basement progress—painting

So, progress has slowed a bit in our basement due to the holiday festivities, but we have been trying to get some painting done in our basement. We had a bit of a hiccup, however. We got our paint from Home Depot (Behr—Sandstone Cliff), and it looks like the swatch on the left (below). The problem is, the first can we opened looked like the swatch on the right. And we painted a room and a half with it before we realized it was a bad can.

But we ran out of paint before we could finish edging the first room, so we have to repaint it all in the lighter color. In the second room, Tom finished rolling in the lighter color, but it had some darker mixed into the paint tray. So when I did the edging, it turned out like this:

So we will be rerolling that room too. Nothing like doing the work twice. Oh well. Soon the rooms will all look like this:

The ceiling is Behr also (Powdered Snow).

Our base and case is due to arrive on Monday, and our doors the following Monday. We are making a trip to town next week to order flooring. Next on the agenda: make a plan for the tile in the bathroom. Lots to do!

Christmas 2010 highlights—sledding

Christmas 2010 highlights—Santa in a small town

Merry Christmas! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday.

He's everywhere! He's everywhere!

I'm going to dedicate this week to posting our highlights of the Christmas break. Hope you don't mind. This photos are from a few weeks ago when our little town had a cute little Country Christmas celebration. Most of the businesses joined in the festivities and there was a sweet little craft show in town as well.

Eva slept through the whole thing. Doesn't she look cozy?

(photos courtesy of my mom.)

Sarah's Christmas Program

Sarah had her little Christmas program on Sunday morning and it was so sweet. WARNING: This video is about 5 minutes long (the entire program!), and was shot for the sake of Grandmas & Grandpas & other relatives. If you don't fall under that category, you may just want to skip it. It won't hurt my feelings. :) But it's cute. I promise.

I'm glad to see Sarah isn't the only who picks her nose.

 

This is Sarah with her cute little buddy, Addison. They are so sweet dressed up in their Sunday best.

And here is the rest of my family, also dressed up in their Sunday best!

my babies

Just for fun, I found pictures of all my babies at Eva's current age, just to see how they compared.

Abby was long and lean then, too. And she was my early mover.

Sarah has always been more petite. Here she is wearing an outfit that Eva has already outgrown. I wish I could go back and visit that time with my first two. Life just goes by in a blur and its hard to remember the details.

At least we have little Eva to hug every day. We are just trying to soak it all in while it lasts. I can't believe she is 6 months old already!

guest book

Have I ever shown you this sweet typewriter that I bought from my Grandpa's family auction?

It was my sister-in-law Amy's brilliant idea to use it as a guest book. I've never been very faithful at remembering to have guests sign when they leave, but this is kind of fun so I'm going to try it again. It isn't perfect. You have to press awfully hard to type clearly. Electronic keyboards are so easy to type on, we take it for granted! Anyway, I think the imperfections make it extra cool. I like that there is no structure and people can type whatever they want.

See, it types in script. Isn't that awesome?

winter weather

The Farmer's Almanac predicted a long, cold, wet winter this year, and so far it looks like it won't disappoint. It is a little unusual to get this amount of snow and steady winter weather before Christmas.

It's great more making snowmen, though. Isn't he cute?

Actually, he's kind of shrimpy. The snow was too cold to stick. (Snowman kit from Land of Nod.)

The snow is piled up on our deck railing.

Here is my dad clearing the snow off his truck. Beautiful!

basement progress

You'll have to forgive my sporadic blogging as of late. Things have been a flurry around here as we prep for the holidays and work on the house. We were fortunate enough to have my Uncle Dave (professional dry-waller!) come to help us for a few days, so the guys are working hard to get that phase complete while he is here to help them do it right.

The stair walls were in rough shape after removing the panelling, but we are going to do a skip-trowel texture throughout to help cover the flaws.

I like how the kitty is checking things out in the photo above. Little did she know this was the last look she'd get for awhile. I banished her back outside now that the temps have creeped above zero again. She has a cozy place in the garage so don't feel too sorry for her. She crapped in the house.

Abby's room is looking a little brighter with new sheetrock and no more brown carpet.

Here Tom and Dave are prepping to sheetrock the ceiling in our media room. Thanks a trillion for your help, Uncle David!

Eva—6 month update

Eva reached the 6 month milestone on Saturday so we had to have a little photo shoot. I've chuckled at various Photographer friends of mine that post about 20 photos of their kids that look virtually the same because they can't narrow it down any more than that. I love it. Well, this momma can't bear to leave out any adorable chubby faces either. I started out with the intent of picking one good photo. You're really lucky there are only 8 posted here. I took about a million.

At her checkup today she weighed in at:
19.2 pounds (94th percentile)
27 inches long (86th percentile)

She is almost sitting completely on her own. She still topples over sometimes.

We think it won't be long before she is crawling, too. She does very well with her tummy time and rolls all over the floor.

In the food department, she doesn't seem too interested in eating from a spoon. We have tried a few things (mostly fruit and sweet potatoes) to test the waters and usually we are met with a grimace and a turned up nose. But hey—she has no lack for nourishment and I guess she will eat when she is ready. I was excited when yesterday she had her first bottle of formula and she drank the whole thing without complaint, even holding her own bottle. I was surprised because she has actually had very few bottles. I'm not planning to wean her any time soon, but it is nice to know she will take formula in a pinch.

In the sleep department—oh, the sleep department. Well, lets just say we have some work to do. She has a very very strong attachment to nursing and doesn't want to fall asleep without it. This presents a problem with night wakings because she always needs me to nurse her back to sleep. (For like an hour.) She wakes at least 3 times a night, sometimes a lot more. Most of the time I give up and bring her to bed with me because its the only way I can get some sleep. I'm really hoping bottle feeding her once in awhile will help.

And I am reading this book, thanks to a friend's recommendation:

Because I'm soft, I guess. Actually, I let her cry sometimes. I just refuse to let her cry for hours, and I'm afraid that is what it will take to get her sleeping through the night.

All I can say is, while I would really really really love to know what it feels like to my first full night of sleep in at least 6 months, I wouldn't give up the cuddle time I have with this sweetie for anything. Even at 3 in the morning.

Christmas program

Last Thursday Abby had her Christmas program at the school. It was called "The Reindeer Games". Being back in this auditorium brought back a flood of memories.

Sorry about the quality of the photo. It was taken on my phone because of course my camera battery died before Abby ever came on stage. As if you can see, she is on the back row (a familiar place—I was always on the back row too!) 4th from the left.

By the way, how lucky are they to have an auditorium like this? Most schools nowadays just have a stage in their gym/cafeteria.

Craig's List find: Midcentury Motherload Part II

When we visited the storage unit found on Craig's list, we came home with more than we planned on. Actually, I picked out the chairs and desk I wanted and got back in the car to feed Eva, and Tom continued browsing. He's the one who lured me back in. Trouble.

So here is the rest of our loot:

These white lamps were $5 each. I need to find some drum shades for them, but I think they are a great find. The drafting table lamp was Tom's pick. We hope we can find florescent bulbs that fit it.

Cattails, thrown in for free. (One set on e-bay currently listed for $17.99. I have 3 different sets, not all pictured).

This magazine rack really raised my mom's eyebrows. That's because they had (have?) one just like it for years that held my piano music. (I just realized it is missing one of the wood pieces in this photo, but I have it.) I think it features my Atomic ranch mags and Eames book nicely, don't you?

This Zenith radio actually works! Quite well, in fact! I think it cost me $5.

These candy dishes currently hold pretzels and nuts that are a bit too convenient for our holiday snacking. I lost track of how much he charged me for all these little items. I ended up just making a pile of everything I wanted and he named a price for the whole lot.

I bought these canisters—wait—I believe he said "oh, you can just have those"—inspired by Modern Thrifter. I'm not quite sure if I will paint mine or not. I kind of like the original patina. And this wooden vase, well, I'm sure I'll find a use for it somewhere.

Finally, this oil and vinegar cruet. He said they were a rare find unbroken because they are rather fragile. A quick search of my own didn't reveal anything quite like it. But they are useful if nothing else!

That's about it. I did leave most things there. Really. He had artwork, a million lamps, lots of dishes, furniture, etc. The list goes on and on. Tom has been looking through my Atomic Ranch magazines and on eBay to see if there are any treasures we left behind that should have been snagged. LOL :) The more he looks into it the more he is amazed at what a craze midcentury design is. There was a middle-aged man looking through the storage unit while we were there and Tom asked, "Are you looking for someone else or are you into this for yourself?" His answer, "I have a '61 Atomic Ranch." So apparently these savvy people do exist in Montana, behind the faces of very ordinary people. Not everyone in MT has to own rustic log cabins. Yeah! I'm glad we beat him to the storage unit. Ha!

Actually, there is one more item I forgot to photograph, so I'll have to save it for a later post. So, what do you say? Cuckoo or brilliant?

Craig's List find: Midcentury Motherload

I have a habit of scanning Craig's List every few days (obviously). Around here it is small enough to scan every entry and not have to filter your results by type. I think this is the equivalent of "impulse shopping", or scanning the goodies lining the checkout stands. Because you often find appealing things that you weren't actually looking for.

This time it was an ad for Eames chairs. What???? That doesn't come up on Craig's List every day around here! Unfortunately it had a been 2 days since the ad had been listed, and I was sure they would have been snatched up. And the stuff was in Great Falls so I wasn't sure when I would be able to get away to go see them anyway. Nevertheless, I called on them and they were still available. Even better, the guy had a storage unit full of midcentury goodies.

(I've ceased to complain about the fact that Craig's list is so under utilized up here. Because you know what I've learned? That means there is less competition when something great is listed! That and nobody up here would give a hoot about midcentury modern furniture anyway. What's that?)

The storage unit was in Cascade, another 25 miles past Great Falls. So I made a special trip to go see this jackpot of midcentury furniture. My family rolled their eyes but my husband kindly accompanied me. (After all, meeting some strange guy at a storage unit by myself generally wouldn't be advisable). Turns out, the guy was a designer dude who lived in California and helped manage a midcentury furniture gallery. He started his collection there and then moved back home to Cascade where he stored his entire collection in a storage unit. Recently he up and decided to move to New York City for a new job opportunity and can only take, like, one piece of furniture with him and a suitcase full of clothes. So, he is liquidating the contents of his storage unit in a rush. His loss was my gain, right?

The chairs in the ad were these:

He was asking $40 each for them. They have the original stickers and Herman Miller emblem on them. (Look up Eames shell chairs on e-bay to see what they normally sell for. Typically between $100-$300). I was planning to buy 2, but ended up with all 4 for $120.

Then there was this desk:

This is a Paul McCobb desk. My family isn't impressed. But look up Paul McCobb Planner Group desk on e-bay. (Original condition: $600+, refinished: $900+). Tom needs a desk when we finish our basement and confiscate our current office furniture for my craft room. He can use this for now (until we can buy something he likes better) and I can refinish and sell it for a significant profit. They'll be laughing at me then, I'm sure. All the way to the bank.

By the way, I purchased the desk for $100, and got him to throw in this Danish modern chair for free.

I love this chair. The designer dude said he recently re-upholstered the seat, but I think it deserves some cuter fabric. Like something by Orla Kiely perhaps.

My family thinks I'm a little nuts and some of you do too, I'm sure. :) Abby ran by why I was taking pictures, sat down in the chair, and said "Mom, this is comfortable!"

At least someone is on my side.

Mia and Bailey

Our dog Mia and Annie's (my brother's fiancé) dog Bailey made fast friends over Thanksgiving weekend. They were so cute together. Here they were both looking longingly in the kitchen patio door window while we enjoyed our, like, fifteenth Thanksgiving dinner. (You have those too, right? Where you feel like you couldn't possibly eat another bite the rest of the weekend and yet you find yourself sitting down to yet another tasty meal?)

I just realized this is my second pet post in a row. Uh oh. I didn't even blog about my kids. I better move on before I become the crazy pet lady. I am NOT that person.

I promise next week to be back with something good. It has to do with Craig's List. Again. (I know. I have a problem!)

Zoe the cat

I almost forgot to introduce the newest resident on the farm. This is Zoe, our new cat. Like Mia, she was adopted from someone who no longer wanted her. I'm not sure why, because she is a sweet and well-behaved cat.

We needed a mouser, and she is supposed to be a good one. Although she has yet to catch any here. She also is supposed to be an outdoor cat, but as you can see from these photos, I am losing that battle. Everyone takes pity on her in the below zero weather, even though we tried to set up a cozy place for her in the garage. Oh well, with all the Mia hair around the house, I hardly notice the cat hair. Hmph.

Thanksgiving recap

How was your weekend? We had a lovely one. We were able to spend half of it with Tom's family and half of it with mine. Here is my father-in-law, spicing up the rotisserie beef that we had along with the turkey. Good food, good times.

We braved the snowy roads and COLD days. The kids loved playing outside. They are so resilient, aren't they?

We attempted to get a photo of Nanna and Papa with grandkids. Ha ha. Impossible, really, and we were even missing three! Really missing... Love you Hannah, Ilona, and Maddy!

I wish I had taken more photos, but I was too busy relaxing and playing games. We tried a few new ones: Ticket to Ride Days of Wonder Europe 1912 expansion (wow, that's a mouthful), Five Crowns, Settlers of America, and Scrabble Slam. Have you played them? I love games!

It's great to have a quiet day at home again to begin catching up. Oh, and do a little cyber Monday shopping. Christmas will be here so soon!

Happy Turkey Week!

We have so many blessings to count it is going to take us all week to do it. It will be a week filled with family, friends, food, below zero temps and bad roads. Hopefully the latter two won't take away the joy of the rest of it but we are going to make the most of it.

It is just too busy this week to accomplish much on the house, let alone sit at the computer and blog, so just this for this week and a quick

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!

I'll see you back here next week.

basement kitchenette

In yesterday's post I mentioned that we would be doing a kitchenette in the basement. We need to rough in for the plumbing and wiring, so today I set out to plan a layout for it. I used IKEA's kitchen planner, which was actually pretty fun to play around with.

We are thinking the stove and refrigerator would only be installed temporarily while we remodel the kitchen upstairs (later). The rest of the time it would just be a microwave and sink. So our layout needs to be flexible to accommodate both configurations. My first layout looked like this:

I like the horizontal upper cabinets because of the lower basement ceilings (about 7-1/2 feet) and there is a soffit we have to clear as well. Our microwave is under mount. The problem with this layout is that the last cabinet is hanging out there over nothing if the stove goes away. We could put a mini fridge under it, maybe.

The second option was this:

This option is better when the stove is gone. Although, now I'm thinking I should switch the cabinets on either side of the sink so the microwave isn't hanging out in the middle, and there isn't the weird space on the other side of the uppers. With this option the fridge would have to hang out on a different wall for awhile (or in another room). There is still room for a mini fridge later, if needed. (Our microwave and stove is black, by the way, not white. And I like the cabinets with an espresso finish).

While I'm thinking about it, does anyone have experience with IKEA cabinets? Is the quality OK? I read somewhere that they were superior to Home Depot's cabinets. (Although, Home Depot probably sells different brands/grades). I have a couple of cabinets in the bathroom that would be handy to buy from IKEA as well. We are going to try to build the vanity, but I need 2 tall narrow cabinets.

My only concern is how to get them. I'm afraid shipping might be cost prohibitive and it might mean a trip to Utah to pick them up. (Not that a trip to Utah is the worst thing in the world! Ha!) But we would have to be very organized and get our order just perfect. Anyway, I would appreciate any input/suggestions on buying cabinetry. :)

basement floor plan

Here is a look at our basement floor plan, if you're interested, and a breakdown of the changes we are making. I created this on floorplanner.com, which is a free tool, by the way.

1) Every exterior wall and most of the ceilings were gutted to allow for new duct work and insulation.

2) The back storage room has no windows, but it is a large room so we decided to finish it out for a media room (or Tom's man cave as we lovingly call it). On one side we want to install a little kitchenette, which would be really nice when we eventually tackle the upstairs kitchen remodel.

3) To allow for a larger media room, we relocated the closet in the guest room. There was a pipe in that corner we needed to conceal anyway, so the closet covers it nicely. The guest room is still quite large, and we sold the sectional that was in there before.

4) Out with the old carpet! Please don't put sticky back carpet/padding in your basement. The main room has to be painstakingly scraped off the cement still. In with the new (probably carpet again, except in the traffic areas where we will do cork.)

5) The bathroom is gutted to make way for a new travertine tile and vanity. Only the toilet stays.

6) The family room will share space with a craft room for me. Yay! We are updating the lighting throughout the basement as well.

7) Abby's room gets mostly cosmetic changes with new flooring and lighting. I'm hoping to get new bedding for her for Christmas and we'll surprise her with a newly decorated room (hopefully). Shhh, don't tell her!

8) The second storage area stays and is completely full of our basement furniture right now.

9) We are going to do a fun little play cubby under the stairs.

10) Oh yeah, and the stairs will get a makeover too: new railings and floor.

11) Since we destoyed most of it anyway, we are going to update all the molding, caseing, and doors.

This project should take us well into the new year, and it might be all we accomplish before the busy farming season kicks in again! Oh well, we do have lots of smaller projects we can do in between the big ones. Like stripping wallpaper. And painting. Much to do! One of these days I will show you the upstairs floor plan and wish list.

I {heart} cork floors

Yesterday I mentioned that we would like to put cork floors in our basement. My husband and dad are a hard sell, however, so I've been gathering photos and info to help them see the vision. Today I came across these photos from realcorkfloors.com, and I am positively drooling.

Real Cork Floors is a website dedicated to educating people on the benefits and beauty of cork, and they do it well. Cork is a great floor for below grade. It is warmer to the touch than wood, and it is more cushiony. It wears well, too. And another big bonus: it repels mold and insects—a perfect fit for the basement.

One of the big sales pitches for cork is the fact that it is an environmentally friendly option. It is actually harvested from the bark of oak trees, so the bark reginerates itself without harming the tree!

Someone asked in the comments yesterday if I would consider doing it in the entire basement (rather than just the traffic areas). Yes, absolutely! I would love it. However, I think it might stretch the budget too much. And Tom really likes the feel of softer carpet in the bedrooms and living area. So compromise it might have to be. Now cork stairs—that I am intrigued with! We'll see.

basement picks

Our balmy fall weather has officially gone south. The wind is howling and every leaky window and door in our house is whistling. Shingles are flying off our new roof. I know. Not good. Eva and I are nursing colds and coping with way too little sleep. So, needless to say, I've had perkier days.

We have a few deadlines to meet on our basement now as we have an insulator and taper lined up to help us. Demolition is complete and framing and wiring commenced. I'm starting to stress out a little about all the decisions to be made, like moulding styles, door styles, carpet and tile, bathroom fixtures, lighting, etc. The dreaming and idea gathering process is loads of fun until you have to actually commit to something.

We have to replace all the exterior doors on the house to improve heat efficiency (and whistling on windy days!) and keep the mice out. We are planning to just get regular Jeld-wen exterior steel doors, and some with half-lites (windows in the upper half). We will paint them brown to match the exterior trim (or what the exterior trim will eventually be), but should the insides be painted brown too? Or left white? I can't decide.

exterior door

interior option 1interior option 2

We are also choosing new interior doors, and I'm looking for something a bit contemporary. Of course I would love solid wood doors or carved styles etc. etc. but the molded types are more within our budget. Do you like option 1 or option 2?

For the bathroom I am thinking of choosing a basic travertine with a trim tile like this mosaic:

bathroom floor and showerbathroom trim

For the traffic areas we are thinking cork floors, and for the main living areas and bedrooms a cut/loop style carpet sort of like this:

cork for traffic areas

carpet for living areas and bedrooms

I suppose we will do carpet on the stairs also, but for wear I wonder if it would be cool to do cork instead. Might be difficult to do, but would it wear well? We are planning to update the railing as well:

The last 2 rungs are duct-taped. They show the wear of too many cousins swinging on them. :)

Anyway, there is a little update on our basement progress. Leave a comment and tell us what you think. Honest opinions, everyone! :) (Really offensive comments that insult my intelligence will be deleted. Ha!)