Guest Bathroom

Well this project was sure a change. Usually my husband does all the tearing down and I do the putting the drywall up. This time due to his schedule and when we needed to have the bathroom done I did the tear down and his did the drywall. He always made the tear down look easy. It takes more strength then I thought. And pulling down a tile shower makes a mess! I am so happy to see that mess go!

 

 This was a piece of the original wall paper that I found.

 We still have to get some tile for the shower but it looks so much better! No more drywall falling down!

Kitchen

Our kitchen has been a long drawn out story. We have changed our minds so many times in the process that I am so glad to announce it is done!

 

The original kitchen

 

 

Phase 2 Kitchen

 

Phase 3 kitchen progress.

 

Finished product! There are a few touch ups that need to be done but it is done!

 

Trips to the store

We go to the store A LOT! When stores have fun carts like this it makes life so much easier.

Making the best of situations

At the end of last summer part of our back deck fell down. I loved how large the deck was and was really sad that it had fallen down. We kept it half caved in for a few months until my husband’s uncle had offered us his swing set that was no longer being used. My husband then took down the fallen deck and put extra support on the remaining deck so we would have room for the swing set. I was quite happy that the deck fell down now. I would have never thought to shorten the deck. Things just worked out for the best. The deck looked great smaller and we had a great place for the kids to play. I had asked my husband to save the wood from the deck and I would make something out of it. He reluctantly did. I didn’t have time to do anything with it for a long time so he started burning it in our fire pit. Well my company I worked for laid me and 17 others off due to changes in departments and eliminated my position. All of a sudden I had a lot more time. So I started making these tables and posting them for sale one face book. They were a hit. I made 6 in one week! I used the money for the tables to purchase the goats. I tease my husband now for burning so much of it.

Goats

We bought goats! I would have never thought in my life that I would own farm animals and definitely not goats! Some friends of ours have milking goats and my husband had brought some milk home for me to try. I did NOT want to try it. There was no way I was going to drink something from a goat. I started doing some research and found that 75% of the world drinks goat milk. Its quite healthy for you and babies can even drink goats milk instead of formula. After doing my research I had my husband pour me a glass of store milk and a glass of goats milk. I drank both and thought there was very little difference. After that I was onboard for buying goats. They have been very good goats. We have two milking goats and one male goat. I will have to get a picture of the male. His horns are amazing.

 E loves to help me milk them. She is quite good at it too.

 So far we have made ice cream and butter besides the normal cooking and drinking it. We get about a gallon and a half a day from the two goats.

 

Milking the goats started out as a long project. It would take me about an hour to milk the two goats. This gave E time to play in the dirt and have fun outside. C would sit in the stroller and be happy watching. Now I am able to milk both goats in about 15 minutes.

 

Busy outside...

We have been busy working on the yard. We planted a garden in the front garden boxes and made large garden boxes in the backyard. The front garden is growing well, the back garden will do better next year. :) We are growing baking pumpkins (I love pumpkin bread), zucchini, cantaloupe and strawberries.

 

My husband and his friend removed the big ugly palm trees that were in the front circle. It was a lot of work. After that my husband and I laid sawed. I love how it looks. We want to add two more fruit trees.

 

Our little tree in the front gave us a few nectarines this year. This is only its 2nd year. They were so sweet and tasted a bit like honey. Our baby LOVES them.

One more just for fun

I added curtains to our snob room.I think it tames down the yellow a little and adds a little more color. Next will be to make curtains for the front door. Since the curtains hanging have been there for a year and a half and were only supposed to be temporary. :)

 

It is time!

I am always so embarrassed when we have company and they need to use the bathroom. There are only two choices, use the one in our master room (which is literally in the master room, the sinks are not enclosed at all and there is a pocket door to separate the toilet and shower from the bedroom.) or use this small ugly bathroom. The toilet is almost 30 years old, tiny and stained. (My daughter loves it and always has to use the "little potty" when she has to use the bathroom). The sink was not installed correctly and is wobbly, there is no storage space and someone came up with the wrong idea to paint over the existing wall paper!!! The paint is peeling off and it looks horrible.

 

So we have started getting supplies to refinish the bathroom. We have a new vanity and a medicine cabinet and will buy a new toilet and re tile the shower. I have started to peel the paint off the walls but the drywall job just wasn't great so I may end up ripping everything out of the bathroom and starting from scratch. A new adventure!

 

It's hard to see in the picture but the wall paper is sticking out from being painted over.

The kitchen is coming along once again

After a long wait I finally got my countertops!! It is so nice to have something sturdy and pretty to work on. We chose silestone due to its durability and not having to be sealed. I love them.

 

 

We still need to add the beadboard and wainscoting to the island.

 It took me a couple of weeks to work on the backsplash and I don't have a finished picture yet. (It is done though)

Until we moved to this house, I under appreciated light switches. I went about 7 months without having a switch to my garbage disposal. I had to climg under the sink and squeeze the plug into a place where it would not fit between the outlet and the disposal. It was not fun. So I was so excited when my husband installed this. I still get giddy when I need to use it.

This is the idea for the back of th island with the wider beadboard and the wainscoting overtop. I am not sure what color we will do yet. I think we are leaning towards just white.

Finally moving again!

Yup, I am sure you are all just as shocked as they are that I have updated this!

Building...

A few years ago I helped make some picture plaques for some young women. I had volunteered my husband ti cut all the wood. Well he is a busy guy and didn't have time to do it so I had to do it. That was one of the best things that could have happened! I found I love working with wood. So a few months later I built a bunk bed that was a learning piece. I used the wrong typed of wood and wet wood so when it dried it cracked and fell apart. So next I built an entertainment center for my Mom for Mother's Day. (My Dad and sisters helped pay for it). Since then I have loved to build everything. I am working on building one for myself now.  

 My Mom's entertainment center.

 

I finished the first piece for me.

 

I did have two adorable helpers.

Flooring

The whole house had laminate flooring when we moved in. I have really missed carpet especially in the bedrooms and living room. Its just soft and warm and nice to sit on. Rugs just don't compare unless you want to spend a lot of money in which case you mine as well just get carpet. So I am so excited that we now have really soft carpet in the living room. We have all loved it.

 

I tore up the laminate and saved the full pieces to fix some of the floor in other areas.

 

We also tore out this random tile by the front door and used the saved laminate to replace it.

 

I think this looks so much better!

I love the look and colors of the carpet in the room. It looks so much brighter.

 

What have we done?

I drew out (don't mind my chicken scratch drawings) the plans for our house. The first picture is how the house used to be set up, with 4 bedrooms, a closed off kitchen and a opening formal dining and living room and three doors to the back of the house.

The second picture shows the current floor plans with the open kitchen and a closed off formal living room (AKA snob room), and a closed off living room and only one door to the back of the house. 

 

I will post soon the new potential plans for the addition. I say potential because anyone that knows us knows we will change it at least 2-3 times before we get around to doing it. We have a goal set to have the house paid off in just over a year then wait a year to save the money and do the addition So we have about 2 years before we are looking to do the addition. Let's see how well we do with this goal.  

 

I'm in Love!

I found a new inspiration for our house. I was driving the long way home one day to my house and caught this house out of the corner of my eye. I had to turn around and go see it. Funny story, I had a dream a while ago about our house and that we had it all finished and this is just about what it looked like! I hadn't talked to G about putting rooms on top of the garage he wants to build since I wasn't sure how it would look. I snapped these pictures and showed him and he loved the idea and the house too. We have talked about adding just fake dormer windows on the top of our house but now we do want to add bedrooms over the addition we will add. I hope this person doesn't mind me posting pictures of their beautiful house. And sorry for the rain on the window. This is proof it does rain here once in a while.