video for you on a rainy monday afternoon

There are two things working against us today. It's rainy and gray which means everyone's a little sluggish. And our bodies didn't jump right in there and agree with the concept of daylight savings time right away, either. That just adds to the sleepiness. Punkin was falling asleep during her spelling lesson today. Not a good sign.

So, we had a mandatory rest time. I probably should've rested, too, but I worked on a video for you instead. I've actually been working on it for a little while now. Videos take forever. But, they're so fun when they're finished!

I got to bed crazy late because I'm a total i-dot. Sam made a pot of coffee for himself at 10pm because he knew he was going to have to stay up really late working from home last night. Poor guy. Busy season at work right now. He (very sweetly) made a pot of decaf for me first, though, and put it in the carafe to stay hot. At least, that's what I thought he said. BUT, when I went for my second massive cup of decaf, I was surprised to see that the carafe was empty. "Where'd all the decaf go?," I innocently asked. It was then that we both realized I had gotten things all jumbled up. The carafe had the fully leaded stuff in it. I had just had a huge cup of real deal coffee at 10pm.

Really, really not good.

I think I went to be around 2:30 this morning.

bedroom 4

Anyway, so last night I worked on this video a little, too. Downloaded the last of the Flip segments and stuff. It's a video of our February and March progress in Bedroom 4. I decided I didn't really want to do a dozen different posts detailing such exciting happenings as caulking and dry wall mudding. This is better, I think. It's still just caulking and dry wall mudding, but I added Jack to the mix. So, it's pleasant drywall and caulking now.



If anything, this video just shows how very gradual progress often has to be. Redoing the closets has been by far our slowest part of each room. It just takes time to get all the shelves right, to smooth out the drywall mud, to prep for painting. The progress is almost imperceptible when you're the one doing it... staring at the same inside of a closet Saturday after Saturday.

But, eventually, you get there. And you start to see the difference being made. This video is basically a month and a half worth of all the progress posts I could've posted, rolled instead all into one 3+ minute video.



SweetP helped me roll the first coat of paint on the walls on Saturday evening. We chose Sherwin Williams "Buoyant Blue" in flat. I always do flat on the walls. Can't stand any reflective sheen. That's just my preference. It's kind of a very pale robin's egg blue with aqua tendencies. NO gray in it. Can you believe it? The only pigments added are blue and green. It looks white in the pictures, but it darkens as it dries. Still pale, but not white.

Pure hue. They kind of had to talk me into it. ha ha. It's really pretty, though. And cheerful. The house can handle color now that there's plenty of white and it's not so dark.



It was fun to have SweetP help me. She was really excited to get to roll it. When I downloaded these photos, she looked so old to me. But, experience has taught me that in no time at all I'll look at this post - these photos - and think how small and young she looked in them.



It's all good, though. There are great new things about each stage of life with her.


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We're coming up on the anniversary of our first house project. We finalized the sale of our previous house in March of 2009 and lost no time in starting in on this one. We painted the kitchen walls three years ago this weekend. Can you believe that?

The last two anniversaries, I've done a "Year in Review" post. I think I'm planning on taking that in a slightly different direction this year. For one, we didn't get to a ton of house progress because of the pregnancy and Baby's arrival. But, also, I think I want to switch up the focus of the anniversaries a bit. I'm still brainstorming. I'm thinking it needs to include a comprehensive house tour, though. As unimpressive as that currently is. I want to document where we were three years into this.

Soccer practice is underway now. SweetP and Shug are on the same team and their coach is kind of a go-getter. Not in a bad way. She's encouraging, great at teaching, positive - this is just a little more commitment than we've had to make with coaches from previous seasons. This is only rec soccer, not league. BUT, it's good. I have a feeling they're going to improve a lot with her. And that makes it worth the 3x/week rain or shine practices for me.

Practice starts in less than 2 hours. In the rain. I'll keep the younger ones in the van with me. Probably watching a DVD. Maybe I'll nap then.

Ha ha.

Just kidding.

So, I'm wondering... does anyone who started reading this blog during that first year still read it? (Deb, when did you first find me? Seems like you've been faithfully sharing our ups and downs for quite a while.) If you've been reading for a while now, I'd love to hear from you!




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UPDATE: Soccer pratice was gloriously cancelled! Hoorah! And, in other news, I forgot to mention that I finished uploading my February Catch 36 photos in the wee hours of the morning. You can check out the project so far - here.

bits and pieces

Woot! Woot! Painting is being accomplished! Grandparents are here and giving me all kinds of time to work on the hall.

hoo ray.

I'm waiting for a video to download for you. It takes a little while for a vimeo video to be available to embed. Like 30 minutes or so. I used the time to get some photos off my card. The actual phototaking hasn't been the most time consuming part of Catch 36... it's been the downloads and editing. I'm downloading fifty to a hundred photos on a nightly basis. I don't keep them all... I like to see them on the computer screen, though, before I decide which ones to nix. Helps me check for focus and all that. It's too difficult to see whether or not eyes are in focus on the camera's display screen.

I still have a few minutes for the video, so here are some shots from tonight's photo dump... straight out of the camera without edits... I like this project :)

















And now we have the video! The hallway is really difficult to photograph because of the low light and tight space, so I busted out my flip camera. Painting a hallway is hardly thrilling, I know, but I had fun making it.



Mom and Dad are here through late Saturday afternoon. I was running out of steam by around 3pm today, so we'll see what I can get done. At the very least, I want to get the trim completely done. It's been finished but unpainted for over a year now!

See ya after the weekend!

Peace out.

the living room list

Hey, guys. I'm hot stuff this week - two whole posts! Look out, world! And I'm feeling chatty again, too. And like sharing pictures :)

Do you remember back in the fall when I said I was going to work on the living room? Do the items on that little sheet of paper? This one?



Well, I got started painting the living room right away. Nothing earth-shattering. The same white as the trim - Benjamin Moore White Dove. Then, I got to the part of the list about painting the bookcase. And, truly, it's all kind of a foggy, painful memory now, but somehow I decided to try to paint the bookcase a gray color with a bluish, greenish undertone. Try to pick up some of those colors in the rug. As I recall, those were my intentions. However, I did not want to paint the shelves. I didn't want to paint them because I knew they'd get trashed. This is a bookcase for children's books and it gets used many, many times a day. Painted shelves would be wasted in a matter of days, if not hours. So, I wanted to leave them as is. Or, as was. I stayed up late priming and painting. I got the stupid thing done and... long story short...

I hated it.

Great. Great! Like I have all the time in world to paint furniture just to ruin it. It might not look bad here, but all I could think was that it reminded me of the freshman year desk my sister had from Big Lots. It looked dated and nasty. I sank into a big, big funk. My list. My poor list :( My poor bookcase.

Do you ever just get unreasonably funky, even though you know it's ridiculous to get so grumpy over something so... well... unreasonable? That's how I felt. I knew it was silly to get discouraged about it. What good was that going to do anyone? But there was a big, ugly bookcase in my living room. The very living room I was trying to make prettier.

A funk ensued. Go ahead. Watch.

Untitled from homeforthebetter on Vimeo.

Ha ha. How immature is that? I got over it, of course. Making fun of myself helped. By the time I was done shooting that little video, I was laughing about it. I decided to try to paint it white and see how that went. It looked better at least. It was white on the outside and a kind of gray inside. You can see it a little in the background of these photos from Christmas.





It looked okay white, but it just wasn't doing it for me. I left it alone until this afternoon.



Can you believe that?



It just peeled right off.

I had read on a number of different blogs (which shall remain nameless) that you could skip the sanding step if you used Gripper primer. Well, I skipped the sanding step and I used Gripper primer. Aren't you impressed with how well it held up? But, really, it's a good thing. Because I could just peel off the paint I didn't like! :)

So, it's about 2/3 peeled now. There are little nooks and crannies that are giving me some grief. I'll pick at them here and there tomorrow. Now I know. And now the bookcase will be brown, again. But, technically, I finished the list.



I made the blankie early on. Love it.



It's chenille on one side...



And Michael Miller's Ta Dot in "Stone" on the other :)



I didn't tie it or quilt it or anything. It's just the two pieces of fabric sewn together and flipped right side out. It has a nice weight from the chenille, and it lays almost like a duvet since the fabrics are loose.

Very cozy. Very cheerful.



That wall behind the sofa is still yellow. We left it unpainted because we have other plans for it. Later :)

As I was looking for photos of the blankie, I found a couple more of painting the room...





... and that bookcase. ha.

I bought fabric to make Christmas pillow covers, but I never got them made. So, instead, I ordered some from Etsy to help with my post-Christmas doldrums. They're GREEN. Because outside it's BROWN. I'll take a few photos of them when we get some sunshine for a decent shot. Oh, and when the last one arrives. I'm still waiting on one little pillow.

So, that's all I'm doing to the living room for now. And I'm not really planning on choosing another little paper right away. I'm in a crafty, let's-make-the-house-look-like-a-kindergarten-classroom type mood these days, so I have a few others projects in mind. Tonight, for instance, I'm priming and painting this...



... to house a Lego population explosion. I promised the children I'd get their Lego cabinet done before I started what I really want to work on. This came in the mail today! Even the grayest, coldest January doesn't stand a chance against the sheer HAPPINESS of this fabric :)



Thanks so much for sticking with me, guys :) Have a great day!

a video

do you like to watch videos on blogs as much as i do? there's just something about posts with videos, especially if i've been reading the blog for a while... seeing photos, reading about lives. then, there's a video, and the blogger seems more like a real person than they did before. but, maybe i'm just weird like that.

i'm posting a video tonight. not because i think i'm this terribly interesting person or that you've been dying to see more of me, me, me. just because i think they're fun. and they do show a different side of things that photos alone cannot. and can i just say that i'm thankful for vimeo? i wouldn't feel comfortable uploading to youtube, but vimeo seems to have tighter controls in place and it's easy to use. after trying to upload in a slew of diferent ways, vimeo turned out to be the best option. so, props to vimeo.

we got started on our little list for the week. i figured since the painting was by far the biggest deal on there, that was a good place to start. plus, the day was pretty mild so i could have the windows open.

boosting morale from homeforthebetter on Vimeo.

i wanted the children to help. problem is i "don't do very well" when i have too many helpers in a small space all at once. but, i wanted them to be a part of the painting today. i want them to feel some sense of ownership when it comes to these never-ending house projects. and kind of boost morale in a way. we can all get tired of the paint cans and exposed walls.

so, the younger two (besides baby) helped with the first coat and the older two helped with the second. even with those shifts, i still broke it down more and worked with one child at a time. it went surprisingly well. i kept a wet paper towel nearby to wipe the excess paint off the baseboards and take care of any drips that dripped away. i was fairly relaxed. i think they had fun.

half of the room is done now.

yay!

more of the list tomorrow!


(what do you think? do you like the video post? should i do more of this kind of thing?)