Bedroom Progress

The last two weeks have been busy!  I've been trying to get the bedrooms worked on, and since we don't have the basement done yet (not even close), we have to attempt to get the work done while the kids are still in their room, and we are still in ours.  First thing we needed to do is move the door in the bedroom from the bathroom to the hall.

 

So, this here is the 'before' picture prior to getting any of the work done (wish I had taken more in between pics... oops)

 

 

And below is the after!  I reused the casings/baseboard, door, frame, inner wall (we moved it over... you'll see in the next pic), etc.

 

Yay!  We have an entry point into the 'third' upstairs bedroom!

 

Below is the bedroom side of the change... with a few in between pics.

So... door going into the bathroom above, and now the door goes into the hallway (below).  And yes, I cut the wall out where the door frame used to be, and my husband and I took and moved it over (I think I posted about it last week... but I'm just so excited that I'm posting pics again).

 

There's baby A! :)

We also put up the wall frame, and cut some panels to make a wall.

 

 

This will separate the bedroom into two.

 

Notice the purple wall color?  My son will be taking this room, and he wanted red and grey (in keeping with a cars theme).  I went to the basement and found out we actually HAD red AND grey paint!  Yay!  Didn't need to buy any.  However, the red paint wasn't enough to cover the wall in two coats.  :(

 

This last week I did a lot of mudding and taping, sanding, etc.  I've never taped before, so it was a bit of a learning curve.  My husband has pictures of that on his phone... I think... I don't have his phone, haha.  So, no pics. 

 

I finished sanding the mud on Saturday, only to find that it needed a little more mud on the bedroom side (I was not going to worry about it so much on the bathroom side, since that is a closet).  After mudding a little more, I was able to sand just before bed.  Sunday I cleaned up all the drywall dust, washed down the walls, and primed the first coat.  Yesturday I was thrilled to be able to prime the second coat of primer on the mudded wall (and the 'new' wall and the closet door I never painted in all the years we've had it up, haha) before the kids woke up!  I did the bathroom before making breakfast, and then later in the day I painted the rest of the bedroom, finishing the second coat of grey (and cleanup of paint supplies) around midnight!  YAY!  (I think I spent a good 3-4 hours painting yesterday).

 

So, here's the pics of it now!  The red still needs a second coat, and the closet doors in the first pic are going to be red, too (they are primer white right now). 

 

Haha... I never noticed that the bedroom door was in the way when I took this picture.  The red wall is a lot bigger than that.

 

 

The above pic of the black wall is the 'new' wall that wasn't there before.  It's done up with chalkboard paint.  :)  I want to put a ledge all along that will hold chalk and brushes (and contain any chalk dust that flutters down instead of it all getting on the carpet).  I may just buy one from Ikea to make it a little easier on myself.  We'll see.

 

I am excited to get this done!  My husband is getting more red paint today, and I'm hoping to, just maybe, get some of that magnetic primer, too (it is pricey... a 1L pail costs $30-40, and it only covers 25 square feet.  It will be enough to do a road along the wall (kind of like a wavy border), plus maybe some fun things on M's side of the room.  I want to put magnets on the bottoms of some of my son's cheap cars and put them on the magnetic road after all is done).

 

I am so excited!  Things are finally looking like they're happening!  I want to go through the kids stuff today and get it all ready to move upstairs so we can wash and paint that room before we move into it (and yes, we'll be using up plenty of the paint we have in storage rather than buying any new).  Then, after we move downstairs, we can paint what will be M's room before moving her in.  Carpets need to be cleaned in between everything, too.  Glad I have a carpet cleaner right now!

 

So far, this renovation project has cost a grand total of $90 (for the 2x4s and panels for the barrier wall, some mud and tape.  Everything else we already had and reused).  With paint purchases, I'm expecting it to total about $150 or less... unless we decide to buy another color for our bedroom.  I'm not sure if we need to buy any baseboards as I know we have a bunch in our workshop... I'll have to check when we get that room empty enough to put stuff in there.

 

Hooray for cheap renovation projects!!  Now if only we could get that basement done.  (actually, the farm's insurance company contacted us to say that we HAVE to get rid of our oil furnace and replace it with gas or electric by the end of 2014 or else the farm insurance will be affected.  My husband is working like mad to try to get the hydro company to finally answer us on if we qualify for their programs or not.  We've been working at this for well over a month now with no answer, and they didn't even know the information they needed when we asked them in the first place.  They now told him they need some papers he has to drive into the city for, and pay for as well.  He gave them what they asked for when he called them weeks ago, and they went and changed it on him.  Sigh.  I think qualifying is riddled with trials so less people try to get into the program.)

DIY Gift Baskets

My daughter was recently invited to a birthday party.  She was insistent on giving nail polish as a gift, but nail polish by itself isn't very fancy, so I decided we'd go to the local dollar store and pick up a few things to go with the nail polish that would give the gift a little extra flair.

 

I don't know how many of you are into pinterest (me... I'm addicted.  I should start a Pinterest Anonymous group with how bad I am, haha), but there are so many ideas on there for making your own gifts.  I always love gift baskets with lots of fun little things that go with a theme.  So, we made a 'nail box'.  I guess it would be better termed a manicure box, but my baby brain isn't exactly great with words lately.

 

It's actually quite easy.  Just pick a theme, and go with it.  Grab a nice container to put everything in, a number of small items to go with your basic idea, tuck some tissue paper in a coordinating color into the container and add your items to it, then wrap the whole thing in cellophane and add a ribbon.

 

One big reason to keep your tissue paper, gift bags, and cellophane... makes for some great wrapping ideas later for zero cost.

 

 

 Here is the package, all wrapped up and ready to go into the gift bag.

 

 For a little added fun, I thought it would be nice to add a 'decorate your nail box' kit.  Included are various gemstone stickers, other stickers, flowers, ribbon, an alphabet sticker book (so she can put her name on it), and glitter glue of various colors.  The little girls I know (and when I was little, too) love stickers, sparkles, glitter, and pink/purple/green!

 

So, what sorts of ideas would you have for homemade gift baskets?  Here are a few of my own ideas, the sky's the limit!

1. Spa basket (bath bombs, bubble bath, loofah, facials, bath salts, perfume, talc powder, etc)
2. manicure/pedicure basket (comfy socks, nail polish, nail files, lotion, nail brushes, etc)
3. basket of ones favorite color (green basket, for example, with various items inside that are green)
4. baking/cookie basket (spoons, measuring cups, chocolate chips, baking mix, egg timer, candy thermometer, etc)
5. tea/coffee basket (tea infuser, various types of tea/coffee, mug, chocolate spoon, peppermint, marshmallows (in case you want to do cocoa), etc)
6. Lego basket (lego magazine, minifigures, lego 'soap', lego cookies, lego head mug, lego key chains or holders, etc)
7. Hello Kitty basket (anything Hello Kitty works in here)
8. Chocolate basket (yeah... chocolates of various types, hot cocoa mix in a mug, chocolate spoons, etc)
9. baby basket (booties, wipes, cloths, diapers, mitts, hangers, onesie, socks, bottle, soothers, put it all in a cute decorative box for the parents to store their diapers)
10. Mickey/Minnie/Princess basket (you could do any favorite character here)
11. Writer's/Artist's basket (art supplies, pens, pretty stationary, sketch pad, paint, clay, you could go with any specific art theme that your recipient is into at the time... beading, clay work, painting, drawing, writing, etc)
12. Office basket (cute magnetic notepads, magnets, sticky notes, cute pens/pencils/erasers, fun paper clips, mini binders/staplers/anything (because minis are adorable), office organizer, etc)
13. tool basket (I'd put this into a tool belt and include various tools the recipient needs, and I'd add a measuring tape.  As a woodworker, I never seem to find mine when I need them and I only have two.  Well... one.  I'm not sure where my blue one wandered off to.)
14. camping basket (include travelling soaps, spices, matches/lighter, campfire starters, etc)
15. sports basket (magazines, various little items that go with the sport like golf tees/balls, or gloves, tickets to a game, snacks for watching a game, etc)
16. games night (board game of choice, snacks of various kinds, playing cards, pad of paper and pencil (for keeping score), a snack bowl to put everything in, coasters, cups with drink mixes, beverage of choice, straws, etc)
17. Animal lover basket (dog, cat, or whatever animal it is, put in some food, maybe a leash, there are lots of fun recipes for dog treats online that you could put in a jar with a dog bone cookie cutter, claw clippers, etc)

I'd love to see your own ideas for baskets in the comments!  Maybe ideas for things you'd like for yourself.  ;)

Costumes and Pizza and Sweets, Oh My!

We didn't want to 'celebrate' Halloween this year by trick or treating, decorating, or anything of that sort, but I do love costumes so very much!  My daughter had 'costume day' on the 31st at her school, and wanted so badly to be Mary Poppins... in the white dress... which she decided a week before she needed the costume.  I said there was no way I'd be able to do it if I didn't have a dress to modify... and I didn't.  So, she said she wanted to be Alice in Wonderland.  That I could do!  I was fairly certain we had a blue dress for her that she wore during the summer, and so on Saturday, I sewed the apron from some scraps of white fabric I happened to have on hand.

 

Turns out that the blue dress was FAR too small. 

 

Out came some old blue fabric that has been sitting in my fabric drawer for over 10 years, and I sewed a circle skirt on Sunday out of that.  Nice thing was that it didn't need hemming.  That fabric was perfect for the job!  And the skirt will work for so many other costumes my little girls are going to want to wear eventually (Ariel's blue dress, Belle's blue dress, Anna's blue skirt...).

 

Monday I sewed the 'shirt' portion of the dress, and found a black ribbon in my scraps which became the headpiece.  M was thrilled!  Here she is, modelling the costume with A by her side.

 

Friday morning, all ready for school, we took some 'tea party' pictures with the white rabbit she brought with her... as part of her costume of course.

I absolutely adore how it turned out!  And I was able to borrow a few petticoat type skirts for under the skirt.  I only found out later (after school) that I should have pinned the skirt to the shirt, as the fabric is so slick that it kept sliding down while she was in school (probably due to how she sits down, actually.  Been trying to teach her to sit instead of slide into her seat).  But she is so cute!

We had some grocery shopping to do, as well as hair cuts, so we grabbed some costumes for our younger two while our oldest was in school, and off we went to town.  A garnered quite the attention while running around as a little pony all over the grocery store.

Our evening consisted of watching Lady and the Tramp while noshing on homemade pizza, and other sweet treats I made myself.  No bake Snack Bars (they taste a lot like Eatmore bars... but next time I'll add more cocoa and less dates), pumpkin fudge (another one without sugar... they need to stay in the fridge/freezer), Caramel corn, and pumpkin rice krispie squares (the pumpkin in the squares makes the rice krispies a little soggy in texture, though.  The flavor was wonderful!).  The caramel corn is such a hit in our house, I may need to start making a double batch.  I think we ate half of it before the movie!  It was gone by the next day.  The other treats are still around, although the rice krispie square only has about 3 pieces left (probably gone by the end of today) and the other two are in the freezer (they needed a food processor, and while I was making the first one, the processor broke and wouldn't work anymore.  So... the texture isn't as good as it should be.  They still taste great, though, and my arms got a workout in chopping and mashing dates and nuts).

And here is our little cutie with a bag of chips she got from grandma and grandpa.  They came over earlier in their costumes.  They had quite the adventure going to their grandkids houses that weren't trick or treating and then later to the store.  Makes me want to dress up for fun again.  Not easy to do with my giant belly, haha.

We do love treats!  Especially since mommy rarely buys any of these things.  At all.

 

Hope you all had a fantastic October!  November is upon us... and with that are thoughts of CHRISTMAS!

Snow = Christmas Carols!

It's snowing today!  And yes, that means we've been singing Christmas songs around here.

I'm not sure how I feel about that, actually.  I love the snow.  I love Christmas.  I love the peaceful way it falls, drifts, and covers everything completely in a beautiful sparkly white blanket.  I love the crunch of it beneath my feet. 

What I don't love, is the intense cold that usually accompanies the snow.  The feeling that I'm not finishing things that I wanted to earlier in fall.  The stress that usually comes with Christmas... my own doing, I know... but my best laid plans are failing this year, and it is stressing me.

I hope that by next week, I can at least show progress pics of some kind on our renovations.  They just have not been happening.  It takes everything in me just to get the daily chores done around here, never mind ripping out walls, putting up drywall, paint, that sort of thing.  Not to mention that the basement is also at a standstill right now since we need to get Hydro in to look at the furnace and the walls for approval into their insulating and heating program.  So, I aim to start work on the upstairs, even though we still have all our stuff in our room and I'm not looking forward to the drywall dust.

Ah well.  I need to get things rolling, and a little start is better than none at all.  After all, a snowman starts with three small snowballs, right?  Right?

Either way, I'm excited about Christmas.  November means Christmas is right around the corner.  Many of our stores in the area are already stocking Christmas things, and I know of a few people who are just dying to set out decorations and put up a tree.  Two of those people are little, and live under my roof.  I want to get more renos done first so I have space to even put a tree (we moved everything out of our basement, so it's all being stored in other areas of the house.  No room for décor here right now).  Plus, I'm not permitted to decorate until my birthday... in about 2 weeks.

I'm already thinking about the advent period... the activities we'll do each day.  I printed up my Christmas planner for the year, and was shocked to find that the binders for 5.5x8.5 inch papers cost $7 each!  Haven't bought one yet, but I just might cave anyway.  I've got our photo cards printed, and a few gifts are done, or partially done... just not yet wrapped.  I have ideas galore for baking, and I don't know if I can make it all... but I sure do want to try.  Plus, extras in the freezer are always good!  ;)

My due date is quickly approaching.  I know, January doesn't seem all that close, but with renos, Christmas, and all that in between, it is going to come so fast that I am not sure how many meals I'll be able to get into that deep freeze!  Plus, I know of at least two other ladies due the same month, both with little girls as well.  My goodness!  This area is seeing a baby boom!

So, has anyone else started planning for Christmas?  What sorts of things are you doing?  Do you have any traditions you are looking forward to most?