Crazy Town!

That is what my son declared the playroom when he saw what i was doing, lol.  I could kick myself for not getting a proper before pick that showed the white walls, untreated windows, and toys everywhere.  At best, there were toys pushed up against the wall, on the floor, all the way around the perimeter of the room.  But usually scattered throughout so that you couldn't walk without killing yourself. 
But, here is the literal before....before all the toys boxes and been unpacked and dumped into the room...

 

Terrible picture, I told hubby to take photos of all the rooms that day, and this doesn't show much of the room, but whatever.

Now for the after:

 

First I found the curtains and loved them for the playroom. 

Then, since they had a modern feel, I thought it was a sign to go with the Ikea bookcase I had been debating.  The bins (Ikea as well) are spacious for toys-

or babies!-

 The other sides:

Probably going to add some kids artwork to the walls (relocate these that are in a hallway...)

 Anyway, the kids love the improved space!

It's all coming together now

I'm still here!  Just caught up in the survival.  Not joking about that.  I do what I can with a 1 yr old, 2 yr old, 4 yr old, and 6 yr old pulling me down.  I just can't get things (projects) together quickly like it seems other bloggers do.  I have to do a bit during naptime here, and a bit on a weekend there....which makes posting pictures of the progress difficult.  Made some great progress over this long weekend though, i'll have to see if i can gather enough for a real post.  It's big picture stuff, folks.  And that doesn't always make for great blogging :)

Dining Room B & A

I would love to get a "Home Tour" on my blog, but I'm not there yet.  The room closest to being done is our dining room, so I thought I would post a few before and after pics.

 Before:

That would be the day we settled on the house and came over to clean before moving our stuff in the next day.

In Process:

 This is painted (Glidden Woodsmoke) with the area rug that I ordered online and was not the color I thought it was going to be.

After:

This is current, with curtains hung, some wall art, and a new rug that i like much better.  It's less traditional than the previous and more the look I was going for, thought it has it's own issues. (My first "natural fiber" rug, it's pretty dusty and fiber-y, normal?)  Things still to do include adding chair pads (looking for something perfect and affordable!) and adding picture-box type wainscoting under the chair rail.

And a few more:

ORBit

Haven't been posting much due to that survival factor....had a few tough winter weeks with very bored kids home from school.  But we have been working on a few things, one of which was painting the upstairs hall.

 Love the gray color, it's the "flow" color that starts in the kitchen, goes through the first floor hall, into the foyer and continues upstairs.  Since we were painting and had to remove the banister, we figured it was a good time to fix UGLY brass builder hardware that was holding up the railing (don't know what the name of those pieces would be...)  We went to great lengths to make sure all hardware and fixtures in the house were Oil Rubbed Bronze, but those railing pieces were somehow overlooked. 

All better now!  That is ORB spray paint, and apparently that is a hot commodity.  Hubby ran to Walmart to pick up and they were all out.  So we went to Lowes the next day and got the very last can they had!  I think it looks great for spray paint, even though we didn't prime first (which would be an absolute must if it were a piece that you would touch often, these were chipping easily.)

I don't know how the real bloggers are able to add a hundred pictures....just those 2 took forever to upload, not to mention the 10 minutes it took me to learn how to rotate the top pic.  Hmm.

Just clean it!

That is my motto for cleaning the new house.  No time for perfect methods, or even proper methods.  I have actually been looking for a blog that offers cleaning advice, especially for larger spaces.  Our kitchen really gets to me since I spend so much time cleaning it, yet it is rarely clean.

(can't keep those kids out of the shot sometimes!)  I forget the measurements, but it's something close to 700 sq feet, so that is a lot of mopping and a lot of counters to clean.  I'm not going to complain about having the space, because it is a blessing, but I am going to say that it is HARD to keep up with!
So, my best method is to just jump in and do it.  I don't wait to find a home for all the paperwork on the counters, or even all the toys on the floor.  Sometimes it is best to just push them into a pile and clean what you can.  It's better than nothing.  For the actual cleaning,  I have to recommend Swiffer.  I have 4 (2 plain, 1 sweeper vac, 1 wet jet) and it really does speed up the process.  The plain are for other areas of the house, and the sweeper vac (gets all the crumbs that would otherwise be pushed into the grout lines of the tile) and the wet jet are for the kitchen.  The counters are tackled cafeteria lady style- with a bucket of warm soapy water and a sponge.  In between cleaning 'sessions' i usually use a green cleaner spray on them.  Oh, and I always dry them with a rag as i go so that they don't get water spots on them.

Since i have the pictures up, let's mention that there is still quite a bit of design work left to do on the kitchen.  We are waiting on crown molding (maybe my Valentine's Day present!??) that backsplash I have mentioned, lots of lighting (over/under cabinets) and I would LOVE to wrap painted beadboard around the bar counters.  Hope to have updates to show....someday.

First Birthday!

We celebrated Baby's 1st birthday over the weekend!  I made a yummy chocolate cake because I wanted to try a new recipe, but it had coffee in it, so I thought I should probably not serve sugar + caffeine to the 12 month old.  Or any of the other kids for that matter.  So I made cupcakes too, and they turned out great, if I do say so myself. 

I think I have finally figured out a method....seems like I have the best results with the Pillsbury mixes.  And a trick to make them not so crumbly is to use 2 eggs not 3 like they call for.  For the icing, I used this recipe-
Vanilla Icing
   5 T melty-ish butter
   3 c pwd sugar
   2 T milk
   1/2 t vanilla
   pinch of salt

Anybody here yet?  Eventually.

Backsplash Design

It's too bad that no one is reading this yet, because I could really use some opinions on the backsplash contenders.  Our kitchen has dark maple cabinets with a black-flecked counter, so in an attempt to lighten it up a bit, we are going with chiaro tumbled marble.  The hold-up is choosing a pattern.

I mentioned I am not the best photographer.  I'll work on it.  The mosaic is an option for a border and/or accent over the stove.  The top option would be easy to install, but I can't let go of the subway tiles!  Love, love subway tiles....