Front Yard Mini Makeover

Hi everyone, thanks for sticking with me while we take this crazy whirlwind of deciding to move and being in a new house within five months. It has been so crazy around here that all we are managing to do is unpack and clean. Shortly before we moved I started back at work part-time and Braxton started going to a summer camp as well, so that has just added to the crazy.

I wanted to take a few minutes to show you guys a small update that we made to the front of the house since we moved in. If you saw the announcing post here, then you saw that there was a crazy bush with a mind of it's own in the front. Well, after 3 months with the sellers not touching anything it was a jungle everywhere outside.

This is what we moved into, noticed the actual tree growing within inches of the foundation at the right of the house and the half dead bush in front of the entrance.

Seriously, seeing that was so overwhelming. It bummed us out to see how the sellers didn't do any maintenance at the house because we kept up with our house for our buyers. Here is a better view of the side of the house that leads to the front steps and entrance area, with the lovely half dead bush.

But there is nothing that can be done about it! So we had Luis' dad drop his trailer off and Luis got to work. After a few hours of hard labour in the summer heat, Luis managed to make our house appear. We cut down all of the trees and bushes that were on the right side of the house, as well as trimmed the large bush at the far left of the house. 

Guys! It looks so much better! It's amazing the difference that can be made when you remove (or transplant, if possible) the wrong type of plant to help landscape your house to accent it's best features. The tree and bush that we removed were making the house seem much smaller than it was, as well as making the house too heavy compared to the garage. It didn't balance very well at all.

We are still a LONG way from being done, but the house already looks so much better and we love being able to actually look out the windows at the front. In the spring I have quite a bit of transplanting to do both in the front yard and the back yard, as well as buying some new plants to replace the ones we had to remove.

I can't wait to extend the gardens and add some texture to the front garden, and well as remove all the crazy rocks that are hidden everywhere. Can you believe all those rocks in the picture above were hidden by that giant dead-ish bush? It looks like Luis has some more back breaking work to do in the spring.

Like I said, it was a small makeover that made a huge impact. I can't wait to start designing and share some more progress with you guys!

Kerby

DIY Bathroom Drain Cover

Hello everyone and happy Friday! The weekend is here, and I am excited to get some much needed painting done. Painting is a hard job without kids being around, add a helpful toddler or two and it's basically an exercise in patience. The kids are going for a visit at their grandparents for the day tomorrow and I plan on getting a ton of stuff done. Plan being the key word.

Today I want to show you guys an easy way to cover an ugly drain pipe that can be seen when you have an open vanity in your bathroom. It is actually a really easy solution and won't take too much time or effort.

Back when we finished the basement renovation a few years ago, which included our half bathroom, we ran out of steam and left a lot of the decorative stuff for later. The bathroom sat like this for a long time and I got sick of looking at the drain pipe every time I was in there. It's not exactly the nicest thing to look at and always made the bathroom feel dirty, even though it wasn't. Maybe I'm alone in that feeling, but I thought that covering the drain while keeping it accessible would look much better.

So I asked Luis to make a cover for the drain using scrap wood from the basement renovation. He used some of the thin plywood that we have used in tons of projects (Tray update; kid safe coffee table inserts) and two pieces of 1x2 scrap wood. I told him I was going to be painting it and it would be mostly hidden so it didn't have to be beautiful.

It's nothing to call home about unfinished and sitting by itself but I knew that it would work perfectly to cover that ugly drain. So to recap, it's literally five pieces of wood that are nailed together to make a screen. We did a test fit to make sure that it wasn't too big and that it covered enough of the drain without taking up too much room. The shelf that it sits on is the main storage place for the vanity, so really don't want to lose that.

Already better. After a light sanding I grabbed the leftover wall paint (Turtle Dove by Behr) and gave it two quick coats. I didn't fill the gaps or anything crazy because I knew this was going to be almost completely covered once in place. Once dry I just put it around the drain, leaving a little clearance around the pipe. I didn't  want it to touch the pipe, just sit in front of it. Then I put our basket full of extra toilet paper rolls back in it's place. 

It looks so much better to me, almost like the drain is in the wall. And this keeps the drains fully accessible in the future so no worry about anything permanent to prevent a plumber or us from doing any work. It was such a quick and easy way to cover the ugly drain, and I love how much cleaner the bathroom looks.

Kerby 

New Gallery Wall Location and Update

Hello everyone and happy new year! I can't believe it's already 2017, and how little I got done in 2016. Hopefully this year I can pull my socks up and get some things accomplished, since my project list is about four pages long now! I guess that's what happens when you have a baby and a toddler, life gets in the way.

Anyway! Back in early 2015 I shared an updated gallery wall on the wall connecting our living and dining room, you can see the original post here. But as a reminder, here is a picture where I left it at the "in progress" stage.

It seemed like the perfect spot and solution to our giant 22 foot wall, but after living with it for almost two years we decided that it was a terrible spot. The pictures closest to our dining room table kept getting knocked off the walls when people would walk around the table. The poor picture frame with Motley in it has been hot glued back together more than once.

So it was time to move the gallery wall, and after much discussion and furniture rearranging we decided to move the couch from in front of our window to this wall. We kept it in the living room portion of the wall, and it was a great decision. Not only does the room flow better, but the Braxton was able to look out the window without sitting on the top of the couch (and sometimes falling into the window).

Once we had the location picked out, I measured and got working on the frame arrangement. Earlier in the summer I had spray painted all the frames that I had waiting to be added to this gallery wall, so I was able to make a much larger display.

Don't mind the terrible picture, I had to do this after the kids went to bed when it was extremely dark out. I didn't want them "helping" me with this because I really didn't feel like replacing frames. And the beautiful tent in the background, don't mind that either. Real life people.

Once I was happy with the placement, I bought enough command strips for an army and conscripted Luis into helping me as well as sending the kids to my parents house for the afternoon. This is definitely a two person job because you need to use multiple levels and measure spacing, all of which I am terrible at. Thank goodness I have a husband who puts up with my decorating decisions.

And there is the final product! I didn't take any pictures of the process since there are many tutorials all over the internet, but it took us about 3 hours in total to get all the frames onto the wall. I love how this turned out! It still has a little tweaking to be done, but for now I am happy with how this turned out.  

And we are loving the living room the way it is now, it's so spacious and there is an amazing amount of room for the kids to play. Which is probably the most important thing to us right now, since we both hate tripping over toys. It will probably stay this way for the foreseeable future.

You can see that I did not include the quote in this new gallery wall, and there were a few reasons. First was that the vinyl was in terrible shape and stopped sticking to the wall, and the second was that I am planning on making a sign that has our last name and an established date on it. This will probably go directly below the shelf and I will move that frame to the right to replace the frame at the top right. I am also planning on either buying or making a marquee letter to go on the shelf, we will see what happens there.

Well, that's it for today! It's a small post but a huge update to us, and I thought that I would share how plans change all the time. What I see in my head doesn't always translate well in real life, or might not always be ideal. You just need to try new things and be willing to adjust and adapt. Feel free to share your gallery walls or suggestions, I love to see and hear them.

Kerby 

Triforce Tray Update

Hello again everyone and welcome back. See, I told you I was doing stuff. It just gets so hard to get on the computer anymore without having a child in my lap "helping" me type things. It's better to just not play that game.

I don't think I ever mentioned it here, but anyone who knows us can tell you that we are a gaming family. Luis is a gamer, he enjoys playing video games of all types. I am a part-time gamer, I will play or watch Luis play a game that I am interested in. We have games that we play together, and games that we play individually. It's not for everyone, but it's what we like to do. Everyone likes different things, this is our thing that we do together.

A few years ago we had a gaming related incident that involved a broken controller and a broken tray that I used in the basement to coral the remotes and controllers. These incidents are completely related. 

The broken tray has been sitting in our crawlspace for years while I tried to figure out how to fix it or what I was going to do with it. I decided it would be nice to use this tray on the couch when we are having a snack so that we don't have to lean over to the coffee table. I know, first world problems. And since we have redone the basement with gaming related decor, I thought it would add a nice touch to incorporate this with the tray as well.

I thought long and hard about what I was going to put on the tray, whether it was going to be a recognizable symbol from a game or from a show. We love having game related things in our basement that most people will think is just nice decor, but people who play the game will get what it is about and appreciate it more.  In the end I chose this triforce symbol because it was easy and is from a game that I love and have played many times myself. I like easy crafts, makes it that much more satisfying when you finish it quickly.

First I sanded the tray lightly, then I did a few coats of spray-paint in a glossy white to cover the finish. I was hoping that I could cover the crack with paint and not have to do anything else. Unfortunately the crack was extremely noticeable, so we had to come up with another plan.  

I couldn't really get a good picture of the crack with the white paint, so I took a picture of the bottom to show you the crack and the previous finish. I couldn't find my before picture of the top of the tray, and don't mind the toddler foot. Though Braxton's foot makes this tray look huge if you thought that was my foot.

We decided to use the same kind of wood that we used for our coffee table update, but the oak instead of MDF. This stuff is fairly inexpensive and is easy to work with. I think this sheet, which we only used about two thirds of, was roughly $8.

Luis cut it to fit inside the tray and used clear paintable caulking to fill in any gaps. The inside of the tray is angled, so cutting the wood to fit perfectly was almost impossible.

Once the caulking set for a few days, I gave the tray another few coats with a semi gloss white paint. I did the whole tray, not just the wood insert and this helped blend the two paints together. The spray paint acted as a primer for the old stain colour, so it worked out perfectly.

Once the base paint was finished I traced the triforce shape onto roughly the middle of the tray. I cut out a cardboard triangle to use as a stencil, and the triforce is just four triangles. Easy peasy. I used a Martha Stewart gold paint to fill in the triforce and it took about 5 light coats to get good coverage. 

The finish of the gold paint isn't flat, I chose to let the gold paint have different tones so that the triforce looked a little more metallic. It would have taken another 5 coats for the gold to be the same flatness, and I think it would have made it look a little boring. This way, it has more depth. And once I was happy with how the gold paint looked I gave the whole tray a coat of semi gloss Mod Podge. This will seal the tray against any spills or condensation from drinks.

I am so happy with how this turned out. It's nice to have the option to use a tray for snacks and drinks after the kids go to bed. Or even for entertaining, not that we do that a lot anymore. Kids are exhausting.

Hopefully this gives you guys some inspiration to update things the way you want to. It doesn't have to be the latest trend or look a certain way as long as you like it and it functions for your family. For the longest time I struggled with what I thought I should do and what I wanted to do. In the end, I need to let what makes us happy be what's in our house. We have to live with it, not anyone else.

Kerby    

Linking to: 
Tatertots & Jello - Link Party Palooza 12/16/16 
Ginger Snap Crafts - Wow Me Wednesday #288 

Updated Dresser: From Black to Blue

Hello everyone! Hopefully you all had a fun and safe Halloween and haven't eaten all the candy yet. Braxton still doesn't quite get the whole trick or treat thing, but he didn't hate it as much as last year. And he didn't seem to mind his costume too much either, so that helped. We just visited the grandparents again since our monster didn't want to walk up to people's houses. The sidewalk is much more exciting.

Today I want to share a before and after of a dresser I updated to fit into Braxton's big boy room. The original dresser we had in the room was a dresser I had as a kid. It was an antique that my parents gave me and I was terrified that it was going to get ruined. So instead of trying to keep it safe, we opted to give it back to my parents and replace it with a used dresser that we wouldn't care as much about. I was able to find this dresser off of a local buy and sell group on Facebook for $40.

The New and Improved Deck

Hello and happy Friday! Hopefully everyone has lots of sun and fun in their future this weekend. I finally have that bigger post to share with you guys! It took me a bit to get the after pictures, but better late than never.

We love our deck, but we realized this year that it might not be that safe for an energetic toddler. The deck was close enough to the ground that steps weren't really needed, but high enough that Braxton could fall and hurt himself. It was between 6 and 8 inches from the ground, not something Braxton would look for while trying to get off the deck. Here are a few pictures from 2009:

Big Boy Room, Almost there

Well it's finally done. I told you I would have an update about the big boy room soon, and here it is. I can't believe how long things can take sometimes, especially when you have a toddler that has decided that naps aren't for him anymore. It's a daily struggle, but so far I am "winning" (if you can call a cranky toddler a win).

[If you missed out on previous posts, you can find the plan here and the first update here]

Today I want to share the completed room as far as construction goes. I still have quite a bit of decorating to get done, but so far I am happy with how it has turned out. I left off after we had just finished the painting and were about to start the trim. We used primed 4-inch MDF boards for the trim (the same that we used in the nursery) and did two coats of white semi gloss paint before they went up:

Once all of the boards were ready Luis broke out the miter saw and trimmed the room out. It didn't take too long for him to power through this, even with a closet to trim out with low shelves (I'm sure he was really loving me while he did that). 

As it can go when you are renovating, unexpected things can happen. The first thing that happened was that the ceiling needed to be painted something fierce. The previous owners did a terrible job with painting pretty much everything, so we have slowly been updating every painted surface. The second thing was that the new trim wasn't covering the gaps between the flooring and the walls:

Not exactly what you want to see after you have put up new trim. A quick run to the hardware store for some quarter-round and a few extra cuts and nails and the problem was solved. Now it was time to fill the holes, mud the joints and corners, caulk along the tops of the trim and do a coat of the trim paint.

How's that for a huge change? Doesn't it look so amazing now compared to the old yucky trim? I'm ready to do this in the rest of the upper level and main floor today. Luis has some objections though. I guess I can wait and just enjoy this room for the time being.
 

It is amazing what some paint and new trim can do to transform a space. As you can see above we did not replace the window or door trim, we will do that when we replace the window and door. We aren't exactly sure when that will happen, but since they both work fine on a daily basis they aren't at the top of the list.

Now that the room is toddler friendly, we moved Braxton's bed and some furniture in here. He loves this room and he spent the first 20 minutes play screaming to hear the echo and grinning after each scream. 

 
And speaking of lists, here's the updated to-do list for the big boy room:

- Remove everything from the room
- Remove closet doors (we are going to go with no closet door until Braxton is a little older. I like having the closet open so I don't need to worry about him getting his fingers caught or the cats wanting to hide in there)
- Remove old trim
- Prime over the dark green and paint walls lighter tone
- Install new trim and paint white
- Paint window trim (we will be replacing the windows eventually, but until then the trim needs to be painted)
- Find bedding (we are going to leave the mattress on the floor for the first little bit until Braxton is used to having no rails)
- Make art to hang on the walls
- Make teepee to fit in his room
- Make some pillows to make the teepee comfy
- Get storage solution for clothes in the closet

So close! I am hoping to get the storage solution shortly as well as making some art. The teepee might take a little bit, but Braxton won't be in the room sleeping for a little bit. Until then, I am going to sit back and watch him Benny Hill style run between all the rooms upstairs joyfully screaming his face off.

Kerby

Cleaning out the Cabinets

Hello everyone, hope everyone had a great long weekend. I just love Family Day, it's a great excuse to be lazy. 

Today I want to share a little organizing that I did to a cabinet that had been driving me nuts. We have a very small set of upper cabinets above our range hood (over our stove), and because it wouldn't fit too much I decided it was a great place for my baking supplies. I love to bake but have just recently started again and let my cabinet go to shambles. Don't believe me? Take a look:

A New Gallery Wall - Progress

Hello and happy Thursday to one and all. I know that Valentine's day is quickly approaching and lots of other blogs are just riddled with great ideas for crafts and recipes, but I just cannot get into it. We have never been ones to make a big deal about it, so it's hard to find things that I want to do. At least next year Braxton will be older and give me a reason to find fun things to do.

So after getting that off my chest, today I want to share an idea that is about a year in the making. When we decided to do the basement, one of Luis' biggest requests was to not have the gallery wall back up in the basement. He hated how the pictures would move if the volume was turned up, or my complaining about the pictures moving. Jury's still out on that one, and Luis is not telling the truth.

So once it was decided that the basement was no longer the location for the gallery wall, I needed to find a new home for it. After sitting on the couch with a newborn/baby for a few months in our living room, and idea dawned on me. Enter the wall that I have never known what to do with (view from the living room):

Rec Room Before & After

Hello everyone, today I thought I should share the other half of the rec room with you guys. And since I've shared every other part of the basement, it's about time.  I shared the built-in's with you guys here, which was one side of the rec room.

Like I mentioned before, this renovation was fueled by the need to have an animal free zone for Braxton, which would also be baby proofed so that we would have some peace of mind. So most of the updates that we made had this as our number one goal. Before I get too ahead of myself though, here are a few before pictures (sorry for the bad quality, they were taken almost five years ago):

Spray Painted Countertops - 3 years Later

Happy Friday everyone, hope you guys are staying warm & cozy. It feels like winter has been here forever, and we've only had snow for about a week. I think this might be a long winter for me.

Today I thought I would share an update to a pretty popular post from 3 years ago, before my almost 2 year hiatus. You can check out the original post here (please remember this was before the blog had a name change). And the first update post here, where I talked about how just the spray paint was holding up. We ended up using a food grade epoxy and it was so much better.

But three years later, the poor counter top is starting to show it's age. There are a few spots that just look dirty all the time. Since you guys are my friends, I'll show you a few pictures:

These spots are actually soft to the touch, where the epoxy is starting to wear away. I cannot make them look any better, so I have started to strategically place cutting boards and my paper towel holder when people come over.

I would recommend to anyone wanting to do counter tops like this, make sure that it is a temporary solution. Our plan was supposed to be temporary, until we could afford to gut the kitchen and renovate it the way we wanted. But alas, other priorities popped up. Like Braxton joining our clan, and our basement (here, here, here, here and here).

Hope this update helps anyone looking to refinish their counters in a relatively inexpensive manner. Let me know if anyone has had any luck with other products or finishes!

Kerby

Linking to:
I Heart Naptime - Link Party Palooza #75 
Kathe with an E - You're Gonna Love It Tuesday 1/12/15 
Someday Crafts - Whatever Goes Wednesday #256 

Braxton's Playroom

Hello there everyone, I know I shared a few posts about our basement renovation. If you're new here, you can catch up here (Half Bath), here (Office), here (Stairs) and here (Built-In's). But I haven't shared the main reason for our renovation. 

One day Luis and I were talking about how cluttered our house was going to get once Braxton started playing with toys. We don't have a small house, but it's not big either. So this was a concern. We have a huge crawlspace under our main floor; it's about 40 feet by 40 feet and only 4 feet tall. So tons on space, but not really livable. We joked that we should take a portion of the crawlspace and make it into a playroom since Braxton will be short for awhile and won't care. That's when the joking stopped and the planning began, it was actually a great idea.

So that's how the whole renovation started, by wanting to build a small playroom for Braxton. Funny how talking about something so "out there" can actually lead to a great use of space.

This was the crawlspace before:

Basement Built-In's

Happy Friday everyone, can you believe how cold it's gotten in just a few days? The white stuff finally made an appearance a few days ago and I am in denial that winter is almost here.

The biggest change we have made in the current basement renovation has been in our rec room. Here is a quick picture of how it looked just a few months ago:

basement hallway & stairs - before & after

Happy Friday wonderful people! The weekend is almost here, so sit back with a nice coffee (or tea) and enjoy another basement update from yours truly.

Today I want to share the rest of the hallway and stairs. This update is mostly cosmetic as it was just a little drywall, a new light fixture, some paint and new trim, along with an update to the stairs I refinished here. 

But first, a look back to how this area looked when we bought the house:

nursery before and after

Happy Monday everyone! (Please don't throw things at me) 

Today I want to share a transformation that happened last year, but I never shared with you guys. Last spring we converted our old computer room into Braxton's nursery. And what a transformation it was!

Here is the before picture; a little history to the colour of this room. When I lived at home, I always swore that my "office" was going to be red. So, once we bought this house the very first thing I decided, the computer room was to be red. Not sure if Luis even knew what was going on until he was fully committed. 
 

closet turned office

Hi everybody, hope your ready for another big, picture filled post!

Today I want to share another basement update. Across from our half bathroom downstairs we had a closet. It was a huge closet, but mostly full of junk and unused. Here is a picture of the closet before our first renovation.

half bath before & progress

Hi everyone, earlier this year we decided to do a complete gut job on our basement. We are still working away, but I want to start sharing some progress with you.

Back in 2012 we did a basement renovation in our hallway and rec room, but I never really showed you guys our downstairs half bathroom as we never really did anything to it. You can see the first basement renovation here (Please note that the pictures are still edited to the old blog name).

Our downstairs bathroom is pretty darn small. And before we started our latest renovation, the door would swing into the bathroom. So closing the door was a dance between the vanity, the toilet and the door. It usually involved straddling the toilet to close the door. Very welcoming.

giving an old hutch some love

Hi again.

 

Today I want to show you guys a before and after of a kijiji (it's like the Canadian Craig's List) find that I stumbled upon for $50.     

I know that seems like a lot, and it is, but for around my area that was a great price. A steal even because similar items were listed for $200 plus!

 

 I did this awhile ago, but I still want to share this with you because I am still in love with it. It's one of the best makeover items that I did in this house.

 

Let me first show you the before.