wallpaper removal

I've decided its time to start thinking about tackling the wallpaper removal project in this house. Maybe I can do a little at a time and finish in about—I don't know—a year?

I could start with something small and easy, like the floral kitchen border. (And I could probably take down the matching valance as well. I've lived with the floral motif long enough now to sufficiently know it isn't going to work for me. :)

And then move on to the beauty in the Living Room and the floral in the Master bath.

In the hallways we find these two papers. The one on the right isn't so bad, really, so maybe I'll leave it for last.

And last, but certainly not least, is this one in the basement. Actually, we have already peeled some of this one off and it removes very easily. Some of the others upstairs, not so much.

So, the real purpose of this post is to ask for recommendations of what method to use. Have you done it? With steam? Chemical? I've never done it, but I'm quite confident I will be an expert before I finish.

 

Craig's List find: followup

The dresser and nightstands have been acquired!

Not that I needed another project right now, or more furniture in my garage. I was able to purchase them without the bed, so thats good. She told me they were solid wood so I didn't look very closely when we picked them up, but when we got home I could see they were not. So I am a little dissapointed, but I don't have a lot of money into them and will try to refinish them anyway. It still has dove-tailed drawers and has has held up pretty well over the years.

I had a few of my own things to get rid of, so I listed this couch on Craig's List:

We bought it from my Grandpa for $5 in our family auction. I think it has a lot of mid-century charm, but the apolstery is thread-bare, several of the legs are broken, and it is missing quite a few buttons. I didn't have time for the project, nor did I have a good place to put it in our house. So I sold it for $50. Not bad! :)

I also sold the washer and dryer that was in the house. We intended to use them at first and sold our old set in Salt Lake. But when I ran the first load I noticed the water wasn't flowing in very well and ran my finger along the base of the rim to find lots of mucky hard water deposits. I wasn't too thrilled about washing my newborn baby clothes in it. We opted to buy a water-efficient front load model and so far I have no regrets. Water shortages are unfortunately a common occurance around here, and we do a LOT of laundry, especially with the cloth diapering. I cleaned up the old set and sold them very easily.

I am a huge fan of Craig's list (aside from the occasional creepy stuff) and I'm going to be a selling fool! I have some things to sell on ebay. I'll share my successes (and failures) as I go!

house progress report

With all the craziness around here it is hard to keep up with a daily posting habit. But this time the craziness is due to this: We have finally started working on the house! The weather turned colder this week which turned the guys indoors. I'm not complaining about the cold.

So now two of the back rooms in the basement are down to the studs. Most of the interior walls will remain intact, except in this room where we are relocating a closet. The exterior walls are all getting new insulation and updated wiring.

And I've been busy doing this:

Seems a little silly now that we bothered to unpack anything in the basement, just to repack it a couple of months later. Abby is moving back upstairs into Sarah's room for ahwile, and we are making as much room as possible in our storage room for our basement furniture to be stored out of the way while we work and until carpet is installed.

My job has been to consolidate the boxes in this room, and hopefully soon it will be stacked to the gills with our basement furniture. So there you have it—our first progress report and one happy momma!

the difference between #1 and #3

I was contemplating whether or not to dress Eva for a trip to town or let her spend the day in her pajamas, and it struck me as a bit funny. Because this: I would have never missed an opportunity to dress up Abby when she was a baby. With Eva, the pajamas won, no contest. That isn't the only thing that has changed.

First baby: Her clothes must be adorable.
Third baby: Her clothes must be comfy and cheap. (Knits rule!)

First baby: You want every gizmo and toy available to entertain your baby.
Third baby: Teething? A spoon will do.

First baby: You carry around a bottle of hand sanitizer for everyone to use while holding your baby.
Third baby: You let your 5-year old stick her finger in the baby's mouth to sooth her.

First baby: You are careful to introduce only one new food every few days to avoid food allergies.
Third baby: You don't even blink when Grandpa tries to feed her ice cream.

First baby: Her first year is chronicled in a beautiful scrapbook.
Third baby: Not one photo has been printed.

First baby: Every milestone is carefully recorded in her baby book.
Third baby: Every milestone is blogged about!

There is nothing like a first baby. Everything is new and exciting and you are ripe with the desire to be the best mom you can be. But there is a lot of sweetness in just relaxing and enjoying what comes your way the third time around too. I love being a mom!

Seeking advice: Craig's List find

In my daily scour of Craig's List I found this bedroom set:

It comes with 2 night tables,

this long dresser,

and this bed. (I don't really want the bed. We need a king size bed.) Providing they are in good condition, I'm thinking they would be nice to refinish for our bedroom. She is asking $150 for everything. What do you think?

This is the bed we want to build:

If money wasn't an issue, I would want to buy this dresser ($649) and night tables ($249 ea.) from CB2:

I love them. But money is an issue, and so I am motivated to find a cheaper option. Would the Craig's list option work? They are definitely the retro/modern style that I think would work in this house.

Confession: My biggest hesitation is this: See the photo of the dresser (second from top)? See the arm sticking into the frame? I had to crop the photo because the little girl attached to that arm was inappropriately dressed. As in NUDE. I'm not sure what to make of it. She didn't have the photos posted on Craig's List so I had to e-mail for them. Her e-mail started out "I apologize about the pics". And then she launched into a description of the furniture. Apologize for what? E-mailing them late? The quality of the photos? The naked girl in them? What???? Maybe she was really in a rush or has them in storage and this is the only photo she has and she didn't know how to crop them. I don't know. But its creepy.

So, what should I do? Buy these? Splurge for the new ones? Wait for a better option?

Oh. And while I'm at it, here is another one. We need a table/desk for our office. I like the shape of this one, but not the color. It would need refinished too. Is it hard? Am I asking for trouble if I buy a bunch of stuff that needs refinishing? It's supposedly Oak, but doesn't say if its solid. They want $50 for this set, and I would have to turn around and resell the chairs.

Eva's room

I posted photos of our ranch house back in August, but they were from before we moved in so they had my Grandpa's stuff in them. At the time I had a few requests to post what they look like now with our own furniture. I've been a little hesitant to do that since we have done anything yet in the way of decorating. In fact, there are still a few places that aren't put together at all and are full of unpacked boxes. Nevertheless, I'll make an effort to show you some of the rooms as we get them (somewhat) put together. And you can start contributing your decorating ideas, right?

So, here is Eva's room. I have plans to paint (blue just isn't my color!), recarpet, and add new baseboard trim. I'd like to put new trim around the windows also to replace the builder grade stuff that is there.

Eva's sheet and crib skirt were sewn by our dear friend Paula of Compelled to Craft fame. So cute! The crib bumper was from Pottery Barn back when Abby was a baby. It doesn't match the best. I would just take it off except I'm afraid of little limbs getting caught in the rungs. :/

The leather chair was my Grandpa's and purchased in the family auction. Tom has claimed it for his "man cave" for later. The quilt over the back was given to us by a friend and I just love the colors in it.

Everything from the floor to the walls to the trim in this room is BLUE. I can't wait to paint the walls a nice neutral and the trim white. I think it will make the built-ins stand out nicely. We took the doors off the front of the built-in (I still need to remove the track) and I use it to store her diapers, dirty laundry, and bags for garbage and dirty diapers. I'd like to get some nice baskets for her shelves eventually. The counter is a bit high, but it still works quite well for a changing table. The drawers and cupboards in the foreground provide ample space for her clothing so she doesn't really need a dresser. In the future when she doesn't need her crib and rocker anymore, this room is going to seem awfully bare!

We also have room for a twin bed in here. I bought this Shabby Chic bedding from Target for Abby (when she was going to share a room with Sarah) to coordinate with the bedding Sarah already had. But then we decided Abby would move downstairs and use the queen bed that was previously a guest bed, and so this bed was moved to Eva's room. (Its great for the many times I'm traveling to her room at night! Sometimes I end up just sleeping in there). That means the bedding doesn't really match her crib bedding. By the time we had decided on that arrangement I had thrown away the packaging and had used it for a month so I couldn't take it back. Oh well... she won't be in her crib forever.

So, there it is. One of the many undecorated rooms in our house!

Eva at 4-1/2 months

Isn't she cute?

But how are you supposed to get these little stinkers TO SLEEP???? At her 4 month appointment her doctor said I could start her on cereal anytime. So last week I decided to give it a try to see if it would help her sleep longer at night. For awhile now, Eva has been falling asleep at around 9:30 PM, waking at around 2:00 and 5:00 AM to eat, and then waking up for the morning about 7:30. Not terrible, but not great. (My first two slept through the night at 6 weeks!) Anyway, I tried the cereal and got the exact opposite affect I was going for. For several nights now she is waking up just about every hour and won't go to sleep without being nursed. This little chubbers doesn't need to eat that much! She just loves to nurse and won't take a pacifier. Last night around 3 AM I gave up and went to bed and listened to her scream for a good half hour. Finally Tom got up and walked her around for awhile and put her in her swing, where she finally slept for a few precious hours.

Any suggestions? She would be happy just going to bed with me every night (latched on almost all night!) but that is not a habit I want to encourage. Help! (I stopped the cereal after the first two nights of this. And I think she is teething.)

Oh well, we still love her to peices! I'm sure there will be a day when I will get to feel what a full nights sleep feels like again.

Halloween window painting

Halloween window painting has been a tradition in our small town at least since my dad was a kid. (50 years or more?) Anyway, the highlight of our week was watching Abby paint her window. They are pre assigned a window, and hers was at the H-O Parts Store. This is significant because it drove her theme idea:

 

Get it? It reads {SALE TODAY, Jack-o-lantern parts. "H-O"ppy "H-O"lloween}

The best part of the whole thing was the "meeting" Abby called the night before to come up with her idea. She set up chairs and her new easel (Thanks, Paula!) and we all contributed ideas, and voted on them. I thought she was pretty clever.

I'm not sure when/if they will announce the winners. Maybe in next week's River Press.

family photo update

We added some new photos to our "about me" page, and we invite you to check them out. Here are a few other favorite photos from our little photo shoot, accomplished with a tripod, a couch, a grain bin, and a little help from mom.

 

closet clues

They say your closet provides many clues to what colors you might like in your home. I decided to test the theory.

 

If its true, my home should be filled with lots of neutrals and a few pops of color. It would be filled with texture and natural materials like leather, and include just a few scattered prints. Sounds about right! I decorate with a lot of greens, though, and that seems to be missing in my closet.

So, yes, I am aware I have lots of shoes and boots. I have lots of clothes too. Actually, half of them are hanging in Eva's closet right now. I've found I don't need half as many now that I'm not working in a professional office. Its hard to let them go, though! I'm going to have to pare down though if I am going to make these closets work.

This is our closet wall:

There is a nice bank of drawers between our two closets, which is handy since we don't have a dresser. I need to draw up some plans for how to accommodate a larger master bath, and I will also need to decide of those plans should include a walk-in closet. More space would certainly be nice. But then I would probably have to let go of these funky closet doors. And part of me thinks I should just simplify and meet the challenge of only keeping what fits in this closet. That might be a tall order.

One thing I know for sure, if I keep this closet I am going to need to install a proper closet rod.

We have this same contraption in our hall coat closet except the end cap on the rail is missing on one side. So when you scoot the coats over to get one out, several go sliding off the other end. Hmmm... good thing closet rods are cheap!

So, what should I do? Keep the closets and get rid of clothes, or keep the clothes and build a bigger closet?

Amma's blankets

My mom (Amma to the girls) has crocheted each one of my babies these sweet blankets when they were babies. The first two fit their personalities rather well- Abby's an elegant lacy design, and Sarah's ruffly and girlie. It looks like Eva is going to develop into a colorful and sweet little thing. :)

plum tree

This is the lone tree in our backyard. It needs a little pruning and TLC, and you can see where the bugs have eaten the leaves. But I'm told its a plum tree, and the plums are prolific. I wonder if they're any good? I've been kind of afraid to try them, and now it is freezing at night so I'm afraid I might have missed my chance.

a new bed

A good mattress is crucial for a good nights sleep (so is a sleeping baby, but that's beside the point), and we decided it was time for a new one. We first opted for a Simmons Ouderrkirk (when we were told it was the very same mattress as the Westin Heavenly bed), but what they failed to tell us was that it was a "comfort swap", meaning someone had slept on it for 30 days and decided they didn't like it. We could tell right away it had been slept on and immediately did our own comfort swap. This time we choose this non-pillow top variety that wouldn't compress as much and leave dents, but would still provide plenty of cush.

Tom wanted to go with a King-sized bed this time, which means buying a new bed frame also. For now, the mattress sits on the floor. One bed I have always liked is this Farmhouse bed from Pottery Barn:

It's much like our old Queen-size bed we bought from Ethan Allen. I've seen it before at Down East Home in Salt Lake for half price, but not quite sure we can haul it home (if we are even lucky enough to find it on one of our trips to visit). I have seen plans for it on Ana-White, so maybe we could built it?

Or we could go with a more sleek style like this:

or this:

But both of these options are more than I would like to spend. We also need to buy new bedding eventually. I have no idea what I want so I'll probably just wait for something to jump out at me. For now we are getting by with our old queen bedding (except for the sheets). If you don't make your bed, it doesn't matter what it looks like anyway, right? :)

So can you help me out? What do you like? Have you seen any beds or bedding out there that you just love?

 

new roof—before and after

Our roof is finished! Here are a few before and after photos:

The roof a light greenish color and was definitely showing some wear, as you can see.

The new roof is darker and looks great.

 

It's going to look so much better when we get the trim painted! (Not blue.) And some landscaping done. And a new deck/rail. Small things.

What do you think? Do you like the new look? Is it an improvement?

Another year older

Today Abby turns 8 (eight!) and Sarah just had her 5th birthday. We opted for another combined small family party, but this might be the last time we do that. It complicates things more than it simplifies. (I still made 2 cakes!)

Here are some pictures from their celebration. It was special to have Nana and their cousins come to help them celebrate.

 

^ What does this do?^ Whoa!^ Sweeet! Cofetti!^ Now you try it! ^ We can't forget about Farmer Dad's birthday.Read about Tom's birthday present adventures here. Another October birthday month come and gone!

 

new roof

We're getting a new roof! It is much needed, as evidenced by a few spots inside the house:

They've been making a racket up there for the past week, but of course we don't mind since it represents progress. Eva has even learned to sleep through the hammering. Stay tuned for some before and after pics very soon!