bad words...

Grae, Molly and Ellie were playing with the Playmobil's when I heard Grae yell "shut up!"

Those words aren't allowed in our house so I called Grae to me.

"Graedon, you can't say those words in here."

"Mommy, I didn't say them, the Playmobil's did."

"Graedon, no."

"Can I say them outside?"

"No Grae."

"Can I say it when I'm a mom?"

"What?"

"I mean when I'm older?"

"Sure Grae, you can say them when you're a mom."

Then I heard fits of giggles from the other room. It's fun here.

more mudroom...

We'll put the finishing touches on the mudroom tomorrow and then I will be able to move on with my life or at least to the upstairs bathroom. I need to sew some curtains for the window and a long curtain to hide the bottom of the pantry.

Here are some pictures of what it looks like now.

This is the kids wall but only Grae posts his pictures here. The picture that is framed is by Maddie when we were doing abstract art in class. The Wanted picture is from a movie the girls are making.


Here is that same spot before (spot on the left side).


This is where we hang our long coats and is a collection of Goodwill landscape paintings I've picked up. I want to add more of course. The horse picture is painted by Ava a few years ago.




Here is that same wall before:


My really, really cheap light covers. Just $.99 baskets from Goodwill. I wanted to paint them but needed some natural texture so I'm keeping them as is.


The second basket is ugly and I want to replace it as soon as I find something better. But for now it works.


More mudroom progress pictures here...

Linked to:

two things...

Finished up this cute table. For some reason I can not find a before picture but it was just all the wood color showing beneath the stencil. Boring!


I painted it a white/gray color (one of my samples I didn't like on the walls) and put a vinyl sticker on the top which I painted over. When it was mostly dry, I peeled off the sticker to reveal this. I admit I totally copied the idea from another blog but I can't remember which one. So if you know, let me know so I can give credit.

I coated it in poly and am waiting for it to dry. I bought the table to resell but I really like it so I might keep it.

We also finished putting in the floor in the new bathroom. I'm coating it with poly as well and it will be ready for the toilet Saturday. Yipee! We got the toilet free on Craigslist after buying a $220 one at Lowe's. Needless to say, we took the Lowe's toilet back.





Kind of a weird angle since I took this picture while the floor was drying and had to just point the camera and hope for the best. The floor looks darker because I had to use the flash. We used some cheap pine flooring from Lumber Liquidators ($1.20 sq/ft) and I stained it before we installed it. My goal was to make it look like it was old and worn down.

Here is what it looked like a few weeks ago.




Linked to:

gray

Picking a gray paint is HARD! I have just three samples here but have added three more to the walls. Most trend lilac (which I don't want), blue (again, no) or cold. I want a warm gray that is a little muddy. I have found one that is too dark and muddy and another gray that is too crisp. I think I will have the paint store muddy up the crisp one and see.

I'm painting tomorrow so I had better decide. Sigh...

little kitchen

Brian made this for Ellie a few years ago from some scrap wood.



She loved it and I loved the natural wood finish. Fast forward 2 years and the natural wood finish is covered with dirt and pencil marks. It also sat in the hallway neglected. Since we are selling anything we can to fund the mudroom and bathroom project, it had to go.

I wanted it girly and wanted it to sell quick on Craiglist so I got out some dark pink paint I had and mixed it with some white paint I had and got a color which Molly called "molly pink."


I was going to paint the little burners but figured the new owners could think of something that would suit them.

Good news, it sold that day and we bought sinks for the new bathroom from the ReStore with the money!

almost done....

We are almost finished with the mudroom project. The only things remaining is to wire in my new chandelier, make a long curtain for the lower half of the pantry and a curtain for the window. Oh and a new faucet for the mudroom sink. That's it!

Here are some more sneaks of the mudroom.

The window is trimmed out and painted the same color as the mudroom stairs (and our bedroom). See my $.99 basket light fixture.


Here it was before.



Here is that same corner with our $7.50 chair that we will recover and move inside. But for now it works in here. Check out my new rug made from recycled plastic. It is much more vibrant in person.


Well yes I did paint the mudroom door yellow. I'm going to be painting the other side (the side in our house) yellow as well. It is Valspar Top Banana.

I'm so pleased at how it is turning out. You can find me sitting on the mudroom stairs just staring at it (freaks the kids out when they open to the door). Before I would just get in and get out quickly. Amazing what a little work can do.

green...

I have a green thumb...no literally. See!



I leaned over while holding a sample pot of paint and it coated my thumb. I am painting this with a brush because I'm too lazy to get out the spray gun (well actually too lazy to clean the spray gun when I'm done). Ironically I just bought a pack of 100 disposable gloves but didn't put them on even though they were sitting right by the paint in the garage.



This is how it started:


Hope it turns out as good as it looks in my head.

excellent deal!

Today on Groupon you can get a $50 gift certificate to the Gap (includes GapKids) for $25. I just did it as we now have a Gap and GapKids up the street. I love their tights for the girls.

It's today only.

a date...

Ever since I found out that a Habitat for Humanity ReStore was in Forest Grove, I've been dreaming of going. We need a few things to finish off the mudroom and we're pretty much out of money.

So Brian and I left the kids at home on Saturday morning and headed out to garage sale our way to the ReStore. It was so much fun. We took the seats out of our 12 passenger van just in case we found something big we wanted. I was looking for dressers or tables.

I haven't taken pictures of everything we bought but here are a few:

Ugly chandelier for $10 at the ReStore. I'm going to paint it and put it in the living room.


Super cute vintage chandelier I will paint and put in the mudroom. $10.


Mid Century chandelier from ReStore to resell: $10


Hand embroidered art with frame (Goodwill) $7.99. Hanging in school room.



Vintage wallpaper rolls $2.50 each at ReStore:



We also found a vintage swivel rocking chair for the living room as well as two handmade 1960's chairs that I will recover. Oh and a small table I will redo and sell on Craigslist.

And we bought all the quarter round to finish the mudroom for $2.00 at the Restore! We would have paid close to $30 at Lowe's.

There is much more that we got that I need to take pictures of. Mostly before and afters. I'm thinking we only spent about $100 for everything and the things I bought to sell will make that much. I'm anxious to go out shopping again. It was a lot of fun!

dentist

What do you do on a hot day?

Play little Playmobil people visit the dentist at the castle.

on my soap box...

Well not really. I got an offer for 15% off my order from the new site Soap.com (it's like Alice.com) and free shipping over $25 or more for a first time order. I needed some new laundry detergent so I checked it out. One less trip to the store!

Anyway, I found a huge gigantic bottle of Era and after the 15% off it was cheaper than the no-name brand I had been buying. Score! So I bought 2 bottles and some toilet cleaning refill thingys and my total came to $27. That was yesterday. Guess what was on my doorstep today?

My stuff! Wow! Kazaam! Pow!

I will be ordering from them again, that's for sure.

Here is the link: http://www.soap.com and if you enter the code: AMSH5630 in the checkout page, you'll get 15% off and enter SHIP25 you'll get free shipping (you can stack the codes).

Also, if you use the code, I'll get some credit to spend there as well (and you will be able too as well if you tell your friends). So that is my soap box message for the day. Go save some money!

more progress...

Most of the major work on the mudroom is done. We just need some trim but have to wait to see what they have at the Restore.

Before:


After but before new trim and moulding.


I did finish the new stairs and they are installed and pretty. We used the base of the old stairs as it was sturdy and in good shape but put new treads on. I stained them a deep walnut color and sealed them with 3 coats of poly.

We took a cheap and hefty dowel ($3.78) which Brian cut, mitered the ends and wood glued them together. I also stained this a walnut color. The stair rail was mainly for Molly who just used the wall to get up and down the stairs and left muddy hand prints all over.

I stuck some vinyl bird decals on the stairs for fun.

Speaking of vinyl decals - look what I did to our "new" washer and dryer.


I love the look and really dresses up a boring appliance. The vinyl sticks just fine to the dryer even when hot.

About the washer/dryer...my Grandparents gave us a heavy duty Kenmore washer and dryer set when our old pair died. They were teeny tiny and I had to do a million loads of laundry but they were free. Fast forward to a week ago and suddenly I HAD to have a large washer and dryer NOW! So we looked on Craigslist and lo and behold a super capacity washer and dryer set popped up in Hillsboro for $375 for the pair! They were only 2 years old but had only been used for 1 year. Brian drove over and got them and I couldn't be happier.

child labor...

We at the Shearer household believe children should work. We're not above putting our 3 year old to hard labor. Just because you can't wipe your own bottom, doesn't mean you get out of work.

The two little girls had the arduous task of sorting the new tile. Maddie would yell "Gray one or white one" and one of the kids would hop up and provide it for her.

Speaking of Maddie, this was her job. Note: she volunteered and actually enjoyed it.


Here is a view of the floor in progress. It's really brightening it up. We went with commercial vinyl tile. It's the same stuff used in school cafeterias.


And just for your horror photo of the day...here it was before.

there and back again...a desk's tale

Remember this desk that I bought for my office?



I changed it to this.


Well fast forward almost 1 year exactly and I have a brand new custom built Parsons style desk for my room and wanted the old one gone. I didn't think that anyone on Craigslist would want this wild desk so I stripped it down to something more conservative.


I painted the desk a semi-gloss Decorators White and stained the top a rich walnut. I spray painted the handles in oil rubbed bronze (I love this spray paint!). All the supplies I had on hand.

I think I may have priced it too low as I had 4 people email in one day. It was gone the next day! It was a fun and easy project.