New Lights

Saturday was another day full of home projects around here. It started with Justin loading up a bunch of trash from the porch that we had collected from the many demo projects and taking it to the dump.

When he got home, I ran to Menards to get some supplies for the afternoon project...changing out a bunch of light fixtures.

Justin started in the hallway upstairs. The previous owners had these horrible light fixtures that are maybe supposed to look like oil lamps...and they give off just about as much light as oil lamps.



So, Justin got to work switching those out.





The new hallway lights are simple but they have made a huge difference both in appearance and illumination!



Justin then moved on to the bathroom fixtures. The previous owners had these old school globe fixtures that only housed one light bulb each. So, again, it was fairly dark in the bathroom in certain areas. We ended up even taking the globe off the one in the center of the room several months back because it offered more light.





And here are the new fixtures.





You can see in both the pictures of the hallway and the pictures of the bathroom that we are in the middle of repainting those areas as well. I spent a good portion of last weekend painting and I just have to go touch up a few areas and then replace all the trim.

We still have some light fixtures to change out downstairs but the upstairs looks so much better!

And on a side note (and because I have a hard time not including some pictures of at least on of the boys), Garytt has started "parking" his toy trucks, cars, buses, etc. on our radiator. In fact, just last night when it was time to go to bed, I asked him to put his trucks away and he went and "parked" them there and then waved good-bye to them...so cute!









After a long day of work, it was time for all of us to park it and relax!

Progress in Garytt's Room

With the help of my parents, we managed to tackle a couple of small projects in Garytt's room.

My mom had a genius idea to use decorative borders that are typically used for bullitin boards to enhance our plain crown molding. So, my mom and I put up the border one afternoon while Garytt played in his room and Westyn was hanging out with my dad. I think it is pretty cute and it adds a lot to the room.





The other project that we tackled was recovering the rocking chair from Garytt's room. So, this is a rocking chair that I found on Craig's List for $5. We have been using it in Garytt's room but the material was not really in line with the Dr. Seuss decor of the room. So, we always planned to recover the chair. However, we discovered that the chair may have been priced so low because it has a tendency to slide off the track and then won't actually rock...helpful. So, my dad managed to fix the functionality of the chair with a little wood glue.

After that, it was time to recover the chair in the fun Dr. Suess' Lorax material! We added new cushions to the seat and the back and then covered the chair...well, as with so many projects, it took a little bit more work than expected. But my dad did a great job of tacking down the seat material and then my mom had to hand sew the material on the back. It was definitely a group project that wouldn't have gotten done without them! And I am thrilled with how it turned out!


Grandpa working on the chair


Tacking down the seat material


The finished product in the room

Slowly but surely we are decorating Garytt's room!

While we were still working on the chair, Garytt was really intersted in in checking out the fun Lorax material. So, we had a little bit of material left over and Grandma decided to tie the material around him as a cape. Then he went running (or flying) around the house.







Thanks to my parents for helping with these projects!

Projects and Bathroom Fun

The Brown family rang in the New Year as most red-blooded Americans did...wait, no, that would have meant we enjoyed drinks and football...yeah, there was none of that in our house this year. Instead we worked our little tails off to finish some projects (or at least make more progress).

First, Justin took advantage of the moderate temperatures outside on Saturday to drywall our bathroom. It was nice for him to be able to cut the drywall outside and keep a lot of the mess out there. This was a big project and I have to admit that I wasn't much help.







As you can see in the pictures, there is a pretty good size pipe in the wall just behind our bathroom door. What you probably can't tell is that one section of the pipe sticks out a little farther that the rest of the pipe (thus the hole cut in the drywall to allow that part of the pipe to stick out).

The question was how were we going to deal with this. (Apparently, the previous owners managed to bend the paneling around it a little and we didn't notice.) The original thought was to put a little door down there as a cleanout option (that would never have to be used). Then Justin had a great idea...just put an air vent cover over it...simple, fast, and looks good (who cares that we don't have central air so have no need for an air recirculation vent).



Justin also had to work on updating an electrical switch in the bathroom before he could put the drywall in on that wall.



It was time for Justin to rest a little bit after that! Although we still have to do the taping and mudding, priming and painting, it feels so much better to have actual walls in our bathroom instead of exposed studs and lathe!

Sunday we decided to take down our Christmas decorations. I usually like to keep the decorations up a little longer but I wanted it all down early this year so I don't have to worry about it when the baby arrives.

We also decided to put together the crib that we are borrowing from my parents for Garytt's new room. We have decided to keep Garytt in a crib a while longer based on recommendations from both pediatricians and friends with kids who struggeled to transition to a toddler bed.



As least now if the baby were to arrive a little early, we would have two beds ready to go, even if the rest of Garytt's room isn't quite ready.

Monday we took advantage of Justin having the day off by doing tons and tons of painting! We had a few areas in both our formal living room and dining room that needed touching up. So, Justin pulled out the paint and touched up those areas while Garytt napped and I was down in our basement painting boards for the "crown molding" in Garytt's new room. We have decided to do just a basic board at the ceiling line because we thought it would be easier...

It took me quite a while and about 6 coats of paint to get the boards white.



After Garytt's nap, Justin put them up in his new room. Well, unfortunately, the ceiling tiles are not perfectly straight, so there are a few issues we will have to fix. But for now, it is what it is.





Meanwhile, we also painted a few more coats on the dresser for Garytt's room (we are almost done finally) and the wall behind the TV in the family room. This is one of the walls that my sister and mom helped to prep while they were in town. We had to finish the sanding and tape off the wall before we could paint but that didn't take too long. Then it was time to paint.

There were two issues...do you use a roller on such a small amount of wall space (I probably would have) and how do you paint around the rock fireplace that doesn't allow you to tape off? Justin wanted to just hand paint the area because it is such a small wall. Then we had to pull out a tiny brush to go around the rock fireplace...tedious but not as bad as we thought. We shared the responsibility of this project...Justin painted high (as I didn't want to be up on a step stool) and I painted down low...and as evident by the TV, G was watching Nemo.



The color choice came about totally by accident... I wasn't really sure what color I wanted to paint there but then we were at Lowe's and they had Valspar Signature quarts in this blue color that reminded me of a dark denim on clearance for about $2.50. Um...yeah, I'm totally all over clearance paint when I think it can work in our decor. I thought that a denim color would look nice in our country/western, casual family room!



Now I just need to hang pictures and redecorate the mantle (it was decorated for Christmas but looks empty now).

Ok, so a side note...I don't do a ton of shopping at Lowe's because I have found through our home projects that Menards is more helpful in general, but I totally dig the "Oops!" paint section in Lowe's! So far, our dining room and family room have been painted with discounted paint. But I purchased discounted paint nearly six months ago for the bathroom and office because I found it and knew what color I wanted. Then when my family was in town and helped in the bathroom, it was discussed that we might want a tan color to go with the color I chose for the bathroom...yeah, I found a tan just this past weekend at Lowe's for $5 a gallon. So, I have purchased 5 gallons and 1 quart of nice paint for less than the cost of one gallon of the paint at full price! (The guys at the paint counter at Lowe's might think I'm a bit strange considering how often I check the discounted paint and rarely buy a paint color of my actual choice.)

Of course, with all this work, we had to vacuum and clean nearly the whole house. And there is always the chore of doing laundry. So, it was a busy, busy weekend, but I have to say that we really did get a lot done in just three days.

We did take some time to relax (obviously not a lot) and play with Garytt. Garytt got some new bath time toys for Christmas. So, we decided to try out the Crayola bath finger paints. The box said that it turn into soap when you add water. So, we thought that would be great fun to let him play with it and then just soap him up...easy cheesy...







Well, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt...apparently, we should have read the box a little better...yeah it's not tear-free soap. Yikes! Poor Garytt got his first experience with the horrible sting of soap in the eyes. I really can't believe they market a product like this for kids and don't make the soap tear-free...geez. Obviously, I didn't get a picture of the breakdown because I was helping to flush out his eyes.

We decided to put those finger paints away for awhile. We pulled out the bath crayons the next night. This was much more successful! And they actually wiped off the tub and wall very easily.











We hope that everyone enjoyed a safe and happy New Year's! Maybe next year we will ring in the new year with drinks and football!

New Bathroom Sinks

Having two extra guys around the house prompted us to do some projects. We kind of bounced around some ideas about what we should tackle while my dad and Kyle were in town. In the end, we decided we should try to remodel the bathroom sinks because that is a job that I physically cannot help Justin with at this time (maybe ever).

Our bathroom sink area is a bit strange. The previous owners obviously built the cabinet themselves at a lower than average height because there is a window sill that prevents a normal size vanity from sitting there. Due to that restriction, we decided we would reface the vanity cabinet, which was awful because it really had no kick plate to speak of causing one to nearly take off a toe every time you stepped up to the sinks. Then we would just add a new countertop and more modern faucets. Seems like a simple plan...


The only before picture of the sink area that I have

So, the guys started with demo...


Sinks are gone


A view of the sink area from farther back

They also took out some more of the old wall boards and some of the lathe to accomidate drywall.







As with all home projects, there is always a kink...the plumbing proved to be a little more challenging than expected and took longer than expected.


The guys hard at work


Discussing the plumbing

In the end, we do have sinks that function but that is all they had time for. So, Justin and I still have to finish the cabinet and put up drywall...unfortunately for Justin, that will mostly fall on his shoulders due to my condition... I will be responsible for the painting and such once the drywall is up.

We have decided to just paint the rest of the paneling in the bathroom...not my favorite idea but considering how difficult the paneling was to removed from behind the radiator in Garytt's new room, it is probably not a bad idea as this radiator has even less room behind it to work.

I didn't get a final picture of just the sink area, but it pretty much looks like this still. I will get more pictures as the project continues.



The bathroom project is like a neverending project for us but each stage is an accomplishment. We really appreciated the help from my dad and Kyle!! I'm not sure they were totally aware of what they signed on for when they agreed to come to Wisconsin for Christmas.

While the activity was going on upstairs, my sister was very helpful in putting a thin coat of mud over some of the walls downstairs to help smooth out some issues in the walls. Kyle even helped some during times when the bathroom project didn't have room for everyone upstairs.


Working hard in the kitchen

So, all I have left to do in the kitchen and the wall in the family room is a light sanding and painting...awesome!

Maybe the best part of the new sinks is that Garytt got a new toy out of the project. The box that the sinks came in became a playhouse for him.


In he goes


Happy boy with his new toy

We even encouraged him to "decorate" the inside with crayons.


Busy coloring


Coloring the ceiling

Here are a couple of videos as well.





After a long day of work, everyone just wanted to chill.



So, the moral of the story is...be very cautious when the Brown family invites you to their house, they may just put you to work! Who wants to to come over on New Year's Day?