changes

changing things up. thats what we have been doing lately. from diets to me getting lasik things are a changing. the BIGGEST and MOST TIME CONSUMING change we have made is in our dining & living rooms, hallway and entry way.

yes, we havent lived in our house very long. just a few years. and yes we originally painted these rooms tan to match the carpets. but then we painted the rest of the house. and pretty much the rest of the upstairs turned out to be different shades of gray. cuz i love me some gray. so i figured, why should our walls match our carpet when our furniture doesnt match anything? (turquoise/aqua tv stand and green plaid couches thank you very much) sooooooo i convinced my mom and sister to come up and paint. ok so kenz didnt really paint which was perfect cuz she watched claire.

when i originally brought up the idea to the hubs, his first response was no. because it will look like a prison. (he said he liked the gray in all the other rooms but those didnt look like a prison to him)

please take note of the beams. those pesky beams waaaaaaay high up. yup. that amazing-ness is all thanks to my mom. shes not afraid of heights and thankfully was up on the ladder painting those things. ugh. i was sore just watching her! heres to hoping i dont change my mind in another 2-3 years. haha! 

i love it. now we just gotta find some new curtains...carpet....and couches...some day...and maybe spray paint the frames in the frame wall to make em really pop, who knows.

a new toy

look who got a new toy. shes still a bit short for this but we make it work with some blankets underneath.

(please disregard the floral onesie with the brown polka dotted pants. daddy dressed her)

looks like this living room is turning into a playroom. 

and i guess this isnt really a toy but something new for her to help sit up better. 

 

new stained glass

well in that last post about the trees, we still had our nativity stained glass hanging up. whoops. a bit late but oh well. i finally convinced the hubs to hang the new one. and it looks pretty good. even  if its been pretty cloudy recently.
 

p.s. thanks again dad! we love it!

foto friday

heres a little something we have changed recently. nothing too crazy. and the most time consuming part was finding the pieces at the different stores. the mirrors are from target and the pieces on each end are from goodwill. they are supposed to be plant wall hangings but we made a bit of a modification since we all know how much i love plants.

GUEST SPOT

Sooo the hubs gets his first "guest post" finally.  I'm gonna talk about the railing we (I) put up.  You know i'm a cheapskate and like to save some money when I can, so when I saw how much newel posts cost (70 bucks, and oh, newel posts are basically endposts), I thought I will just pay 15 bucks for a 4x4 board and get 2 posts out of it.  BAM-instant 125 dollar savings!

It all started with buying the wood and white spindles to make the railing.  I think we spent around $120 for everything.  Aaaaaaand then I let everything sit for about a month.  Some of these projects seem too new and scary to just jump into-plus there's alot of xbox to play.

 

The first thing I did was to cut the handrail and baserail to size.  Then came the sanding.  Then I had to drill holes for each of the spindles to fit into.  I used a router to make a rounded edge on the railing (a router is basically a drill that has different drill heads- you push the piece of wood onto the side of the router bit and you get a consistent design). Glue everything together, and then bring it inside to put together.

The biggest issue with a railing is you need the posts to be secured into the floor.  this means a 1 1/2 foot long screw that needs to be put in pretty straight into the floor.  So luckily I put them in fairly straight and joined everything together to get this:

Ok, ok it's not completely done. But close!  Maybe I'll finish it after I beat this xbox game...