Part 3 of the house tour

I seem to go in spurts--very jumpy spurts on the blogging.  Either I'm inspired, or I'm bogged down by too many things on my mind and on my lists to do.

I didn't get the graduation post done I started.
I didn't get the grandkids post done I wanted to do.

I didn't get finished with my house tour posts, because well....I just didn't, and I'm not done with my house either, although that probably won't happen for quite awhile.  I'll probably (hopefully) let you tour the rest anyway.

For right now--Here's the kitchen.  My favorite room in the house.

My sister left her sign above the porch windows.  I love it!

The walls, trim & Ceiling still have to be re-painted after they were damaged/replaced.  Haven't gotten that far yet.  You can't see it in these pictures, but the ceiling is bead-board (new) like the porch.

I wish you could see what this kitchen looked like when my sister bought the house.  I don't think I can describe it well enough to do it justice--  Maybe that will be a post for another time--especially if I can find some pictures to go with it!  I will say that it looked vastly different, and  I think my dismay was rather evident.

I'll give you a  really small outline.  a wall, a door, a window.  Two sisters with sledgehammers.  One metal wall cabinet.  One metal-white porcelain sink unit.--uh-huh!, I think that pretty much covers it!

You do remember I said the kitchen was my favorite room of the house now- right? :)

One of my summer projects.

It seems like house projects are an on-going thing. At our house it's very hard to ever get something completely completed! One of the down sides of finishing your own house! Our basement has been an on-going project ever since we built the house 17 years ago. At that time we had 4 teen age girls in the 4 basement bedrooms. When we got the space divided into rooms, we let each girl pick & decorate their own room. Since then we've played musical bedrooms many times, and have several make overs.
two years ago Relyssa picked out the paint for the bedroom she "inherited", and her sister painted it for her. We got her the comforter/sham set for her birthday, and then later I got the curtains, and the lamp for her birthday last year, but that was as far as we got then.
There are still some things that are not finished, and some that need re-done, but this room was on my list of summer projects to do while Relyssa was gone. My summer went way to fast! On Friday last week I found out that she was coming home about a week & half sooner than I expected, so we went into fast-forward gear! Everything moved out of the room, carpets shampooed, a closet unit put up, blind for the window, tie backs for the curtains, a queen bed instead of two twin mattresses on the floor, dresser painted & new knobs, a new rug & a new table/desk. Some other odds & ends, and now we're awaiting Miss Lyss to come home and hopefully enjoy her "new" personal space.




Laura enjoys crocheting, and made her this afghan using the colors she wanted.

The self portrait on the wall, and two art objects on the floor are some she made in school.


Another one of her art projects on this wall.

None of the basement bedrooms had closets put in them for a long time, and this unit has been our solution in two of the rooms. We like them! Nothing gets stuffed in the closet, & they take up very little room space.

Spring break painting project

Sorry about the quality of these pictures. I also had a difficult time getting the color right, so included the paint samples. They don't even look great on my monitor--hopefully better on yours! Some of the walls look blueish in the pictures, they are green.
The living room is done, although I still need to finish up curtians/blinds. The bedroom is done but we are still working in the bathroom. Now I need new carpet.....

Oh yes, and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!!

Spring Break!

My kids are on vacation, I'm on vacation.
Probably Lynisha is NOT on vacation.....Our 4 younger kids went to visit their two older sisters in Sidney for a week, and Relyssa went to ND to visit another older sister and gets to babysit her little niece for the week while she's there!
My vacation is being at home while the kids are all gone. I have a lot of stuff to do while they're gone. As usual. Probably way too much. As usual when this happens. Last year the kids were gone for the week too, and Leon and I re-did the office/scrapbook room. This year we are re-doing the living room. Took the wall-paper off, and we're going to re-paint. One thing leads to another, and since we were planning to paint the living room, and would be "in the mode", I wanted to paint the bedroom which we've never done. To do that, I had to do some cleaning in there, which meant that I had to clean the closet out, which has been very neglected & stuffed full of everything & anything for the last ?? years. So, that fun little story, "if you give a mouse a cookie"....yeah. Anyway, this is my idea of a great vacation. Kids gone, projects to do. No meals to cook, no kids to keep track of, no kid generated laundry or messes. No schedules except my own. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my kids. But, I'm going to LOVE my vacation too, even working every minute of it! The Closet After cleaning, re-organizing & new shelf/rods:
You don't want to see it before. Trust me.The Living room Before the painting project: Hopefully by the end of next week I'll have "After" pictures to post!
Colors we're working with for the living room paint:

What we've been busy doing

I volunteered to make holiday cards for Nebraska Friends of Midwives group to send to the Nebraska Senators. A fun project, but time consuming since there was 50 to make, plus addressing the envelopes. I'm glad those are finished.





I've been looking forward to having a good excuse to spend some time baking, and today I baked 8 loaves of bread, (we ate one for lunch) two loaves of cinnamon bread (we ate one for snack) and 3 pans of cinnamon rolls with carmel goo on top. I've also got a batch of granola in the oven baking. Anyone want to come over?
Last year when Jana was home on break, she decided the bathroom needed an overhall. She got the walls painted, but we never got some of the finishing touches that we'd planned to do. So, yesterday she said "How about if I finish the bathroom!) I found it interesting when I went back & looked HERE that it was exactly 1 year to the day! I never posted any pictures because the project wasn't finished, but maybe this year you'll get to see the finished project. The little girls were great helpers & found the right letters, painted them & handed them to her.

It might be -6 outside....

But you'd never know it by walking into my dining room!
This fall my friend Cyndie gave me these plants since they wouldn't live thru the winter outside, and she didn't have room for them inside. I had thought I'd put them in my basement family room, but there wasn't enough light, so they live quite happily in my dining room in front of my south patio windows. They do take up quite a bit of room, but I'm loving them!

Tuesday's turn-a-round

Well, it took longer than it should have, but you all are probably familiar with the book "if you give a mouse a cookie". That's what happened here. I emptied the closet onto the table, started sorting, had to come upstairs to get the other tubs that I was sorting sewing stuff into, took them downstairs, that meant re-arranging tubs which meant I had to go back up to find some empty ones I had in one of the bedrooms, when I did that I found the box of winter decorations which I needed since I took all my fall stuff down & filled one of the tubs with that......
Well anyway of all the stuff that I pulled out of the closet, not one thing went back in. Garbage, goodwill, scrap pile & give-away. I have a few tubs of sewing stuff that will go in a different place.
The closet is now filled with my seasonal decorations, home decorations that I'm not currently using & baby/little kid toys that I've saved for grandkids & visitors. (And yes, I know I still have too much stuff I've saved!)

While I was in the middle of trying to finish all this, I also was in the middle of doing a quick pick-up to my living room, pulling the chairs out to vacuum & the thought hit me that I sure wished I could change things around a bit..... So when my sister dropped by for a bit, I said hey, what do you think it would look like if I moved the couch..... so another delay while we re-arranged the living room furniture, then I had to do vacuuming where it had been, then I had to get rid of a few more things & clean up a bit more, and whoo whee! Not only did I get my closet finished, I got my living room all vaccumed, re-arranged & cleaned up too!
I realize that you don't know what it looked like before (thank goodness!! LOL!!) but here's what it looks like now.

From the front door entry way-

From the other end looking towards the front door

I have always loved re-arranging my furniture, but never tried the couch in the middle of the floor thing before. Everyone loved it because they could all sit closer to the fireplace!

Monday, Monday!

What I'm tackling today! I should have taken a picture of the closet BEFORE I pulled all the stuff out. I've been procrastinating doing this for way to long. I used to sew. I used to quilt. I used to have all my sewing/quilting/craft stuff out & it took up 1/2 my basement family room. I quit doing all that when I bought a tea room appx 10 years ago & packed it all away in the closet. After I sold the tea room, I worked with my sister at her scrapbook store for the next 8 years. In the mean time, stuff falls out, kids dig into, I stash, and the dirt & cobwebs accumulate.
Now I'm home all day every day, and finally getting my house dug out from 10 years of neglect plus the results of 2 more children in those years. To say nothing of accumulations from 3 weddings & 4 graduation parties.
Now I have 3 grandchildren, I'm dying to sew for them, I've even bought some fabric. I have a new sewing machine, but I am refusing to let myself start again until I clean out the old stuff. I even found chair cushions that I'd started for my dining room (& not finished of course) that no longer even remotely match the dishes, paint, decor or curtains that I have now. HMMM--
I'm loving the looks of this empty closet, great possibilities! (like throwing everything away and leaving it empty??!)



No wonder there were so many spider webs!! Even black widows hiding in there!


Stay tuned, I'll update you soon on how the "Posted" list is going :)

Posted

at our house today, in two bathrooms and on the fridg

(maybe this looks like more fun?)http://www.wordle.net/

I've got shingles

Both on the ground and on part of the roof. It's not done yet, but getting closer.
We had a great crew here last Sat, unfortunately the place we bought the shingles at didn't deliver them. At 9 Sat. morning Leon called to see where they were, and Menard's said "oh, they're on the truck on the route, and should be getting there. So the guys went to pick up the rental loader, & continued to get the pre-shingle work done. Noon came, and still no shingles delivered!! They'd given up and took the loader back so we weren't paying for empty time and finally after another phone call confirmed that NO, the shingles were actually never even PUT ON the truck, several of the guys headed up to the store to pick them up, which is what they would have done in the first place if we hadn't been told they were already en-route! Several "slightly" upset guys managed to convince them to give us money back, so we did get enough back to pay for the un-used rental loader at least.
Thanks to a friend who came to our rescue with his loader, the shingles got lifted to the roof, & the guys went to work. Moral of the story....If you've got a roofing crew ready to work, don't depend on someone else to deliver your shingles because you may have to finish it yourself!









The little girls found a hide-away place they could watch from without danger of falling debris!
Little boy wasn't so lucky, he wanted to be outside, preferably climbing the ladder with the big guys. It was about more than he could take to have to only watch out the window!

Spring Break project

This was our spring break project, and why I took my youngest 4 kids to their sister's and left them while Leon and I worked on this for 4 solid days!
Up until last year, I didn't have any of my scrapbooking things at home, and we didn't have an office for Leon's business stuff either. When Luanne and I closed the scrapbook store, we were faced with the dilemma of where to put left over things we needed to store & sell, along with all of our personal accumulation of scrapbooking items & supplies. We both had our problems, because where Luanne has the ability to throw out/get rid of stuff, I seemed to have missed that quality, and I have a terrible time letting go of anything that I MIGHT use someday. However, where she was lacking for space to expand her home to accommodate extra supplies, I have enough bedrooms I turned one of them into a scrapbooking/office. Later when another child moved out then I had another bedroom free, and I decided I liked it better for working in, space & light wise. SO, now I had two rooms full of JUNK!
My kids seem to move in and out of our house on a semi annual basis, so about the time one of the older boys moved back home, and didn't want his little brother sharing a room, then of course I was stuck again, and we ended up with a mattress on the floor for him in the middle of my mess, and it was time to seriously do something different!
Spring break was the perfect opportunity to tackle the mess when the kids could be out of the house. The job was actually a much bigger mess than you see here, because we had to take everything out of my "room to be", take counters & cabinets out of the first office to put in the new one, and in the middle of playing musical rooms, my living room was piled full with a path through it!
I still have some sorting & getting rid of to do, and next project is turning the other room back into a bedroom that is usable, because it still is piled with all the re-jects & misc that I refuse to pile back into my nice clean spacious and very usable scrapbook room!
I had a hard time trying to figure out how I wanted my finished room. The last picture shows a picture of a scrap room I found in a book. When I saw it, I knew what I wanted, and it worked perfectly. The only thing we had to buy were the shelf brackets for the closet. When I showed Leon the picture and told him what I wanted, he said he had a counter top in the garage he'd hauled away for someone, and thought it would work. Wow, just the thing! And, for those of you who are considerate enough to wonder if Leon got ANY office space out of this...Yes he did...3 of the cabinets are his, and we agreed to share counter space :*)