old made new

Ryan and I are slowly working on our list of house-related projects. Quite a while ago (I don't exactly remember when) Ryan picked up this dresser for $1.00 from an auction. It really wasn't in that bad of shape, but we wanted to spruce it up a bit for the kiddos' room.

After a good cleaning and a couple coats of spray paint, we ended up with this:

Not bad for a couple bucks.

Their room is slowly coming along. I have a few ideas for some wall art, I just need to find the time to work on them. Any exciting weekend plans? Our weekends always seem to fill up with family, friends, cleaning, baking, and playing together. This weekend will probably be no different.

projects

It's always something around here. We have plenty to accomplish on our to-do list. Ryan spent the weekend putting up a pole barn with the help of Tim, Grandpa and Grammie. It was plenty cold and windy for sure. They still have a little ways to go before it's finished (siding and roof) but they got a great start. I stayed inside with the kids making cookies and hot chocolate. Mason spent the morning sorting his blocks (numbers on the right and letters on the left).And stealing cuddles with Grandpa during a break from the cold.We have plenty of projects going on inside too. I spent Mondy night painting in the kitchen. We now have cabinets on a wall that has been waiting for them for far too long. We are still waiting for our countertop. It turns out they don't make the same countertop that we have in the rest of our kitchen anymore, but Ryan finally found a place where he could special order it.

We spent last night hanging wood...the beginning of our beams that will cover the pipes going through our kitchen from the addition. Mason was a huge help taking measurements and hammering. Also, everytime he got his drill he would go over to Emma (who was just taking it all in) and say "Emma...it might be loud". Then he would fire up his little drill with the biggest grin on his face.

It's so fun to watch him help daddy!

the cleanest baseboards

I went to sleep last night thinking about the major cleaning party that would be happening in my kitchen today.

After two weeks of canning 150 pounds of tomatoes and a full day of all things chicken (I cooked four whole chickens, canned 20 jars of chicken broth, and have 30 cups of cubed/shredded chicken in my freezer) you could say that my kitchen needed a little love.

Well, after the worst night of sleep ever (thank you emma and mason) I jumped right in ...after baked oatmeal and coffee of course. I cleaned everything from top to bottom. And then it happened...

right after I washed all the baseboards and door and window trim...

I came up with the brilliant idea to give all that clean wood a fresh coat of paint. You know because it might be years before I got around to cleaning them again. Ha! It was like "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" on crack. I blame the lack of sleep.

In other news:

a) I found my camera
b) Mason told me this morning to "use my words"
c)we dug up pounds and pounds of potatoes
and
d) Emma girl has started sitting up. It's a much better view all the way up there.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Did anyone else's to-do list get a little out of hand?

almost there

Our greenhouse extension is so close to being finished (thanks to some help from lacy!). For now, it's complete enough that we were able to move our tomato plants out. And it's wonderful to hang out in. We still have a few things to do:

~paint trim

~finish the west wall

~clean and paint the new door

~remove the old insulation

~create some sort of vent in the roof (possibly)

But all those things will have to wait until we put up another garden fence, rototill the old garden and the new garden, and plant all of our seeds which will happen this weekend.

This is the view looking to the east. The white beams in the middle of the photo are where the greenhouse used to end. We more than doubled our space!

It is pretty awesome having the greenhouse attached to the house. Ryan and I are so glad we decided to do it that way. It was not our original plan, but it works. Mason loves it too! He gets to be "outside" even when it's cold and windy. He wants to go out there first thing in the morning. He's completely covered in dirt by breakfast. He helps dig, water, and most recently he loves to search for little pieces of wood in the dirt and bring them inside and put them on our wood pile by the woodstove. This keeps him occupied for quite some time. He's such a helper.

This is from inside the living room, looking out. Yes, that is sourdough rising on the chair. The greenhouse works wonders for rising dough. The pepper plant starters on the table still need to be planted.

I love that I can just walk out the living room doors and cut some greens for salad. I don't think it gets much better than that.

brick by brick

After we finished our ceiling project we began adding on to our greenhouse. We decided to extend our greenhouse past the double doors in our living room. This way we would have more room for plants, we would be able to open the doors to let the heat in to our house, and we would be able to access the greenhouse from inside. A couple weeks ago ryan started framing it out. Mason loved watching from the window and kept saying "daddy....work....hammer...bam!bam!bam!"

You can see the existing side of the greenhouse and the very beginning of the framing.

Since I snapped that picture, ryan finished the framing (except for the new door), painted it, and last friday we hung the roof. Grammie came to watch the kiddos today and ryan and I tackled the floor, which is sand and brick and more sand. I got my workout in by carrying every single one of those bricks and stacking them within reach of ryan, who worked on the floor. We are a little over half way done. Mason supervised from the window. Every time I stopped, even for a second to chat with ryan, mason would say "more brick, mommy." He's my little personal trainer.

We're making way on Project Greenhouse and hope to have it done by the end of the weekend. We have lots of tomato seedlings that are ready to move in!

In other news:

~we planted more than 100 trees and bushes

~the chicken coop is here!

~our little chicks have more than doubled in size and we've had a few venturing out of their tub, causing all sorts of cheeping since they can't figure out how to get back in

~it's time to start thinking about the garden

I think we're adding more to our to-do list than we're crossing off, but we always love a good project.

old meets new

When we added on to our house, we decided to put in an aspen ceiling. It turned out beautiful and I'm really glad we did it, even though it was a bit of a battle to hang. We also purchased enough wood to put the same ceiling in the existing part of the house, but we hadn't gotten to that yet.

Since we have a thing for starting major projects after our babies are born, it seemed only right that we tackle this project the first week that emma was home. You can see the beam towards the top of the picture where the new part of the house meets the old part. We had to move two of the light fixtures to make everything work a little better for the new furniture arrangement. As usual, mason was a big helper. He was so interested in what daddy was doing. He kept looking up, watching what was going on. And of course was running around, bringing daddy his tools. Here it is all finished! Ryan did such a nice job. Now we just have to add the trim and make two beams to cover the old beam in the middle and the pipes along one of the walls. And as if we didn't have enough projects going on...we have 26 baby chicks arriving next week and about 80 fruit bushes and trees arriving the following week. Wish us luck!

before & after

before carpet:

after carpet:



next up: furniture!

progress

The addition is really coming along. Ryan has been working like crazy on it. Well, in between all the fun stuff we've been up to. It has been really nice to work on it as much as we can, but not to stress about getting it done right now. It's all about balance. And I use the term "we" very loosely. I can honestly say that I haven't been much help. Unless you call keeping Mason out of the mess helping. There's been lots of painting going on and I can't really help with that. There's also been lots of ceiling hanging...and it turns out I wasn't really tall enough for that. I did actually help with about 10 boards though I'll have you know:) Mostly I've been cheering him on and feeding him BLT's. And cleaning up. Mason helps with that too:


Here's what we have so far (and I realize now the lighting is pretty awful):


The floor is in, now we are just waiting for carpet for the rest (coming Thursday!!). The ceiling is hung and both light fixtures are up. We have the bathroom door on the left and our bedroom door on the right. We're still painting and hanging trim. And the floor really needs to be mopped. We've done it once, but we just keep tracking junk all over it from the unfinished parts of the house. I'll give it a good scrubbing after Thursday. Or maybe I can talk mason into it!

layers

If you're looking for a new look for your house I have a few suggestions. Just follow these simple steps and your house will look so different you might not even recognize it.

Step 1: Sand as much drywall as you can find. Don't stop until the drywall dust has covered every square inch of your house. Then sand a little more just to be sure. You can hang up some plastic to try and keep the dust confined, but it probably won't work. That dust can go just about anywhere.

You can attempt to mop up the drywall dust at this point, but let's be honest, you're really just moving it around. It's best to just let it be.

Step 2: Paint. You should probably spray the paint because it puts a fine mist of paint particles into the air. This is layer two. These paint particles will rest on just about any and every surface showing in your home.

You could try to wipe this up, but really I think it's my favorite layer. It sort of sticks to everything. A little more permanent than the drywall dust.

Step 3: Find some exposed concrete inside your house. I'm sure you all have some. Then grind away at it. This will send sparks, bits of concrete, and another layer of concrete dust into the interior of your house. Don't stop until you smell something burning and the floor is level.

You could try having one person grind and one person holding a shop vac near where all the dust is spewing, but that will only decrease the mess by a little. It might make you feel a little better though.

You know you've got it when you plop down on your couch to rest and a puff of white dust clouds your vision.

colors

A little update on the addition. The drywall is all finished. In a couple days all the taping and texturing will be done. That means it's almost time to paint!! That also means that we have to decide on colors. The last few days have been spent looking at these:
We keep changing our minds, but I guess we better make a decision soon. Good news though, we have already picked out the carpet, wood for the ceiling, and wood for the floors! Some decisions are easier than others.

insulation

It's a dirty, dusty job. Yesterday was insulation day. We got up at 5:00 and drove two trucks over an hour to Lowes. We needed one truck for the insulation blower we rented and one truck to hold over 60 bags of insulation. We were about 25 minutes on our way back home when we realized they did not give us the hose attachment. So, I headed back and Ryan headed home. At least we didn't come all the way home before we realized it.

My job was to crawl around up in the rafters with the hose.

Ryan kept the machine full until the very last bag. We had just enough. The hardest parts where the corners where the roof was really slanted down and I could barely fit. But, 4 hours, 1200 pounds of insulation, and 2 very bruised knees later (and a big thank you to Nana for coming and watching Mason!) we can check that job off the list!

running wire

Ryan and I spent yesterday working on the addition. Well, at least part of yesterday. We also worked in our greenhouse, planted some seeds, and separated our aloe vera plant which is growing like crazy. Then we went to dinner with Ryan's parents.

Our pile of wire is getting smaller as more and more of it is making its way through the walls to the various outlets. It's fun to decide where everything is going to go. I'd like a switch here, please.

I'm getting pretty good at holding the wire and Mason. Pretty much my only job yesterday was to keep the wire from getting tangled as Ryan pulled it all over the house. The living room is done and this afternoon Ryan is working on the bedrooms.

Mason was a big help!

saturday plans

This is where we will be spending our weekend. Out in the addition. It's a little cold out there. (Ok, after a couple hours it's a lot cold out there.) There's no insulation yet. But, that's ok because there's work to be done and we have a warm fire in the wood stove waiting for us in the "old" part of the house. And the sun is supposed to be out today. And we have lots of coffee.

These are a few pictures from last weekend. Ryan was finishing framing out the closets in the bedrooms. Today we have some long pieces of lumber to unload from the trailer and some ceiling joists to hang. Then it will be time to run wires for the electricity. We thought we would get to that last weekend, but everything takes longer than you think with a baby in the middle of it all:) I'm sure Mason will be a big help again today. Gotta love that little guy.

a room with(out) a view

We've temporarily traded in our beautiful view of the mountains for some lovely plywood and nice, shiny plastic. All the windows on our west wall have been taken out and moved to their new homes in the addition. Also, we have opened up part of the wall to make a doorway to get from the current part of the house to the new part of the house. Ryan has been working so hard (in between his real job, being sick, and helping with Mason) on our house. I love him even more for it. He is awesome. Really. It's a lot harder for me to help him now with Mason, but I just keep going back and forth from Mason to him, helping when I can. And spending time with my two favorite guys.

One of the living room windows, coming out.

The bedroom window: gone!The windows in their new places. We still have 4 more windows to cut in. The south side of the addition. The doors and one window are in the living room, and the far window is one of the new bedrooms.And the opening that goes from our current living room to the new addition. It's pretty crazy, but just another fun adventure!Have a happy day!