Showing posts with label Home Improvement. Show all posts

MIA - Again.

My bad. Been busy - doing a little bit (or rather a lot of bit) of everything. Going in many different directions at one time and starting to wish this wasn't the case. Doing too many things, means I'm not a master of any! Got to change that!

Getting ready to take a short trip to Chicago for a work conference. Wasn't too excited to go. I've been to Chicago a bunch of times and I'd rather stay home and work some unfinished design projects, like our master bedroom. I'm stuck because I'm trying to find a unique duvet cover so I can finalize my color pallet, but that is easier said then done. I really, really like the bedding shown in the movie P.S. I Love You. (Ignore Hillary Swank in her bra - really just look at the bedding!). Unfortunately I have discovered this bedding was a prior years collection of John Robshaw Textiles and is no longer available. Bad news. As a side note, check out what's on the wall behind her bed. Isn't that cool?! Reminds me of some of Jennifer Bertrand's art on the walls used in some of her designs. I'm loving swirls, in home design and scrapbooking. I'm pretty sure something like this will show up in our master bedroom somewhere. I might have to take out some fabric paint and make my own duvet with these swirls. Hmmmm, that could be interesting!

I also want to finish our kitchen cabinets. Remember they've been painted but I need to finish the top with a build up of crown moulding and then over/under cabinet lighting. Once this is done I can move onto tiling the backsplash. I've resolved I'm not going to be getting a double oven anytime soon so I need to just finish it with the current design. The problem, I can't find the one piece of moulding I need. Here is a picture:

This is a piece I picked up about four years ago at Lowes and of course they no longer carry it. It was just an average in-stock piece! They have apparently changed their distributors (last year) and no one can tell me who carried this piece. I want to use this on the bottom of our cabinets and at the top, upside down. I would then build up the top to add crown moulding (either regular or cove moulding) at the very tip top. I have already spent significant time trying to track down this piece and no such luck, visiting local woodworking companies, other home improvement stores, numerous websites. My next step is to call Lowes headquarters to see if they can provide me any direction what so ever but I'm not holding out much luck. Any suggestions?

I'd also like to design and build a couple pieces for our outdoor living area. I want an island for cooking and a buffet table to put food and utensils on. I have ideas in my head, just need to go gather some of the pieces from a local architectural salvage store and start building.

So, with all of these design things swirling around in my head, I see the time we are going out of town as a great opportunity for uninterrupted design work at home. But, I have to be a good spouse and go on this trip, reluctantly. But then this morning I realized that our hotel is located not too far from the Chicago Merchandise Mart. Be still my foolish heart, a design meca right around the corner. I've always wanted to go there and in looking at our iteniary I should have some significant time to peruse it. And, I should be able to get into the designer only areas. This trip might not be so bad afterall!

Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy |

Warning Long Post.

I've been once again a blogger slacker. What have I been doing? Nothing ground breaking or anything, just living life and making an effort to slow down. I've thought about blogging many times but it didn't make it past that because then I realized I really needed to download my photos and that takes time so in the spirit of simplifying I just waited. For some reason this morning seemed like a good time to tackle this. So here goes...

The last few days I stepped back into my scrapbook/craft/whatever room to clean it up and to finish organizing our families photos and memorabilia. Since before Christmas this room had become a catch all and it was time I saw my floor again (all my doing by the way). I'm happy to say I was able to accomplish both - what a great feeling! Here are some photos of the finished project:

The plan was to group all the photos and memorabilia into bundles that can be pulled out and scrapbooked without much effort. I was finding I was getting stuck because I would find a photo and knew I had memorabilia somewhere to go along with it but it would take me too long to find it. Once I did, hours would have gone by and it was time to quit. That's just crazy in a bad way! I've since taken notes from Stacy Julian from Big Picture Scrapbooking (theme albums) and some tips from Cathy Zielski (school year albums) and Two Peas (bundling photos) on setting up my scrapbook room and scrapbooks. I no longer am trying to scrap in order. This has been so freeing for me! If you haven't checked them out I highly recommend you do if you are stuck in your mounds of photos with no idea of what to do. Stacy Julian has a new book coming out, which I can't wait!, which should give more tips on organizing.

So what motivated me to finish this? My family room bookshelves. We recently got our family room re-painted and for the first time I concentrated on how to display objects on the bookshelves. As I was working on this I realized that I had no books to put on there which was a problem because bookshelves with only tchotchke's and whatnots doesn't work - at least not for this space and the look I was wanting to accomplish. Since this is already a busy wall, I needed to soften the look and create something pleasing to the eye (best as possible), yet have it be functional too.

Now, I could go out and buy faux books to make the shelves work (all with matching spines for unity) but I don't like doing that. I really wanted to use what we already have. I'm working hard on eliminating stuff I don't need from our lives, keeping only the things we want or need, things with meaning and purpose. That's when I decided to bring down all our scrapbooks and see what that was like. I'm in the process of converting most of them to one color and that would look nice on the shelves. Here's a picture of the semi-finished result:

I'm pretty pleased with it. I've got artwork from our boys, pictures that mean something to us, scrapbooks that will eventually have more meaningful pictures in them and they are ready to be viewed and shared instead of stashed upstairs for no one to see. And for the most part the tchotchke's all have meaning to us (sand and shells from special vacations, a shadow box my mom made of my grandparents...) Makes me happy each and everytime I walk by. Still have some tweaking to do, need to finish the bottom of the shelves. I'm going to get some baskets to fill the bottom two rows and this is where I will store our CD's, DVD's, and magazines...

I now need to focus on creating more scrapbook pages to put into those albums! Unfortunately, most of the albums have A LOT of blank pages in each one. I've finally got myself set-up to really begin to accomplish getting pages done. The scrapbooks are set-up in themes (thanks Stacy!) and I've got page protectors already in place for each page. When I have time I can now go into my scrapbook room, pick out a bundle I want to do, complete the page and then go downstairs and immediately slip it under the page protector in the album it needs to go into. I'm no longer tacking them down into the album page so it gives me the freedome to change the order around or move them to different albums if I need to later. I've also decided that I might just complete a few 8 1/2 x 11 pages instead of my standard 12x12 pages. And, I'm breaking my old rule where I'm now planning on putting these smaller pages IN my 12x12 albums. Who cares! And further, I have decided to let go of my need to create each boy there own album along with our own albums. They will eventually get their pages but when I don't know yet, and that's ok. I know for sure they will get their pages after I die. If I'm nice I might give them to them before then, when they are married or whatever. Heck, I might decide to make color copies of the pages to give to them and I'll keep the orginals! I'm not sure how I will handle that but I've taken that pressure off of me! So go me!

Before I go, I wanted to share a couple funny pictures of our animals from the past couple days:

This was Zoe sleeping on our coffee table. This is the ONLY table she is allowed on (long story that I will spare you). Look how comfy she looks - so sweet.

Here's Oscar boy. I rounded the corner and spyed him sitting here so happy and content. (He's always happy and content!). Couldn't help but grab my camera when I realized he actually had his legs crossed. LOL - too funny!

Read More 1 Comment | Posted by Cathy |

Valentines Gift.

JB and I decided to give each other a Valentines Day gift of getting the family room/kitchen painted. I'm kind of mourning the purple, I loved it so, but the room was too dark and purple didn't really go with my drapes anyway. After much debate (with neighbors and all) we finally agreed on a gold. The good news, it' really lightens up the space! The bad news, now the ugly floor sticks out like a sore thumb, JB even agrees! I told him I was perfectly content with the way things were, he was the one that pushed this. Now, not only does the floor not look right but the kitchen doesn't look finished. This means some more "tweaking". Yeah for me. I have been given official authorization to begin researching floors and the other tweaking I'm wanting to do. Do you think we can declaw Oscar boy because wide planked, distressed, reclaimed hard wood floors would look awesome in there!

Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy |

While the cat is away...

... the mouse will continue status quo.

DH is out of town and I had grand plans of getting a lot accomplished while he is gone, but that hasn't been the case. I've spent two days building a coffee table base for our clawfoot antique table. I had planned for this to take me a couple of hours, not a couple of days! I carefully removed the original base (storing that in the basement) and built a new lower base. I attempted this yesterday but used too short of nails and it didn't hold together. Zoe (our cat) jumped up on the table and the whole thing fell apart.

Take 2... today I got the proper nails, and that along with some gorilla glue it appears we are good to go. Still need to do some final work (setting a few nail heads and staining) but it's useable now. As a matter of fact, I'm using it now for as a foot stool. I'm going to wait until next weekend to finish it. I want to make sure it stays together. Oh good, Zoe just jumped on it and it's still together. That's a good sign!

Was supposed to go to the doctor today for yearly screening and get some work work done but neither of those occurred afterall (sorry Tammy!). Rescheduled both. Tomorrow Chad and I are taking time out to go the Movies. Not sure what we are going to see but we will have fun. Love snuggling in the movie theatre with those I love and a bucket of popcorn. Alex is not joining us, he is going paintballing tomorrow with his friends. Afterwards some picking up of the house (namely cleaning up my mess from my latest projects) and then picking up DH and his father from the airport tomorrow evening. The time has flown by and can't say I got any rest but that's ok. I'm happy with our table!

Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy |

Before and After.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

What a HUGE differance! I have been working day after day on this and today I finally finished it, this stage at least. I LOVE it. The old thorn in my side has been removed. The critical design mistake has been painted over. When we picked out everything for this house I was not in my "design" mode but rather my "how are we going to start a new business and build a house" mode. I have learned many lessons since picking out the wrong cabinets to begin with, and the latest was how to paint over them! I'm not done but will take a break for awhile and enjoy the holidays now. Still on the to do list:

Order and install crown moulding to the top of the cabinets and a base trim moulding under the cabinets.
Install base moulding around the base of the island.
Have installed lighting both over and under the cabinets.
Address overall kitchen lighting, possibly designing and building a new light over the island.
Window treatments.
Backsplash tile (already picked out).
New faucet.

Later on I'd like to:

Consider new decorative hood over the range and built-in oven, microwave and warming drawer where the kitchen desk is now. (I already have the nook design in my head!).
New sink?
New countertops? The ones I have now don't necessarily bother me but I need to think about this before tiling. Love soapstone and granite. Yum!

Thought today I might be on the road the getting new floors when dh and dog spilled LOTS of red wine on the carpet. Came out though, darn the luck.

I will post more detailed photos of the paint project later. Just wanted to share what I've been up to.

Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy |

Here are the photos.

Last post I said I would fu with photos - here they are. This has been put together based on need, not a lot of thought has gone into it. All the stuff on the walls and in the shelves were just in the room on the floor - getting in my way. I finally had to break down and hang things up so I could walk in the room and get shelves to try to be better organized.

This is the wall of items that have special meaning to me for one reason or another. Artwork created by my mom, myself, my boys. Scissors for scrapbooking, my vintage cat clock from when I was a little girl, a pretty frame that adds interest. I'm just going to keep adding to this wall. It makes me smile when I walk in and see it.

Here is my cork board wall, created out of FLOR carpet squares that I got at Target. Started out I was going to just do a section of six squares over the table and frame it out with molding. But then, I decided to go bold and do the entire wall. Turned out the solid colors that Target had matched really well with the drape fabric I had previously picked out. Right now I just pinned up items that have been floating around the room.

Here's a close-up of the wall. I'm really liking it. I had a hard time determining which wall to do this on. I think I made the right decision. Looks good when walking up the stairs and glancing into the room. Not sure how I'm going to like it once I have added all my stuff.

Here's the fabric I want to get:

Turning out to be a geometric room isn't it?

Have to say I have a whole new appreciation for photographers who photograph rooms. It's not easy to do. My photos never turn out to look like what I see when I look at the room.

Read More 1 Comment | Posted by Cathy |

$161.96 later.

In the kitchen, family talking and all of a sudden Oscar's bum started gushing blood. Yes, I did say his bum. What the...? It was insane! Held a warm compress on it, called the emergency vet last night and his regular vet this morning and $161.96 later we find out he had an anal gland absess. How beautiful. He is now very tender, relieving himself a lot (in oh so many inappropriate places like the vet lobby), on pain medicine and antibotics. And, we have to go back in two weeks to make sure his bum has healed properly. We heard bulldogs are costly and lots of vet visits. I believe. As I handed the vet my debit card I said, "Well, there goes my window treatments in my scrapbook room". I think I'll just hang a picture of Oscar's bum instead. Now wouldn't that be a design statement.

Speaking of window treatments (are we tired of this subject yet?) below is a picture of treatment #1 made and hung already. Only 3 to go. Good news, I now understand how the panels get put together and I have a good portion of the pieces already made. It's now just a matter of carving out a little more time to finish. Once they are all hung up I'll work on how to get them to hang really nice. Really liking it a lot.

NOTE: It's unfortunate that I can't get a true picture of how these look in the room. Yes, they are green and orangish-red strips next to a purple wall. It doesn't sound pretty at all, BUT, in the room with the lighting the colors do not look as vibrant as they do in this photo. They all compliment each other. If I use a flash, you get what is shown here. If I don't use a flash, the photo is too dark. So I guess this means I won't be submitting the final photo to any design magazines. Bummer. (Sorry, couldn't resist).

Read More 2 comments | Posted by Cathy |

Good weekend.

So far real good! Friday night worked on our family room drapes. Not done yet but making significant progress. As a matter of fact I should be finishing one of the panels now but decided to get in a quick post. Will be sharing photos once at least one is made and hung. Looking good. Feels great to have real panels, with interfacing and lining. No one but myself will probably notice that but when you feel them you know they are nice. Makes me feel like a grown-up.

Yesterday, Saturday, ran out as a family (minus one) and got a birthday gift for a belated birthday for an out of town family member. We got the game shinney. It's something my boys love to play and we hope will be passing on the newly made tradition. Fun! Also, decided on some landscaping ideas for the backyard, cleaned up the garage and then went to our neighbors sons ice hockey game with dinner following. So much fun! I forgot though how cold ice hockey is! I also forgot that when the boys fall, since they are on ice they slide. LOL! Kind of funny! It was also shocking at the age of 13 how much they check. It was awesome and a great time as usual with our neighbors. Oh, and I did I mention I got to take a nap too? This is becoming a new thing for me on the weekends. Something I normally NEVER do. I'm liking it! Oh, also ran by dh's grandparents house to chat. Just love seeing them. They are so neat!

Today we went to church again. Another great service and further confirmation that I want to continue at this church. Went to Rombach's Pumpkin Patch for our yearly pumpkin search. We all wanted to go but I can tell the boys (as well as us) are getting older. This was the first year we didn't mess around. Got in, found our pumpkins and left. Still managed to get some pictures and even some video of our pumpkin search. We almost took Oscar but since the Pumpkin Patch is close to church we decided to just go without him. Poor Oscar. We then went out to lunch, came home and took another nap. Now up and getting ready to work somemore on the drapes before heading out to a soccer game. Unfortunately tonight I do have to do some work, but not too much.

To make things even better I have come up with a design plan for "my room", my scrapbook, craft room. I already have a closet system in place but it's still not functional. I need more storage and a place for inspiration. I really want a large bulletin board to post some items I'm working on, to post some magazine cutouts for inspiration, to jazz up the space. And, boy do I have a GREAT idea. Not going to share just yet, you will have to wait. I'm so excited about it.

Weather has been great. Family has been fun and loving (love). Inspiration flowing. Great weekend. Hope yours has been just as enjoyable.

Read More 1 Comment | Posted by Cathy |

Monday tips and updates.

I can't believe I just found this out. Has it been there all along and I have passed right over it? Ignored it? Say it isn't so! As much as I'm on the computer I can't believe I haven't known about this little print option. Let's say you are on a website which has a ton of content but you are especially interested in one paragraph. You can highlight only the area you are interested in, press the print key so the print box pops up and before you hit PRINT, you select "selection" and then hit print. It will then only print the highlighted area or rather the selected area. Do you know how many trees I have hurt throughout the years? Maybe this is a new option?!

Onions.
Found this video (courtesy of Rachel Ray) on one way to chop an onion. I've tried it once but was a bit uncomfortable. However, I think it has great possibilities! I'm unable to copy the video but here's the link titled How to cut an onion - check it out.

Weekend Updates:
Curtains - I did work on the curtains. I cut some more fabric - yeah! Should be able to start sewing soon.

Blackberry and Outlook - I was able to finish setting up Outlook as my personal contact management system and synch it to my Blackberry. This is the first time since I've had my blackberry that it's set-up properly. I'm still tweaking it but it's close enough to make me very happy. I also set-up the bluetooth capabilities on my computer so I don't need wires. Lovely that is. I think it should be law that everything become wireless. Seriously.

Pumpkins - Copied this idea from Patti last year and liked it so much that I decided to make permanent ones for each year. Picked up the faux pumpkins at Garden Ridge several months back and painted them white. Of course after I had the first coat of paint on them I ran up to Michaels to get more paint and saw they had off-white pumpkins I could have purchased instead. Oh well, decided to go forward with what I had started. Pretty happy with the results. Thanks again Patti for the great idea!

Read More 2 comments | Posted by Cathy |

Home sweet home.

Edit - I'm adding some photos of the items listed below today (10/07/2007).

My house is starting to come together finally and it's beginning to feel like Home Sweet Home. However, I've been having a problem of staying focused on the decorating task at hand. Here are some to do's and want to do's that keep clogging my mind lately:

Family Room Curtains
Tomorrow I'm hoping (fingers crossed) to begin sewing my family room curtains. I've only had them hanging there for a year as strips of material. Will post pictures once they are done.

Kitchen Curtains
It's time I finally get curtains in my kitchen. I need to soften up the space!

TV stand
I want a unique TV stand for our new TV (that we don't have and aren't planning on getting anytime soon). We have a TV in there now so it wouldn't be like this would be wasted space. Right now I'm using my coffee table and I'm really ready to have that back. Only problem, I don't know exactly what I want or where I want to get it. I'm thinking something long and low. Thinking antique or really used piece. Maybe three like pieces (new) pushed together. I want to use it for storage and be able to put our equipment in there. Will need one portion to have glass panels so the remote will work. Any suggestions? I'm open to using something meant for another purpose.

Family Room Bookshelves
Not only do I need to finish putting these up but I need to display my things properly. I need to post a picture because these shelves are pretty cool. I found inexpensive shelves and replaced the back with beadboard that I stained and painted to match. I can't wait to get these done!

Decorative Sofa Pillows
I made some really cool pillows with fringe but I cut the fabric a little too short and I'm having a hard time sewing them closed. Not sure how I'm going to do it but I need to get it done! They look really good because dispite the fact that only 3 sides of each pillow is actually sewn I have them on the couch anyway. But, we all are getting tired of sitting on pins - literally. Oops.

Firepit
Our outside living space needs a firepit. I have it all picked out I just need to order it but I keep spending the money I set aside for it. I think today I spent it at Costco when I just ran in there for drinks for our garage refrigerator. How sad is that?! Originally this was going to be a good ole wood firepit but have recently begun considering turning it into a gas firepit instead. A good friend of ours did it and he said he could help us. He loves his and it would be so nice! I'm just really afraid of drilling a hole in our new stamped concrete patio! So I'll probably go with the normal firepit for now and add that later. The structure of the pit I want can be used in either situation.

Outdoor Living Area
I totally have figured out how I want to arrange the furniture on our deck outside. It's always interesting to me how I have to live with a space for awhile before I can determine how I want to really live in it. DH and I found some great outdoor wicker chairs on clearance at Target a month ago, we picked up six and every since then it has started coming together in my mind. Now I just need to build a table with pedistal legs and a copper top, find a 6-8 foot bench for one side of the table, find (or build) two sofas and then find a cool coffee table - all weather resisitant. It's going to be awesome out there!

Kitchen

I'm really itching to order and install my backsplash as seen here but before I do this I need to finish some other outstanding projects. One such project is the semi-kitchen remodel I started back in June. Yes, I STILL haven't finished painting my cabinets. Too much going on! I could go on and on about kitchen issues but I will spare you - this post anyway.

And all these thoughts are only for the back part of my house on the first floor! I will just take things one step at a time and keep plugging away. I will post pictures as I go along. Wish me luck!

Read More 1 Comment | Posted by Cathy |

This is what I'm talking about!

It's almost done! I know I posted previously that the deck and patio were done but that really only meant it was built. We've been waiting on the staining of it and that began today. They were only going to do the deck part today, with the pergola waiting until either tomorrow or Monday. So I decided to go get my nails done. DH is at the doctor, boys hanging out, I'm off to get my nails done. Yes, peace and quiet...

Nope. Right in the middle of it I got a frantic phonecall. Panic I tell you. Shear panic! "It's BLACK. SOLID BLACK. NO WAY. IT'S TOTALLY WRONG. NOW WHAT CAN BE DONE? THE. WHOLE. POST(S). ARE. DONE. #@*&!jl*&@@@." (That is not word for word but you get the point and the #@%$()%( were actually nice, not so nice words). Now, I was stuck. Apparently while I was gone the workers got the approval to start the pergola. DH came home after several posts where done and totally FREAKED. When he called he asked when I was going to be home and I didn't know what to say... 30 minutes? I didn't dare say maybe 45. The poor guys staining I know didn't know what to do. One guy just wanted to work, the other apparently really concerned with my dh's opinion. I found out later that dh told them after completely freaking out, "Really, don't pay any attention to me. I'm not the one that is driving this project and I don't know what I'm talking about!" LOL! I'm sure that did nothing to settle their nerves as this was one of the guys (the caring guys) first day. What a way to break him in!

Now I must clarify. DH always knew the pergola was going to be black. I have been going over this detail with him for a very long time. I have drawn colored pictures for him. I have gone as far as to take actual pictures of the real deck after it was built and used black markers to color the pergola black on the actual photo. I wanted him (and neighbors) to be prepared for a black pergola. I only hesitated briefly over staining it black but ultimately my design sense overtook that feeling and enabled me to declare - Black, black it should be!

The part I struggled with was the actual shade of black to go with. The original color sample I had picked up with a solid color stain. I learned that you cannot paint cedar, it will not adhere for long term due to the oils in the wood. You can however stain it a solid color. However, staining it a solid color you don't get to see the pretty wood grain. The color sample had another choice of black which was a semi-transparent BLACK that looked on the sample chart to be more of a dark grey. The wood tone (grain) showed through though. It was between these two choices and something we discussed for weeks! Ultimately this afternoon, minutes before the stain would be ordered and picked up, I agreed on the semi-tranparent stain in black. DH was standing right there. He heard the whole conversation and as a matter of fact he completely agreed (since he knew he had already lost the fight that staining it the same color was not an option).

So there I am, minding my own business, getting all pretty and everything and then the call... Dang it. I knew better. I should have waited and found out for sure that they weren't going to start on it before I got back. The worse thing could happen would be for them to begin with dh home and without my being there. DH is a visual person. He cannot imagine what anything is going to look like. I understand that, and I respect that. I help him understand by drawing him pictures, talking things through with him, what ever I need to do to help him understand. I knew even with all our discussions, no matter what shade, this was going to be a shock to his system.

I did my best to talk dh out of his panic attack and explained that all color chips are samples and are not 100% accurate. I also reminded him that if he remembered I originally wanted solid BLACK. It's not like we were wanting TAN and it came out BLACK! So I finish up with my nails, get in the car, and call home. DH answered and sounded oddly calm. He said he decided to throw up his hands and defer to me. Actually I'm pretty proud of him for that!

So I drive home wondering the whole time what I'm going to find when I get there. I knew the guys had already left because they were afraid to go any further. I pass our neighbors house where I can our deck, I barely peek out of fear on whether I'm going to like it or not but I did catch a glimpse... LOVE IT! I pull up to the house and walk around back. LOVE IT!!!! DH hanging on every word and watching me so close. Does she really mean it? Could it be... the right color? I pull my sun glasses off and I see the wood grain. This means it is the right color. I LOVE IT. It's the perfect combination of what I was wanting. I might have made a mistake if I would have gone solid. It's awesome! DH immediately relieved. We discuss, I talk him through it, show him the wood grain, explain the differences in board colors... all the stuff he already knows but forgets. We go in and call the owner of the stain company. DH talked to him. All is good.

DH keeps walking by the window and processing what I've done, the black. He knew about but now it's real. Although he does have a sense of peace about him now that I've given my approval. It's growing on him. He's content that it's the right shade and I'm fine with it. I know he will like it, I have not doubt. He just always needs a little more hand holding and time to Think Outside the Box.

All of this for a deck. And to think someday I wanted to build a custom house with dh. How will that go? Also, I've considered starting my own design biz. Maybe dh would be my toughest client. Everything happens for a reason - right?!

Once the deck is all done I will post official pictures. Soon!

Read More 1 Comment | Posted by Cathy |

Finally - pictures!

My life in pictures:

Kitchen:

Love it!

Turning out how I had it in my head.

Looking good.

Deck:

Just a little deck.

Awesome!

Other:

Cat-Dog. Zoe with a dog cut. Oscar slobs all over her and matted her hair so badly she had to be shaved. I as her mom couldn't do it all, so sad. So, we compromised and did a Cat-Dog haircut. Really it's not as bad as it seems. I didn't cry when I picked her up although I was afraid I might have a tear so I took Alex with me for moral support. Picture is blurry but the best one I have with her standing up. She is always on the move these days. Hmmm, maybe it's to get away from slobby dog. ???

A new favorite picture of mine - darn that coat! Our subdivision had a garage sale this weekend and we at last minute decided to participate in it. My dh is the best garage saler around - seriously! Here JB and Oscar are watching the action - or rather waiting for more. It was the end of the day - all were tired.

Celebrity Update:
One note on Oscar. He is getting to be quite the mini-celebrity I'm finding out in our subdivision and a definate hit with the kids. One lady told me she was leaving her husband to marry Oscar - and her husband came down to see him and he confirmed she told him that too! I'm afraid pretty soon kids are going to be coming to the door not to see if Alex or Chad can play but if Oscar could come out and play. He has been skateboarding up a storm this weekend.

He has been working so hard on perfecting his skatboarding skills. We all try to take him out at minimum once a day to practice. He absolutely loves it and I find it theraputic for me as well to just watch. He is a bit sporadic in how he goes about it - a lot of it depends on his mood - and he hasn't quite figured out the concept of all four paws on the board. The way he goes about it is actually much harder on him so I'm looking forward to the day when he knows exactly what to do. However, having said that just yesterday, two times, he did actually have all four paws on the skateboard and skated across the culd-e-sac. I only saw it once but it was a hoot. I think it happened on accident and he was just tired. He was going so unbelievably slow - turtle like - but it went from one side of the culd-e-sac to the other, inching along but moving the whole time. He just stood there. Everyone who was outside (which were a lot) completely stopped what they were doing and watched. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Then he got to the other side, put a foot down and everyone went crazy. I'm talking hands in the air, belly laughs, the whole thing. LOL! Tooooooo funny!!!! I know he is on a lot of peoples cell phones as photos because I saw them taking pictures. I think today I'm going to video him and attempt to post it. Too funny!

Read More 1 Comment | Posted by Cathy |

Sneak Peek...

I have planned to post this for at least a week now (actually over a week) but each time I try to do it I have problems with the photos. So, I think it may actually work this time here goes... Spoke too soon. Something is going on with my computer (never good!) where the cookies or re-visiting certain sites locks up that portion of my computer. Seems online banking and Flickr are the two sites I have the most trouble with.

Anyway... been working slowly on the kitchen. I put up all but one panel of the beadboard and am waiting on an order of trim to come in so I can finish putting that up. I will then apply some stain to the beadboard and trim and after a couple days I will begin painting. I'm going to visit a glass company this week and order some glass panels for a few of my cabinet doors - fairly inexpensive so I've heard. I'm experimenting with some additional trim ideas and now exploring the idea of creating a wall oven. Yes, this project is getting a bit out there but I'm still extremely budget conscious. However, I'm also into improving the value of our home.

Today the carpets got cleaned - YEAH! Have to say, they were bad but not that bad seeing as we've never had them professionally cleaned since we moved in 5 years ago!

Oh yeah and did I mention the thing about a deck? Can't remember what I posted before - it's been so long. We are putting on very nice deck and outside entertainment area. We were going to do it in phases but our phases have started merging together - lol - that's dh's doing. I'm not arguing mind you. He has to come up with the money or financing, I do the designing. Turns out we are doing the deck with pergola (large and small) and a patio with firepit. That was supposed to be three phases - merged into one. Next phase will be where we build a grill area and landscape. They should be starting in a week - I can't wait! Although I'm still tweaking the design so additional time is fine with me.

The boys are doing good but seriously questioning what the heck we are doing. When we moved home we only thought we were going to be in this house for five years. Turns out we are staying here longer then originally planned. We LOVE our neighbors, the boys LOVE their school and friends... not ready to give that stuff up so we are deciding to make out house the way we really wanted it originally. We are done spending all of our time on our business, we are ready to enjoy spending time with our friends and family. I want to start cooking. I want to relax. DH needs to relax...

Got to go.....

Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy |

Home Projects

I know I've been MIA lately but have been so busy - as most people are these days. I have lots swirling in my head that - must - come - out! I really want time to free up so I can focus on home improvements. I'm in a creative zone now and I must go with it.

Kitchen
I'm going to redo my kitchen on a low budget. I am not replacing my horrible cabinets but am going to paint them in my favorite color of choice - black. Yep. I'm so siked to do this. I've already done two test doors (doors we had replaced when we moved into the house but I hung onto just in case I needed them). They are AWESOME! But I haven't begun the official painting of the real thing because of course this idea leads to other ideas namely; cutting out the center of several upper cabinets so I can install some bubble glass (that's what I call it), exploring the option of bumping out the cabinet over my refrigerator to add some interest, adding bead board to the sides of the cabinets and over the entire island, adding architectural elements to other parts of the cabinets (ie: feet under cabinets) to give it a more cohesive look and a built-in custom look, over and under cabinet lighting and adding some interest of some sort to the top of the cabinets. Remember I try to Think Outside the Box so of course I'm going with this philosophy for this project as well without going to crazy. I will document my process through out because I enjoy watching other peoples home improvement projects. Here's a before picture:

So right now I've got my station set up in the garage and I'm in the process of doing some staining/painting testing on the bead board DH and I picked up at Lowes last weekend. We did have to wait an hour for them to make 14 cuts so I have little to cut at home which is AWESOME. He made all those cuts for a whopping $3.50. LOL! Really, if they were smart they would charge more for that but I'm not going to tell them! Now, I just need to find the time to do this.

Outdoor Living Options:
I have designed an outdoor living area (ie: deck and patio) and we are exploring bids on getting this done. Of course my originally plans provides a deck big enough to land a helicopter on but it would be awesome if done according to what's in my head. It's interesting talking to all the different companies. Some build decks, some are interested in design, some are small, some are large (companies that is). Yesterday we found the one person who does it all and gets what I'm trying to accomplish. We have some more components of this to discuss and plan for but we think we are going to do it. We really want a place to hang out with our neighbors. The culd-e-sac is fun but sometimes sitting in the back with a nice firepit would be great! Last night I made a couple drawings for dear DH to see the vision of what the latest guy and I discussed. Fingers crossed this actually gets done sometime in the next couple years!

Family Room:
My kitchen connects to the family room. This room is still not done and one thing that has prevented me from finishing it was my lack of commitment to both sides of my fireplace where we bumped out the walls. Originally I was going to have built-in book cases put in there - you know the classic open shelving above and closed cabinets below. While that would be the safe thing to do and provide quick shove it in the cabinet so no one sees it storage, it's a bit to normal for me. I've finally decided to do a shelving unit there but it will be a bit different. I'm thinking it will mimic what I'm considering doing above my kitchen cabinets. I will fill you in more wants I do a little bit more experiments with wood and do some more drawings.

That's just a few of the things swirling in my head. It's going to be so much fun!

Read More 0 comments | Posted by Cathy |

Check... To Done!

The last few days I have been trying to get things done that have been hovering for awhile. I was able to finish all of our laundry - YEAH! The best part is it is all put away - at least mine and dh's. The boys are old enough to put theirs away themselves or live with the mess. Doors close so I'm ok with that. Tonight I was able to wrap and mail three different family gifts (birthdays and babies from last month). I've even taken Oscar to the vet for his monthly check-up. (Oops forgot to schedule next appointment... ok done). I'm now getting ready to run to Michaels to use my 50% coupon on some adhesive - thanks Patti for telling me about today's coupon! And hopefully my dh, son and I will get to go out to dinner. Our youngest is at 5th grade camp this week so the rest of the family needs to do something out of the ordinary.

The good news for me is my scrapbook room is now picked up and organized. The presents are wrapped and gone which means my table is near empty. It might be time for me to begin getting some pages done. Such an interesting idea since I've been back into scrapbooking for maybe nine months but have yet to do one page. LOL! Will post results once available.

My photos for this post are of two totally different things. First is my new closet. It's not totally done but I don't care. I love it!!! It's amazing how great it feels to work on different projects and know what you have and where it is located. I have scrapbooked and done crafts and projects for many years now. I started out in boxes moving from room to room. I then used the dining room table. I moved it to a small closet that I converted to a scrapbook area. I've been in the basement and now for the first time we've devoted a room to it. I should have tried to do this earlier!! It's a great feeling.

The second photo is of trees. Have I ever told you I have this thing for trees? I love them. Someday I will live in the middle of trees. I grew up living in the woods and I miss it terribly. Trees give me a major sense of peace and calm. They remind me of my mom, my family before. Trees are beautiful and are my thing. I think I should do a page about that on my new clean table with stuff from my semi-organized closet!

Oops. Photos are in reversed order - you get the idea.

Read More 2 comments | Posted by Cathy |

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