Painted Closet Doors and New Door Trim

We finally got our closet doors painted and put back on. I would like new doors but we are going to wait until we can replace them all together to do that. Here's what they looked like before we got the floors done.

Here's what they look like now. They aren't perfect but it's much easier on the eyes. It only took 6 months to get them done :)

After Cameron put the baseboards on a few months ago, I was wishing I had thought to put trim around this opening. I finally convinced him that he didn't need to take off the baseboards to do it, just cut the corners. When we sprayed the doors, it was a good opportunity to spray paint on the trim too.

 Cutting the baseboard to make room for new trim

Trim added on.

 And another before from the other side. He just used a little hand saw to cut.

After (mostly). It still needs caulking but is much better!

Let there be light!... And our new dining table.

We've been keeping up with doing a lot of projects on my list but it's taken me awhile to get around to some "after" pictures. Today just some pictures of the results from having an electrician come, and some new fixtures.

 Right before- I put a tack in the ceiling to mark where we wanted it.

 After. The fixture is dead center (over our furniture arrangement) it looks a little off because of the angle I took the picture from. It's a CB2 drum light. It was really cheap and simple which is what I wanted because of the new dining fixture in the room. Also, I chose ceiling mount because our ceiling are only 8ft.

 Dining area before. Isn't that gold light horrible? The tack is where we had fixture moved to since it wasn't center. The electrician also beefed up the box to hold our new heavy fixture.

 After. Light is from Ballard Designs.  The table top was custom ordered from Advantage Lumber online. It's white oak and we did the sand/stain/poly ourselves. I used a Minwax stain called weathered oak. Side note: I think I will change out my kids pictures on the wall for some art soon. I love seeing their pictures but all the black in this area now is too much.

Legs were welded out of metal by a friend. Then we painted and sealed them. I was going after a Restoration Hardware look table. We considered buying one but I dislike their table tops right now, they are all reclaimed lumber and unfinished. It wouldn't have been practical at all.

The lumber company pressed and glued wood planks together at varying widths so they won't ever warp, then they planed it all. We love it because it's all one flat sheet, instead of planks that get food stuck in the cracks. More updates coming up soon!

Project list and some progress (or lack of) pictures

There is so many projects going on here! And there are lots of upcoming to do's.  I am making a list for my mental sanity. We are really good at starting projects. Finishing a project is definitely a slower process :)

Outside:

1. We are still moving dirt around to finish the bike track. We decided to switch it up a bit and add some different jumps at the end. Moving dirt without the skid steer is slow going to say the least! However, I will say I have been getting an awesome workout everyday. My arms will be so buff by the time we are done :)

2. We started on a flagstone pathway down the side of the house where there is a lot of foot traffic. We got a craigslist score on flagstone for super cheap. The only problem is the stone is all different heights which made it a bit more frustrating since some are 4 inches high and others only 1 inch (no wonder is was a deal?!). I gave up on making it level from one rock to the next. As a result, it is a lot more "natural" looking than I imagined. Oh well. It's functional. Still need to finish this one.

3. This is a need to do soon: Build a block retaining wall so Cameron can park his truck again. We tore out the existing falling apart railroad tie parking pad that was there previously.

 Here it is before we tore it up. This is a bad before picture since the brush is in the way but you get the idea.

Here's where it is at now. And now you know why it needs a retaining wall up really soon.

4. Once we finish up the flagstone walkway we need to get sod asap. The area next to our house becomes a constant mud pit when kids turn on the hose to wash anything. It also washes out with rain. I can't wait to get this one done.


Inside:

1. Hang doors.-- Cameron finished painting them over the weekend. Yay! I will have doors on my closets again. I'm so sick of staring at clutter everyday.

They have been without doors for 6 months. 6 MONTHS.

2. Our electrician is coming this week to fix the fixture location in the dining room, add a new ceiling fixture in living room (we have nothing now), and add some can lights in the basement.

3. After the electrician comes we will have to patch everything up- especially the basement. We had a dishwasher dilemma (the dishwasher got filled with dish soap instead of dishwasher soap) and some leaking happened. As a result we tore out a bunch of sheet rock to dry things up fast and keep mold at bay. The basement needs a LOT of patching.

The basement as is. This is obviously a "real life" picture.

4. Hang new fixtures (living and dining), and install can lights in basement.

5. Our dining table is getting made! We ordered the table top online and the legs are being done by a friend. I'm excited! We need to do the finish work for the top of the table once it arrives. I'm thinking a natural or grey stain for it.

6. Patchwork on walls/ceilings needs to be textured, primed, and painted.

7. The basement is screaming for some new paint on the walls. It is bad down there- really bad.

8. We are hiring out (hallelujah!) the rest of the popcorn ceiling scraping (entry hall, upstairs hall, master bedroom, and my art room). We aren't bothering with the kitchen since someday soon (I really, really, really, really, hope) to be ripping down that drop ceiling.


I could go on forever... and ever...  But these are the things I hope to get done by the new year.

Kids Pump Track

Our entire last few weeks consisted of working on the bike track and smoothing out the rest of the lawn. Progress shots:

The top part started to get some shaping and packing after a good rain and a lot of tamping.

 Here's a view from the top. It's kind of hard to see but you get the idea.

Yard Plans

Sometimes, when Cameron is away on business trips I keep busy by drawing and planning. Here is what I've been working on:

This is the plans for the new cleared lot. The aerial view looks good but I'm trying to figure out lots of the little real life details. This is what I still need to figure out:

1. What kind of ground cover I will use between berries, bike track, and fruit trees. Our current lawn is Bermuda which of course is really aggressive so I won't be using that. I'm leaning towards Fescue right now because it looks good. But some other possibilities I'm thinking about for ground cover are are mulch, gravel, or a spreading perennial (i.e. wooly thyme).

2. What fence we will use around the garden. I would love, love, love to fence the whole yard and quit with all the individual fences but we found out to built a permanent fence to code around here it would have to slice through almost half the new lot- which would ruin all the plans.  Right now there are no trees up front and since it will be a while even after planting trees until we have full privacy I would like the fence to look nice. I love black fences because they sort of disappear from far away. And they just look better. It has to be deer, rabbit, armadillo, and groundhog proof!

For inside the garden in the paths, I decided to do a combination of gravel and bricks.  This is my inspiration picture.

 I'm pretty sure I will still do cedar raised beds, then bricks to edge the gravel. I couldn't find a picture of exactly what I'm going for but I know what it will look like in my head.

I feel really far away from the finished product but we are making some progress. Top soil got dumped last week.

Here is is after the kids ran all up and down it!

We have our work cut out for us!!!

And the painting continues!-- The shed

The good painting weather is still on! Friday I started painting the shed during Noelle's nap in what I thought would be a quick job. Note to self, get the right paint roller for the job. The shed is heavily textured which I knew but the thicker rollers for that are more pricey and I got the smaller one. It took too long and I got a good arm workout from pressing so hard.

Before and afters:

 Before

 After

 Before- Note the door. It wouldn't ever shut without considerable force and lifting. Cameron fixed it and put new trim on.

 After

 

 Before

After

Trim is Behr- Alabaster and Shed color is Behr- Mossy Oak. 

This is the last painting project for a little while. I'm so burned out!

The Painted Deck (Finally!)

One of our first projects when we moved in was fixing the deck so it was safe for kids. Fast forward to almost two years later and we finally painted it. The weather has been better for painting and I couldn't stand the deck the way it was any longer.

I spend 3 hours scrubbing the dirt off the deck and the mold off the posts (since it took us so long to paint that part). I just used TSP, bleach, and water.  That was Thursday night. Friday I went to Sherwin Williams to get "Super Deck" paint so I could paint it all Saturday. The guy was nice enough to tell me of an upcoming sale with 40%off all paints. So I had it mixed up and waited to pick it up one week later when the sale was on. The only trick after that was keeping the deck clean for a week after all that hard scrubbing. It stayed pretty clean but on Friday I had Cameron power wash it off just get the last of the dirt off.

On to the good part, pictures...

 Here is a before. It looked so horrible!

 The boys earned some play money by helping.

Before and Afters:

 Before

 After. I had it color matched to Behr's "Mossy Oak". We are going to paint our house the same color soon. Its a little darker and warmer than what is on their now.

 Before

 After

 Before

 After

 

Before

 After. You can see the test color on the house. 

 Before

 After

I don't know how we lasted so long the way it was. Cameron was sitting behind me on the couch as I was uploading these pictures and saying how disgusting it looked. He was so used to it, he didn't notice how bad it was. I was like yeah, we had a birthday party for Kian and had people over and it looked like that. And he was like "oh nooo!"

I'm kind of glad he realized that, because I'm always the only one who is embarrassed about the condition of the house! Only 247 projects to go until it's not embarrassing anymore :)