canning

It's that time of year again - canning time. We were recently given a couple of boxes of apples so we took an afternoon and canned applesauce. It's so very easy to do and tastes so very good.


Peeling the apples.


Cooking the apples.


Pureeing the apples, putting them in the quart jars and then eventually processing them in the water bath.

I'm hoping to get a pressure canner so I can do some green beans and other yummy vegetables. We also need to go find a place to pick some apples and peaches. Oh and we need to go pick some more blueberries so we can make some blueberry jam. The strawberry freezer jam is already done and we're flying through it.

Although canning is easy, it's a lot of work. However there are few things more satisfying then seeing pantry shelves stocked with veggies and fruit that you canned. Tastes so much better than buying store bought cans.

progress

We're making progress on the quick (or not so quick) mudroom makeover. Brian replaced the broken, duct taped window with a shiny new vinyl one.



Hole in the wall.


Now a window! I had Brian remove the sheetrock from the wall completely due to my discovery of these amazing wood slats.


From the outside:




We're going to install the moulding around the frame and get started on hanging the beadboard paneling on the ceiling. After that the new floor goes in. Can't wait!

thrifting

We are putting a new floor in the mudroom/laundry room. Right now it is old concrete with paint stains all over. I HATE the mudroom but have to spend a vast quantity of time there doing laundry. So finally we are doing a quick makeover. I have budgeted around $300 for everything.

Here is a peek at what I have been living with. Actually this looks better than before because we had almost finished emptying every thing out. I'm a little embarrassed to show everyone but it will make for a more dramatic after shot.



So far we are beadboarding the ceiling, putting in a commercial vinyl tile floor (think school cafeteria tiles), painting, installing moulding and putting in a new window. Should look pretty snazzy once we are done. We need a new door but that will have to come later.

The point of this story is we went to order the tiles from a local store but they were closed. So we hopped over to the Goodwill outlet and bought these:



$2.00 for both of them. My plan is to use them for lights maybe (inspiration here). They may end up looking terrible and then I will be on the hunt for new baskets.

Then we bought something my son has been wanting for awhile. A bike! For $5.00! In perfect shape!



He took it for a spin around the block and only hit about 10 bushes. Apparently he would stare at something while still pedaling and only Brian yelling at him to not hit the roses would bring him back to reality. He loves it and feels like a big boy now.

And yes, Ava is wearing red socks with sandals. Sigh...

mudroom door

We are finally getting to some of those little projects that have been put off for almost 5 years. The mudroom door was one of those little projects. The mudroom houses our pantry, laundry room and outdoor gear. We do have a sliding glass door in the school room but I have it blocked off, so we use the mudroom to go out to the backyard.



The previous owners had a hollow core door with a rudely cut doogy door on the bottom. It also just had a door knob lock. When we moved in we just painted the door, put up some scrap beadboard to cover the dog hole and painted a chalkboard in the middle.



And pictures coming from the mudroom in to the house. This picture shows the doggy door.


Since someone in our house is always coming or going to the mudroom, there have been many crashes and banged heads to the person on the other side.

So since we are gutting and putting in a new bathroom upstairs we decided that it would be a good time to start another project and finally put a new door in. Is that a sign of remodel ADHD?

We picked a door with a large window (which I will be sewing a sheer curtain for since I do not want to see in to the hideous mudroom). We also put in a dead bolt although I'm not sure how good that will be since you could probably just break the glass and get in.



And from the mudroom:


So we just need to finish putting up the door frame molding and then I will probably give it a coat of semi-gloss white paint.

Now that I can see the mudroom/laundry room from the house I really want to get started on remodeling it. First we need to finish the half bath upstairs and then rip out the girls rooms and re-do them. Maybe in another year we'll get to it. Sigh...

sneek peek

Here's a sneek peek of my new desk. I will snap some after pictures as soon as I can hide the cords and find an organizer for underneath. I really like it and all its Parson-iny goodness.

overheard....

Soon to be 5 year old Grae: "Daddy, your fingers are old. How old are they?"

We were watching a show the other day and a bizarre commercial came on. Ava said "She's sure weird." To which Grae replied "No I think she's a democrat."

bedroom makeover continued...

My bedroom makeover has stalled due to ripping out the closet upstairs to put in a half-bath. I'm anxious to jump start it again.

My office is in our bedroom (which I'm usually not a fan of) because two of my children needed a bedroom, go figure. I'm trying to make it look nice and organized.



We installed two giant shelves above my desk to hold all of my label printing supplies and I did have a mishmash of baskets that didn't look so nice. So I broke down and bought matching baskets from Target. I also bought come chalkboard fabric tags from bradensgracewallart on etsy so I knew what was in the baskets.


Pretty neato, huh!

I'm placing postcards around my monitor so I don't have to look at a blank wall. Brian is finishing up my new custom built parsons style desk to replace the one I have now. I'll snap a picture of that soon.

I still need to finish the curtains as well as recover our headboard and possibly paint the craigslist find dresser. At the very least I need to paint the hardware.

When I finish that, I am going to repaint the living room gray thanks to the encouragement of my blog commentors. Brian is thrilled. :)