Sewing, Painting, and Merry Making

 While waiting for coats of paint to dry I worked on the new drapes for the Living room. After cutting each panel in half lengthwise and hemming I added tabs to the back of the panels

 Maybe a bit easier to see the tabs in this photo. The drapes look pleated using this trick but sew much easier to do than traditional pleating

 First wall is done, everything back in place, and the new curtains are hung. It took longer to load and unload the curio cabinet than it did to paint the room! Ha BTW I HATE the curio cabinet but hubby had it custom made when he was working in Indonesia so I can't put it to the curb :(

On to the third wall, looks like this won't be a one day project after all. Might as well do it up right so I am painting the moldings along with the walls. This saving money by doing the labor yourself is VERY over rated! Ha

Now that the sun has gone down for the day I have called it quits in the living room. Trying to paint with just lamps is for the birds, no need to strain my eyes as well as the muscles! The process will be slow but sure for the next few days as I have Kara tomorrow along will all three toddlers on Friday. I have high hopes that I can do a little painting in the late afternoon once the house is cleared of the rug rats. Tonight's project is to clean up the mess I have made all over the downstairs before little hands arrive in the morning. Hope to sort the pictures I have taken down as well, I know many if not most won't work in the new room. sigh... I have an idea in my head for a collage above the sofa I want to do for hubby but I need to work the numbers, right now it seems to be costly.

Anyone else crazy enough to try and squeeze in home improvements this close to the holiday season? What the heck was I thinking?

Unplanned Facelift

Our Living room before photo

 

A VERY small makeover in our living room over the winter or maybe the spring once I got our savings back in a better place was on my To Do list but.......How could I pass up a FREE sofa, love seat, and ottoman? While the style of the new furniture is not something I would have paid real money for it is SO COMFY it makes up on the style deal.

 

I had planned on replacing only our sofa with a much smaller neutral color one. A fresh coat of paint and window treatments as well and call it good. Instead there has been and will be a whole lot of moving of furniture around in the house as well as finding a new home for a few pieces. Every joint in my body is sore people!!!

 

While out and about with DD#1 yesterday morning getting gifts for the "Christmas Shoe Box" project for Karsyns pre school I ran into what I think (hope) I like for window treatments/pillow covers. What the heck might as well hit the "HomeGoods" store to see if they had any good prices on cutrian rods. Ya they did $12.99 each.

 

 The SUPER saver was at the home improvement store on 2 gallons of paint. The poor lady helping me was having a time mixing the paint, no matter what she did the durn paint just wasn't mixing right. She tried both mixer machines with very little luck, there was still some dye floating around on top. She finally mixed the old fashion way with a wooded paint stick and gave them two more spins in the machine. Everything looked fine by me but she marked the cans down from $38.00 to $15.00 each for my time and trouble. WOOHOO, it was meant to be!!

 

After DD#1 helped me get the pictures in the breakfast room back on the walls as I STINK at hanging pictures straight I got right on painting the trim in the entrance hall along with SEVEN doors. It was a very long afternoon and night.

 

Today is the living room. I unloaded the curio cabinet while AJ the beagle had her early morning run and breakfast, covered and moved all of the furniture away from one wall. As soon as the sun comes up I will hit that room like a wild woman. I SOOO need to finish the painting in there today as I will have Kara for the rest of the week starting bright and early in the morning.

 

The more I do the more I am seeing that needs to be done. I feel like the lady in the Swifter commercial who says to her hubby "Morty I have been living in a fools paradise". Love that couple and the cute commercials they have been doing. Time to slip hubby's undies on my head and get r done

Back to Reality

A rare photo of the little girls laying down on our Mt. trip

Who knew Mason man would be such a pool shark

A trip to "The Christmas Place" with a stop off at the train

The little ones loved all of the Christmas decorations

They could watch trains all day long

Then it was on to the BIG surprise!!  Opening gifts of PJ's, Christmas sippy cups, popcorn, hot chocolate, and best of all tickets to the "Polar Express Train"

All of the grands had a blast at the train museum before the "Polar Express" ride but Mason was over the top excited by every single display

We drank hot chocolate while we headed to the North Pole

Followed by Christmas carols. As you can see Mason was INTO IT!! He sang along "La, la, la, la" all the way

 Santa himself showed up

 

Giving each boy and girl a Christmas bell

Oh ya, and cookies as big as your head

 

Holy cow am I ever happy to be home!!! Nothing better than being back in your own bed snuggled up with AJ the beagle on a cold morning. Not that we didn't love having all of the grands pile into our bed in the mornings at the cabin but there is something to be said for QUITE!!! Ha.

 

It's official, our holiday season has begun. Every year our family Mt trip gets us all in the mood to start decking the halls and singing Christmas carols. I will have to hold off on the decking of the halls for a bit as it's hard to decorate around paint cans and furniture scattered around the house.

 

While on vacation DD#1 had a neighbor text her who needed to get rid of a living room suite, any takers? Hummm, I had a new sofa for the living room on my wish list for updating but that was going to have to wait until the spring as the money tree is just about bare. Free... now that I can afford!!

 After packing the car, doing all the cabin clean up before we turned in the key, driving home, unloading the car, laundry, pick up AJ the beagle, sort the mail......SIL#2 came by after work to take our old sofa to goodwill. At what age should you be before you give up loading and unloading furniture? Hummm  SIL#2 returned  a short time later with the free sofa, love seat, and ottoman, more lifting of furniture :(  I now have a living room FULL of furniture that won't all fit. Today's job....decide what must go and what can stay of course that means more lifting of furniture, sigh

I really, truly, should get out of this warm bed and get my butt in gear but it is so nice to have some down time I might just linger a little longer

 

 

Before and After

 Holy cow it took forever to tape off the breakfast room so I could paint strips

 Once all the paint was applied I was nervous to take it off. What if it turned out to be a mess after all that work? While on the phone with a GF she encouraged me to pull off one piece assuring me she would "be there for me". The first piece came off, then the second, holy cow it's working!!!

 Here is the before from a week ago, or was it a week and a half ago? I really liked the striped wallpaper but it had seen better days, the natural wood trim and moldings were looking dull and dated. The bottom walls had taken a beating from normal wear and tear along with the grands who can put a hurt on everything! Ha

 So here it is, all bright and fresh. I painted 4 inch strips instead of the 2 inch ones from the original wall paper. The strips turned out perfect!!! I learned a few things along the way. When marking where to put the strips I used a metal tape measure that left marks along the top of the wall that had to be touched up with paint. Next time I now know to use my sewing tape measure! duhhhh. While the new on the market "Frog" tape is more costly that the blue painters tape it is worth every penny on a project like this. I had absolutely no bleeding under the tape. Every strip turned out with a nice crisp line

I know DD#1 is going to fuss that the window treatments should be long enough to meet with the floor but from past experience shorter is better in our kitchen. I still need to paint the grills for the upper windows (what a pain), notice also that the two upper side windows are not painted. Those durn windows are frozen in place :( I know hubby will be able to get then moving again so once he gets home I will go back and paint that small part.

As the little girls say "I rike it!" I like even more that it's done!!!! The big girls will help me hang all the pictures back up soon as I stink at getting pictures straight on the walls. I also still need to fluff the window treatments. Stuffing each swag with plastic grocery bags will give it a nice poofy look, tissue paper would do the same but there is cost involved in that. I put the call out to my GF's that I need plastic grocery bags as I only have a handful here at home. Remember last month we were eating from the pantry for the pantry insurance challenge, which BTW I need to do an update on.

Lets get down to the cost.

2 gallons of paint - $76.00
Frog tape - $7.95
Window treatments - $45.00 (that includes two sets of curtains I will make for the kitchen)
Disposable paint tray's and brushes - $18.00

Grand total - $132.00

The pros cost would have been

$200.00 Labor
$76.00 paint
Who knows what for the decorative strips?
Woodwork, that one is sorta easy as I had gotten an estimate for all of the woodwork and trim for the kitchen and breakfast room from the pro's. A whopping $2,300.00!!! YIKES

I figure using some sloppy math the cost for the pro's would have been $1,300.00. Who needs that! Throw an old tee shirt of hubby's on, slip into a pair of shorts that should never ever be worn in public again, add a pair of hubby's undies as your hair covering and your all set.

Today is clean up day. As with anytime you work on a big project the rest of the house has gone to h... I need to get packed for our family vacation, pay some bills, do some baking and snack making for the cabin, put together a Nanny emergency box for the grands, wash the car (car wash), you know the drill when leaving home for even a few days. We are SOOO excited as hubby will be able to meet us at the cabin!! He is already on his way! We never know for sure if he will be able to get away from the project or not, this time we scored! The poor mans "Honey Do" list is growning by the day as he hasn't been home since September and then only for two days. He will have plenty to keep him busy over Thanksgiving.

Anybody else doing any freshening up around the house for the holidays? Please let us know in the comment section so we can cheer you on and get some ideas to use around our own place!

Elbow Grease

 Paint, paint, and more paint

 It's 70 % done, FINALLY

I have been racking my brain over what to use as window treatments in the new breakfast room. I was leaning towards ticking that would match the fabric on our chairs but the ticking didn't seem to be enough color. Low and behold I ran into this 44x82 drapery panel at the home improvement store for just $14.99. Knowing I can't buy fabric even on sale for that price I picked up 3 panels. Last night I got two of the panels cut lengthwise to use as a swag for the bay window. Yaaa, I had a good excuse to pull out the sewing machine. :)

I do believe I can finish the breakfast room today! All that's left "To Do" is
 Paint the strips on the upper walls
 Slap a coat of paint the bead board
 Finish the bay window swag
 Hang pictures

I dread working with the level to tape the strips off but it can't be any harder than all that sanding that has gone on too long right? Lord I hope so!!

All that's needed on the swag is to hem one LONG side 246 inches to be exact. I should have enough fabric from the second panel along with the extra panel I picked up yesterday to make curtains for the two windows in the adjoining kitchen. I am reusing the old window curtain hardware to keep cost down, they are kinda funky and cool.

I will be so glad to get the kitchen back in order once again. every surface is covered in something. Bonding primer, tray, roller,and paint brush, ditto for trim paint, base white wall paint, and yellow wall paint. Sand paper, screwdriver's, tape, sewing machine, ironing board, vacuum cleaner, the works, it's all in the kitchen leaving me no place to even put a glass of water.

Just as I was running out of energy yesterday morning I realized the white and yellow wall paint were two different finishes, grrrr Back to the home improvement store for an exchange. That's when I found the drapery panels.....it was like a light beam drawing me in. Buy me, buy me. I do believe I have a serious fabric addiction. The spring was back in my step I was ready to take on the breakfast room with gusto. I have a fabric problem people!! Ha

Progress

 It was nice to have a break from all the sanding of walls and trim for some Sunday Peewee football

 Tyler scored another touchdown, yaa. We gave him an atta boy afterwards he says to me "Nanny I told my little feet to run as fast as they could and they did!" Aww, too cute

 I was so darn glad to be done with getting that old wallpaper down, sanding of the walls, and trim. This is hard work!

After the ball game today I got everything primed. On to getting the first coat of paint on the trim tonight, figure it will take at least two coats of paint, hopefully not three!

I know once this room is finished I will like it but tonight...not so much! Ha My arms are so tired of sanding and pulling off wallpaper I can hardly lift them. I have until Tuesday this week to get as much as can be done before I need to get busy packing for our family vacation. I had high hopes I could complete everything before vacation but that's a no go. Days when I have one or more of the grands puts a cramp in the home improvement progress to say the least.

As hard as the work is, it feels good to bring some new life into this ageing house even though I am stuck doing it all, sigh We just can't spend the extra money for the Pros to do the work nor will my nerves hold up to yet more workmen that never show up!

Off to get that trim painted so AJ the beagle and I can get our beauty sleep.

Busy, Busy, Busy

 While waiting for the the family room ceiling to dry I knocked out the downstairs hallway. Still need to go back and paint the trim, all in good time.

 Last wall of the family room was put back together before moving on to the next "To Do"

 The breakfast room. It's been 10 years since this wallpaper went up and it shows. While I do like the shabby chic look, this wall paper has become..... just shabby.

 I started out STRONG..... but then real life caught up with me

 No way was I gonna strip wallpaper and miss out on Halloween with the grands. Mason man was big sisters sidekick by being the "Lion" from the Wizard of Oz. Notice waht a gentelman he is by even carrying "Dorthy's basket

 Dorthy (Karsyn) looks so grown up. They need to slow down!

 Kara as always was going a mile a minute but looking oh so cute as a girlie Zebra

 The toddlers were happy to share their loot with Kody our grand dog

Iron Man (Tyler) as always was looking out for his baby brother willing to share his own bounty.

As of 3:30 today I have been on the sofa with AJ the beagle. After all these home improvements of the past week, a night with the grands Trick or Treating, a full day with the little girls, and a nasty stomach bug while trying to keep my eye on the girls I am DONE!!!

I now know the official age that little kids find gross things interesting, it is three years old. The little girls were quite entertained by my suffering from the BUG.  No need to fear what they might get into while I was doing the bug thing, they were on my heels at every sprint to the powder room. Kara had the nerve at one point to tell ME to move "I can no see Nanny". Holy cow this brought back memories of  the old days when our own girls were wee ones. There is no doubt that I picked up the bug from one of the goblin's running around DD's last night. The next thing to look forward to is a terrible cold all 4 grands have or maybe strip throat that 3 have, oh happy days!! Ha

I can tell you I was one happy Nanny when DD#3 picked the little girls up after work. The front door was double locked! Tomorrow is a new day. I am thinking this might be just a 24 hour bug. Please Lord don't let the kiddo's come down with it. I have Kara again tomorrow, I don't find the results of a bug interesting or entertaining.

I think I have enough water and crackers in the old body to make it over night. I have wallpaper to take down, no time for this crap!!