At a Standstill ...

So between family visits this weekend, and meeting and welcoming beautiful little Hayden to the family ...

... we didn't get much done on the playroom at all. In fact it looks a little something like this ...

and this ...

We are still trying to figure out what to do with the floor, and I don't think this will be solved until we take a trip down to Home Depot or Rona just to ask a professional there about painting with oil based paint and fumes with a furnace.

I've painted with oil paint before and yes its stinky alright, but we were sure if it would cause a spark at all with the pilot light on the furnace - the last thing I need is to blow up the house!

Then there is the whole big debate on what to lay on the floor for added warmth?  Do you know how hard it is to find a decent yet reasonably cheap floor covering?? HARD!

So for now ... the playroom remains the same ... but since this is a long weekend, I'm sure we will tackle something down there!

When you have a small child, and you don't necessarily hear them ... you know they are okay, but don't hear them moving about ... run ... don't walk ... because that means they are doing something ... something they are not suppose to be ... something like ...

Submerging their face in the dog dish full of water??

Don't mind the sour-grump look on Alexis face. This is after her dad found her doing a "naughty" act.

And this is what she looked like once we put the dish up and told her that she could no longer bath herself in the dog water ...

Fun times.

What the .....

Ummm can we please all take a moment, and witness what we found a squirrel doing to my outdoor cushions that I LOVE, and got for a very good price!

I only have a few words to describe what I'm feeling ...

I WILL get you squirrel!

Sum ... Sum ... Summer Time

Here are some pictures from this past weekend which involved, a nice dinner out with my parents, followed by a visit to the park around the corner from us (which incidentally Alexis loved!).

This is what summer time is all about isn't it?

As much as I'm ready for the cooler season (Fall NOT Winter) ... I love moments like this ...

Hope you're enjoying your summer too!

HA!

For all of you who thought I might have been crazy with my whole driftwood art wall thingy ... looks like I'm not the only one who finds driftwood interesting ...

Found another amazing blog today at Perfectly Imperfect ... Check her out ...

http://perfectlyimperfect-shaunna.blogspot.com/

So Frustrating!

Four months into being back at work, and I'm pretty certain I've used all 8 of my sick days up. That's right folks, all 8 of them - and did I mention I haven't used one of them on me. 

We are going on our third day of Alexis being at home with the "poops" to put it in somewhat nicer words, and since Alexis goes to daycare our work policy is if they are having the "poops" they cannot be there. So Derek and I have been taking turns being at home with her.

I was hoping to send her today, but when we woke her up there was a little gift in her errrrr diaper. Then while we were throwing around ideas as to what we should do - Alexis dropped another little gift off in her diaper, which pretty much sealed her fate for the day and that she would once again be staying at home.

For other people, calling in sick is probably nothing, but when you have to call a list of supplies, find one, explain your shift, then call a supervisor or work to let them know ... it makes me feel bad. I feel bad letting my co-worker know that I won't be in (when I know the children will be crazy today as they have been the last couple days - pretty much forcing us to drink at night! lol and I'm not kidding), I feel bad using yet another sick day, and I feel as thought I'm letting my supervisor down. I know this is stupid because at some point everyone gets sick, and this is especially true for small children ... but its just the way I feel.

Anyways, I'm off to clean more "poops" of Alexis clothes, and play with her (seeing as that is the only real problem that she has), and probably blog some more.

Have a good day everyone!

Does this look like the face of someone who is sick? lol ... (taken this morning obviously)

Swoon ...

As I was checking all my blogger updates, I saw this new post.  This lady is ah-mazing!

I'm loving this new trellis pattern she added to her master bedroom wall, and apparently it only took 6 hours and a $2 bottle of craft paint!

She promises on her blog update of her bedroom next week to show everyone how she made the stencil and completed the wall so I can't wait for that! For now, we have to settle on her pictures of the room!

Here is her blog if you want to check her out on your own! She is full of great ideas!

http://www.centsationalgirl.com/

Fail?

So using my $4 Fabricland material, and $6 in hardware costs from Walmart, Alexis now has a curtain over her seemingly eye-sore of a window in her playroom.


It went from this ...

Lovely isn't it?  For starters half of the clips to hang them were missing or broken, and it was covered in dust (ew) and spider webs! So they went right into the garbage as well.

So like I said, using my $4 fabric and this amazing stuff, which is called HeatBond - so it requires NO sewing! Just a good old fashioned iron (that I had to dig out of somewhere because we never use it! I was surprised I actually found it to tell you the truth!)

Then I measured and made a hem around 3 of the edges so that the ends were not all ratty.  The top part of the fabric I doubled the hem so that I could slip my $3 rod through them.

And here is the final product ... tah-da ....

As soon as I put it up - it looked like I just had hung up a shortened sheet, but whatever, its cute and it does the job, and when I put it up I only cursed a couple times after I kept dropping the teeny tiny nails they supply you with.

So this is what the wall looks like now with the added curtain.  Oh and notice how I've started to paint all the wood trim white. I didn't think I was going too, but after we had ripped out the carpet, and started to look around the room, we figured it would look the best and we had the paint anyways. Stay tuned for more! 

Good-Bye

Good bye old nasty 20+ year old carpet ... you will not be missed!  Last night, Derek and I tackled the old nasty carpet that was laid in what will soon be Alexis' playroom.  This carpet was absolutely dis.gust.ing!  All I could think about is all the creepy crawlies that were in the carpet after many, many, many years of living down there, and that was enough to freak me out! 

As we started to tear it up and roll it up ... the carpet was so bad, that the actual under padding was crumbling in pieces.  Ugh gross!  It was a very messy job, but after an hour and a half of tearing, rolling, sweeping and more sweeping, we finally got it all out and this is what we were left with ...

We were so pleased to find that the stairs were in pretty decent condition! Better than the other ones going down into the family room! We plan on just painting them, then adding some quarter round trim to cover any imperfections.

Okay well that's where we are so far ... I'm looking to tackle something else tonight that I've never done before ... so I will blog about that later on!  Oh and for all those girls who wanted some of the fabulous carpet .... sorry ... we've laid it out to rest! Haha!

This Kid Loves Dinner

Alexis' Favourite Meal ...

With another long weekend (for us at least) under our belts - our plans of taking Alexis to the T.O. Zoo this weekend were squashed.  Too hot for us, so then we thought Storybook Gardens, but again it was too hot to go.  So since we couldn't do any fun outdoorsy trips - we figured now is a good time to take on Alexis' playroom.

I don't have many pictures of this room - besides the rockin' carpet! But its a pretty decent size room which connects to the laundry/storage room and a smaller room that will be Derek's "man room" to do whatever he pleases in.

We already had the paint colour - which is a fresh minty green. I wanted something that was fresh and fun, and while choosing the other colours for the house I came across a book of paint chips specifically with "kid"  inspired colours and I loved this green colour.

The room, as I said is a generous size, however it has a small window that doesn't let in a lot of light, and the light fixture in the room is well .... hideious like the rest of them. So for now, Derek and I have painted the room. Tomorrow Derek plans to rip out the exisiting carpet (don't worry for the girls who said they wanted to sport it in their places - I am making you welcome mats! haha I kid I kid) and baseboards. Since under the carpet is just concrete, I think the consensus is to paint it (what colour I haven't figured out yet) and then we have a large taupe carpet that use to be in Alexis nursery at the old house that we were planning on using down there.

I'm excited to get this lower part of the basement up and running so that we for one can get stuff that is still in boxes (toys and stuff for her playroom) put away finally, and two - a place for all of the other toys that seem to take over our living room and family room on a daily basis a home.

We have an amazing book shelf that Derek's dad made for Lexi before she was born - I painted a soft pink, so it goes nicely with the light green, and I'm excited to get all her books up there!

                             

And since I was so excited to get this room going - I ran to Fabricland while Lexi was napping to find the perfect fabric to make a curtain (yes folks, I will be attempting to make my own curtain! Hope it doesn't end in an epic fail! haha).  I found this adorable multi-coloured fabric that ties all the pinks and green's together, and it was a whopping $4 and change.

So obviously I will post more pictures as we go along, but for now this is our project since wrapping up the main bathroom.  Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Finally Found the One

Found what I had been wanting to put in the hallway going down the stairs. I knew I wanted something like this - but hadn't found one that was interesting enough ... yesterday while returning something to Home Sense I walked down the isle, and there it was ...

This picture doesn't do it justice ... because of the bad lighting, but its really nice in person.  It's just the right size for the wall, and the price wasn't bad at all.  Another great buy at good old Home Sense (I should buy stocks with them).

It feels good to be done the hideous bathroom! From the day we moved in, I couldn't wait to tackle that room, but seeing as we only had a limited amount of time to do other reno's in the house, it was a room that had to wait until we were somewhat settled in. 

But now that it's done, and in my opinion much better looking, we are happy.  After finishing painting touch up's, and then cleaning up, and a couple trips to Home Sense for some accessorize, it was Derek's turn to install some much need bathroom hardware!

Hello Before ... New fresh colour - but still missing something ...

And After - We added a nice towel ring which I found at Home Sense for $12.99

Along with my new hand towel, it works for us ...

Here is our new mirror, that I've waited forever to put up! Literally! I had bought it once we knew we had gotten the house from JYSK of all places. It was on sale for like $24 I think, and I was in love ...

Please note that we do still need to find a light fixture - the exposed bulbs just isn't doin' it for me ... I did find one at Home Depot that I liked - however I didn't like the $99 price tag ... so I will keep looking for now.

I think the vanity and floor work a little better now ... eventually (and by that I mean years) of course I would love to get a marble or stone or some other type of vanity top with an under mounted sink and new flooring - but let's be honest people - that's not happening any time soon.

I'm glad it's done, and I love how it turned out. It was definitely hard figuring out what colour I wanted to do in here - especially since we bought all of our paint for the house before we had even gotten into the house, and only after a couple times of seeing the room. Derek said to me yesterday, as we stood back and admired the room - that he really liked the colour.  That made me happy. That's all for now!

Mmmm Go-Gurt!

Bathroom Update and Some Random Blogging ...

Here is a little sneak peak of how the bathroom is coming along.  I still need to put a final coat on the walls where the sink is.  But I'm loving the way its turning out and how much brighter the bathroom feels, and of course the crisp white of the trip, sink, vanity, and medicine cabinet.

And because I figured since the bathroom is getting a little make over, and because I'm on a little vacation ... that I deserved to go to Home Sense and check out their bathroom towels and stuff. So here is what I picked up ...

Loved these striped hand towels, in two different tones of grey and a dark charcoal colour.  I was really happy to see that they were on clearance for only $3!!

Happy!

I also found this treasure ... it wasn't on clearance but I couldn't resist a cute polka dot pattern in soft grey and crisp white!

I also picked up this hand towel ring to put up on the wall since we took down the wood towel bar (I wasn't sad to see that thing out of here that's for sure!).

and after perusing Winners (cause you can't just go to Home Sense and not Winners! haha) I found this beauty! I am in love!

Ohhhhhhhh how I love it!!!

Geez I love this pattern! And can we please take a look at what I paid for it!  This was the comparable and regular price ...

aaannnnddd this is what I paid for it .... and why I snatched it up and held on for dear life haha ...

Anyways, enough about my shopping ... but maybe one more picture of it in the guest room ... I am planning on finishing the painting tonight (fingers crossed) in the bathroom and then start installing the new mirror, towel bar thingy, and then accessorizing it ... more pictures to come!