Backsplash

Weekend Projects are awesome.  The whole familiy gets involved.  You usually end up spending twice as much money as you mean to, and end up going to the Home Depot or Lowes about 3 times more than you planned......and spending twiced a  much time as you planned, but it's all good.   In this case the results were great! Mosiac Glass Subway tile is way cool.

 Nathan is our newest construction expert; he sanded the walls after I cleaned them.

 Kevin planned and measured and cut the glass with a very much needed, rented, wet saw.

 Here is the end result!

with a giant quesadilla frying on the countertop; "Mucho queso, mucho pollo!!" ok, don't ask.

 Pretty cool huh?? No outlet covers or grout yet, but you get the idea! Don't look too closely at the fingerprints on the appliances.

 

Whatdaya think?? Gives the room some grand texture and fun! Thanks, Kevin!!

Week of Staycation

I love a good staycation.  I was able to spend tons of time with my boys; I made SURE Nathan had something awesome to do with friends every day to make his summer more fun.  He usually watches Cameron all day for me when I'm at work so I wanted him to have a vacation too!

He got to:

See a movie with me

Go to Raging Waters with a buddy from Trek

Spend the entire day with said buddy till 10pm - complete with pizza and snacks and sodas.

He also took the train to another buddy's house from school to sleep over , then the next day he took the train further north to Syracuse to spend the next 3 days and 2 nights with another buddy; then we picked him up and we went to our amazing friends' Matt and Teri's house for a get-together: Where I made Nathan's favorite dessert (Chocolate Chip Cookie pie) and he slept in their basement for the most part while we played.....

Here he is not at all awake at 5pm after 3 "sleep overs" you can see the problem

On the other hand Cameron had a great time and he's wide awake at 10pm

We also did some home decor projects during the week- I got like 6 of my closets re-organized and now I have a lovely Pantry, Hallway,  Scrapbook, Game, Master and Laundry Closet. They are AMAZING now. It's like a huge relief to open them and see organization and fabulous synergy staring back at me. It's peaceful, it really is. If I need a little Zen, I open one of these closets, take a look and let the peace and tranquility wash over me. 

Well, with home improvement projects you usually start with a HUGE mess; Which we did.....

Here are a few projects we did....

TOKEN FAMILY PHOTO WALL

It took a while (a few months for me anyway) to get mostly black photo frames (couponer skills inserted here)I got most of these 8 1/2 X 11 photo frames for $3 and the bigger ones for 75% off or more on clearances or with coupons.

Then I organized, chose and printed my favorite photos, went through archived school pics and put them all together on my couch....

 and on my ping pong table.....and on the floor.....

When they were all in frames and I was happy; it was time to organize the wall. 

I got a big roll of paper, and cut to size all the photo frames. then I labeled them; and stuck the papers on the wall with painters tape so I could space them out and have them work in chronological order.

Now my friend -  who shall not be named  - called me a way meaner name for "Overly Organized" (Anal) when I told her what I was doing..... and the process involved; but in my defense you CANNOT start hanging pictures up randomly with NAILS! If you don't like where they are you have to move them and then you have NAIL holes in your beautiful PLUM wall!!  (The HORROR) so I had to get it right the first time.....this template and hanging process took like 8 hours total AFTER all the pics were in frames.  I have NO idea how long it took to get them all chosen, printed, bought and in the frames.

Here's the paper wall all organized......

 
And here's the picture wall ALMOST done!

Honorable mention goes to Kevin and his awesomeness; he did all the hard labor whilst I did all the directing.  Oh and added bonus is that he used these handy little templates to draw leveled lines on for the pics and he measured the hanger; centering and nail holes vs the top of the frame; and he marked the nail hole spots and hammered through the paper without marking my wall up with pencil YEA!!

(I still think that I am NOT anal)

Now on to the.....

Great wall of Awesome Redness Project

This baby is in my basement; I have an Americana Theme down there and it was BORING in white, so Kevin and I chose a lovely shade of awesomeness and he painted up my wall in one evening - after 4 coats (two primer and two paint including trim) and a midnight/1am quit time this is the result!

Here it is all done with my stuff.....
 
Awesome, No?
Well, here is that mess I told you about.....I took this picture after I did dishes BTW.

The next project was to make our main floor bathroom look fun and not boring.  It is a bathroom with 10 foot ceilings and it was a boring white and now it is a:

Lovely shade of sea blue and sea green striped

Bathroom Project

Kevin did the striping and everything - he is awesome!!

Cute!!

Here it is finished with some seaside pics.

Love Love Love!!

Nice bunch of things done here; then we had a party at our place for my mom; I'll tell you about that coming up soon....here's the food link though.

Peace!

Weekend Project

 Kevin's family had this 60+ year old oil on canvas painting that had been given to Kevin's Grandpa many years ago.  It had been wrapped up and stored for quite some time and had been passed around a lot that way just waiting for a taker who was willing to give it a shot. Well, I fell in love with it's potential for the boys' room.  Cameron wanted a Pirate & Ocean themed room and this went perfectly!  The canvas is 4 1/2 X 9 feet long and was just rolled up like fabric.  We needed to frame it so Kevin and I went to Home Depot and got some 2 X 2's and some brackets and Kevin built the frame (and did and AWESOME job I must say)

Here it is all laid out; we're ready to stretch and staple to the frame

 This took quite a bit of effort and staples but I think we did okay for the non-profesisonal framers that we are

Here it is ready to hang! The colors are nice dark rich greens and blues for the trees and water and I think it's beautiful.  Reminds me of "South Pacific" and Bali-hi.

AND here it is hung up and part of our pirate adventure room! It sits between two windows ( the painting is about as tall as the window's too. There is much more to be done in this room,  but this was a great start, don't you think?

Thanks for your help Kevin, you're amazing!!

A Tour of our new House, anyone?

Here we are, outside, playing on the swings in front of our new Townhome!  Why a Townhome do you ask? Because NONE of us enjoy yardwork, and Daybreak has plenty of places to play outside, exhibit A. They so graciously put swings and a lawn expanse right in front of our place! This was a cozy day in November BTW.

 They (Holmes Homes) started construction on the place in September of 2010. Here it is!

 This is a view from the back of the garage. You can see a patio then the back door and kitchen window framing.

 Coming along nicely!

 Inside up the stairs

 Look I can fit my hubby and our awesome friends in the Master Closet!

 Windows! and a porch!

 The cleanest my garage will EVER be.

 And here it is all painted etc!

 The view down the street at our next door neighbors.

 I'm walking to the front door to find out who it is.....

 Ah, it's you! Welcome, here is the first thing you'll see....stairs!

 Entry hall, stairs that go upstairs on the right,.....and to your left....

You'll usually find Nathan at his computer doing homework.....I hope!

Yup! Digital photography.....good job Nathan! Now back to your right....

 Next to the stairs the cut out wall leads to the livingroom and kitchen....

 This is the living room, the wall is plum....I like plum :) All the colored walls are plum but the light is odd on some of these shots.

Here's the back side of the cut out wall.

In the living room looking back to the front door....wait! Don't leave yet! To your left is.....

The Kitchen!

 The dining room and through the back door is the patio and garage. We could fit a patio set and a BBQ back there, Kevin says a hottub, I say dream on.

Lego Central! We sometimes eat at this table, but today and this week, or the next few weeks it will be housing our newest Lego creation.

 Circle back around to head downstairs, there's a guest bathroom on the left.....Down the stairs you'll find Penny.....

Come on down, turn right; (no other way to go!)

 This is the basement fanily room, there's a window on the left and to your right....

 Oh look! It's Kevin and Cameron in their natural habitat....lets see what they're watching....

 It's the Wii! Oh, Ok, I know, we have a small T.V.  I decided to buy a house instead of a 82" LED TV.

 Back to the left is the ping pong table (Whoo Hoo!) and down the hall to the left is a bathroom and bedroom...to the immediate right is the storage room. (you can't see the door, but trust me, it's there)

 Bathroom! See I told ya!

 Here's Nathan's room....

 And a walk-in closet!  Well that's all there is to see down here, lets go back upstairs....

 And Upstairs again.....

 At the top of the stairs is the master bedroom.

To the left more windows, and I made my bed, shocking. We want to paint the bedroom a cream color to give it more warmth.

To the right is the bathroom.....

 The counters are a plum color but it's hard to tell again, there is a linen closet and the master closet .....

And I had to show you my shower....Jealous?? I don't do bathtubs....... I don't clean them....... AND I don't fit in them, so why have one..... when you can have this???? Lets go back to the hallway.....

 Back out to the hallway upstairs, I'll be adding another long shelf here on top of this one, I can do my laundry folding here.....it has cubbies for storage; LOVE IKEA (sometimes, other times it's just a pain and way to crowded!)

Down the hall are two closets (one is behind us for linens) and another one for crafts, puzzles and games, and then there is the laundry closet (with red high efficiency washer/dryer and lots of shelf space), then leading to the end of the hall is Cameron's room, and there's a bathroom on the right....

 Mickey Mouse Bathroom! There's the plum color counters....I need a Mickey print here....weird reflection on the counters....now back out to Cameron's room......

This is Cameron's room, two closets, one for toys and one for Scrapbook stuff

(for me) Are you loving all this closet space?? We will eventually paint this place a sea green/blue color and have the lower half of it in Waines coating.

 Out one of his windows.....

This is out the other one.....you can see the patio and garage door. The view of the surroundings is awesome - I'll show you that another time.

Well that concludes our tour.....

oh, hello Penny...she likes stairs!

Well see you later!! Thanks for coming to the online tour, call me for a live one sometime!.:)