A little project and another in the wings

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas I decided to tackle a "little" project I have been planning for a long time. The project was painting my banisters from white to black and re-staining the wood at the top. I decided to prime all the metal first, which I am not sure was worth it, but, oh well. I painted all the metal with a small foam roller. It would have been easier to take the banisters down and spray them outside but I did not have my husband's support on this project and therefore couldn't ask for his help. That, and I didn't want to try out our new accident insurance (you know... four kids and a ledge missing a barrier do not mix). So, it took a lot of time to primer and then paint but it was really easy.

Before I started painting, I unscrewed the wood from the top of the metal banisters. I sanded and re-stained the wood in the garage and also put several coats of poly on. The wood was easy to sand as it was almost bare wood (and very gross, I might add) from wear. I went with a walnut color that I am in LOVE with. I was the most nervous for the staining part but it actually turned out to be so easy.

I love seeing before and afters, so here is mine:

Upstairs Loft

Before

After

(The light fixture over the stairs is one of the last brass fixtures and this picture reminds me that it has got to go soon.)

Downstairs Living Room

Before

After

Entryway

Before

(You can't see it really well, but I love the framed 3-D pumpkin I made this fall for about $2.)

After

Tim has admitted that it looks better and I think deep down he likes the new look. I LOVE it!

I've got my next project lined up as soon as the kid's go back to school and I stop playing Band Hero and tether ball all afternoon with them.

I am going to convert this cabinet (that Tim rescued from a rental remodel he did a while back):

into this:

(Ballard Designs)

Wish me luck because I don't know what I am doing! Oh, and I will be crawling around in my attic this Saturday pulling wire for our master bathroom. That project has been dormant through the holidays but it's about to go into hyper speed. Can't wait to show you more before and afters when it is finally done.

Hog's December to Remember

December has been quite the month for Hog. (Tim said I can't call it the "December to Remember" unless a Lexus is involved, but I am calling it that anyway.)

The month started with his 8th birthday. He's been asking for nothing but Legos. A few weeks before his birthday, he was showing me a toy ad with several sets he wanted. He was only asking for small sets and I said, "What about this one?" pointing to a huge Power Miners set. His response was, "Oh, I like that one but it's expensive. I can just get one of these." I was shocked. I have always tried to teach my children frugality but that doesn't mean I don't want them to dream! I told Tim that night and he came home the next day with the exact set Hog wanted. His expression when he opened it on the morning of his birthday was worth every penny. And, it was completely put together before he went to bed that night.

He got to go to Red Robin with us on our date night and loved getting to order anything he wanted, which included mac and cheese, cantaloupe and an Oreo shake.

His flag football team went undefeated for the season and won the league tournament, too. He had great coaches and fun kids on his team. That's him, #12, proudly holding the trophy.

Hog became a Cub Scout and came home from his first den meeting with his brand new uniform covered in frosting from making gingerbread houses.

Grandpa T totally surprised Hog with a quick trip to Disneyland where they met up with some cousins. When they got on the plane to fly over, Grandpa gave him one of his business cards to put in his pocket and told Hog if he got lost to hand the card to someone and tell them to call his Grandpa. Somewhere in California Adventure he wandered off and promptly handed the card to the first person he saw, not even a park employee, and was quickly reunited with Grandpa. (What a good obedient boy! I loved hearing Grandpa tell us this story.) He had a great time and one of his favorite things was when Aunt Misty got him a lanyard and some pins for trading . Thanks Grandpa!!

He got baptized and we were so grateful for all of our friends and family as well as many of his friends from school who came to support him. Personally, I was overwhelmed by everyone who came at such a busy time of year when so much is going on. We are truly blessed with wonderful family and friends. Hog had a great day.

All of our kids have been saving their money for months to buy a DS. Albert got hers in October when she got some birthday money. Hog has been saving and saving and working hard on Saturdays making extra money. Three days before Christmas he finally got to go and buy his DS. What a happy kid. It was at this point in the month that Tim and I looked at each other and said, "Does it ever end for this kid?"

No, it didn't end because Christmas was right around the corner. Christmas brought a video camera, three more Lego sets, money and lots of other fun stuff.

He is ending the month with an entire post on our blog devoted to him, which he thinks is pretty cool. His month was more than just all the stuff he got and the fun things he got to do. He is a good friend, a great son and brother and a boy who wants to do what is right. We love our Hog-a-matic 8000.

How to turn Halloween Candy into a Gingerbread House

For the past three years we have made a gingerbread house on the Monday after Halloween using all the candy we collected. In case you have any Halloween candy still sitting around here are the step by step directions.

Step 1 - Start building the house out of cardboard and shoe boxes while the kids are eating dinner, your husband is working late and won't be home anytime soon, your kitchen is a mess and you have been up since 2:00 a.m.

Step 2 - While you continue to scavenge the real house for cardboard house materials, put the kids to work sorting candy into paper bowls that are leftover from making a Lego costume.

Step 3 - After 15 minutes of watching her stuff her face with every type of candy in sight, send the 2 year old upstairs to watch Toy Story.

Step 4 - Finish up the cardboard house (which you purposely made smaller than last year's so you can get done quicker) and have your kids tell you, "Mom, it looks like a church!"

Step 5 - While the sorting and unwrapping continues, make the frosting that is more like glue and realize that you only have enough powdered sugar for one batch so you tell the kids not to eat it (but they do anyway).

Step 6 - Ask your 10 year old to dig out some Christmas CDs and the only one she can find is a CD mix your husband made years ago. Make sure the CD is scratched and the only song it will play is Adam Sandler's Hanukkah Song.

Step 7 - Start decorating and try to step back and let your kids do it themselves, no matter how it is turning out.

Step 8 - Speed the process along by slapping Starbursts on the chimney.

Step 9 - Step back and admire the masterpiece your children have made for the third year in a row, rejoice in the fact that most of the Halloween candy is gone and the kids had fun getting rid of it and watch your children throw the leftovers away because they have eaten so much in the whole process that they are sick.

Step 10 - Send the kids to the bathroom to chisel the frosting off their faces and brush their teeth, sweep this up off your floor and realize that it wasn't the perfect evening you had hoped for but the tradition does live on for another year.

I won!

I won a giveaway! I can't believe it. I won the blog design giveaway from Day one of 12 Days of Tip Junkie. I was so excited when I saw Laurie's post on the blog entry below telling me I had won. I was jumping up and down and doing the happy dance. So, look for my blog makeover by Creative Blog Designs soon. Woohoo!!!!!

Tip Junkie: 12 Days of Junkie

The first blog I started reading on a regular basis was Tip Junkie. That was two years ago and I still read it almost every day. I get tons of inspiration from Tip Junkie and I think Laurie is amazing. Today is the first day of the 12 Days of Junkie, which means cool giveaways for the next 12 days. I have never won a giveaway, but you never know. Good luck!

Today makes a dozen years of a "perfect" match

When I was single, I heard Elder Jeffery R. Holland speak at a regional conference at BYU. At the beginning of his talk he shared that when he got engaged, his wife was having doubts and went to her father for advice. Her father told her, "Never have the rocks in one person's head filled the holes in anothers more perfectly." Everyone laughed and Elder Holland then told us that the story wasn't really true, but I wrote it down anyway because I thought it was funny.

Two weeks after I heard that talk I had my first date with Tim and now here we are, celebrating our 12th anniversary today and I think Elder Holland's little story describes us perfectly. Even 12 years later I still sometimes marvel at how perfect he is for me. I don't think I have a perfect life or a perfect marriage, but I am happy and most of that happiness comes from my decision to marry Tim.

So, we are celebrating today in our usual low key style by cooking steaks together (really I will be watching Tim cook steak) and probably playing Apples to Apples with our kids. I can't think of anything more perfect to mark this day.

Happy anniversary to us!!

Ripping out bathrooms is so fun!!!

Bathroom renovations in our home have been on the list since day one. Our previous home had large up to date bathrooms that we loved and we have spent a lot of time planning what we wanted to do in our current house. We were forced into action when the shower pan in our master bathroom started leaking and eventually caused the cultured marble in the shower as well as the tile floor to buckle. Ripping out our shower became a necessity so we filed a claim with our insurance. Since we have a good friend who is a lawyer by day but also a plumber on the side and who generously offered to help us, we decided to do-it-ourselves. (THANK YOU, Ben!) Because we were saving money not hiring a contractor we realized we had enough money to do everything we wanted to do in all three of our bathrooms.

We didn't waste any time and started right before Labor Day weekend. We decided to begin with our downstairs half bathroom. Thanks to my brother, Dan, who works for Wilsonart and got us a great deal on a cabinet, sink and solid surface counter top, we were able to yank out the hideous pedestal sink in June. So, step one was already done. You will notice that I said this is a half bath. Our plan was to make this a full bath, since there was space in the bathroom for a bathtub and we were pretty sure the plumbing was already buried under the tile.

This is what the space where the bathtub was going looked like before. We did have some metal shelves here with a shower curtain covering it, but Tim was so excited he took the shelving unit out and the shower curtain down before I could snap a picture.

This is me sweeping out the dust after the shelving came out. What a dumb thing this was to do. These little dust bunnies were the least of my worries once Tim got to work, as you will see further down.

Here is my fearless husband, starting to rip out the tile. I am so glad that he is the risk taker around here. Sometimes I don't see the vision but he does and he has never been afraid to tackle something big.

After the tile got ripped out, Tim started jack hammering for the drain that was already there under the tile, only it wasn't there. So, he removed the toilet and jack hammered some more so we could hook up with that plumbing and put in a drain. Needless to say my entire house was covered with a fine layer of dust from top to bottom. I am still working on getting the dust off the blinds and ceiling fans.

Where there was once an empty space, a bathtub now stands. Thanks to a full day of work put in by Tim and Ben.

Here is the bathtub after the cultured marble was installed.

The job of painting was my baby. I bought about 12 sample paint colors from Home Depot. I was going for a bluish green look with cream bead board on the bottom and white molding. After all my sampling, I picked a color and got to work painting.

Here are some of the colors I tried out. I went with the blue color in the middle. I painted the whole room and then stepped back and realized that it was totally wrong and actually quite repulsive. The color was so bright that it glowed even with the light off. But, guess what, I didn't get stressed out and I didn't worry about it. I got my color wheel out and went to work coming up with plan B. I picked three more colors, bought three more samples of paint and called my mother-in-law to come over and help me decide. She showed up at 7:00 a.m. on Labor Day and confirmed the color I thought was going to work. I headed to Home Depot got more paint and painted AGAIN. I laughed the whole time I was covering up that blue paint. I realized it is okay to make a mistake and that fixing the mistake just helps me learn for next time. And, at least this time my mistake did not involve repainting my entire house, which you can read all about here. (Read this post by the Nester. It has totally helped me in my quest to not just decorate but have a home I love.)

We all know that I am not a photographer and I had the hardest time getting good "after" pictures. But, here is the paint with the bead board and molding. I LOVE how it turned out. I convinced Tim to go four feet with the bead board, he only wanted to go three, but we both like the higher height. (This bathroom on Shabby Nest was my inspiration.)

Finding the right mirror was not as easy as it might seem. I had an old mirror Tim ripped out of a rental remodel he did for his dad last year that I have been saving to use in this bathroom. I thought I could save some money by reframing it. Unfortunately, when I cleared away the dust I realized the mirror had two huge scratches and it was unusable. I bought and returned six mirrors and none of them worked. While I was at Disneyland, Tim found this mirror at Home Depot. It wasn't as budget friendly as my original plan but I really like how this mirror looks in the bathroom. It is large and easy for the kids to see when they are brushing their teeth.

I painted this vanity and the bead board the same color as my kitchen cabinets. It's hard to tell from this picture but it is a cream color. We added bead board to the cupboard door and I am in love with the drawer pulls I picked out. I happened upon the toilet paper holder on clearance for $3.58 at Target. I also got towel holders at a different Target also on clearance. Oh how I love finding things I need on clearance.

I searched high and low for a new shower curtain, but in the end, I realized the curtain I had used previously to cover up the metal shelving unit worked perfectly so I just kept it.

We still have a few things left to do, like can lights over the shower but we are loving this bathroom. Our master bathroom was completely gutted the first week of October and we are making slow but steady progress to get that done. The final phase of the bathroom redos will be painting the walls and cabinets and installing new tile in our kids' upstairs bathroom. It's a slow process but I am actually kind of enjoying it. I will post more about the master bathroom soon. It's coming together and I am really excited for the changes we are making in this bathroom.

We had a great Halloween!

Halloween lasted a whole week around here with a family party, school party, ward party and then trick or treating with cousins. There is candy everywhere right now, but it will all be gone tomorrow. I can't wait. I'll post about that in the coming week. Hope you enjoyed some dress up fun, too!