO....in one of our FEC meetings about 3 weeks ago, I filled Handyman in on what we needed in the way of furniture in the family room.  Big comfy furniture, fabric, slipcovered, with an extra set of slipcovers. 

And NOT $1500....

That's a long way from $0....

Handyman's office is literally 5 minutes from Re-Store, so he stops in there frequently to see if they have any of the things we've talked about needing.  Last Friday, he sent me a txt with a pic of a sofa, chair, and ottoman set that they had.  It took a phone call and a few pics for me to get what he was communicating to me.

He found our furniture...

Big comfy couch...

BIG comfy chair...think chair-and-a-half...

Cushy ottoman to put in front of the chair or couch to prop up my tootsies while I read to the boys for hours on end.

Fabric....

Slipcovered....

Olive Twill....

WITH...

An extra set of slipcovers!

Yummy Mocha velvet!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!

I know that's what you're thinking.

It's what I said, too.

How much are they Handyman?

$300....should I offer them $250?

YESSSSS!!!!!!

Well, he offered them $200.  They said, "How about $240?"  SOLD!  And then they rang them up for $220. :-)

All of the pieces have legs and SPACE underneath for storage boxes so that I don't have to take up the floorspace with a table.  Toys, projects, games, etc. can all be hidden away and still leave room for us to play in the middle of the room.

So, being my normal self, I thought I'd see if I could figure out how much money we'd saved.

Before I could, Handyman said, "Read the note on the box."  The box he was referring to was the big box with the other set of slipcovers.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!

Then I was REALLY curious to see how much money we'd saved.

So I went to the Pottery Barn website.

Here's what I found.....

Pottery Barn Charleston sofa with Seagrass twill slipcover (ours is older, so the pillow configuration is different, but it's the same sofa).

$1,499

Everyday Velvet cover in Mocha:

$939

Charleston Chair-and-a-half with Seagrass twill slipcover:

$1,049

Charleston ottoman with slipcover:

$499

Slipcover for chair:

$639

Slipcover for ottoman:

$369

Yes, folks!  That's a grand total of $4,944!

Gently used - the twill covers are faded at the top from being in front of a window, but the structure is PERFECT!!!!! 

I'll probably dye the twill covers because they're cotton.

And we paid $220.

Do I really need to say anything else?

Oh, if you scroll up to the first pic of the sofa, you'll see the other project we've been working on for about 6 weeks.  We have a LOT to do in the next 2-3 weeks to get ready for school to start, so stay tuned.  I'm breaking out the paint next week. :)

Welcome to my......mess?

Is it bad that I post pics of my house when it's messy?  It's really not that way ALL the time, but with 6 kiddos, homeschooling, a couple of business, and a myriad of ongoing projects, there's always something on the floor.  No really......always.  Part of the problem is that we still don't know where to put things.  That's actually the driving force behind all of the projects......so the house can be clean! lol

Maybe with the constant possibility of a pic of their messy bedrooms being posted for the world (or a handful of people) to see, they might keep their rooms cleaner?  Or finish their kitchen jobs?  Or finish that load of laundry?  A girl can dream, right?  lo  If nothing else, I'm real......so you get to see my messes from time to time. :-)

Re-Store

Okay, so while my camera battery is charging, let me tell you about Re-Store.

Have you ever been to DI (Deseret Industries)?

or

Goodwill?

or

Salvation Army?

or any other second-hand store?

If you have, you understand how they work.  People donate gently-used items that they no longer need or use, and others get to benefit by paying less than they would if they were buying new

AND

it's "green". You know.....the "re-use" part of Reduce, Re-use, Recycle? ;)

Yes, my mother calls me a hippie......in the most affectionate of ways, of course.  But really, to me it's about stewardship.  God gave us this earth and everything on it, and basically told us to take care of it.  So RRR thing is just a way to express gratitude for the things I've been given.

ANYWAY....sorry about the mini-sermon. Teehee...

Ahem.....

Re-Store is run by Habitat for Humanity and sells reclaimed building materials. 

So what are you looking for? Some of those cool old windows that are oh-so-popular?

Gobs of cool old doors?

A full kitchen-worth of cabinets?

RE-STORE

Our local Re-Store is on 1300 S, just West of I-15.  If you want to find one near you, look here.  The next time I make a trip up there, I'll take some pics to show you some of the goodies they've got for YOUR next project.  Okay, so really MY next project. lol

Time to re-cap

Sooooo........I'm a bit of a slacker in the posting department. Fortunately, I'm NOT a slacker in the DOING department.  I managed to get a whole slew of things done before Baby was born on April 1.

I painted the laundry room.

 Finished the moulding and carpet in Magician and Tornado's bedroom.

Painted Beaver's room. . . (Handyman reminded me that we've always called him a Goat, so we'll call him Goat from now on. lol  Apparently I had some form of baby brain or something.)

 Got carpet in Goat's room......

 And he's now actually moved in to that room.  I'll do updated pics soon.

 I made a super cute travel-themed nursery set for a friend. <3  I need to track down some better pics.

I also painted the office and we're now working on the family dining room.  It's kinda long.....and awkward.....and it really did take 18 months to figure out what we wanted to do with this room.  I can't wait to share...

...

but first I'll start catching you up on all the goings-on for the last almost 6 months.

THE most beautiful and perfect thing I've done is deliver a beautiful, healthy baby boy.

He was born 4-1-12, 7 lbs 11 oz, 22 inches, dark hair, blue eyes, olive skin and it was a PERFECT and beautiful homebirth.

And apparently I need to upload some more recent pics of him. lol

Sneak peek.....

This is the "orange room"......The moulding and carpet are just sitting there, not installed.  Handydman will make short work of that tonight and tomorrow night, though.  Then all I need to do is paint the door and closet doors and this room is DONE!  We'll do more decorative stuff down the road, but all the structural stuff needed to make it livable will be done!  There will be lots more pics once we move the boys in.

Project update: Week #4

I actually didn't get a whole lot done this week that you can see in pics.  I touched up the paint in Magician's & Tornado's bedroom, did a bunch of sewing, and had a blood pressure scare. lol  Apparently my midwife's BP machine was acting up that day because I went from 90-110/55-65 being my normal range to 143/85!  So that held up the painting until I was able to get a few more readings in my normal range.  Whew!  I really don't have time to have high BP. ;-) 

Once we were sure my BP was really fine, I did finally get to work and primed and painted the laundry room.  Nothing exciting picture-wise because you can't really tell. lol

But the best news of the week was this:  Our tax check finally came!  I'm a little embarassed to admit that it was returns for 2010, but we got them, nonetheless.  So there's a bit of funding for some of the projects that we really need to have done before Baby Boy arrives in late March/early April.  I'm planning on late March because this boy's big and I usually go about 2 weeks early.  IF I make it to April, I'm sure it will be April 1st......ya know.....just because that's how it would go for me. lol  Magician was born on Halloween...the ONE day I BEGGED him not to come. 

Yikes!  Sorry about the tangent. lol  Soon Handyman and I will be done with our taxes for 2011 and be able to get some more of that torn apart basement livable.

What projects were you working on while I was freaking out about my blood pressure?

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Oh, and if you're reading, please "follow" me (It's the Google-ish looking link on the right -------->) so I know who I'm talking to.  :D

Project catch-up: Week #3

After painting that yellow wall, I got all inspired and got to work in the basement.  "The Orange Room" was calling my name.  In case you forgot what we started with:

I started by taking the falling apart shelf out of the closet and then Handyman reinforced the upper shelf and closet rod.  It was falling down, too.  Then I filled holes.  HOLEY HOLES!!!!!  Dozens of pinholes, staple holes, and massive holes that took two coats of spackle with a sanding in between.  There were pinholes that had been painted over, so they kind of had a ridge around them.  Blah!  So, I did quite a bit of sanding Thank goodness for my......er.....I mean Handyman's orbital sander!  Possession is 9/10ths of the law, right?  I guess that probably really does make it MY orbital sander! ;)

Anyway.........I sanded down the ridges and the past poor patch jobs, patched the closet where I took out the shelf and proceeded to patch the dozens of tiny little pinholes.  Then I started priming.  Can I just say I dislike painting closets?  There's just a lot to paint around.  So I did all the priming in corners and edges Thursday night.  3 hours worth.  I ended up needing to prime everything but the ceilng.  I don't think the ceiling has ever been beyond the primer stage anyway.  The door has a big hole in it, so it's going to get repurposed into something else.  I haven't touched the closet doors or the new door yet, but they're going to get the royal treatment, too: primer and all.   Friday morning, I rolled all the primer.....Is it bad that I was GIDDY while I primed over that orange? LOL  In the afternoon I had to take Tornado to the dentist to get a troublesome primary molar pulled.  After our date-night last night, I cut in the ceiling and closet and then dragged my tired body to bed at about 11:30.

I really didn't want to get out of bed this morning. LOL  I'm seriously so tired by Saturday from all the stuff I've been working on during the week, that I just want to stay in bed.  I got up about 9 and started rolling the closet and then the ceiling about 11.  The ceilings in the basement have a really weird texture and it really takes a lot of paint.  I'll try to get a good picture one of these days.  It's just really thick in some places, so I had to use a long nap roller and I've already noticed some placed I'll have to touch-up with a brush.  I took about an hour break before I started the walls......mostly because it was at that point that I realized I'd used the wall paint for the ceiling.  I'd been thinking it was darker than I'd like.  Grrr.......I didn't buy any paint.  It was paint that I'd mixed from leftovers from past projects.  So none of the colors I'm using in the boys's rooms are really colors I'd pick out, but using paint I already have is a whole lot closer to $0 than buying fresh paint.  So I grabbed a few gallons and mixed a few things and came up with something that would work.  Not my favorite combo, but it's better than that ORANGE!

So I got most of it painted......walls are done, closet is done, ceiling is done.  I just need to do trim and doors while Handydman puts new carpet and base trim in.  And while I don't LOVE the color combo, I do love that the orange is gone and we've got a nice soothing blue for two of the boys.  Bedtime should be much easier.....once we finish and can move them in.

Cost run-down so far:  I bought new rollers, covers and paint trays in December and used 3 covers and 3 trays.

Primer: $12

Roller: $3

Covers: $4 for 3

Trays: $3

I'll be buying paint for the trim because I want all the trim in the house to match, and we need to buy base trim, so I'll total the cost then.

So this is what we ended up with:

All in all, it was another very productive week.  And that doesn't even count the sewing I did this week.

Project catch-up: Week #2

So, I really have been working, just not writing. LOL  And those shadow-boxes haven't materialized, although I have been pricing out the stuff I want to put in them.  There are just some other things that are more urgent.

Last week, the nesting bug kicked in full force.  There are some things that have been bugging me that are just not working around here.  We need to do a LOT more reading for our homeschooling, but we're realizing that our family room setup is NOT working.  The couches were NOT comfy enough to sit for 20 minutes a day, let alone the hours a day we really need to be spending there.  We weren't sure we liked where the bookshelves were, either.  The entertainment room needed to change, so I could have a temporary sewing area in the downstairs kitchen that we don't use.  So after talking to Handyman about it on Sunday night (Jan 8), we decided that we would move a bunch of stuff Monday.  Handyman took Monday off because he worked Saturday.

So Monday we moved all the bookcases to a different wall in the family room........and decided that we hated it. :(  I hate the gray in there, and I really didn't want to move them back just to have to move them again to paint that wall.  So Handyman handed me the tape and said, "Get painting then." lol  I've really been dreading all the painting we have to do here, so I'd been putting it off.  It was just kind of overwhelming.  I mean there are a LOT of wall that are horrible colors (and horrible paintjobs) in this house.  But the thought of emptying and moving the bookcases AGAIN was even less appealing, so I bit the bullet and bought some paint. 

I hate buying yellow paint, and I really wanted yellow. One of the problems we have in this house is that there's not a lot of natural light in the area of the house that we spend the most time, so I was really hoping to bring some light into this part of the house with yellow.......yellow is just so easy to screw up, at least for me.  I made the mistake of buying 3 gallons of a yellow paint that I thought I'd like at a different house.  I ended up not liking it, but using it anyway, because I was NOT going to waste my money.  Fortunately for me, I have the Magician.  Apparently he has a great eye for color....who knew?!  After hanging the paint swatches on nearly every wall on the main floor to see how they looked in the different lighting, he picked a yellow called "Natural Straw" by Glidden.  And..........IT'S PERFECT!  Go Magician!  I'm taking him with me to pick out paint colors from now on.

So we've gone from this..........

 (This is the setup we changed it TO and decided we hated.)

 To this.  The bookshelves are back on the same wall, but the gray on that wall is gone and we're loving the yellow.  And yes, the books have all been replaced, but I didn't take anymore pics. lol

 Downstairs in the entertainment room we went from this:

To this:

 Handyman picked up these shelves for $30 each (there are 2 of them) at Re-Store.  Have I told you about Re-Store?  Hmmmmm........I'll have to make another post for Re-Store. :)

 All that work was so that we could turn this unused downstairs kitchen into.........

 A temporary (think 1 year or less) sewing room for me.  It's mostly unpacked now and I've been sewing.  I'll post another pic when I've got it all organized and cleaned up.  On the same Re-store trip, Handydman got this long, narrow table - that you can barely see - for $40.  AND it came with 4 dining chairs, 3 of them matching.  So now I have a sewing ROOM, sewing STORAGE, and a sewing TABLE!  The Messmaker is HAPPY!

 The shelves are now mostly full of my sewing and office stuff and the family games.

Project cost run-down for this week:

Paint: $23

Roller: $1

Tray: $1

Total: $25 with half a gallon of paint left.

It's soooooo nice to have some spaces be more functional and that painting that wall yellow has REALLY inspired me to get some stuff going........and this was just week #2!

Project #1......DONE!

In spite of everyone being sick, including myself, all week long......I finished project #1!  Yay me!  Handy Man used to tease me with chanting "completion, completion, completion" to encourage me to actually....wellllll......COMPLETE my projects.  So, here she is! 

I'm not exactly excited with how uneven the edges are and the bow isn't quite centered down there, but....I did it!  I didn't want to spend a ton of money, so I didn't use styrofoam balls underneath the yarn.  I have some, they were just too big and it actually took MORE yarn to cover them well than it did to just wind yarn balls.  I should have counted how many I did.  Whew!  There were a lot.  I did end up buying 2 more skeins of yarn (I used 3 that I had from who knows what project), and I bought clearance ornaments from WalMart.  3 pkgs of 4 for $.25 each and a pkg of 26 for $1.24 because they were 75% off!  I think I may go back and get some more ornaments for our tree.  It was kind of sparsely decorated this year.  Apparently the years with all these boys have found more than a few of our ornaments as casualties.  I also bought some silver ribbon.  I used 4 layers of cardboard cut out to a 16" circle and it's about 3 " wide.  I only looked at the pictures on their blog once and then just made it how I wanted it.  It would have been easier if all the balls had been the same size, if the wreath had been more like 2" wide, and if I wasn't such a perfectionist. ;)  Then I covered them with white duct tape that Beaver got for Christmas, then covered it again with 3" strips of white fabric that used to be a tablecloth.

So......

$2.33 for gray yarn

$2.33 for blue yarn

$1.99 for ornaments (which I still have about 20 left)

$.61 for silver ribbon

And the grand total is...

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$7.26 for a super cute 18" Winter Wreath! 

Next week I'm making something like this:

http://themamadramalogues.blogspot.com/2009/10/make-it-gorgeous-shadow-boxes.html

A friend of mine in Cali did this a few years ago with all her kiddos coming home outfits.  I've been "going to" do this since then. *sigh*  They'll be a work in progress and all I'll be making next week is the actual shadow boxes.....6 of them.  Maybe I'll even do one for Handy Man and myself one day. Hmmmmm........

Darn Pinterest!

4 days after Christmas, I had all my decorations put away and my house put back together.  When it was all done and vacuumed, I said, "It looks like we just moved in." with a smile on my face.  Then that smile turned into a frown.  It DID look like we'd just moved in: nothing on the mantel, nothing on the walls, the same-old plain blinds in the windows. 

Exciting, huh? *insert eye-roll here*  The things that are changing in here?  Ummmm......pretty much everything.  We moved in on Dec 29, 2010, and on Dec 29, 2011, it looked the same.  What happened to "feminine touch"?  I am the feminine touch in my family and I'm doing a lousy job.  I did a lousy job at the last 2 houses, too.  I must have, because the only "nice" decorative thing I have in my house was a gift!  I have all these ideas in my head, but I just can't seem to actually get them done.

Enter Pinterest.......I don't know whether to praise or curse!  I spend too much time there, first of all.....2nd of all, it's now a screaming-in-my-face fact that my house lacks character and does NOT feel like a home.  Time to pull out my feminine and see if I can touch some things up around here.  I've recently started a sewing business, so in the next few months I should start to have some "play money" to work with.  As always, the goal is to do it for as close to $0 as possible.  So the boys and I are going to do 1 cutesy project(that's what Handy Man calls them) each week for this year.  Today, we're making a Winter wreath for the front door.

This is the one:
http://twojunkchix.blogspot.com/2011/01/snowball-wreath.html

Obviously it won't be exactly the same and my door is still boring white. (That's on the project list for, oh let's say May, when it's warm.)  It just depends on what colors of yarn I have and what I can pick up today that might still be on clearance from Christmas.  We have a birthday boy tomorrow, so some of the boys need to go shopping today.  I'll post a pic when it's done!