House Tour 2012: The Entryway

Good morning! I'm squeezing this in before noon... I hope. So, technically it's still morning. And maybe some of you aren't Eastern Standard Time. So it's even morningier where you are!

I kind of need to hurry this post along. I have a quick Fire Safety video in for Dude and Punkin (Ohio requires Fire Safety in the curriculum). SweetP and Shug are wrapping up their Government assignment on their own. Baby is still napping. I have a leeeetle bit of time.

So, the entryway! Hardly anything is different from previous posts. It looks pretty much the same as it has for the last two years.



We painted those doors black a couple of years ago. I have to say, I don't like the black here. It makes the entryway too dark and draws attention to less-than-stellar doors. Why didn't I realize that would be the case before I painted them? Someday, it's all going back to white - "White Dove" like the walls. That way the doors can blend into the wall and the whole area will be lighter.



The doors need repainted, anyway. Nothing stays new forever!



I was testing an idea when I painted this trim and closet door. I thought I'd just see how it looked, live with for a bit, and then change it if I didn't like it. Well, I suppose it's fine, but it's not the direction we ultimately chose for the trim and doors. And I obviously didn't get around to "just changing it back". TV shows and blogs tend to say repainting things is easy. I'm learning I have to be realistic about my time. It is not easy for me to repaint things when I still have so much that is getting painted for the first time. I want to repaint these doors, but I'm annoyed at myself. It feels like I'm wasting time.



Those wires are where the doorbell goes. It's been like that for forever. The doorbell cover that had been on it had a fabric panel that reeked of smoke. We took it off... planning to replace it quickly. But, we couldn't find a cover we liked. So, we planned on making one. Like I said, that was a while ago :)



I still like the black on the pantry door. Kind of funny that the pantry door is one of the first things you see when coming into the house. The black makes it interesting.

And just left of the pantry...



Then 90 degress to the left...



These are the steps down to the family room. We replaced the family room carpet nearly three years ago, now. We purposely chose to not carpet the stairs then, because we planned on painting them. I knew we wouldn't get to it right away. It's getting to be about time, though!

Incidentally, that blue tape? That's holding some wood on the top of the step to keep it from breaking off and impaling some child's foot. Safety first!



I almost put that bin away. But, it's been there for months. Waiting for a home. Those are all preschool/kindergarten homeschooling things. I'd like to put a shelf in the kitchen for them. I kept thinking we'd do it soon (theme?). Looks like I need to figure something out for in the meantime.

Oh, wait! There IS something different. This needs to be documented!



See that patch of drywall compound on the wall? Poor Sam. He got a little over-zealous on some demolition on the other side of that wall last summer. Put a big hole through it!



This is tidy. Really. It's usually a big pile of shoes.

That's it! I'm really hoping to get pictures of the family room this afternoon and post them this evening. It's a little bit of a stretch, but tonight is my Mama Night, so it's doable. Check back!

Have an awesome day!

iPhone dump

Hey!

So, how was your weekend? We had great one. I feel like we hit a good balance of getting stuff done around the house and having solid family time. Plus, we were all able to go to church together Sunday morning... which hasn't happened in weeks due to a pretty nasty respiratory virus that our friends kindly shared with us.

Thank you, again, for the encouragement after my last post. Four of you are officially pardoned from goober status. The rest of you? Well...

I promised a happier post today. And, although I do have a few house related thoughts here at the end, I thought - what's happier than a random photo dump?

Hold on to your seats!



Nice. My kids take pictures all the time now. Bonus because, obviously, that means they're getting to capture their childhood their way. Bummer because they're not going to cull the shots like I do... and this kind of raw glamour is what will make it into their photobooks as a result.



This one comes with a funny story. I'm not the most technologically "with it" gal around... not until Sam bought me this iPhone did I stop hyperventilating if someone texted me. I hate texting. Or did, anyway. But it's easy with the iPhone. Sam's the only person I ever text, though. We just keep the same text going for days and days, just replying back and forth quite a few times each day. Anyway... I was so excited when he showed me that I could text photos, too. I thought, "Awesome! How fun! I can include him in our days so easily with this!" Look, honey... lunch. Look, honey... math. Look, honey... Baby's diaper. So, one morning I had slept late-ish and he was already gone for work when I woke up. I think we had been up late the night before because I did not want to get up. And the children didn't sleep in like I had been hoping. I took this photo and hit reply... there was some message I hadn't gotten from the day before about wanting to talk about granny. Granny? Since when did he call Grandma granny? Whatever. I hit reply to send him my picture and wrote, "It's too early!"

Then I sent this one...



"Make them go back to sleeeeeeeeeep!"

He replied back right away.

"I'm sorry. I think I had the wrong number last night."

(pause in my brain)

What? What?

What?!

And I looked at the number at the top of the screen. It was not Sam's number. It was a stranger's number. I sent those pictures to a stranger!

"Eeeeek! I'm sorry! Umm... have a good day!"

I'm such a dork. Seriously. Who does that?



And how cute is this?



These were so good... and easy! Adapted from Pinterest. It's just marshmellow creme between two graham crackers with melted milk chocolate chips spread on top. The milk chocolate hardens back up after it cools. Game night at our church. They were gone lickety split!



Did I already show you this? Sam and I celebrated our 12th anniversary earlier this month. Love that guy.



Weird homeschoolers.



I'm at a tricky place right now with bathing the babe. She's way too big for the sinks, and since we put the extra deep bathtub in, trying to lean over that thing to give her a bath is murder on my back. I just won't risk hurting myself. I've tried several different options with varying success. This was fun, but not something I'll likely do again.



I usually just pop her in the bath with me. Is that weird?



There's kind of a theme emerging here. I'm not really great about waking up in the morning. They kind of have to bombard me to get me moving.



Here's my sister, Heather, and her Wumple. Heather is great with child. She always seems to make blog appearances when she's great with child. Maybe that's because this is her 3rd baby in less than 3 and a half years.



Every time they have a baby she tells me they're going to space the next one out. She hasn't quite figured out how to actually make that happen, yet, though. So stinkin' excited to meet her little guy!!!!!



Anniversary date with Sam. But, I'm not with Sam in the picture... I'm in the bathroom. Dark, dark purple bathroom. Very red lipstick. I look straight off Twilight.



She sings all the time.



Oh, look. They're waking me up, again!



Lots of Baby shots. Can't help it.



She's definitely loved.



Maybe a little too loved sometimes.



I haven't finished the redonk Lego cabinet,yet. But, I am close. There've been some... set backs.

You know, iPhone posts can get out of hand really, really quickly. Like, NOW kind of quickly. They upload so fast! It's very gratifying. And I haven't even shown you the house thing I mentioned.

Nothing big. Just a kind of realization.

I had the children paint on canvas the other week, and I wanted to hang their little masterpieces up somewhere around the house. They already have quite the gallery going on in the kitchen... you know, with the clipboards. And I had this pretty green paint and this letter M I thought I wanted to do something with...



But that looked even more redonk than my Lego cabinet thingy. The M looked pretty much EXACTLY like Michigan State. Boo. So, I took it down... the same day I put it up.



Their paintings are very sweet, but they just didn't look good there.



I was sitting at the kitchen table one day last week, looking at that wall and just thinking it wasn't working... at all. Too cutsie. Too sweet. Too KIDS KIDS KIDS, all the time, KIDS!!!!!!

ha ha.

Really, though. It was too much of all the same thing. Especially from that point of view. It needed something different. Something opposite.

The black door helped, but... so, I went downstairs and dug through a pile of dusty wall stuff and found a mirror that I still liked from our old house.



It's a kind of formal, fancypants mirror. Feminine to balance out the black door. Grownup to balance out the kids, kids, kids.

You know, then I thought about gardening. In garden design there's this really simple rule of a "pointy next to a roundy next to a spready"... or something like that. Basically, just a grouping of different, but complimentary shapes to achieve a unified and interesting whole. Here, on this wall, I had a happy next to a chic (I think) next to a fancy. The kid's art and funny print (happy) next to the chic (black door) next to the mirror (fancy).



And it worked.

Then I started thinking all over again about those design style word games of yore. But, it's late and this is quite possibly the longest post I've ever put you through. My crew is going to come bounce on my bed all too soon, so I'd better call it a night.

Have a great Monday :)

Ugly Craiglist Bench Makeover (AFTER!)

Heads up: Those reading on Google reader have already seen this post because it accidentally published the other night when I meant to publish the "before" post. So, if you've already seen this, sorry. If not, keep reading!



The ugly craiglist bench got a coat of primer and some spray paint before the summer ended last year, but I have to tell you I wasn't very motivated to work on it after that. The seat that had been on it wasn't going to work after reupholstering, so Sam needed to cut a new bench top for it. It sat in our entryway, painted but without a seat at all, for the entire winter.

I had bought some fabric that I liked in the remnant section of JoAnn's for less than $5. That was a bonus - almost made up for the 10 bones I blew on the ugly bench. I just needed to buy some foam for a cushion and Sam needed to cut the plywood board for the seat.

Finally, in February, we got down to business...



Sam had to concoct a way to keep the bench top from slipping right off whenever anyone sat down. Remember, it had been a piano bench with a lift up seat.



We decided on this configuration since it would allow me to easily cover the plywood with fabric and wouldn't be too difficult for Sam to get a snug fit.



I cut the thickest foam out to size (electric knives are handy for cutting foam, by the way). I then cut a slightly-smaller-all-the-way-around piece from thinner foam and put it on top to give the seat a mounded shape.



Next, I laid the plywood and both pieces of foam over some cotton batting and pulled the batting taut over the foam, folding corners in a mitre, stapling with a staple gun along the underside edges as I went around the perimeter.

I did basically the same thing with the fabric, being careful to arrange the print in a way that would look good after I was done and trying to get decent mitres on the corners. Eh - pretty good. I flipped it over, fit it on the bench, and there you go!



Not bad.

Certainly better than it was.

I still think I spent entirely too much for this project. I had dreams of a $3 bench makeover that would send the blogosphere into a tizzy of thrifty style. Well, maybe not $3, but lower than the $35 that it actually added up to. Still, I like the way it turned out. I like the color and the fabric with the rug. The cushion is nice and high like I wanted. Not perfect, but, overall a good outcome.





I hope that sweet old lady put my ten bucks to good use ;)

My Ugly Craigslist Bench

Last summer, I was on the lookout for a small-scale bench to go in our entryway. I wanted something cheap, though - something to paint and spruce up. After watching Craigslist for a little while, I eventually came across a listing that looked like it might work. It was a piano bench, but the dimensions were good and I had wanted to reupholster it in my choice of fabric anyway, so the gold velour didn't matter much to me. And it was only $10.

Gold velour.

You'd think that might have tipped me off.

But, no. So, I claimed it and drove about 20 minutes down the road to pick it up one afternoon. Pulled up to the house, knocked on the little old lady's door, smiled, said "hi", and she showed me the bench.

It was so stinkin' ugly.



I mean... really.

From the craigslist photos, the "wood" atleast appeared to be, well, wood. As I stood there with that little old lady, looking at this eyesore $10 bench, it was clear that the bench was not at all made of wood, but instead some kind of low-quality, plastic-y veneer deal. But how do you tell an old lady that her golden velour piano bench is too ugly to be worth your $10? So, I forked over the cash, smiled again, and shook my head the whole way home.

Sam laughed at it.

Thanks, Sam.



Then he laughed at the little gold detailing bands on the legs. Can you see 'em?



Oy.

What are ya gonna do, ya know? Little old lady selling an u-g-l-y bench for ten bucks on craigslist. You live and learn. And you break out the primer and give it a shot. What's to lose?



I mean, besides your ten dollars?

New Rug for the Entryway

Hi, all :) Haven't been posting much since there aren't really too many house projects getting accomplished these days. The fridge deal ate up our home improvement budget! Little Dude does have something to share with you from a few weeks back, though. (Your eyes do not deceive you - there is no seat on that bench, but I have a pretty fabric picked out!).



Just before Christmas, Sam and I bought a new rug for the front entryway. We knew we definitely wanted something there before any snow fell, and it turned out that we picked it up just before the first real snow fall of the winter :)



It's a Dash & Albert indoor/outdoor rug... this one. Perfect for high traffic areas. We've had it for about 6 weeks now, and it's been just the ticket for all the muddy little feet that walk through that door.



I'm missing hearing from you guys, by the way. If you're lurking, come on out and say hi! :)