The Reveal

Our bedroom is as done as it is going to get right now. There are still a few things on the list, which I wrote about here. I also want to get a chair to put in the corner and either buy or build a headboard. But right now, it is functional, and it looks pretty good. I cleaned it up today and broke out the camera. Lighting isn't the greatest, but you can still "get the picture."

This is the best "before" I could find:

After:

Goodnight!

Annoying

So our reno is pretty much done, but there are a few annoying projects left before it is picture in a magazine worthy. We still have to install lights and mirrors, and stain the drawer faces and cabinet doors. Those are the big ones. The other projects are just downright annoying. They include finding and installing thresholds so we don't have this:

Sorry about my toes!

Touching up along the sides of the vanities where some stain dripped on the walls. And when we took the painters tape off, it left this:

The white spots mean it was stripped down to the plaster, so that means I have to go back, prime AND paint. Oh joy.

And one last thing. Remember these lamps? Well, the person who sold them to me must have switched out the lampshades and taken an important connecting piece so it is virtually impossible to make a lampshade stay upright. Grrr. Chris is going to have to basically rewire them so we can put a proper shade on it. Annoying, right?

You would think that we would have been able to knock out quite a few of those projects on this lovely 3 day weekend, but nah. We had too much fun doing other stuff. Weekend wrap-up to follow!

Weekend

Today marked a milestone in our little renovation. I was able to use my bathroom for the first time in 2ish months! Chris installed the toilet (after a huge scrub-job) and caulked it. He also fixed the leak in the shower so the bathroom is completely functional! And can I just give Chris a shout out- on his ONLY day off this week he did 1 million honey-dos around the house! The baseboard is installed in both rooms, and caulked in the bathroom. The tile is caulked around the toilet and shower. He also fixed our Honda door, which has been broken for a month or so. It was pretty obnoxious dealing with that- I had to twist around in my seat to unbuckle Gianna, and then she would have to get down and open the door for me so I could get Elia out. Just another "obstacle" among many when trying to get 2 kids in and out of the car. So that was pretty exciting. My big project for the weekend was painting the inside and organizing the linen cabinet in our bathroom. I don't have any before pictures, but this is what it looks like now:

Pretty great, right?

Chris did have to work on Saturday, but he got home around 4 so we were able to take advantage of the absolutely gorgeous weather. We put the girls in our hiking backpacks and walked to the duck pond. Its been a while, and it felt great getting out!

Besides that, the weekend was pretty laid back.

G insisted on making her own sandwich this morning. So grown up!

Another Bathroom Update!

Pre- grout. You can see the blue spacers.

Post- grout. That white grout ups the gorgeousness, if I do say so myself.

And here is an in between pic of our cabinets. Right now, there are 4 coats of stain on the vanities. Hopefully just 2 more to get the desired color. We are trying to get it to match the color of the floor in the bedroom. Oh and like the wall color? We mixed white paint in with the bedroom color and got this pretty light blue-gray color.

Quick Take

I don't have much time to post, so I will just leave you with a picture. Chris and Weinpel worked all yesterday and today and came up with this FABULOUS design. Right now it is drying and waiting to be grouted and sealed. I am so excited!

Sneaky Peek

This weekend, we did a little bit of this:

New easel from Grandma. Love it! Elia finally learned how to say Gianna. So sweet!

But mostly, we sanded and vacuumed all weekend. We can see the end of the tunnel to our bedroom/bathroom remodel. The goal is to put tile in over Chris' 3 day weekend coming up. That means we need to paint the bathroom ceiling, walls and stain the vanities.

So why all the sanding and vacuuming you ask? Well, remember we scraped all that wallpaper off to leave quite gross ragged walls. Instead of spraying texture, we decided to go with flat texture. Which means Chris mudded and sanded and mudded and sanded numerous times. This weekend was all about sanding it all down. And since we decided to stain our bathroom cabinetry, that means even more sanding. All this sanding has left the bathroom very dusty, which then blows over into our bedroom. My job today was to vacuum both rooms twice. So I thought I would snap a few of the rooms.

View from the hallway. Look how delicious those floors are! Oh, and thats our new KING bed!!!

Both views from the bathroom door. I don't want to put our ugly mirrored doors back on, I'm thinking maybe a large curtain?

Dusty dusty but its going to be beautiful!

Great Weekend!

We've been doing a lot of driving around our neighborhood at night these days to see all the Christmas lights. The girls love getting dressed in their jammies and bringing their blankets to go driving. So that was our Friday- pretty low key.

Here is Elia all snuggled up! Check out the sweet new boots Aunt Shanny sent her that just happen to match PERFECTLY with the hand-me-down coat from G.

Chris worked Saturday morning. We headed out to John and Sam's kiddo's birthday party. It was sooo fun- bounce house to start, plenty of great food, and then an Elmo pinata!

They did a fabulous job with the party. The kids were dressed for the theme, which was Thing 1 and Thing 2- as their 2 kids are 13 months apart. Love this creative spread:

Both girls had a few swings at the piñata. Piñatas at this age are hilarious because no one gets a really good satisfying blow, so the kids could literally hit the thing all night long. John eventually ripped it open a little to get the goods out.

Sunday was the usual- cartoons, Church, and lunch. Weinpel came over to help with the room so he brought Koda. The girls got to see her once they woke up from naps. I couldn't believe how excited I was to see her- I even let her lick me a couple times! (this is huge guys) Anyways, while they worked on the room G and I made these awesome button cookies. Sooooo kid friendly, and no batter to mix! I'll give you the recipe really quick because it is SO easy!

You Need:

Pretzel checkers or waffles

Hershey kisses, hugs, etc.

M&Ms

Directions:

Put pretzels on baking sheet. Place an unwrapped kiss on each pretzel. Put in oven at 200 for 5 minutes. This will make the chocolate nice and soft. Here is G waiting for them:

Then pull them out, and press an m&m into each. You can mix it up however you want- different flavors and colors of kisses and m&ms. Durn Tom Thumb was out of plain Christmas m&ms so I went with the regular ones. G loved pushing the m&ms into the kisses, and sampling everything of course. This is seriously my new go-to recipe!

So I know I keep saying I am going to put pics up of the room. I might just wait until it is completely done. Baseboards are in the works, and sometime this week we are going to get our bed! Merry Christmas to Chris and I, YAY! This week I am going to be soooo busy getting ready for Christmas and then packing for our trip to StL for Col's wedding. See ya!

Last Weekend of November

My blogging has been off lately. It is the busiest time of the year after all! The last weekend of November was spent raking leaves and working on the room.

Elia loves to 'help.'

Love this picture of Chris putting lotion on the girl's faces. Cold air=chapped skin. My poor girls inherited my sensitive skin.

Room Progress

Let me remind you:

After painting the ceiling, walls, and trim; and laying about 1/4 of the floor, the room is starting to look like a million bucks. Pardon the lighting:

Thanks to Chris and of course, Uncle Tom

Weekend and Room update

Its starting to get cool here in Dallas, finally. That doesn't mean we have turned our heat on yet, oh no! We are trying to make it to December 1. Not sure if that is going to happen!Friday afternoon started out with a trip to Lumber Liquidators. Try to get a 3 or 4 year old to say Lumber Liquidators, its hilarious! They were having a sale and so we totally scored and got enough gorgeous dark chocolate brown engineered hard wood on sale to do our bedroom floor.

So Saturday was spent cleaning out the room. It is so dusty in there from the popcorn ceiling. We moved out the furniture, and then Sunday Chris sprayed texture on the ceiling. We are set to paint the ceiling and walls and then lay floors. Hoping it is all done by the end of the Thanksgiving weekend.

Saturday we said goodbye to Koda with a long walk and lots of hugs. We already miss her. Chris and I are entertaining getting a dog for the girl's birthdays. By entertaining, I mean Chris wants to really bad and I want to put it off as long as possible. But the whole dog-sitting experience was good for me. I am not scared of getting one anymore. Having a dog around is like I said, not that bad!

Here are some pics from the weekend.

Saturday. Writing in their

fave- journals.

We went on lots of walks.

And collected TONS of acorns.

Gianna painted hers black because that is the color of dirt. Duh. I tried to get crafty too!