What do I have to Show for Myself?

This week has been a little bit of a disappointment as far as the kitchen is concerned.
I did manage to paint the radiator, and I got a few coats of creamy paint on this wall, but the Hubby vetoed the green I had planned for above the wainscoting so I am at an impasse there.
Also, the counter top turned out to be too small to wrap around like I had planned, and then it was too warped to attach to the other piece that I had on hand, so this table turned out to be kind of a disaster.
Back to the drawing board. Ikea will have those counters back in stock at the end of April, and I'll try again then.
I have been able to work on some important secret knitting for my job, so that's encouraging.
Blocking and seaming are the order of the day for that project.
Otherwise, today will be a day of major clean-up, an end-of-camp performance for the kids, and probably some pizza.
How was your week?

Spring Break

It's Spring Break.
I have a long list of things to do.
Paramount among these has become - paint the kitchen.
Also still to do-
sewing and knitting (both for work)
finish my book (actually, I checked that one off this morning)
fold a mountain of laundry
bake some bread
sewing and knitting (just for me)
organize my sewing table (maybe that should happen before I start sewing)
and I only have 4 more days.
The kids will be living it up at day camp, learning to dance and sing and stuff. I am looking forward to the end of the week performance, but that also means that really I only have 3 3/4 days to do all of this and now I am starting to panic.
I may not be back to say hi until next Monday.
Have a great spring break!

Tidying Up

So, today is the day when I begin taking back my house from the mess.
It's a little frightening around here.
Lots of dishes to do, lots of laundry to wash, clutter everywhere (much of it due to unfinished knitting or sewing projects that may or may not be mine), and vacuuming needed in almost every room.

After some initial whining, I washed a bunch of dishes, washed about 5 loads of laundry, and then I started cleaning up the kids' room.
I looked through 3 years of photos and clearly their room is always a disaster because I could only find these photos of what it looked like before today.

Some of what I did was the usual stuff, new linens on the beds, vacuum, throw out stuff that needed throwing out, but I also put up a bunch of art, re-oriented the Younger's bed 90 degrees, pulled the costume corner out of the closet and into the bedroom, and used a lesson learned from The Shawshank Redemption which is this - if you have a crack in your wall, hide it with a big damn poster.Three posts in one day, I don't know how that happened.
How is your Friday treating you?

Kitchen

I have been spending a lot of time in my kitchen lately.
Not doing thisso much as lots of this


Unfortunately, I also have this to show for it, which I don't have to wear all the time, but should wear more than I do.
It just gets in the way when I am doing what I would rather be doing like this
and this
Anything new and exciting out there for you all?

What have I been doing all week?

Well, let's start with this -
And lots of this -

While listening to this -And with a side of this -Have a great weekend everyone!

What I Did (or started) On My President's Day Vacation

(that's styrafoam against the bottom wall there, it was all over the whole room when I started.)

We have giant closets in our house, which is a rarity in a house built in 1923. Really they're big crawl spaces under the slope of the roof on the sides of our dormers.
On Monday, I decided to swap out the disgusting, moldy, falling down, health hazard-y insulation and put up new, clean insulation.
In the midst of the project my Mom came over and instigated a larger-scale project than I had intended, but I am really pleased with the results.I covered the ceiling with bead board and then we built in this shelving against the wall.
Now we have somewhere to keep the linens, a spot for the Elder Hug-a-Bug's dirty laundry and a place for her pony house too.

I moved the Younger Hug-a-Bug's dresser into the other massive closet in the room and moved the toys to the main area.
It's already made the space feel much bigger. I really am quite pleased with the whole situation.

Finished!

Long ago I warned that I would bore you all with pictures of my bathroom remodel, and the day has come.

These first two are from the day we went through with the inspector. You can just barely see the Elder Hug-a-Bug in the blue sling.
She is 10 days old.
We decided to buy this house after my water had broken, but before we went in to the hospital.
Yes. We were a little crazy.
The floor was this lovely (not really) green linoleum tile that was peeling up, but we didn't need to worry about that happening around the toilet, as there was no floor covering there at all.Now there are easily cleanable tiles on the floor. We also got a new vanity. The old one had out-lived its usefulness.


We decided to ditch the gold veined wall board, and went with tile around the tub (where none had existed before) and a soft green for the walls instead of the garish yellow from before.
We have been here for nearly 6 years, and even though it might mean that we eat spaghetti 3 out of 7 nights, and never go out to eat again, we have a functioning shower and a beautiful bathroom and I am over the moon.

Here ends my bathroom worship, thanks for humoring me.

As a clarification, I did no work.
I hired a lovely man to come in and do everything.

Hey Mom, Hey Mom

Look what I can do-

My lovely parents-in-law took the kids overnight last night so that the hubby and myself could build this bunk bed.

We got through building the whole thing without injury or a fight.

We also only had to go to Menards once, I had the wrong size drill bit.

And, my super parents came over and helped finish painting our kitchen.

This was, to quote the Elder Hug-a-Bug, "The best day EVER!"

We have giant closets in our house and we decided to move all of the beds into them so we could better utilize our space.

We are also switching bedrooms with the kids and painting and cleaning and it is really exciting for us, though there aren't too many fun pictures that I can post about sweeping so it's not too terribly exciting to read about.

Anyway, we are on our way and I will post some after pictures when we get there.

Have a great Sunday,

Jess.

Tell me why

Why do we let home improvement projects wait so long?

Maybe you all don't do this, but I am a procrastinator by trade and I am very good at it.

I have lived with an unsightly crack on our stairway wall for 4 and a half years.

I patched it and then there was a big white blob on the brown/taupe/olive wall.

Today, I chipped a piece of the wall off, took it to a home stuff store, matched the paint and fixed the wall, paint included, in about 2 hours.

Surely, I had that two hours earlier in my tenure here at the house.

So now, the wall is still that ugly brown/taupe/olive color, but at least it all is the same.

I also have been climbing my stairs for that whole time and thinking, when will someone pull out these carpet staples that I see everywhere.

The previous homeowners pulled up the carpet on the stairs, for which I am grateful as they had 4 cats, but left in the staples everywhere.

Well, I spent the last 50 minutes pulling all of those out and in spite of a bruised thumb I am very happy.

So there it is, I could have spent 3 hours fixing this stuff 4 years ago, but instead I lived with the ugliness.

Now that is done, here is a picture from Germany, as I have mislaid the camera again.



This is a forest in Neuss, Germany.

I Promise

This is the last post about my living room.

I think I'll start off with a little crafty stuff.

First, the Mamas of the Craft did a project with Flour-Paste Batik that we started about a month ago and finally moved forward with last night.

It worked so well!

I am totally excited about the prospect of this new creative outlet.

If you don't feel like clicking over to the link, what we did was mix up some paste with flour, water and a little alum, then, using a cake decorating bag and tip, I piped the paste onto a piece of fabric (I used an old sheet) that had been secured with tacks to an old window frame.

Then you let the flour dry and spray dye on the piece.

After that is dry you pick off the flour and you're left with the relief of your design.

All that remains with this piece is to heat-set with my iron.

I don't know what I will do with this, probably make a pillow.

Now I have these ideas about tracing pattern pieces on to a plain piece of broadcloth or muslin and batiking the hems and collars.

I am pretty excited!

The Elder Hug-a-Bug is going to school on Monday, and I spent the summer under the illusion that since she is going to attend a school where the kids wear uniforms that she would also wear them.

Nope.

Apparently only the 4-year-olds do NOT wear uniforms.

Well, I can tell you, I was pretty irritated at the idea that I could have spent the summer making up a new school wardrobe for my girl.

My mom pitched in and made up a couple of jumpers for her, in record time I might add, and as I have 3 uninterrupted hours this afternoon due to the Hug-a-Bugs spending the night with their other grandparents, I plan on throwing something else together for her first day.

I had a request from my Auntie J to see a 360 view of the new lay-out of my beautiful living room, how I love it.







I went through and did a cursury pick-up and tidy before my photo shoot, but I had to have some reality at the end here-
Imagination Movers and trail mix all over the couch. lovely.

Sorry these pictures are so grainy.


I had to send my beloved Nikon to the camera doctor. It suffered a mishap.

So, for a few weeks at least, it's back to the trusty old Canon PowerShot.

So ends the Living Room worship.

See you soon with September from the Fifth Lamp,
Jess

Beginning and End

Thanks for the great comments on the last post everyone!

Those were great suggestions for the Netflix queue!

In response to Melissa, the backpack is raspberry-colored corduroy.

This week is a week of transition for us.

Well, really a preparation for transitions.

We went to the Elder Hug-a-Bug's school on Tuesday to meet her teacher and finalize the paperwork for her first day next Monday.

Today we meet the Younger Hug-a-Bug's teacher for pre-school.

This morning, and this might be the saddest news of all, I finished the last of the fresh-picked strawberry freezer jam.

We have also been in the midst of painting decisions.


To tell you the truth, the living room is putting the kitchen to shame, and we need to immediately address that situation.
There has been a certain amount of waffling as to the color scheme; Yellow? Green? Yellow with Green trim? (this one looked too much like the Packers, and you may know that we are a Vikings state) Green with Green trim? White with Yellow trim?
I guess I will have to wait to find out along with all of you, faithful readers...

Along with the painting, I made a decision the other night which may change our lives as we have known them.

I organized the tool bench.



For four years we have been living out of a pile of junk, tools, dirt, sawdust, bugs, spiderwebs- you get the idea.



Anyway, when I was at the Home Depot the other day, I saw that it would cost about $11.00 to make a real change and I made that investment.
I apologize for the lack of a before picture, but it was truly a sight that I didn't want to document.


If you look closely, you can see that yes, I did label the boxed power tools on the outside of their cases.

While I was at the Home Depot I also bagged some pegs for the kids' backpacks.

I have finished the lining for the Elder's and I cut out the Younger's.

He is very excited to have a space backpack.

Even though the end of Summer unofficially came on Labor Day, Minnesota is playing along.

The weather has been decidedly chilly compared to the last few weeks.

I have taken to wearing a sweatshirt.

I may even resort to socks soon.

Ah well, that means that Sweater Weather can't be far behind.

Good luck through all of your upcoming transitions,

Jess