A Little More House . . .

Okay, so I do love to show off the new house... but mainly just in person.  That way, I can easily/quickly tell people all the hard work we put in to it (mostly ourselves), and what we still want to do.  That's why I've been so slow to put up pics on here (because it takes FOREVER to type all the explanations I want to give . . . hehe).  And although I'd like to wait until all my projects are done, things really slowed down once we got all moved in.  Which, I suppose is a good thing that I'm not feeling quite so urgent about getting everything done.  I need to focus on my sweet, little family!  (Even before we moved in, and now that we're in, almost all the time we put in to the house were between the hours of 7:30pm and 12:30am. . . so as not to loose out on too much time with the kiddos.  And to try to keep babysitting requests to a minimum. :)  BUT, people keep asking so I'll add two more rooms today.  hehe.

First a little explanation.  When I'm explaining the rooms, I often mention where we got things and even sometimes how much things cost, or if they were free or given to us.  Mostly it's 'cause I really love a good deal, and just can't help from sharing.  :)  And also it's because I love our home, and I'm proud of the fact that we did most of the work ourselves (saved tons there! :), and because even the things we fill our home with are often hand-me-downs, garage sale/Good will stuff, gifts, awesome deals/sales, etc.  And I like that.  So I want to share.   :)  Anyway . . . moving on.

Here is the main Basement room BEFORE:

It doesn't have that basement, musty smell to it, which is good.  And it's dry, which is also good.  (The stairs down to the basement are a bit of another story . . . but we knew about that and can't do anything until the spring/summer.)  But the basement was definitely grungy.  It hadn't been used as living space for awhile, since a young, childless couple were the ones renting the house before we bought it and didn't need the extra space.  We definitely wanted to bleach everything down, and clean very thoroughly before we did the painting.  I was going for fun and colorful in the basement, so we painted all the huge cabinets and doors celery (bright green) surrounded by ultra white.  Then we painted everything that was concrete (floors, outer walls, stairs, etc) with a special concrete basement paint, and then a sealant coat on top to hopefully make it stay nice longer.  It was supposed to be light grey, but I'd consider it about two shades darker than what I consider to be light grey.  See for yourself.  :)  AFTER:     

It looks like the walls are wet because we wanted the most durable paint/sealant we could find and they recommended this stuff.  The darker grey grew on me too . . .   And the pictures are kind of dark, but that's just my camera.  It's pretty light for a basement since it has 4 windows.

Notice the didgeridoo Ethan brought back from Australia in the corner.  :)  Next to an entire wall and a half of deep storage cabinets, and a little built in bookshelf.  I love how much storage we have in the basement!  Plus, not pictured, we have a whole storage/work room, a deep closet with shelving (holding skis and work out stuff), and a really decent sized laundry room with shelving and a freezer too! 

Okay, also notice the little "table house" my mom made for Anna when she was two.  I love that we can always have it out now, since we've never had an extra table before.  And we got this sturdy, maple table from Good Will for $10.  Sorry, had to share.  :)  So the table side is usually covered with toys on top and beneath, but I cleaned up for this pic.  We'll use it for crafting and "school" too, and extra eating space if we have lots of people over.  Right now it is pretty chilly down there, but we have a pretty good space heater, and the kiddos just wear their robes and slippers . . . and sometimes their hats too.  hehe. 

The TV side is also a lot of hand-me-down stuff, garage sale stuff, and stuff we already had. . . except we bought the futon and two pillows specifically for this space.  (Super cheap at wal-mart :)  Caleb almost never uses the exersaucer anymore, and we'll be putting it in the garage sale pile in the storage room eventually, but I like having it down there because I don't quite trust him crawling/walking around the basement/laundry/heater area just yet.   I'll probably look for another chair to take that spot at garage sales this summer.  

So, not really much I have left to do down there, actually.  I'd like to get some fun posters to frame and hang on the dark grey walls to lighten them up, but that's about it.  Or maybe I'll find a creative way to hang/display/frame the kid's art work on those walls.  Oh, and I need to get light covers for the two ceiling lights down there.  But that's pretty much it.  So, now on to our bedroom.  BEFORE:      

 Yep, it was a hot tub room.  And said hot tub could not fit out of the door.  Seriously, we had multiple people look at it and come to the same conclusion.  (Everyone assumed they must have put it through the large window.)  That is why the second row of pictures show a huge hot tub mess.  Ethan had to borrow a special saw and cut that baby to pieces. 

After it was out of the way, it was very clear that this room would need to be painted.  I was hoping to work with the dark paneling for the sake of simplicity. . . .but it was seriously gross and damaged from all the splashing water and chlorine from the tub.  The ceiling even looked like it had splashes on it, or old leaks.  Either way, we did a quick coat of ceiling paint too.  Well, not quick, and not fun, but I'm glad we did it.  And man, even the carpet needed replaced, as you may suspect.  Gross and bleached from hot tub water.  Lowes has an almost non-existent installation fee for carpet, and we happened to like their cheapest one the best (it was the lightest color, most durable, etc. and only 65 cents a square foot.  Seriously I was so excited).  We did splurge on the fluffy rug since Ethan was hoping for fluffy carpet . . . and by splurge I mean about $30.  hehe  And luckily paint costs almost nothing, BUT it took 4, yes FOUR coats because the finish on the wood kept bleeding through.  And we ended up using a darker shade than I had originally wanted, but I think I love it even more.  (The original color was a VERY pale, bluish/grey.)  This room was almost the death of me, but it's probably my favorite room in the whole house now.   AFTER: 

(The pics where the wall color looks a little more grey-ish are probably the most accurate.)

So besides the paint and the carpeting, we already had all the furniture, so we just arranged it to utilize the space the best.  (It's a pretty small room, 11 by 12 I believe, but we're not really fans of huge bedrooms since it's usually just the two of us hanging out in there.  :)  We took the heavy wooden closet doors off, and replaced them with sheer white curtains.  Makes the room feel more airy.  I also put up new, white curtains . . . but really they're fabric shower curtains.  (It's a lot cheaper that way!)  I even hung these as shower curtains, 'cause I thought it'd be kind of a fun look in the room.  I think it goes.  My mom hemmed them so they don't fall behind the bed.  We've been doing the white bedding thing forever . . . since we got married, and I'll probably never change it.  And with bleach, it can look pretty crisp for a long time.  This time, I added some bright yellow high lights, and tried to make the room look a little more modern than antique.  The yellow place mats were clearanced at Target for 1.50 each . . . and I "splurged" on the throw pillow for $12. . . . which really isn't too bad since decorative pillows can get CRAZY expensive.  But I digress.

My jewelry is all organized in the white vases on the dresser, and I LOVE the look.  I'm sure it's been done before, but this just popped in to my head, so I'm claiming it.  One holds buttons, one rings, one hair clips, and the tall skinny one has my bracelets around it.  My mom gave me some of them and I already had some.  (And we already had the hooks I'm hanging my necklaces on, but we'd used them for something else before.)

So, what I still want to do in the bedroom - paint all the frames in the "frame cluster" white, plus the one wood frame on the dresser white too.  (Some of the frames need filled in or photos switched out, and I already had all of these frames - given to me, garage sales, etc.)  I want to paint the tan bookshelf white, and the other little black end table white.  But I'm leaving the wood dresser and mirror their natural wood color.  That's about it . . . not too much in this room left to do either.  :)  But geesh, after all that painting, I really don't feel like painting anything still . . . even really small stuff.  I'll get back in to it though.   
I love the view from our bedroom and how much light flows in.  I love that it's a little ways away from the kids rooms (although I thought this would bother me more . . . we can still hear everything, and can easily have Caleb's pac-n-play in our room too.)  I love that it feels like we have our own bathroom - though not officially a master bath, it's right next to us.  :)  I wish I wasn't so busy, 'cause I could spend hours lounging in my room!  hehe.  It feels peaceful and relaxing in there, which is always what I'm ultimately going for with our bedroom.  :) 

Now a couple fun pictures.  Auntie Ashley visited!!!  The kids hadn't seen her since the beginning of September, and they were so excited.  Even Caleb warmed right up to her even though he's been pretty picky about people lately.  The kids got lots of Auntie Hash time . . . and all three even managed some alone time with her too.  So sweet.  (I love the pic of Ashley and Caleb. . . it's a yawn/smile combination.) 

The next pic shows Anna and Benjamin watching some men work on the power lines and switch out the pole right in front of our house.  They made up a whole story that sounded very similar to Fern Gully, mainly because they kept calling the pole a tree and the workers were bad guys stealing it with their big equipment, and Anna and Ben were fairies.  (When Ben told Anna that boys aren't fairies, and that he wanted to be spider man - his current obsession - instead, Anna told him she'd seen boy fairies before.  So, Ben-Ben said, "okay, I'll be a fairy.")  So cute.  This took up most of the morning.  :)  I love them. 

And the final pic is baby Caleb J.  Such a little smoo.  He spends most of his days in his jammies.  Mainly because he almost never goes anywhere.  Why, you ask?   Because he keeps getting sick!  He has caught one thing after another since October, and as you may recall, even a "normal" cold is a lot more serious for him.  Poor little man.  Oh, and Cabers finally took his first steps!!!  It was January 29th, and he's still not a full blown walker yet, but he's working at it.  :)  Love him.  (This picture also shows that we're still working on finishing up/touching up the trim. :)  

Well, I could think of more things to write about, but I must get to bed.  And let you all get back to your lives, and stop reading this incredibly long, boring blog post.  So, hope you all have a fabulous weekend!  Ciao!