Which came first?

The art or the gallery wall? I've got a mix of both going on here.

Progress!

Turns out that John had some really cool art down in his office. I stole that from him. I also bought some small prints from Ikea when I got frames a few weeks ago. There's a couple photos already framed too. Oh, and my rooster thingy way down on the end. There are still two paper templates left on the wall, and one template that has fallen to the floor. I need to build that frame and then I can hang it up. Hopefully I won't let all the empty frames hang like this for months. I want to do a combination of pictures of the girls and maybe some of their art. I'm sure I can dig up a few more things around the house too. I'm just happy this isn't all piled up in the laundry room anymore.

more progress

John said that he doesn't think I can get all of my list done this month. We'll see. I told him if I start all the projects, surely I will finish them too.  I need to sand the ceiling and put one more coat of mud on it tonight. Then I can prime and paint it.

I went this morning and bought cabinets for the basement project. I also have my material washed for the curtains. I hope to iron that tonight and get them cut out. I'm not sure when I will sew them. Soon!

But first, I have to get Ellie from school. Maybe she'll nap today, and I can make more progress.

It must be that time of year.

Last year, I made a huge list of things to do before March 1st. I've made another one this year. Maybe it is because I know spring is coming, and I will be outside more. Or maybe I've recovered from Christmas and Mary's birthday. Either way, I am ready to dig back in on the house.

First up is another round of DIY on the basement. We'll be adding some cabinets to a little alcove at the bottom of the stairs. Our house is so small, and we have very little storage space. This will help a lot. This weekend John will be doing a bit of repair work to that space, and installing the cabinets. Then I'll be on painting duty. It will also solve this issue:

Looking into the basement

When we removed the divider door to the hallway, this became our view into the basement. Previously, when the door was open, it just blocked the doorway to the basement. Now I look down there every time I walk to or from the bedrooms. I know it would look better if that paneling were painted white. So I will be painting that all white. The stairs are just boards with no backing. I'm not sure what I am going to do with them. Maybe just clean the heck out of them. I'd love to paint them, but that would mean locking the cats in the laundry room for a couple days so they could get to the litter box. So I need to think about that. I also want to paint the walls (and ceiling) above the paneling, but that won't be soon. I'm terrified of trying to reach up there. I asked my Dad how he did it at his house. He said it built a little platform and then put the ladder on it. I think he's crazy. We may possibly hire someone to do it so that I don't break my neck. So, painting that little room is project number one.

I also want to finish my gallery wall. Or at least get the frames hung up. I don't have art for all of them yet. 

I discovered some fabric I was going to use to make pillow covers for the living room. I totally forgot I had it. Oops. It's spring/summer fabric, so I want to get on that.

I bought drop cloths to make curtains to cover the storage shelves in the laundry room. I need to sew those up, and find curtain rods. I think we have some spares around here somewhere. I don't really care what they look like as long as they are long enough.

I want to fix the hole in the dining room ceiling. I bought the patch for it last week.

Of course I also have to do my regular stuff too. I think I can get it all done IF we stay healthy. Plus it is a leap year, so I have an extra day.

All you need is......

Before.

All you need is 1. a free piece of art from your Mom's yard sale pile (broken glass optional), 2. red spray paint, and 3. chalkboard spray paint. Oh and chalk borrowed from the kids.

After.

I got rid of the broken glass. I spray painted over the boat print which was actually a nice, heavy cardstock. I just shoved it back in the frame with the two pieces of cardboard that were behind the picture. It's not even secured. 

I  made this last night:

Book page wreath #2.

I never was overly satisfied with the first book page wreath I made. I needed something to hang on the dining room door since I moved the stick wreath to our bedroom. I have a good supply of vintage books right now thanks to my Dad. He bought two boxes of them at the auction he frequents. I think he paid a dollar or two per BOX and there were 12-15 books per box.

I'm starting to see a pattern here. I get a lot of free "junk" from my parents.

Stolen from Dad's yard sale pile. Didn't even give him 50 cents.

I've tried many times to pay Dad from the stuff I take from him. He buys it super cheap though, so he never wants money for it. He has a couple booths at an indoor flea market where he resells stuff. Anyway, I thought this was a good shaped frame when I stole it. I actually plan to cut the picture in two and keep the horse and buggy. That's a project for another day. 

Mystery art.

I actually forgot I had the frame. It was down in my hoarding spot in the basement. John and I had talked about framing this little piece of mystery art for our gallery wall. It was warm enough to spray a paint yesterday, so I painted the frame to match the others I'll be using.

As for the mystery art, John's Grandma painted it. When her estate was settled, all of her artwork was distributed. We got several beautiful pieces. Then it came down to this sort of strange scrap pile. John and I both loved this one piece. The back is almost just as pretty, though I don't think it is a painting. It it just brush strokes in yellows, blues, and oranges. Like maybe she was cleaning her brushes or testing colors. As for the barn on the front, I'll always wonder where the other half is. Or why someone would paint something so beautiful and then cut it in half. Maybe she was unhappy with it or just doodling. Or maybe she spilled her coffee on it. We will never know, but I do love it anyway.

Unmotivated.

I'm trying to find the motivation to work on a project. Any project. I did clean the basement. It had sort of exploded again. Neither one of us wants to work on the living room. Or clean out the closets. I'm ready for spring.

I did get a new light for Christmas. We've now changed out or modified every light in the house.

Hello, 1965!

 The new one matches the other hallway and the girls' bathroom.

We also trimmed out the other doorway in the short hallway.

Note I painted the baseboard in anger.And slopped white paint all over the door trim.

 This piece of baseboard had been missing since Sept 2010.

 Much better.

When I was painting the walls, I got some paint on the (old) baseboard. I ended up just painting the entire thing to match the wall. It looked awful. I also slopped some white touch up paint on the door trim so I'd get sick of looking at it and rip it out sooner rather than later. I'm not even sure when John put the new trim up. Maybe New Year's Eve? 

I guess I am working on a project, but it is slow going. 

 Items for my gallery wall.

I'm piling it up in the dining room as I work. I'm hoping that will keep me from putting it off for another 10 months. I've had most of the frames down in the basement since last spring. I have a few items I really want to add to the wall, but they need custom sized frames. There's a chance I'll be asking John to make them for me. How hard can it be?

I didn't get one decent picture of Mary on her birthday. We had a great party and she got several gifts that she loves. I think that six is going to be a great year for her.

Hey girl.

I can check "center rug under bed" off my list. I got a new rug last weekend. The bedroom is one step closer to being done. I really want a new light fixture, but haven't found the perfect one in my price range. I was nice enough to take down the rooster picture (turns out John hated it) over the bed. I replaced it with my stick wreath (which John ran into every time he walked through the dining room). I'm so thoughtful!

Ellie started preschool. I've been cleaning, organizing, shrinking the living room curtains, and fixing them. Just the same old stuff. We aren't doing any home improvement right now. Hopefully we'll start up again soon. I really want to get the living room painted before spring as we have some major exterior projects coming up.

I'm in a hurry yet again. There's never enough time in the morning when I have the house to myself.

Keeping it real.

Time.

Days, weeks, and months fly by. A year. Two years. Five.

Five years ago today, we walked into a vacant house. It was not yet ours.

Entry way - 12/23/2006

Today.

Our home is a fixer upper for sure. We basically bought it without seeing it first. I told John that if it had walls and a roof, we'd make it work. I feel like we have made amazing progress in five years.

Dining room - 12/23/2006

Today.

Most of our family members saw the house before we moved in. John's Dad and Step-Mom owned it. John's Mom and Step-Dad live right down the street. My Mom came that year for Christmas, and I brought her over to show her our next home. I think they all thought we'd lost our minds.

Master bedroom or as Mary said today "what's that?"

I said "it's our bedroom, Mary."

This one caught John off guard. Ellie's room - 12/23/2006

Ellie's room today.

The thing that gets me in that comparison is that in the before there is not a vent in the wall, but there is in the after. We had central heat and air put in before we moved.

Hallway bathroom. John said the broken curtain rod really made the room.

Improved!

The floor near the tub was rotten. We had a new subfloor put in before we moved in. John replaced the vinyl which is why the floor is mismatched. I'm going to miss the blue cabinet when we remodel some day. It was one of the first things I painted in this house.

Living room - 12/23/2006

Lovely subfloor, huh? The carpet was worse. We wouldn't even let Mary out of our arms as we walked through the house. We had everything primed with a sealing primer and have never had an issue with smells.

Living room - 12/23/2011

I'm keeping it real, people! What can I say? We live here.

And of course the main reason we moved here:

Mary (almost 11 months old) - 12/23/2006

It's hard to believe that it was before Mary's first Christmas or her first birthday. She was scared of all of her grandparents. It broke our hearts.

Mary (almost 6!!! years old) and Ellie (3.25 years old)

We moved here to be closer to our families. We moved here so Mary would know her grandparents. We moved here to live in the country with a big yard. We moved here so that Mary could go to an awesome school. Heck, we moved here so that someone could stay with Mary so I could go to the hospital to have the next baby.

It seems like it was just the other day that John's sister told us that his Dad had agreed to buy this house from the previous owner. It feels like we've blinked and five years just magically flew by.

Finally sunny!

It's cold today, but it is sunny. It's been raining or snowing for days now.

FYI--there's still a hole in the ceiling where the old light used to be.

I pretend that the hole isn't there. I'm hoping to patch it sometime in 2012. Ellie even asked the other day why it is still there. Mary gets up every morning and plugs in the tree herself. I'm glad she loves the Christmas decorations as much as I do. She, Ellie, and I did the tree ourselves this year while John was outside playing with his chainsaw.

Ellie watches educational TV while I take pictures of the furniture.

In my defense, she was out of the room making some play-doh pancakes for me when I took this picture. She was making them on her grill. They were raspberry pancakes, and they were delicious!

I put my normal Christmas decorations out on the TV cabinet this year, but I didn't like them. So I took them down and looked at it for a while. Then I had one of my wonderful ideas. Ah, the ones that send John out to the freezing cold garage at 10pm to cut, glue, and nail things for me.


He used some of the left over wood from the barn door. And no project would be complete without adding some old dining room paneling to it. It's on the bottom. When the glue dried, I stained it inside and out. John even drilled a hole in the back so that I could run the cord of lights through it. I love how it turned out!

Tree number two

Once again, it was John to the rescue. I had the tree. Then I bought the pail. We had thought of about 10 ways to get it in there, but none of them seemed easy.

Pinterest to the rescue!

I showed the above to John, and he said it would work. Thank goodness we have a huge pile of wood in the yard from the storm in May. John just drilled a hole into a piece and set it in the bucket. Then we shoved the tree into the log. It actually looked pretty cool with just the pink tree shoved into the the log, but I wanted to use the bucket since I bought it specifically for the tree. It's really steady which was my main concern.

I have all my Christmas decorating done! I even started my Christmas knitting last night. I think I'm at least two weeks ahead of where I was last year.