Ahhh ... shade!

We are lucky that our house is West facing so we get good shade in our backyard in the evening.  But in the morning and afternoon our back patio is scorching hot (especially these days).  We have been wanting a patio cover for a long time and today we finally got it!!!

Before:

After:

 Yeah!!!

Master Bathroom Cupboard Remodel

I know ... I know ... I'm crazy.  I am aware of that.  Brandon came home from school yesterday and said "Mom, you started another project?  I thought you said you were done with projects."

Well in my defense, I have had this one on the running list of projects in my head for awhile and after I did the half bath, Dave actually ASKED me to do the master bathroom cupboards as well.  I KNOW ... I was SHOCKED too!!  So he left to go out of town yesterday and I went to work, being the obedient wife, doing what he asked. 

Master Bathroom Cupboards BEFORE:

Master Bathroom Cupboards AFTER:

I masked everything off and spray painted the whole thing.  Not too hard.  Now I REALLY AM DONE FOR AWHILE. :)

Repurpose of the old office

We have an office downstairs that we no longer use.  Once we finally got with the program and went wireless I went out and found an old desk on KSL which I redid and now use in the family room for the laptop.

That left us with a completely useless office downstairs that was just a catch all for stuff. So last week I decided to repurpose the room to make it into a play/game room for the boys. Really, I was just tired of LEGOs, games, art supplies and puzzles all over my kitchen table all the time. So I pulled the old kitchen table that was against the wall as the old computer desk into the middle of the room and told the boys that was their new place to play.

It was useable but not what I would call pretty with all the mess left behind so today I went to Ikea, got some new, easy to build bookshelves and made this wall into not only a useable, but a much nicer looking and better organized space.

Yeah!  All the puzzles and games are out of my kitchen cupboard and the boys have a place to display and keep their stuff.  I am sure this will fill up fast.  I am happy to have this space used again and to not have LEGOs all over the house!

The Built-Ins are FINALLY DONE!!

I have been working on a HUGE home improvement project for the past month.  And I have to admit, it has been horribly stressful for me.  I have shed a lot of tears over this project worrying over whether it would turn out right.  And I mean a LOT of tears!!  I actually really enjoyed the design and construction part.  My friend Alena and I built these shelves all by ourselves and that was fun.  BUT the finish work ... not so fun.  Luckily, my sweet husband jumped in and helped out with the sanding and my best friend happens to have a professional painter for a husband and he is such a nice guy that he did the rest of the finish work and the painting to make them turn out pretty. 

So here is the family room before picture:

And here is the room FINALLY DONE!  I am so happy with the results and even more happy to have it done and not have to stress over it anymore.

I definitely learned my lesson from this project and promised Dave that I will stick to smaller projects from here on out.  And I really do mean that.  But that being said, do you think it would be a bad time to tell him that want a chop saw for Mother's Day? :)

While the Cat is Away ...

Dave is out of town for work so of course for me that means ... project time! :)  Sorry honey, I love you but I just can't do projects with you around.  The cupboard in the half bath was my latest target. 

Dining Room Makeover

This past week I have been working on a couple projects around the house.  First, with the help of a great neighbor, I wallpapered one wall in the dining room.  To be honest, the wallpaper didn't turn out to be quite what I was hoping for but the overall look works so it turned out ok.  Then I painted the hand-me-down China Hutch that I had in our dining room black.  So the room went from this ... 

... To this.

And I also recovered the chairs of our kitchen table so that they would actually match the rest of the room and also, I used outdoor fabric which should hopefully hold up better to the wear and tear of three rowdy boys!

Garage Makeover

Over the last 2 days I have done a bit of a garage makeover. We moved Dave's work bench to the 3rd garage (where it belongs) and then yesterday, my dad and I took the shelves off the wall and moved them from the back of the garage to the front (THANKS DAD). This made room for the one thing that I have always wanted in our house but didn't have ... a mudroom! With three boys we have lots of shoes, boots, backpacks, snowpants, etc. All of which, end up all over the floor in my house. Well a couple weeks ago I was at my friend Amie's house and saw her garage mudroom which is awesome!! So I went home and planned for a similar area in my garage. Hers was done much nicer with built in cubbies, bead board, trim and crown molding but the basic function is the same. I used peg board instead of bead board so that I could move the hooks up as the boys get taller or as our needs change. I used left over paint from my front door. I used peel-and-stick tiles which are very inexpensive and easy to lay. The whole project cost just over $100 and now I have my mud room! Yeah!!

One more project: the Windows

Our house was the model home for our neighborhood 15 years ago. But we have to wonder what the builder was thinking with some of the things they did on our house. For example, they put chair rail and crown molding in many of the rooms, but for some reason, they didn't trim the windows. This has been a wish of mine for many years and yesterday, my sweet husband finally trimmed the windows in our family room and kitchen for me and crossed it off my wish list. :)

Of course he did a fantastic job. I spent a while today doing the touch-up painting and painting the insides of the windowsills. Now they look brand new. Yeah!

The Door

Does anyone else have a little home project that you have been meaning to do for years? Well I have been meaning to paint my front door for 8 years now and finally got it done!!

I did run into a little trouble of what to do with the trim around the window over the door. I got the door painted on Monday but then the white trim around the top window looked horrible. So I painted it red as well. But it just didn't look right. Dave suggested painting it gray to match the stucco so I did that today and he was right ... it looks much better. Yeah ... finally done!

Trees

A couple months ago I decided that our north fenceline in our backyard needed some help, specifically shade trees. I dug out a hug section of sod and we planned to plant some Quaken Aspen trees along that line. We got some advice from Dave's step-dad / relator (thanks Clark) and decided to stay away from the quakies and instead, went with Emerald Queen Norwegian Maple trees. I picked 4 of these up from the nursery last week and tonight we finally got them planted. They look great and we are so looking forward to the shade that these trees will provide.

My New Kitchen

My poor kitchen has been in serious need of a facelift for quite awhile now. I have talked about painting my kitchen cabinents but have always chickened out which I am sure has always been totally fine with my husband who HATES projects. Now I love my husband, but I have learned that if I want something done, that I need to do it myself ... when he is out of town. Otherwise it stresses him out too much being that he is OCD. So Dave left Monday morning at 7am for a business trip and I went straight to work on this project that I have been planning for a month now.

These are the BEFORE pictures of my kitchen:

And here are my co-conspirators. My friends Alena ...

Lynnae and my cousin Shelley (who drove all the way up from Spanish Fork to help me). Thanks girls!!

Thanks to all my wonderful helpers we were able to crank the project out in no time. We were done with all the painting by the babies naptime, about 4 hours!! And that with 8 kids running around. Whoever thinks that stay-at-home moms spend their days watching soap operas and eating bon-bons have never met my friends. :)

Later that evening I antiqued the cupboards and painted the hinges and the next morning I was able to rehang all the cupboard doors and it was done. That just left me to wait nervously for Dave to get home and render his opinion.

Here are the AFTER pictures of my kitchen.


Dave was supposed to be out of town until Wednesday so imagine my surprise when he got home this evening, a day early. I was so so so very relieved when he walked in and LOVED the kitchen!!!

BTW - I got a bid a few months back on getting this done to my kitchen by a professional and the bid came back at $2,400. We did it for about $130.

Too much to do!

The last couple weeks I have felt like I have a to-do-list 50 things long each day and even when I get through them I have another long list the next day. I haven't felt like I have had a second to sit down in two weeks!

Last week (while Dave was out of town ... yes that is usually when I start these types of projects, much to Dave's dismay) I started a backyard makeover project. We have an area with small pine and spruce trees that was previously grassy. In order to help these slow growing trees grow a little faster and to plant some quakie shoots we took out of our front yard, I wanted to dig out the grass in this area. So I did! I removed nearly 600 square feet of sod and hauled it out. That was back-breaking worth but I felt it was worth the work.

I have spent a lot of time getting this area ready for compost and on Tuesday, Dave loaded up the back of our truck and Darren's trailer with 3 tons of compost and he and I (with some help from Brandon) hauled it to the back yard. Needless to say, we are very glad to have that done and out of the way.

Hopefully our quakie shoots will survive and we can get some shade on that side of the yard which we desperately need.

Between that project, taking out a tree that died in our front yard, the regular yard work and house work I am exhausted. I even skipped the gym today (gasp! ... I know) because my body just needed a break!

The garden is doing awesome ...

We have tons of zucchini's already and made our first round of zucchini bread (aka zucchini cake, you can't call something with that much sugar anything other then "cake") this morning.

My countless hours of work on my 220 feet of flower beds along our back fence over the past 8 years are FINALLY starting to pay off and that area is filling in and looking beautiful ... yeah!

Yes I know the lawn needs to be mowed but that is just going to have to wait until tomorrow.

And on top of it all, the boys have had swimming lessons the past 2 weeks. They have really enjoyed it and I have seen some real progress with them. Today was their last day of this session although I think I will put them in another session in a few weeks to keep them progressing.

Brandon has really taken to the water and isn't scared anymore. And today he even went off the diving board multiple times and LOVED IT!

And Eric got to go down the slide!

I finally feel like I might have a chance at a relaxing day tomorrow where I could actually sit down and read my sorely neglected book. I might even take another day off from the gym just so I can experience a day with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO! What a amazing thing that would be. :) And Dave could certainly use a day without any projects to come home to!