Cottage Dreamers

Girls dorm part 3

2011-01-19T08:46:00.002-06:00

I only a few minutes before I need to start school with the kids so this will have to be a quick update on our progress.

We have the walls and floor painted but I forgot to take a good picture of the floor before we started the beds. Oops. It looked beautiful though.

We used zero VOC Olympic brand paint in Garlic Clove (my preferred shade of white that I've used in all our houses.) I've never used zero VOC before and didn't know how well it would cover but I'm happy to announce it covered excellent with two coats. The floor will get a third but only because we left marks during the bed building process. I'm sure extra coats there will be a good idea anyway. I don't know for sure what I want to do on the floor permanently...carpet, wood, rugs, leave it as it is. I really like the white paint, which with four girls in one room, I'm sure will be covered in make up, nail polish and markers before too long, but it's paint. Who cares, right? Just slap on another coat of paint.

Paint scuffs terribly, but the scuffs have always come right off with a mop and they don't wear shoes past the front door anyway. (We have free range chickens. Ahem.)

So for now, that's as far as I want to go with the floor and I'm loving the way it looks so much that I'm thinking I'll paint my bedroom floor white too!

Once it was all painted and dry, Jeff and Gracie set up shop and built four beds together.

Jeff hates to work alone (even if he doesn't need help) and Gracie has really been wanting to participate so he handed her some power tools, and I'm sure, made her do most of the work. He excels in delegation.

I was happy to have the day off and only be on camera duty. That's my favorite part anyway.

Bed number one.

Good work Grace!

Bed's number two, three and four.

Outstanding craftsmanship, Grace. I'm really impressed.

They screwed them to the wall on two sides so we only used one leg per bed. It might look a little funny right now, but we plan to have built in bedside tables and desks which would prevent you from seeing any of the other legs anyway. We're going with "built-in" furniture because it's an oddly shaped room that would be difficult to furnish otherwise. And if it isn't extremely sturdy and nailed to the floor it wouldn't last around here for long.

Now, guess who has to to clean up this mess and paint the beds?

If you said me, you're probably right.

Next (once our bank account recovers) we'll be adding two large custom built (Jeff built) drawers under each bed. We're also tossing around the idea of incorporating some book shelves into the trim work around the door and window. I'd really like to get this room completed before we move on upstairs, but we'll see how that goes.

I think I'll link up with Sarah today at A Beach Cottage. Sounds fun!

Girls dorm part 2

2011-01-17T03:44:00.001-06:00

It's the middle of the night and I'm ailing a bit so I figured I'd post an update on the girls room. I always hate to read on someone's blog that they're sick. It causes me to hold my breath and read as quickly as I can or even only scan the pictures if it's an extra long post. I occasionally have sympathy illness symptoms.

Having said that, I don't know why I then feel compelled to share with you how I'm feeling at the moment.

Possibly because I hate to keep secrets.

I'm sorry if any of you struggle with hypochondria, which I feel is an underrated disorder worthy of a foundation. Let's start one, shall we? Hypochondriacs unite!

Don't worry though, I won't tell you any of the symptoms of what I may or may not have so that you can't get it.

Let's move on, mkay?

Once we covered the ceiling with pine boards it was time to build some doorways and short walls.

Jeff is doing the hokey pokey in what will be the girls bedroom door. Directly behind him is the doorway to what will be their walk-in closet.

Once that was done, it was time to move on to the short walls.

Before we could build them, however, Jeff decided to add some chalk to his chalk line thing which became clogged or something because he then began pulling out all 3,000 feet of string which dumped a significant amount of bright blue chalk on the floor, then he rewound the string, then he repeated the entire process several more times.

Here, let me show you...

OCD much, Jeff?

They have medication for that you know.

(You know I love you anyway, Jeff, right?)

(RIGHT???)

Once I finished the collage and went back upstairs only to find him still messing with it, I ripped the dadgummed thing from his hands and tossed it out the window...not really, but I wanted too.

He did finally give it up when I suggested that we use the other fully functional chalk line thing sitting in the tote behind him.

I have, in the past, diagnosed him with child induced dementia so I'll just assume he forgot he had the other one and move on with this post.

Finally, the short walls.

Did you know you build the wall on the ground first and then raise it into place and nail it in?

You would think I'd have known that being married to a man who used to build houses for a living.

Yep, easy peasy.

The short walls are about three feet tall.

Then it was time to cover all the walls in pine.

It's apparently a good idea to put as many nails in a board as it will hold. Otherwise, it just might POP right off the wall.

Because OCD is not one of the disorders I suffer from, I will not be filling the nail holes.

NO.WAY.

Nope, I just paint right over them and call it character because we could all use a little more character, couldn't we?

And there you have it.

More later...I'm feeling much better so I'm going to bed now!

P.S.
I've been popping vitamin C's during this entire post and I'm already beginning to feel tip top again.
You should google vitamin C therapy sometime, it's pretty effective.

P.P.S. or is it P.S.S? I forget.
Anyway, funny thing...as soon as I finished this post, google flashed me an "anti-anxiety" ad. Ha!
What are you trying to tell me, google? Hmmm?
Just spit it out, for goodness sake!
☺

Girls dorm

2011-01-10T17:39:00.000-06:00

We finally got started with the girls room upstairs.

We started by by adding another layer of insulation over the bats of insulation. There's also a layer of the blue styrofoam under the bats so that we have three layers total. Hopefully this will keep the kids toasty in the winter and cool in the summer.

Next came the fun part...the pine boards. We've used number four pine boards all over the house so there are a lot of knots and variations in the wood. I don't necessarily love the knots but I do love saving money any time I can.

(We didn't add extra insulation on the straight wall where draftiness is not an issue.)

Their room is approximately 16' X 11' so it took us a while to get to this point.

I have more to show you later but that's it for now.

Short and sweet.

Hello again!

2010-11-18T17:01:00.000-06:00

Hello, to any precious person who may have stumbled upon this desolate blog.

We had a nice summer full of painfully hard work building fences, gardening, learning the ins and outs of livestock and everything else that pertains to starting a homestead. It was so full, we didn't have the time to work much on the house other than do a few of the ugly but necessary type things (not really worth blogging about to me.) However, we did add transoms over the master bedroom and bathroom doors using glass Jeff salvaged from a building demo. It's the kind of glass with wire between two panes of glass. When we've finished trimming it out and painting, I'll be sure to show you all.

The next project we'll soon be starting is the second floor. It's entirely unfinished right now but the kids have been using it as their bedroom anyway. For now, the plan is to do one bedroom start to finish then the other bedroom, but we'll see. Those rooms will be decked out with painted pine walls and built-in twin beds so I'm really looking forward to seeing them done.

Now that fall is here, the kids and I are back to school which seems way more difficult and time consuming than ever before. It's quite the balancing act, teaching three grade and caring for two little bitty ones plus all the regular day to day stuff, but I'm enjoying it. It's forcing me to be a bit more structured and efficient with my time which is good for me...I think.

So, what is it that has pulled me out of the deep, dark recesses of life? A giveaway. Have you heard about all the Cabbages and Roses fabric giveaways going on right now? I'm sure lots of you have and maybe your posting about it too for all those extra chances to win! There are four give aways in all.

These pretty red fabrics are being given away
at Dreamy Whites

these are at My Sweet Savannah

these lovely blues are at French Larkspur

and lastly, these are at Lobster and Swan.

I love them all, don't you? Pillows come to mind first, of coarse, but I bet there are a multitude of things that could be done with them.

Good luck to all of you who are entering.

See you again soon, I hope!

Celeste

Can we get a little privacy, please?

2010-06-14T12:31:00.006-06:00

***

Thank you all for the kind comments about my last post. They were each very encouraging and sweet and I really appreciate them!

***

We finally finished a pretty simple project that we started two or three months ago.

Jeff and I originally thought we'd go the traditional route and use normal doors in the house, but we ran out of time to install them before we moved in. Since moving in however, we no longer feel rushed to make decisions about the unfinished parts of the house so we decided to do things we really love and we really love old doors on tracks. (I nearly fainted the first time I saw ALVN's door!) Naturally this lead us to abandon the traditional door and hunt down an old one for the bedroom.

After a few unsuccessful attempt to get Jeff to go flea marketing with me, I kidnapped my sister for a few hours until and made her chauffeur me around instead. I'm so glad I did, because she took me to a new flea market I didn't know about where we found this beauty...

It was perfect. I wasn't necessarily looking for a door with a window in it but because of the window, I couldn't pass it up. It was love at first site.

Jeff hung the barn door track (purchased from Lowe's) and the door right away because he's a go getter. Me, on the other hand, I like to take my sweet time getting anything done and waited a good two and a half months to paint it.

Actually, "running to the store" to pick up a quart of paint with five children in tow is about a three hour task and not having an abundance of spare three hour time slots, I quickly forgot about the paint and got used to having an unpainted bedroom door with a huge window and no glass. Who really needs privacy anyway?

Then I read that Kim at Twice Remembered is painting a door in her house and she shared some beautiful examples of what she likes which reminded me that I have a door I need to finish too. Thanks Kim, you were just the motivation I needed.

The technique I used is also how I finished the top of my coffee table but with a lot more layers of watery paint. The Flea Market Style magazine I got from my friend Lisa had a beautiful example of this type of paint technique in it too.

I love the blue cabinet on the right which actually has fresh paint on it, believe it or not. It looks like it was painted years and years ago.

So here's my attempt at a lighter colored version of what they did.

First, pick your color in latex paint. I chose Jade Island from Valspar. Then mix a little of the paint with water in equal amounts...half paint, half water. Then paint on layer upon layer, wiping up the drips and puddles as you go. You'll want to let the layers dry between coats so that the color can build up.

First layer

Second layer.

It's a little bit time consuming, but the goal is to have a paint that's a little bit transparent so you can see each layer which you can't do by painting with undiluted paint.

After about four or five layers of Jade Island, I used two more darker shades of blue plus a little white here and there (each color getting its own layer.) Those last three colors I diluted with even more water so that there was very little paint in the mixture. I wanted those colors to be very subtle, almost invisible. Then I knocked off a little paint on a few edges; the holes, scratches and rusty nails were already there.

For the window, we used plexi glass which Jeff sanded on both sides to an almost opaque finish. He likes the idea of a little privacy.

So there it is...finally. I still feel the urge to tweak it a little but I'm sure the urge will pass if I keep putting it off long enough.

☺

The Dreaded Post and A Gooseberry Pie

2010-06-08T17:45:00.006-06:00

Okay, here's my confession. I've been putting this post off ever since I figured it would make sense to clue you all in on it. So here it is. Please don't judge us too harshly.

Up until two and a half years ago, Jeff and I were entrepreneurs in the new home construction business. I would design the houses and Jeff would build them. We were both doing what we absolutely loved and having so much fun with it while it lasted. Can you already guess where this story is going? If you haven't heard (ha ha,) the housing market kind of turned into the Titanic and is now resting at the bottom of the ocean. We were on the ship when it went down and barely made it out alive. Okay, maybe that's a little dramatic. We went bankrupt and lost a lot including our house. I don't care to relive the details but that was a major turning point for us, naturally. It lead us to where we are now though, which in a lot of ways, is exactly where we always wanted to be...building a modest (albeit weird to some) home in the country. I say it's weird to some people because there are those out there who just don't get it. "Country???" "Wood plank walls???" "Corrugated metal in the shower???" And the biggest conundrum, "SMALL???" You all get it though, don't you? Yes, I'm sure you do. It's not half as "weird" as we'd like it to be but it turns out weird can also be quite expensive. Now, I have to stop saying weird because it's almost convincing me that my home is w... well, you know.

(I'm going to interrupt this dreadful post occasionally with pictures of a gooseberry pie my 11 year old daughter made from scratch all by herself today, including picking the gooseberries from a few bushes on the property.)

Two cups of freshly picked, green gooseberries.

Just days after the bankruptcy closed, and due to some ~~strange~~ mysteriously divine intervention that I won't go into right now, we were jobless and also facing homelessness literally within a day or two (although we had both family and friends who all offered more than once to take us all in (4 little ones at the time, no less!)) Jeff's first day of joblessness we spent hunting for a place to live and by the end of the day we found a home and began moving in the very next morning. Two days later, Jeff had a successful job interview and was able to start the following Monday morning. I can't even begin to explain how or why God laid everything out in the way He did so I won't even try, but just let me say, it was amazing.

Gooseberries with 1/2 cup of water, 1 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of flour and 1/8 tsp. of salt heated over medium heat until thickened.

About a year and a half later, Jeff's sweet grandma passed away leaving him an inheritance that we used as our seed money to finally move out to the country and build a house we can hopefully stay in till we die! We moved a lot while we were in the business.

Our original goal was to use $15,000 (not including the price of the land) to build the house to the point that it was livable yet unfinished. During the building process, which was done by Jeff and a few friends and family members on weekends and after work, we decided to push it just a little further than we planned and went ahead and built all but one of our interior walls on the first floor which cost a few more thousand dollars doing it. Yes, we were planning on living in a house with no interior walls (except around the bathroom. Even I have my limits.) It was money well spent even if it put us over our budget a little.

Pre bake a pie crust. We like to use a no-roll crust that tastes similar to a shortbread cookie. Yum!

Now that we're living in the house, we thought we were ready to finish it. The weather is nice and the days are longer so we decided to finally go to the bank and get a smallish construction loan to finish the house that would convert into permanent financing in a certain amount of time (six months, I think.) It would mean another summer of long hard weekend work, but I'd be able to help out since I'm not pregnant. That's a rare thing for me. Soooo, about a month ago, Jeff met with a banker who said he thought he could help us and we started getting plans lined out to finish it...hence the May 10th "Recap" post. Welp, it was a no go "due to the current status of the economy..." we now have to be four years away from our bankruptcy to qualify for a home equity loan. A decent one anyway. Jeff thought about looking elsewhere but then things really, REALLY picked up at work and he just got too busy. As usual, it has turned out to be a blessing that the loan didn't go through because Jeff won't have time to work on the house for several months. Don't tell Jeff, but I'm alright with not having a home loan, even if it means living in an unfinished house for longer than planned.

Pour the gooseberry filling into the baked pie crust and top with meringue made from two egg whites and four tablespoons of sugar then bake it at 350 degrees F for twelve minutes.

One of these days I may get the courage to show you pictures of just how unfinished parts of our house really are...but don't hold your breath. Confessing our financial statuses past and present, has caused me a little mental discomfort and strangely desiring to suck my thumb.

That's were we are in a nut shell. A big nut shell. Things will move on as time and money allow which both will result in slow progress. That's okay though. I feel like I've kind of left the rat race and it's been nice. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go ~~suck my thumb~~ eat a piece of gooseberry pie.

☺

P.S. Is Blogger acting retarded or is it just me?

Homemaking

2010-06-03T21:49:00.000-06:00

The big jar of flowers are flowers that I picked, the daisies in the bud vase were picked by my 2 and 5 year olds. The two doilies they're sitting on were crocheted by my grandmother who taught me to crochet and I crocheted the the white blanket. The sewing table I painted white was given to me by my mother who, coincidentally taught me to sew on that very machine. The skirt under the table is one of the simpler things I've sewn with those skills.

I've been teaching my children to garden and two of them especially love it and soon we'll be feasting on the fruits of our labor. I'm amazed at how much I know because the women in my life took the time to teach me homemaking skills and now I'm passing those things on to my children. It takes a lot of patience on my part because it's always easier to just do it myself, but it's been rewarding to see them taking on more and more responsibility and with a cheerful attitude. Just this morning, I had the freedom to go take a shower and leave things in the capable hands of my children. When I got out of the shower, Grace was rocking the baby, Isaiah was playing sweetly with Evelyn and Madison was cooking breakfast for everyone! My children are only 11, 8, 5, 2 and 8 months yet they are learning already how to behave lovingly and responsibly towards one another. I can't tell you how it makes my heart sing!

If you have a love for homemaking and learning or passing on those skills you might like to take some time to visit Raising Homemakers. They're having a fun giveaway right now that you might like to participate in.

I've been taking some time to really enjoy my family and all the things that are going on with the warmer weather and longer days which has somehow all but eliminated time for blogging. I still intend to share the projects we do to build our little cottage and when I have a few more minutes to spare, I have a confession of sorts for you all.

Right now it's late and time for bed, so I'll see you all later.

Have a good weekend!

☺

Recap

2010-05-10T17:58:00.004-06:00

Thanks to everyone that shared advice with me about my last post. I'm going to give Etsy a try, God is watering my garden this week (thank you Lord) and potty training is just plain hard.

It's time for a reminder of what this blogs all about and where we're going. Things around the house have slowed down as we've taken time to work around the property. We'd like to have a well groomed area around the house to enjoy which has required cutting down a few trees and a lot of mowing. The property is wooded and most of the front two thirds is so thick with woods it isn't mowable, but the area where the house is tucked away is really shaping up. As far as the house goes, we're hopefully getting ready to kick into high gear again and get it finished by sometime this fall. We've already got nine or ten months in the house but ~~we've~~ Jeff has done all the work in ~~our~~ Jeff's spare time with the help of friends and family.

This was originally the look I was going for...

Bora Bora.

but it just isn't happening.

I couldn't convince Jeff to haul in a bunch of sand and flood the place with salt water.

Here's what it still looks like on the outside minus the building debris and the kids zip line.

Things haven't changed since the winter due to the weather and short daylight hours, but we'll be adding siding soon and a front porch that goes across the front of the house.

Amelia Park, Fl.

This has the colors of siding we want and the front porch look we want.

This little cottage is just adorable.

Lowe's Kit House

For my greatest and favorite inspiration you'll have to visit Ross Chapin's super-duper-amazing cottages. I love the details and the efficiency of his houses. Jeff and I have been fans of his for a few years and I get weak in the knees every single time I browse his website. I'd love to incorperate as much similar detail into the exterior of my house (the interior details are wonderful too.)

Another big undertaking will be the upstairs. Nothing has changed up there but we'll have two bedrooms and a half bath all clad with the wood planks on the walls like the first floor.

The larger bedroom will have four built-in twin beds with storage under the beds and the smaller bedroom will have two built-in twin beds. It will be all about efficiency and organization up there because that's how my kids are. (Ha! I wish.)

I love the simplicity of this bedroom.

Country Living

The kids rooms will have vaulted ceilings too.

Now, back to the first floor.

We need to finish things like trim, floors and kitchen cabinets and when the kitchen is done I'd like it to have a similar look or feel to this one.

Coastal Living

We'll have white painted cabinets and concrete counter tops and, of course, my blue stove.

I'd love to have a Big Chill refrigerator too, but at $3,500 a pop, I'm not holding my breath.

The bathroom is getting closer to the look I love.

Mine.

Country Living's.

And the master bedroom is coming along too.

Right now I'm trying to decide if I'd rather have wood or carpet in there. There are things I love and hate about both and I'm leaning toward wood, but we'll see. We came EXTREMELY close to buying carpet for it yesterday but I really think I'd rather have all wood on the first floor and a few large area rugs.

What do you guys think about carpet vs. wood?

Can I get your advice, please?

2010-05-05T13:13:00.001-06:00

Busy, busy, busy! I don't know about the rest of you, but when the days start getting longer, the work load seems to get heavier. A lot of it is self imposed work like gardening and sewing, and other things, like potty training, have nothing to do with the season, but it always gets busier for us every spring.

Yes, my little two year old is being potty trained.

You'd think by now I'd have this potty training thing down to an art and we could shave a year or so off the diaper wearing phase, but I figure I'll just keep her outside in a dress without a diaper and let her figure things out and if she's trained by the time she's five or six I'm doing alright.

Speaking of lofty goals, I'm considering selling stuff on Etsy. It turns out that even though I have a cool, blue 1950's oven, I still just can't get into cooking, so I figure I'll sell stuff on Etsy, become a multi dollaraire and hire a personal chef. So far, I've made three pounds of soap from scratch and two pennant style banners. That ought to be enough, right?

Seriously though, I am looking into Etsy and would love to hear what any of you have to share about it. What works, what doesn't..."don't waste your time"...whatever you have to say, I want to know. Here's why, every month, several of the women in my family get together for what we call "craft day" and everyone brings whatever craft they're working on and we craft. Except me. I bring my children and I talk a lot. Anyway, we recently decided to put our craftiness to good use and try to raise money to help a particular person who could really use the money. Without saying too much, she is someone very dear who, as we say around here, has a tough row to hoe and we'd like to help her as much as we can by giving her some cold, hard cash. Money doesn't make life perfect, but it can help smooth it out sometimes. The group is very talented (like my mom) and we all have a heart to help so we're investigating ways to sell our wares as a group for her. Do any of you sell on Etsy with a friend? How does that work out? Is it practical?

Now, speaking of hoeing tough rows, my garden is complete! Have I ever even mentioned that I was working on that? Our dirt is made up of mostly rocks, so we had some topsoil brought in and Jeff fenced it in. At our last house, we had some river bottom dirt hauled in that was incredible. Zero rocks and zero weeds. It was extremely dark brown and very easy to work with and the plants seemed to grow well enough in it. This years dirt has some organic matter and a lot of worms so I hope that's a sign of good dirt. I only found one or two rocks but weeds are popping up here and there already. >:[ Thank goodness for the hula hoe!

I took on gardening like everything else I do and studied up for at least an hour before I declared myself an expert and then jumped in with both feet. This is only my second year at gardening and I still know very little about it so we made this years garden even bigger than last years. What I lack in know-how I make up for with determination and delegation and grand ideas. "Kids! Go water my garden. NOW!" See how that works? "Jeff! Those trees are blocking sunlight from my garden!" "Now let's plant an orchard there."

So do you all have any gardening plans or tips?

Don't forget to let me know your thoughts on Etsy, pretty please.

Thanks!

My latest finds and a chicken tractor

2010-04-20T11:56:00.003-06:00

Here's a quick peek a couple of things we're working on around the house...

I've been keeping an eye out for a vintage fan to mount on the wall in our bedroom rather than have a ceiling fan. I love having a fan on while I sleep in the summer, especially with a window open too.

There are a lot of these old fans floating around. A lot of them still work just fine and most of them have a little rust, a few dings and chipped paint. I love rust, dings and chipped paint but when I found this one, I knew it was the one. It was still in its original box with the tag on it and all its papers and looked brand new. It had been stowed away for the past 50 years in someones attic in Michigan and now it's back in Missouri, where it started out...where it belongs.

It's like a sweet homecoming.

The door on the barn track is another project we've got going on in the bedroom. I found the old door at a flea market and Jeff hung it from the track for me. I've got to decide how I want to finish the wood and put some opaque plexiglass in the window. I'll have another door on the same track on the other side of the fan for the closet...one of these days, hopefully.

Jeff's a busy man.

Recently he's been helping me get a garden ready and building a chicken tractor.

I, of coarse, "supervised" (skimmed through books) from right here...

for all of about five semi-relaxing minutes. Then it was back to refereeing kids and animals, playing name that bug and 20 500 questions times four chatty children and fetching tools, drinks, sandwiches and bandaids, nursing baby, changing diapers, etc, etc.

Back to the tractor. While preparing this post, I realized I didn't have any good pictures of the completed chicken tractor, so I grabbed my camera and headed out to snap one or two shots.

As soon as the girls (hens) heard the clickety click of my camera, they started heading over to the tractor to pose for me. We let them roam free all day and they typically only come to the tractor to get a drink or lay an egg, unless there's a camera involved, then they're all over it. Even Petunia, our barn cat, got into the act.

Silly cat, she thinks she's a chicken.

She was snacking on chicken feed when some of the hens spotted her and decided they couldn't let her hog the camera.

"Move over cat! This isn't about you!"

Before Petunia knew it, she was being ganged up on by the girls and she was run out of town!

The kids named the hen on the far left Eye Pecker, and for good reason. I'm guessing even Petunia knows about her reputation. Chickens just can't resist pretty little sparkles, especially that chicken. "Oh, what's that pretty sparkling thing in your face?" she clucks. "Here, let me..." peck, peck. "OUCH!! That's my EYE!" Yep, they're not very bright.

Anyway, for anyone that's curious, Jeff made the tractor out of an old chain link dog pen. He made an A frame from two of the panels and closed up the ends with chicken wire. Then made a small coop at one end with a ramp that we pull closed at night. The roof of the coop is made of left over metal roofing and is only screwed down at the top so we can lift it open to gather the eggs like so...

Every now and then, we find a kid in there, but it's usually just hens and eggs.

He can pull it around the yard with the riding mower when he needs to, hence the name chicken tractor.

Welp, that's all.

Cupcakes for my cupcake

2010-04-16T09:42:00.002-06:00

I've been refamiliarizing myself with cooking, since I went so long with just a couple of little hot plates, and one of the first things I baked in my dreamy blue oven were cupcakes. I bought a carrot cake mix for Jeff's birthday a few weeks ago, in hopes that the oven would be up and running by then. It wasn't. But that's okay because if it had been, then these cutesy little cupcakes would have never been born. They'd have been a plain old sheet cake because what man's man would wants cupcakes for his birthday, even if he is a sweetie?

I've been taking on things like oven roasted chicken as well as popping some of our home grown Dakota Black popcorn on the stove.

It's not burned, the kernels are actually black.

Cooking on the blue stove almost makes me enjoy cooking!

Another pillow tutorial (and curtains)

2010-04-15T08:40:00.025-06:00

It's time for another pillow tutorial. This one is so easy, it's ridiculous.

This is the one that Jeff asked me if I knew the "pleats," as he called them, weren't even. He's a perfectionist in regards to his own projects and I'm possibly the complete opposite so I'm good for him, right? Right.

Step one.

Cut out your the squares (or whatever shape you choose) for your pillow.

Step two.

Cut a strip of fabric you want to use for the ruffle, or whatever that thing in the middle is. You'll want it to be 1.5 to 2 times as long as the width of the pillow for making gathers.

The width of the strip is up to you.

Step three.

The ends of the fabric won't matter, but you'll want to "hem" the long edges of the strip unless you want the edges to have a frayed look when your done making the ruffle. I folded them under almost an inch and machine stitched it at the standard 5/8" mark. I also plan to use this line of stitches as my sewing guide when I make it into a ruffle.

Step four.

Just eyeballing it, I pinch up the fabric and shove it under the foot all willy nilly with no rhyme or reason as I sew another line to hold these ruffles in place. That's what gives it the nice (or as in Jeff's case, perplexing) uneven ruffled look. The key to making this work is to sew slowly.

When your finished, it will look something like this:

Step four and a half.

Do it again going down the other side of the strip.

Oh! This is important! Make sure you're sewing in the same direction on both sides of the fabric to insure that your ruffles will want to fold in the same direction. Whew! I almost forgot that part!

Step five.

Iron the ruffles down into submission. My goal, aside from not getting burned, was to get the folds in the fabric to all face the same direction all the while encouraging their unevenness. You could skip this step if you want to go for a fluffier ruffle.

Step six.

Pin it to the front square of your pillow fabric and sew it on.

Step seven through ten.

Finish the pillow in the usual way then enjoy.

A tutorial for the white pillow can be found here. It's easy too.

I used the same ruffling technique for my curtains minus the ironing step.

After making a pocket for the rod, I pinched and gathered and sewed five lines across the width of the fabric then I stitched over those same lines a second time to reinforce them because I don't want the threads to break when I tug the curtains closed, and they will if you don't. Trust me.

I made them from muslin which, I think, is typically meant as a backer for quilts. Maybe. I don't know.

You could use a sheet or whatever kind of fabric you wanted to make these. Anyway, I use the extra wide stuff so that when the curtains are closed, there is enough fabric to completely cover the window, even with all those gathers. My curtains are fully functional so that was necessary, but if yours are only for decoration it doesn't matter how wide the fabric is and you might as well save yourself the money and buy the standard 45" wide fabric.

Remember a while back, I said I wanted white billowy curtains that blow around in the breeze because that would make things seem light and airy and relaxing? Well, it works.

The bed keeps them from billowing to their full potential, but that's okay,

it still has a very relaxing effect.

Ahhh.

I'm having fun linking up at:

Poppies at Play: I'm a Creative Cat

and

Sew-n-Tell at amylouwho

and

Frugalicious Friday at Finding Fabulou$

and

Feature Yourself Friday at Fingerprints on the Fridge

and

The Persimmon Perch for Made it Mondays

and

It's So Very Creative

and

Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Design

and

Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts

and

Be Inspired at Room to Inspire

Have you read this magazine yet?

2010-04-13T09:31:00.001-06:00

Not too long ago, Lisa from The Pennington Point, was having a magazine giveaway for her readers and I won. Yippee!!

Want to guess which magazine it was?

Here's a hint.

It's a brand new magazine and if you're a regular blog reader in the home decor circle, you've probably seen it around, A LOT.

I've been wanting to get my little mitts on it for quite a while now to see what all the hubbub was about, but I couldn't find it in any of the stores I go to (Wal-Mart.)

I'm sure you've probably guessed it by now,

so take a look at it one more time.

The day Lisa mailed it to me, she sent me an email and mentioned she was sending along something extra in the package and that she had been praying for me. (I'm truly thankful for all the prayers I can get!)

I had no idea what else she would be sending, so anything would have surprised me, but my jaw hit the floor when I opened it up and found out what it was.

She sent me a hand towel with "Cottage Dreamers" embroidered on it in the prettiest shade of teal!!!

It's perfect and it's beautiful and it was such a sweet surprise! Seeing my blog name on that towel really makes it feel official. It's established now. Permanently etched for all of eternity onto a hand towel.

I put it in the bathroom for all of about two seconds before the thought of grubby little kid paws possibly touching it entered my mind, so I snatched it back up and ran to my bedroom thinking, "No.Way." Sorry kids and sorry guests, this towel is mine.

So, until I can get it framed to hang over the fireplace or on the front door or some other fantastic place, I'm keeping it in a safer place than the bathroom...my bedroom. It matches perfectly too.

Right there it sits so that I can admire it's pristine beauty, unmarred by sweet but filthy little children, unlike every other towel in my entire house. Would it be weird if, after we turn the lights off at night, I were to grab the towel, give it a little peck on the embroidery then snuggle it up to my face to sleep every night? I was just curious.

Okay, Celeste. Snap out of it!

Besides the lovely towel and magazine, Lisa did one more thing. It was something that was so creative, fun and thoughtful that I've got to tell you about it too.

She put little post it notes here and there, throughout the magazine with her own sweet and funny thoughts about different things in the magazine as if we were reading it together without annoyingly reading over each others shoulders, and breathing each others air.

Some were big notes.

Some were little notes.

I like to read my magazines word for word from cover to cover without flipping through the pages first, that way I can savour every bit of them. I also do it that way because I like the suspense of not knowing what's coming next, but knowing that it's gonna be good, whatever it is. Well, with all those little notes, it was even better! It really was like flipping through a magazine with a friend and I have never enjoyed reading a magazine so much. Seriously. (The magazine itself was really, really, really good too, by the way!) Wouldn't that be a good way to cheer someone up who's in the hospital or homebound? I think so, because it cheered me up and I wasn't even down or sick. I'm going to keep the little notes in there too, so that I get that feeling every time I read it. Jeff, please forgive me for knocking a few seeds loose in your gourd when I caught you trying to peel one off. It was a knee-jerk reaction.

☺

A little about Lisa. She's a wife and homeschooling mom to one husband and nine children, respectively, all living under one roof in Texas. That's right, I said 9...NINE...nueve. I guess everything really is bigger in Texas! And they are all theirs without any mixing or blending. Wow, right? I know. That makes my seven member family seem microscopic.

Anyway, her blog is wonderful! There are several categories to read from including everything from decorating to offering wise counsel on personal and family matters. Remember, she has nine (happy) kids and a happy marriage so she's pretty much an expert. If you're from, in or have a family, or know someone who is or has, I highly and sincerely recommend visiting her blog.

Thank you Lisa!

Take Flight

2010-04-08T17:54:00.012-06:00

It really feels like spring is finally here. The warmer weather has motivated me to get crackin' on a few things that involved paint and sawdust. Those things are better off outside, in my opinion, although we've done plenty of sawing in the house this past winter too. You just do what you can, right?

Anyway, I've been working on my bedroom again and want to show you what I've finished so far, but first, I've want to tell you about someone I met...online. (I had to word it like that, because I'm old enough and I've been married long enough that we didn't have that kind of thing back in my day, so I'd otherwise never get to say, "I met someone online.")

Please meet Julie.

Wait, that's not Julie.

Actually, I don't have a picture of Julie. I don't even know what she looks like, but I do know this,

she is a very sweet and talented lady and this is picture is proof of that.

We met, like I've met some of you, through blogging. After leaving eachother comments and a few e-mails, she sent me this amazing picture she took called Take Flight. I fell in love with it the first time I saw it in her etsy shop, jules J gallery. In fact, every time I look at it now, it still makes me smile. Something about it really captures my imagination. The vintage look makes me wonder, where are they? What year is it? And the one, lone bird flying away makes me wonder, where is he going? The whole thing is captivating. Thank you Julie. You're too kind.

Her shop is full of her wonderful, original creations including vintage style photography, beautiful reproductions of her wonderful paintings, a variety of lovely and professional looking note cards as well as some of the prettiest jewellery. Her art covers many styles and I'm sure she has something for everyone. Any of it would make great, unique gifts. You really ought to go take a look.

Back to my bedroom.

I've been working as fast and furious as Sophia will let me (which is an extremely slow pace) to spruce up the place, but I'm pleased with what I've managed to finish so far.

Originally, I planned to have a slightly different layout of our furniture in our somewhat small 10'x13' bedroom, then my mother-in-law surprised us with a beautiful armoire that required a change of plans. It started out a little cramped, especially on Jeff's side of the bed where he had barely a foot of space between the bed and the wall, but I came up with a solution that I'm loving.

Here's part of the problem we had. Evelyn still sleeps in our room in a toddler bed because that's how we do thing around here. I had planned to turn it the other direction to accommodate night tables a little better, but the larger and awesomer armoire forced me to turn the little bed this way instead.

Up until yesterday, Jeff and I each had night stands by the bed that were about 12"x12" each that forced us to cram each piece of furniture on that main wall very tightly together making it hard to even make the bed.

My solution was to take out my night stand, scoot the bed over and hang shelves we made on either side of the bed instead.

Now Jeff has closer to 18" between the bed and the wall, which is still probably tight for some people but it's just right for him. He likes to sleep with the curtains open anyway so he can see the stars at night. He wouldn't be able to do that if he were much farther away from the window. I left his night table, which is actually a small narrow bookshelf we built, so that he has a place for his bible and loads of crap with cords. He has a lot of that and he'll be happy to know that I unplugged everything for him then wadded it up in a ball and stuffed it all under the bed so I could take some pretty pictures.

I put Julie's picture on his side to make up for it.

It's beautiful without being necessarily feminine or masculine. Just perfect.

Her picture got me to thinking that I really like the vintage look in my little cottage so I also bought Jeff a 1927 green, wind-up alarm clock on Ebay.

I couldn't have been more pleased yesterday, as I was getting things wrapped up in the bedroom, when Jeff brought in a box from the mail with the clock in it. It was just meant to be. Doesn't it look perfect with Take Flight?

I didn't completely leave myself out though.

My sister took this picture of a robin's nest full of eggs in her back yard a couple of years ago. It reminds me of my five sweet babies. It also reminds me that someday they'll be leaving the nest making me an empty nester so I don't like to think about it too much. *sniff*

I love the little touch of blue it adds.

See that box in front of the clock? That's where I keep my bedside paraphernalia. Mints, lavender hand lotion and Sophie's snot sucker. Disgusting, but necessary.

Speaking of stashes, here's one of the reason's I love the armoire my

mil gave me.

Since I now have to share one bathroom with everyone in the house, it turns out that this single piece of furniture couldn't suite us better. The drawers hold the little girls clothes and the shelves hold all of my beauty products. The door has a full length mirror in it and I keep a stool under my bed and pull it out when I do my hair and make-up. When I'm done, I just shut the doors and no one but you is wise about my little mess, so let's keep this between us.

I finally finished the curtains and hopefully they no longer look like bedsheets.

It was really simple and I may get around to doing a tutorial one of these days.

I also made a bed skirt and a couple more pillows.

Jeff asked me if they were supposed to look like that. Humph. Silly boy.

I'm happy with the way they turned out even if he thinks they look a little off. I'll add them to my list of tutorials. Maybe.

I still have lots more I want and need to do in here, but is it something that can ever be truly finished? I don't think so, but look how far I've come since we moved in!

Yikes!

☺

Please visit the Inspired Room,

Poppies at Play ,

Show Off Your Cottage Monday,

Just Something I Whipped Up and

Between Naps on the Porch for Met Monday and

What's up doc?

2010-04-06T08:56:00.005-06:00

So, what's everyone up to?

I'm having my first link party and everyone's invited! This particular link party I'm doing through inlinkz is pretty cool because it allows you guys to include a thumbnail picture in the link from your post. If all goes well, I may start having regular link parties. If you've never participated in one and aren't sure why anyone would, they're a good way of getting yourself out there to introduce your blog to others and find new blogs to follow. I'm sure most of you already knew that, but there are always the new kids on the block that can sometimes feel a little left out or not have any idea of what's really going on. I still feel like one of the new kids sometimes too. In fact, having this link party makes me feel like I'm sticking my neck out to have my head chopped off. Not sure why, I'm just a little timid like that I guess.

Anyway, here we go. I hope you all participate and have fun! Party ends on April 13th and you can join anytime until then.☺

Coffee Table makeover

2010-03-30T18:15:00.014-06:00

About three or four years ago, Jeff and I bought new living room furniture and came across a coffee table in the "scratch and dent" section and because we were buying a whole new living room set, the store threw it in for $25.00. It had one scratch on the top about three inches long but was barely noticeable because it was also distressed by the manufacturer. Distressed and/or distressable furniture is a must in our house. Here's what it looked like as of a couple of days ago.

I have an in-house staff of distressors.

I've been wanting to refinish it for a while and now that we're having some warmer weather, I jumped right into it, without much of a plan. That's how I roll.

I started by sanding off the table tops old finish with an orbital sander. At least I think that's what it is.

I left a smidge of the old stain color hear and there and tried not to sand out too much of my children's distressing.

I like musing over their artwork, permanently etched into the wood and it's my prefered method of keeping track of their handwriting skills. Madison's handwriting has made tremendous improvements over the last couple of years.

Then, with the help of one of my chickens, I primed and painted white over the old finish on the base of the table.

I had to fire her when she went to take her 10 minute break and roosted on the wet paint.

Then I mixed a little bit of black acrylic craft paint in with some white to make a medium grey and watered it down by about 50%. I wanted to go for a slightly weathered look and I wanted to keep the paint thin enough that I could still see through it. I'm sure there are better methods but I'm just working with what I already had.

I brushed the mixture onto one board at a time then, with a damp towel, I rubbed most of it back off.

On the right side of the picture below, you can see the effect it had.

Next, I mixed some clear, glossy varnish with some medium brown acrylic craft paint and painted it on one board at a time followed by rubbing it down with a damp towel again.

I was both surprised and happy with the results I got considering the materials I used.

My children's handiwork is still visible.

Please visit the following:

and
Between Naps on the Porch for Met Monday

and
Twice Remembered Cottage for Make Your Monday
and
The Girl Creative for Just Something I Whipped Up
and
Blue Cricket Design for Show and Tell
and
My Backyard Eden for Make it Yours Day
and
Reinvinted for Trash to Treasure Tuesday
and
Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday
and
http://www.decormamma.blogspot.com/
as well as
Funky Junk Interiors for Saturday Nite Special
and

The Big Vintage Oven Reveal!

2010-03-28T18:12:00.008-06:00

I was beginning to think this day would never ever come but,

with the exception of the two left burners which still need to be wired, my vintage oven is finally done!!!

She's beautiful and she cooks, just like me. Except for the cooking part. And I suppose the beauty part also would depend on the beholder but other than that we're exactly alike. Old and large. Except for the old part. I'm forever 29. And fortunately I'm not as large either.

It's been a long, long journey since we first brought her home that cold night in November.

Jeff rewired everything with all new wiring.

Removed the mouse poop filled insulation and replaced it with new.

Replaced all the old burners and degreased the whole thing.

He finished it last night at 10:30 pm after working on it for the last couple of Saturdays and we celebrated (tested it for accuracy) with frozen pizzas baked in the oven. Something we used to take for granted.

The oven timer isn't working and rather than put more effort and money into fixing it, I think for now we'll just put a clock in that spot. But other than that, it works just like a brand new oven. I did some cooking and baking on it today and was really impressed with it. Hurray! It was a very long wait but so worth it.

Once the kitchen is done (still a long ways to go) I'd like it to have a similar look to this kitchen.

Coastal Living

Please visit Twice Remembered for the ever fun Make Your Monday and
Between Naps on the Porch for Met Monday and
Blue Cricket Design for Show and Tell
as well as
The Single Nester for Tuesday Turquoise!

Word Association Therapy

2010-03-26T18:10:00.000-06:00

Spring.

Baby heirloom San Marzano tomato plant.

Wor-duh association. That was six words. Try again.

Eggs.

Chicks.

Better.

Now lets try lemons.

Rabbits!

I don't think you get this game.

Think ASSOCIATION. That's the key.

How about a broad word like Blue?

Whaaah hah haah!

Well, that's not exactly a word but more of a feeling. Try putting that feeling into words.

Oven. {sob}

I think we made a breakthrough!

Bathroom update

2010-03-22T12:33:00.081-06:00

Where do I begin...
My bathroom is still coming along, just a lot slower now. Remember I said that would most likely happen.
Now we've decided that rather than finishing an entire project we prefer starting as many projects as we can and then run around in circles adding a little here and there to each one in a chaotic manner. It just makes sense. We like to call it circuit building and circuit decorating. We got the idea from circuit training which works so well on getting into good physical shape, we thought we'd apply it to our house too because what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Back to my bathroom. The kids fear I've gone a little ruffle crazy and Jeff says he likes it. He knows who butters his bread. Anyway, here's my latest ruffled project.

Disregard the unfinished yada, yada and blah, blah, blah. We're busy.

I made these the same way I made the pillows.

Now, if you like it but you'd rather buy one, how about this one from Anthropologie for only $98.

Or this one from Target for only $26.99.

It is very similar to the one used in my bathroom inspiration picture from Country Living.

After rubbing the fingerprints right off my fingers making what few ruffles I did, I would recommend buying one. Those of you who've ever made ruffles know what I'm talking about.

Speaking of my fingerprintless, delicate little fingers...they're also now covered in blisters and calluses because I shoveled 9,000 pounds of concrete making a concrete floor for our well house turned tornado shelter.

Yes I did.

Upcoming features:

1950's oven (to be finished today,)

more pillows

tornado shelter,

light fixtures,

gardening

and quite possibly, none of the above.

For more great ideas, please visit:

Ruffledy pillows

2010-03-12T16:42:00.010-06:00

Not too long ago, while blog browsing, I came across a little picture tutorial of a ruffled pillow at Creamy White and decided to try my hand at making one myself.

First I tore two and three inch wide strips of fabric and machine basted them right down the middle.

Then I pulled the bobbin thread to make the strips all ruffledy.

After pining them in place to the pillow fabric, I sewed them on. Also right down the middle.

Then I sewed up the pillow and stuffed it.

I had so much fun with the first one that I did it all again.

After posing the pillow on the bed,

I took no less than 127 pictures of Sophie.

I pulled some fabric from my stash (I inherited fabric stashing from my mother who inherited it from her mother) and would like to find ideas for a couple more pillows. I was thinking large square pillows using the fabric in the lower left corner.

Please take some time to visit Li and look around Creamy White. She has lot of good ideas!

Please visit Twice Remembered for Make Your Monday

and

The Girl Creative

as well as

Made it for Monday at Cottage Instincts for more great ideas! ☺

More curtains

2010-03-09T18:47:00.002-06:00

I'm almost finished with the white curtains for the bedroom so I took down the unfinished cream and white damask curtains, put up the new unfinished white ones and stood back and took a look. I used fairly heavy weight muslin, so it looked like I hung sheets on the windows. I'm fine with that if the rest of the room is finished but when you don't even have trim around the windows yet, it isn't a good look. So...I rehung the damask curtains over the white ones.

In order to make it look better than it really is, here's were I started a couple of days after we moved in.

This picture is true to life...a baby sleeping on an unmade bed and a view of the Suburban getting it's battery charged. It's always dead and there's always someone napping on my bed.

And here's the after. No, let's call it the in-between because there's a lot I still want to do to this room.

I think I'm going to hang them from rings to add a little more detail. As for the headboard, I'd really like an iron headboard but we'll see. I have been using a door turned sideways, but that just isn't cutting it for me anymore. I have other plans for the door now anyways.

I have two of these doors. They came from the hundred year old four square we did a few years ago. Someone had covered the panels with a sheet of wood and painted them, as well as every other piece of wood in the house, submarine grey! I just painted over them and used them for head boards but what I'd like to do is strip them, shorten them (they're 7 feet tall) and hang them from sliding barn door track and use them as our bedroom and closet doors. One of the best example's of this I've ever seen can be found at WhisperWood Cottage.

Please visit Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphosis Monday!☺

Introductions

2010-03-08T18:07:00.004-06:00

I'm so excited to introduce everyone to my mom and my cousin who have just started their own blogs. Hurray!

For those of you who've been with me for a while, you've already met them when they helped us build our cottage. Maybe you remember this conversation momma and I had a few months ago. And what about the story I shared with you about my cousin Rick.

Meat Needle Bender a.k.a. my momma.

(My little Evelyn is a clone of my mom.)

My mom is infinitely talented. She's a quilter, crafter, painter, seamstress, sings, plays the piano and has an insane amount of beautiful flowers in her yard. I've been trying for months to get her to start a blog because she has so much to offer and it's just so dang fun. Well a few days ago she finally took the plunge and I'm excited to see what she has in store for us! Please show her what a kind bunch of ladies you all are, and stop by her blog to tell her welcome. I'll be showing you all the curtains I've made soon but don't expect to be wowed and amazed by them. I'm pretty sure I have my dad's sewing genes. If you like crafting or quilting, get ready, because she's on a major crafting/quilting kick right now. She'll probably be in magazines some day.

And now meet Rick. I call him Ricky. I don't know how he feels about that and I really don't care. We were born on the same day and he's a few hours older than me but, growing up, I was always taller so we've always had a love hate relationship. Now he's taller and I'm still younger, so the feuding continues. I'm only being nice to him now because he's one of my husbands best friends and I really like his wife and kids.

He's also extremely talented. Aside from singing and playing guitar, he can take hunks of wood and carve, chisel or chainsaw them into really great pieces of art. He wins awards and stuff. He also builds some pretty amazing things around his house for his wife so I hope you all will follow suit, and go to Chainsaws and Chisels to heckle him. And if you still have snow on the ground, please throw a snowball at him for me. Don't worry, he's too polite to throw a snowball back...unless you're a guy...then you better run.

Now I'm off to recruit more bloggers!

P.S. Oops! I fell asleep at the wheel and forgot to include their links the first time around! Thanks Deborah!

Breezy, billowy, white curtains

2010-03-05T15:24:00.002-06:00

Since getting new bedding, I've changed my mind about my bedroom curtains. Naturally.

Natural Curtain Company

The cream isn't going to work anymore, but that's okay because I think I'm going to go with white.

Country Living

You know what happens when you put white curtains on a window, don't you?

Coastal Living

A breeze magically starts blowing them and has that relaxing effect you can only get from billowing curtains.

Architectural Digest

Ahhhh.

Chalkboard

2010-03-04T09:20:00.003-06:00

A couple of years ago, I made a huge chalkboard for the wall behind my kitchen table. I got the idea from Heather Chadduck's chalkboard.

I started with a 4x8 sheet of Masonite and painted it with several coats of chalkboard paint. Then Jeff screwed it directly to the wall.

For the frame, I simply stained some trim without bothering to seal it and we nailed it right over the chalkboard.

When we moved, we just left it behind so now I need to make another one.

It was very cheap and super easy.

Being a homeschool mom, you might think I used it a lot for school. Nope. It's more fun to use as decoration than for education!

Go visit Nester for more links to great chalkboards!

And Twice Remembered at:

White sheets

2010-03-03T17:23:00.001-06:00

I've never had a bed that I've been in love with. One that has a look that calls to me, begging me to crawl back under the covers. Now I think I know what the problem has been. I've never had white sheets until just a few days ago!

Even my unmade bed is singing to me.

♪♫ "Celeste, come baaaacckkk!" ♪♫

I try to make my bed everyday, but since I'm rarely the last one out of bed, I occasionally forget.

Now, when the bed is made, I just want to jump up and down on it then waller all over it to mess it up again.

I didn't even bother to prewash or iron the sheets before I put them on. Who really does that anyway? Forget I asked, I don't want to know.

The quilt is new too. It's Better Homes and Garden brand from, guess where.
WAL-MART!
Can you believe that??? I can't tell you how much I love this quilt! It's reversible too.

Jeff says he likes it too and in order for him to prove it to me, I asked him to tell me why he likes it in the form of a song. That's why the guitar is out. It turns out, he mostly likes it because I like it to the point of being giddy and he likes it when I'm giddy.

Now, because I insist, for various reason's, on always carrying around a bag load of guilt to the point that I kept everything neatly packaged and unopened in my bedroom for two whole days just in case of who knows what, let me justify this surge of seemingly indulgent spending to you.

These are my old sheets. Need I say more?

I think so.

On the left is the central part of the sheet, the part we sleep on.

On the right is a corner of the same sheet that obviously isn't quite as worn.

And I only paid 19.99 (half price) for the whole sheet set. I'm not telling how much the quilt was.

The end.

Now that's a crate idea!

2010-02-26T11:20:00.001-06:00

I love the creativity that goes into re-purposing things like the crates in this kitchen.

They make really interesting bookshelves too.

If only I were this organized.

This is probably a little more my speed.

This is my crate.

I got it from my grandparents who've had it for years. (Anheuser-Bush? Grandpa! Or should I say, grandma???)

I'm currently using it to hold magazines, and while that keeps the magazines neat and orderly, I'm thinking I need to do something a little more creative with it.

Lazy days of winter.

2010-02-25T12:29:00.002-06:00

Do you know what this is?

Yep, it's a chess set.

My eleven year old daughter took these pictures with my junky, on the fritz camera (which will hopefully be replaced with a big girl camera soon. I hope!!!) Not bad, huh? It was her first time too.

We've all been playing a LOT of chess lately...in between naps.

These two always have this effect on eachother.

Look at those little feet all kicked out.

I'd say she's pretty relaxed.

I've been working on making curtains for my bedroom.

It's a white on cream damask.

One of these days I'll get them finished and show you the final product.

The kids and I are getting anxious for spring since we started a bunch of vegetables and, hopefully, deer resistant flowers. Is there such a thing?

And speaking of spring...everyone here in the Midwest knows that spring is tornado season so Jeff and I will be building a tornado shelter in the next couple of weeks. (I hope, I hope I hope!) I don't want to risk being tornadoed off to Oz and have to spend the rest of my days living with flying monkeys!

Fireplace

2010-02-21T17:43:00.005-06:00

"Fireplace ~~makeover~~ make do."

This picture was taken the night we moved in. It hurts to look at it doesn't it? The fireplace isn't "hooked up" yet. It still needs a flue so we didn't bother to finish that wall. We bought the fireplace off of Craigslist for $320 which was a steal of a deal. It's huge and never been used. It does have a big ding in it but it's nothing a little bondo can't fix. Anyway, after having to look at it like it is for the past few weeks, I decided to try to disguise it.

The first thing we did was don our acorn hats and head out into the woods to hunt down some wild grape vines to make a wreath.

Then I took a big, brassed colored, plastic framed mirror that I've had since I was seventeen that I painted white a couple of years ago and I smudged some teal paint into its nooks and crannies.

Then I sanded off a little of the white paint to expose the faux brass. Then decided it needed a little more brass color so I lightly topped off the high spots with a little gold paint.

I hung some of my old curtains on a few nails, as well as the wreath and mirror and threw up some cute pictures of my babies and an ugly clock that I've also had since I was seventeen and here it is...

Quick, go back and look at the before picture. I promise it makes this one look better.

Hopefully this will tide me over until we get around to finishing it. A few of the materials included in my plans for it include rusted sheet metal, painted pressed tin, wood and my hot and handy husband.

Here's a little bit of my inspiration:

Country Living

Please visit Between Naps on the Porch for another Metamorphasis Monday,

Twice Remembered for Make Your Monday and

Reinvented: Trash to Treasure Tuesday!

I won these nesting crates!

2010-02-18T13:14:00.000-06:00

Look what just arrived in the mail.

Do you recognize these?

That's right, there the same nesting crates that Kevin and Layla Palmer have in their super cute Lettered Cottage kitchen!

A week or so ago, they hosted a giveaway for Sarah who has an etsy shop called Whitewash Sundries and I won!!!

Sarah has a lot of pretty goods in her shop. I hope you take a look.

And take a look here if you'd like to see how Layla has used these crates in her beautiful kitchen.

Pretty huh?

They even smell like herbs. Seriously!

I can't wait to hang them. I think I'll start by hanging them in the bathroom since that's the first room we're trying to finish.

Thank you Sarah and The Lettered Cottage! Thank you!

Pine wood floors in the bathroom

2010-02-17T12:40:00.005-06:00

Aside from a few necessary projects here and there, we've decided to focus on one room at a time. It's a way to get quicker gratification which is motivation for us to keep going. Within a couple of weeks of moving into our very much unfinished cottage, we started to feel pretty overwhelmed at all of the work left to do. Because we need showers and other fully functional bathroom plumbing more than we need to eat, we decided to try to finish the bathroom before any of the other rooms including the kitchen. We've done a few things along the way, all over the house, like a kitchen sink and dishwasher, but our main focus is going to be the bathroom. Now that I've announced that to the world, the bathroom is most likely fixing to come to a screeching halt. That seems to be how it usually goes. Murphy's law.

Jeff finished the shower surround last weekend and then, within just a couple of hours, he laid the pine wood floor too! We decided to go with pine for a few reasons. All of them good.

First thing we did was get down a half a dozen 1"x12"x14' boards from our stash upstairs and take them outside where Jeff began bossing me around yelling things like, "You grab that end of the stack and lets carry them waaaaayyyy, way, over to the barn!" Then he snorted, "What do you mean they're too heavy?!" Followed by, "One at a time?!" Then he hefted them down the hill all by himself while I followed him to the barn and gently reminded him that he married a woman, not a man, and he might as well have asked me to hold a car up while he changed a tire real quick and that he was eventually going to be the death of me and that sometimes I wonder if he wished I were a man so he could yell out crazy demands at me that wouldn't sometimes make me cry like, "I need the wrench, those are curved-jaw pliers" because how would he feel if I asked him to pass me my egg beaters and he handed me a whisk. I wouldn't say anything to him, I'd just improvise, make do and just appreciate that he was helping me. Then I told him that I was going to tell everyone in blogland how mean and bossy he could be and then everyone would find out what he was really like. Then I asked him nicely to hold still while I took his picture.

He's so sweet.

As I mentioned earlier, these boards are 1x12's but actually they're more like less than 1 by11 1/4's. We wanted various widths of boards so we cut about two thirds of the boards into roughly 7" and 4" wide strips and the other third of the boards, we cut down the middle to make them roughly 5 1/2" wide.

Then Jeff cut out the knot holes and any knots that looked like they would be a problem for us down the road. This also gave us varied lengths to work with which adds to the look and texture of the finished floor.

Normally he would have used the chop saw for this, but it was extremely cold outside and Jeff has a very steady hand so they all turned out straight anyway.

Once he got them cut, he began laying them down and nailing them in. Precisely cut lengths were not necessary on all of the boards because most of them end under the tub and will eventually be covered.

We have radiant floor heat so he had to choose a nail length that wouldn't go through the subfloor and pierce any of the water filled pex tubing. I'll have to do a post about our radiant floor heating system sometime. I know that sounds boring but I'm sure there are a few people who might be curious about it and it is WONDERFUL!

Now it's ready for stain.

We chose Minwax Early American. It's brown. Not reddish or yellowish brown, just brown.

Then a day later we sealed it. Because pine is so soft we went with a low gloss, penetrating sealer.

And here it is. It's a bad picture but all my pictures are bad, I assume you're used to it by now.

The room still has a ways to go, but we took some big leaps towards the finish line last weekend.

Bath surround is done!

2010-02-14T18:12:00.004-06:00

Country Living

Isn't this a beautiful bathroom? I love the creative use of the fireplace mantel and all of the painted pressed tin. I had an antique claw foot tub once. I love how romantic they look. Look being the operative word. They really are made to only fit one adult person at a time. That's fine though. I'm more of a shower person. Also preferably one person at a time. Sorry shnookums. (Don't feel bad for him...we have five kids (although he would say we have a one-hundred percent success rate. Ha!)) That's my V-Day contribution.

Moving on...

Country Living

I also ♥love♥ this blue cabinet. We're currently making due by using a couple of bookcases for bathroom storage, but we designed it to be deep enough to hold a piece of storage style furniture. While looking for more inspiration I came across Car Moebel, a German furniture and housewares company. It was filled with eye candy! Here's a little sample of what I found there.

I'd gladly put anyone of these pieces in my bathroom.
Look at some of the other beautiful things they sell.

These things make me even more eager for Spring.

Mm, mm, mm.

Jeff finished the surround last night by making a hole with a hole saw for the shower faucet and caulking everything in.

Now guess what he's working on right now. The floor! We're going with a wood floor in there and I'll be sharing that with you all soon.

Be sure to visit The Inspired Room to see some great inspiration!

Galvanized corrugated metal shower surround

2010-02-13T16:32:00.004-06:00

We started our shower surround project a while back but Jeff decided he wanted to redo it. He's a perfectionist which translates into, "Let's do this as many times as we can."

Actually, he decided to add flashing in the corners to help protect the pine from the water. We wouldn't want water to get behind the metal and start growing mold. No, no, no. So, we took down what we had up and started over.

First we cut strips of this white pvc wood trim to fit around the perimeter of the tub. We cut it to also fit the depth of z channel.

This is the z channel. It will sit on top of the plastic wood trim and work as a water barrier.

Now for the flashing. We didn't use actual flashing, but roof ridge left over from our roof. Jeff just bent it into a 90° with his big ol' man hands and cut off that rippled piece on the edges with tin snips.

Then he screwed them up to the wall with stainless steel screws.

Now, as we speak, he's screwing up panels of galvanized corrugated metal. It looks like it's going to get finished sometime today so now I need a pretty shower curtain and a light fixture and we need finish the front of the tub (it's still completely open) and then we need to etc etc...it just never ends, does it?

I'll show you the finished results in sometime in the next couple of days.

Check out Make your Monday at Twice Remembered Cottage.
Metamorphasis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch

Light and airy bedroom bliss.

2010-02-10T22:04:00.002-06:00

I've been contemplating about my bedroom decor.

I've never had a bedroom that I've been in love with. I'm not sure I've ever even seen a bedroom I absolutely love.

I have idea's about what I would like which would of coarse require new curtains, bedspread, headboard...you know, the works.

I have some fabric to work with and I have my eye on a blue and white quilt and/or a white matelasse bedspread. I have an idea of what I want.

Something simple, and airy. Nothing too fancy or formal.

Mostly whites and neutrals, maybe a little bit of color.

I want it to be a place I can relax and not be distracted by a lot of non-essentials.

And now I need your help. I have this beautiful piece of furniture that was given to me by my mother-in-law that I love, love, love and I definitely want it to stay in the room but, (look away Jackie) do I paint it or leave it alone? I love it just like it is but, from the pictures I just showed you above, I'm not sure how it will work with the simple style I'm looking for. Here it is...

What do you all think?

(That's Evie's toddler bed in the corner of our room. It's staying too. And ignore the unfinished floors, lack of trim, harsh lighting, etc, etc...)

Anyway, think light and airy, light and airy. Can it work just like it is? I'd hate to paint it and then regret it, but I'd also hate to always be just one piece of painted furniture away from total bedroom bliss. Please help!

Pictures 1-5 Country Living
Picture 6 House Beautiful
Picture 7 Coastal Living
Picture 8 Yours Truely

Corrugated metal in the bathroom

2010-02-10T14:52:00.001-06:00

Are you all sick of seeing these picture yet? Sorry.

It seems like we're settling into a groove of one, maybe one and a half projects, somewhat finished per weekend. Last weekend it was hanging this light.

(Thank you Reggie!)

Here's what our shower looks like right now. I'm hoping that this is the project that gets somewhat finished this weekend.

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Budget wise, this has been our slimmest week yet, but things should start to level out for us pretty soon and spring is right around the corner (I hope!) so I can start opening up some paint cans. I have too many brains that are still developing around here to do any painting until I can open up the windows.

Movin' slow.

2010-02-05T17:15:00.000-06:00

Cabin Fever n. A type of hysteria brought on from spending too much time indoors.

Stir-crazy adj. Distraught or restlessness from long confinement in or as if in prison.

After going ninety to nothing for a straight six months and coming to a screeching halt if often find myself wandering around the house in a daze. Oh, there's still plenty to be done, but our funds are still on life support after the last big push to get us into the house so projects are moving slowly. That, and it's finally okay for us to take a break. Last Sunday, we did absolutely nothing. Except go to church. After that we did absolutely nothing. After not taking a single day off just to rest, I think that's alright. It's kind of like when God created everything, but on a much, much smaller scale. On the seventh day He rested. Well, for us it's during the seventh month we rested. I'm a little rusty at how exactly to rest and occasionally completely shut down. My eyes are still open, but I'm doing a lot of blank staring these days.

There are still a lot of things we could be doing, like finishing the bathroom surround, making curtains, hanging doors, but our batteries are just completely drained. I think my batteries are solar powered though, so I'll requires some real sunlight. A little outdoor heat would be nice too. And maybe a little live greenery. And chocolate, that always helps. One of these days we'll get back into the swing of things

Snow Folks

2010-02-05T09:37:00.000-06:00

Today we've been invited by my children to go on a dog guided tour of a snow people village. Meet our tour guide, Sadie.

Sadie, smile and say hello.

Oops. You blinked.

Sadie, that's not very lady like. Sit up and greet the nice people!

Sadie! Don't be rude. Come back here!

That's a good girl.

Now, let's meet the village welcoming committee.

Hello.

Welcome!

It's a pet friendly village.

Let's try to keep up with our guide now.

Hey! Isn't that Pig Pen from Charlie Brown?

Hello there little fella.

Boy, everyone is so friendly!

Wonder what this pleasant looking fellow is staring at.

What the...OH MY WORD!!! WHY IS HIS HEAD LYING ON THE GROUND??

*GASP* IT LOOKS LIKE THIS ONE NEVER EVEN HAD A HEAD!!!

WHAT'S STUCK ALL OVER THAT TREE? HOLY COW...ARE THOSE...SNOWBALLS???

IS THAT AN ARM??? OH THE HUMANITY!!!

WHAT KIND OF SICK VILLAGE IS THIS ANYWAY?!?

AND HE'S JUST STARING AT IT! I know. It's like a bad train wreck. He can't help but stare. Wait a minute...

he's not just staring at it, I think he's actually SMILING! WHAT KIND OF FREAK SHOW...

I've never seen so much carnage in all my life! I've got to get outta here! Where's my guide? Oh, never mind...JUST RUN! Head for the hills!

"Ya'll come back now, ya hear?"

I would expect better from children with no television.

An artistic two year old.

2010-02-04T08:16:00.000-06:00

Dear sweet Evelyn. Why are you so cute (even when your mouth is stained with your latest meal?)

Things were quite, so I had to find out what was going on...

Me: "Evelyn, it looks like you've been coloring."
Evie: "I wike you." Sweetest little sing-song voice.

Me: "I like you too. Where's the lid?"
Evie: "I wike you mommy." Still sweet.

Me: "I know you do. Where's the lid?"
Evie: "I wuv you." Sappier than usual.

Me: "I wuv you too. Now where's the lid." Giggling under my breath.
Evie: "It gone. Bye-bye. I wuv you mommy."

Me: "Mm hmm. What did you do with the lid?" Sighing at her cuteness.
Evie: "I wike you!" In her sweet little, squeeky, high pitched, two year old voice.

Me: Fair enough. "I wike you too Evelyn."

I love that kid.

Farm Tables

2010-02-03T08:09:00.000-06:00

I love farm tables.

I'd love for Jeff to build one for us.

One that easily sets eight, or maybe ten.

We'll have to add on to the back of the house and turn the living room into a dining room.

We have a ways to go before we're ready to add on which was our plan from the beginning.

But Jeff, for some reason, is saying, "Maybe we won't need to add on." He's so lazy.

Pride goeth before a fall. Proverbs 16:18

2010-02-01T15:29:00.000-06:00

Like what we've done to the place? We make our mothers proud. I figure we need a few more X braces in it though to prepare for Spring a.k.a. tornado season. Otherwise, it might wind up looking more like this.

Yikes!

Are we there yet?

2010-01-25T17:28:00.001-06:00

We have a lot of balls up in the air right now and things are feeling a bit chaotic, but, I'm sure this will all be behind me someday...when I'm dead. Will you all abandon me if I continue to show you ugly stuff? If you do, I understand. Progress isn't always pretty so I'll try to ease you all into what's been going on around here.

We've put in a ceiling fan and a few light fixtures.

These lights make me giggle with delight every time I look at them!

I made some curtains from canvas drop clothes and I'm pretty sure I hate them. And you don't even want to know what's going on behind the curtains!

We had other plans for the bathroom vanity but Jeff found a furniture style vanity with a granite top and under mount sink at Lowe's on clearance for only $111. We decided not to pass up that deal which gives us more time to get everything together for what we really want to do in there and then we'll move this sink to the bathroom upstairs.

It's pretty like it is, but I think it's a bit to formal for my taste so I'm going to paint the wood a creamy white.

It didn't come with a faucet but we had on hand another one of Reggie's give away's to us! It's very nice and excellent quality. He also gave us a new faucet for our tub. The one we had was brass and we weren't planning on changing it out any time soon because they're so dadgummed expensive. This one from Reggie is perfect!

In the corner of the tub you can see what we're working on for the shower surround. Yup, galvanized, corrugated metal. Obviously we aren't finished with it yet, but we got the idea from this picture.

Country Living

Yesterday, Jeff got started on my kitchen cabinets.

It's going to be a big project that won't be finished for a while because he's building them himself, but tonight...tonight I get a kitchen sink.

Hallelujah!

I love this kitchen.

Coastal Living

That's the new version of a retro stove similar to mine (same color anyway) and I'd love to have that fridge!!!

There's a lot going on around here and a lot of it is far to gruesome to share so... What's that? You want to see the dirty, ugly truth? Are you sure? Okay, but I'm warning you, you might not want to come back after you see it.

Where do I begin? How about the mud.

Jeff had to work outside in the mud because the building is a whole other days worth of work which really needs to wait till the mud is gone.

Naturally, the mud winds up on my boy's new pants and Jeff's boots which then wind up in the bathtub next to the dirty crock pot from last night's dinner that's waiting to be washed. The good news is that now that I have a bathroom sink, the fresh from the chicken eggs, also waiting to be washed, can sit in a bowl in there until someone finds the time to deal with them rather than in the tub next to the boots and dishes.

And, of coarse, there's my oven, still waiting patiently in line for it's turn.

We also have the... What? Stop? It's too much? Shoot! I knew it.

All future posts, from here on out, will depend on the supply of St. John's Wort I have on hand at the time of said future posts.

Happy days!

2010-01-21T10:15:00.001-06:00

I'm on a bit of a blogging hiatus but I'm stopping in to wish my mom a happy birthday today. She's the best mother a girl could have. No matter what life throws at her, she keeps marching on with a loving spirit. She's tender and sensitive but you just can't get her down! I appreciate her love of God and family and the example of godliness she sets for us all.

Jennifer, Brittany, Mom, Erin

My sisters, niece and mom playing house in my grandma's kitchen. Aren't they cute?! (Quit drooling JB!)

And just in case I'm still on hiatus in a couple more days I'd also like to tell my parents Happy 40th Anniversary on the 23rd of this month! A long lasting marriage is a remarkable thing in this day and age!

And last, but certainly not least, my father-in-law Jerry's birthday is also on the 23rd. He's a wonderful man who had to work really (really, really, really) hard to do his part in shaping my husband into the man he is today and I'm so grateful he did! Thank you for always cheering us on!

Jerry and his sweet wife Marilyn.

Jerry sent me a very inspiring email this morning that I have to share with you all.

And if that's not enough, listen to him play and sing!

I'll be back before you know it and hopefully have a few projects that we've been working on to share with you all!

Rabbit breeding.

2010-01-14T12:03:00.006-06:00

NO, I'm not pregnant again. Very funny. Keep reading.

I feel like things are finally settling into a comfortable groove. I've caught up on my sleep, I think I have the upper hand on the boxes and now when Jeff works on the house, the kids and I are right here with him instead of an hour away. The kids have adjusted well too. They're getting back to some of their regular routines like their animal chores. They're in charge of feeding and watering all of the animals, gathering eggs and breeding rabbits. That's what they've been doing every morning this week. Breeding the rabbits. Every morning the girls put a new female in with the male and keep an eye on the pair to make sure they're "successful.". There very familiar with the process since we've been doing this for a while but this year we have a whole new set of breeding rabbits so they've had to keep an extra close eye on them. They're first timers. This morning, shortly after the girls got started on their chores, they both came running in to tell me how good today's female is at "it."
Gracie: "She's really good at it! You should come watch her!"
Me, suddenly feeling slightly uncomfortable: "Oh yeah?"
Madison: "Yeah! She lays down and even snuggles her head under him."
Me, unsure what to say to that: "Really? Huh."
Gracie: "Yeah! They're doing it a lot."
Me, trying not to look them in the eye: "That's good."
Gracie: "The boy's really good at it too! He's even doing it backwards!"
Me, just before the sudden tunnel vision and hearing loss render me dead on the floor: "What the???"
Then they turned around and rushed back out of the house to get back to supervising. Should I be concerned? Don't tell me. I don't really want to know. Then I might have to supervise the rabbits myself while they breed...like rabbits. gasp!

I don't know why I feel so compelled to share this with the world. Maybe the solitude out here is already getting to me.

Aaacckkkkk! Flemish Giant.

Whew! That's more like it.

Cottage progress report:

I have closet shelves and clothes rods!

Amen and amen!

My little walk-in closet is approximately 6.5'x5'. And was designed to accommodate this. My tanning ~~bed~~ wall. Again with the priorities.

(Jeff made it for me a couple of years ago for $480. I told you he can do anything!)

He wanted to build the shelves himself but we don't currently have anyplace for him to set up shop and do that and we needed these now so I can unpack some more boxes.

(I'm a real neat freak. Can't you tell?)

We've all had a touch of the plague and have been wrapping up things at the old house like gathering up the last little bits of junk and deep cleaning it, so we haven't done much here at the new place but that's fixing to change. We're all on the mend and Jeff finished every last thing that needed to be done last night at the old house, so we're free to focus on this house now. This weekend we're going to start shopping around for furniture for the bathroom and kitchen. I'd like to use a piece of furniture for the bathroom vanity and last night we were discussing ideas about the kitchen, as well, like possibly using furniture in there too rather than just traditional cabinets. Or possibly, a restaurant style sink and a commercial, stainless steal island. There are so many options to consider and we'll have to remain budget minded, but I don't just want a finished house, I love houses too much for that. I want to take my time and find the things that I'll enjoy living with for a long, long time.

Oh goody! The mailman just came and delivered the last parts I need to get my 1950's oven going. That will be a nice evening project for us Jeff. I've been using a hot plate and I don't think I'll be too sad to see it go when the oven is done.

And just because...

Sophia Renee aka Soapy Feet.

Old Drinking Fountain.

2010-01-08T18:09:00.001-06:00

I'm taking a quick breather to say hello to you all and give you a sneak peek at one of the many things we're doing that I'm SO excited about.

Need I say more?

Alright, for those of you who may not get it...yes, it's a drinking fountain. I, of coarse meaning Jeff, plan on putting this in the hallway near the laundry closet. Isn't that exciting??? I'll never have to wash a single cup again or walk around the house with one wet sock after stepping in a spilled drink that never got cleaned up when "I don't know" spilled it. It's going to be a dream! That, and having a drinking fountain in the house is just plain cool! I'd like to have a second one outside next to our outdoor shower! We don't have an outdoor shower yet but that's on our list that has quickly become known as our "this spring" list. As in, we're going to put siding on the house "this spring" and we're going to finish painting and install the window and door trim "this spring" and going to add a large front porch "this spring." You get the idea. Last night, Jeff, informed me that at the top of his "this spring" list is to finish his rat rod. As long as the house is functional by then, that sounds good to me. I'm not the kind of wife to nag at all (seriously) but, right now, I'm pulling a Kramer. Remember the episode of Seinfeld when Kramer does everything while shower, including cooking? Well that's where I'm at, except Kramer had a garbage disposal in his tub. He's so lucky. Anyway, cooking in the shower isn't as glamorous as they make it out to be on TV but that's all I have right now. A shower. Oh, and a toilet. I'm not complaining, mind you, I'm just keeping you updated. We knew from the beginning that the house would be far from done when we moved in, but I would prefer to at least have a sink and possibly a bathroom door by then. Not that a door alone would do me that much good. We'll also have to finish the transom above the door and the upper part of the wall between the bathroom and bedroom in order to really have privacy. Right now I just have a shower curtain thrown through the transom. Here, I'll show you.

It's visually private enough, I suppose, but a few more of the senses are in need of some privacy too, if you know what I mean. Not that I do that.

This is taken from our bedroom and the glow in the ceiling is the light coming from the bathroom. It gives of a nice ambiance at night as long as light is the only thing wafting over the wall, if you know what I mean. Again, not that I do that. My point is, I'd like for EVERYONE to get a little more privacy in the bathroom. before "this spring."

Notice the light bulb dangling from the ceiling? I can live with that for a long time. Not that I'll have too. Jeff hasn't given up now that were in. He's still working. If I remember right, the day we moved in, I only had a toilet to begin with so I'm really grateful for the shower too (which came around 11pm that night.)

Back to the drinking fountain. I'd like to get it installed just as soon as possible because I've never been one to have my priorities in right. It will attach to the wall with screws and only stick out about 9" and the bowl is 8"x4". Perfect!

This brings me to where we got the water fountain. One day last week, Jeff and JJ went by "the shop" that JJ's plumber boss, Reggie, owns. Reggie and Jeff also know eachother from back when we were in the building business which is also how Jeff and JJ originally met. Anyway, Reggie was at the shop and had some things around that he was getting rid of and offered them to Jeff. This was one of those things. He ended up giving us a bunch of great stuff that we were in need of. (No, we didn't need a drinking fountain. It's just the icing on the cake!) Not only that, but all the items are even in styles that we love. I'm going to save them for individual posts though, because they're all so awesome. I can't wait to show you each one! Thank you Reggie!!!!!

Move in time

2010-01-05T15:17:00.007-06:00

Where do I begin? I guess I'll start with last Friday. It's all kind of sketchy now, but if I remember right, Jeff, JJ, my dad and Eddie were working on finishing up putting up the pine boards on the walls and plumbing stuff. Then once that was done, Jeff was going to paint the walls and ceiling Friday night. Notice I said was.

I spent most of the day packing and around 5:30 pm the kids and I headed out to the land to take Jeff his paint sprayer. I taped off everything we didn't want painted while Jeff and JJ hustled around, working quickly to get things ready. By 1 am Saturday, we were ready to spray but Jeff discovered we were missing part of the sprayer so we decided to drive back home, (one hour drive) get the part then head back and paint it. We were rushing because we were loading up and moving at 10 am. Period.

We got home and couldn't find the part anywhere so we went to bed with the plan that Jeff would get up early to get the missing part from Lowe's then go back out to paint. After three hours of sleep he was off again and left me behind to coordinate the moving process. My parents, Erin, Rick and Jeff B. showed up at ten to move us and they really barrelled their way through the house. You know how you have all those last minute things to pack, like the junk hiding under the furniture, curtains, computer...well, I had to work insanely fast to keep up with them. Then after lunch, my Jeff, JJ and Eddie showed up to help us finish up. That's when it really felt like it turned into a whirlwind. (Sometimes I feel like I married a tornado.)

No time for gloves or glasses!

We got to the new house to unload and the guys all started transforming into Heman and the Hulk! They unloaded that truck so fast my head was spinning! Once it was unloaded, they began putting things upstairs, minus the stairs, just up. They just started tossing up 300 pound boxes and hefting large pieces of furniture straight up over there heads into the second floor opening to the guys on the second floor who were catching and pulling the stuff right up! They even commented that they were glad we didn't have stairs because it would have taken a lot longer to get stuff up there. All I could do was sit in the corner in my little rocking chair and stare...and occasionally gasp. And when they were done, none of them were even hobbling or holding their backs! I wish you all could have been there to watch so you could share in my amazement. Can you imagine women doing that? Me either. Manly men are amazing! I'm so glad to be married to one!

We went to bed that night in our new house, totally exhausted, and then it started to snow. Jeff and I laid in bed watching the huge flakes drift through the dark sky to the ground through our big bedroom window. It was beautiful. Then came Sunday. Oh, Sunday. Terrible, awful Sunday.

We woke up to four or five inches of snow, which was a wonderful looking sight, but we still had moving to do. We had to go back and load up Jeff's garage. We planned on meeting everyone again at our old house at 10 am but had to push it back to eleven because the roads were so bad. Once we got to the house, Jeff went to start up the moving truck and realized he must have left the keys for it at the new house because they were no where to be found. So, once again, he headed out to the land and let the others work on the garage. Jeff's a gear head and was a builder for several years so this was no small task. Clever, isn't he.

It continued to snow all day as well as never get above 22 degrees. Once we were finally loaded up and ready to go, it was 6pm and dark. Did I mention the snow? What about the road conditions? Have I told you they were bad? The moving truck was from yellow line to white line wide and we live off a couple gravel roads. Our gravel driveway is kind of long, narrow and on an incline and the eight million, tightly packed trees that run right along to the driveway are all wildly overgrown. It's like we live out in the boonies. Now imagine what happens when this caravan we were in, including a huge moving van finally make it to the driveway. Yep. We get stuck. It wasn't too bad, though, for anyone except Jeff and the moving truck. I can't give you details on the whole ordeal because I had to keep my eyes closed until it was all over, forty minutes later, but I hear it was a little scary at times. Especially for Rick and his pickup, who almost got plowed over by Jeff who was driving the huge, 26 foot van like he was being chased by Satan. It was necessary, I hear, to make it up that hill and around the corner at all cost. Sorry, Ricky. I would have stopped for you. Madison and Grace were in the truck with Jeff, and when they finally were freed, the two jabberwockies were speechless and their eyes were the size of silver dollars.

Even though the floor of the moving truck had turned to a sheet of ice and everyone was slipping and sliding with each step, the truck got unloaded pretty quickly. Then, after another moving truck stuck in the snow incident, we were on the road again to return the truck which was due back before 11pm. We made it with one hour to spare. Then we had a victory dinner at the only place open besides the Waffle House, Arby's.

Here we are now. Finally! The worst is over, but there is still so much work to do. I have some exciting things I want to show you and I'll update you on our adventures in pioneering as soon as I can finish digging my way through this mess or need another break, which ever comes first.

One last thing. Yesterday was my sweet little boy's 5th birthday. Because it was our first day in the house and we were exhausted, we didn't have a party. I did however, make him a microwave mug cake and snow ice cream for a little celebration. Don't worry though, we won't deprive him of a party. My mom is making him a rocket cake, at Isaiah's request, and having us over for a little birthday party one night this week.

Happy Birthday Isaiah!

I'm still alive!

2010-01-05T10:35:00.001-06:00

We survived.

Barely.

I've been on the verge of a melt down since 2:30am Saturday, but I've been pushing my way through, keeping it together the best I can and now, at last, I have the Internet back. (Big sigh!) So today, for this moment, all is right in the world once again. I have much to tell you all so I'll be back later today...or tomorrow. Maybe.

Budget Dystocia

2009-12-30T09:03:00.004-06:00

If Jeff were writing this, he'd probably find a way to compare our current situation to a car motor. I'm not Jeff, and I don't know anything about motors, but for you guys...well, you may just want to skip the words and look at the pictures.

Like some kind of mad scientists that decided to see what would happen when you cross two unrelated species, we're coming up with some trouble. Let's say our little budget of $20,ish is a cute little lamb and our building project is an elephant. Now just imagine what might happen when you cross a lamb and an elephant. Do I need to add that the lamb (budget) is the female in this scenario? Right now, she's in the process of giving birth to a GIANT lambephant and it appears that we might have a slight case of shoulder dystocia. Them's birthin' words for "the baby's stuck!" (Sorry guys.)

Anyway, what looked like our last $2,500 actually is turning out to be closer to $1,000. Blame the mad scientist! I've never seen a lambephant before and so I don't know how much they cost. It's not looking good for the little momma lamb. She'll have to be on life support for a long, long time if she even survives birthing the big, awkward lambephant. It's close to being fully born, but right now, I can only see it's weird looking head. "Push momma lamb! Push!" (Come on guys! Don't leave!)

(Forgive me if these are actually bicycle parts or strange kitchen utensils. For all I know they could be jsiovensix's)

It's time to get out the forceps! Or the vacuum! Or the bonecracker! Wait. Wrong procedure. Put that last one back. Let's back up and just start with changing birthing positions. That often does the trick. "Roll over little lamb!"

Once the lambephant is born, who knows, it may not even have running water! We may have to drag the garden hose through the window.

Changing the subject a little for the sake of the men, (you're welcome) my dad and Jeff Brashears came over after work Monday night to help out. Thanks!

Jeff Brashears and us go way back. He's more like family really.

"Get out of our tub! We're not that close!"

Then, yesterday JJ came over to work on the plumbing. (We'll owe him a house too when this is done!) AND, Eddie Yodelay, no, Eddie Oldhay, no, Eddie Oldlady...forget it. Eddie took the day off work and spent it helping Jeff! Jeff has my camera so I don't have any pictures of him. Oh, but I do have Jeff's work camera which possibly has a picture of Eddie. Hmmm...I don't think I'll go there. Last time I looked at pictures on his work camera, well, I just won't go there.

Anyway, they all worked really hard and jumped some MAJOR hurdles. Thank you! Thank you!

Now, my mom just showed up to take care of the kids for me so I can do some serious packing. Ready or not, lambephant, here we come!

Budget Wrap Up

2009-12-28T17:16:00.001-06:00

These are our last five days for working on the house before we move in. Our plans on what we want to have done before then have been constantly changing. Now, however, it's all being finalized and strictly directed by our last $2,500. I'm sure you're all curious how much everything has cost us to date. So am I. Let's get out a pen and paper and see what we can figure out. Here's a list of the funds we used to build the house: $15,000 inheritance from grandma Jones and $6,500 in good old credit cards, totaling $21,500. Then there's the $31,500 loan for the land. That gives us a grand total of $53,000.

For the house itself, we originally planned on spending only $15,000 but that meant doing without things like interior walls, a second floor bathroom (or at least part of one) and going with sheetrock on the walls instead of pine planks. It also didn't include purchasing all of our windows and doors upfront or unexpected expenses like upgrading the electrical wiring, well pump, and well house. We also included in the house budget: utilities (electricity only), monthly land payments, and the gas money to drive to and from the project all for the past six months. This totaled approximately $3,200. Jeff may have a few corrections to make to this little improv list but, more or less, I think that about covers it.

Take a look here to see what our initial plan was.
http://cottagedreamers.blogspot.com/2009/08/phase-one.html

I think we've managed to come out ahead, depending on how you look at it. Yes, we went over our $15,000 budget and now we have credit card debt, BUT, the house is much closer to completion and our overall debt is being so greatly reduced that it's worth it. ($31,500 for land plus $6,500 credit card = $38,000 debt versus the balance of our current mortgage of $104,000 means a reduction of $66,000 of debt!!!) The credit card debt should be easy enough to pay back quickly and the money for the rest of the work we need to do to finish the house will come from our own pockets as we can afford it. We're so close to the end of the line time wise as well as financially that at this point I may not have kitchen cabinets. If I do, we'll only get lower cabinets to begin with and the temporary counter tops will be made of plywood until spring or summer when we can do our concrete counter tops. This is no big deal to me, I'm just ready to move in. Plus, I've lived in a house without a kitchen before (for four months, no less!) At this point, we'll only have a toilet upstairs without walls or anything. Don't worry, the downstairs bathroom will have everything plus walls, except the door. (Visitors beware, but feel free to use our bucket in the woods!) The main deal with that is, with so many girls in the house, we must have more than one toilet! Having the toilet out there in the open will only push us to get the upstairs finished all the sooner, hopefully! For the time being, my floors throughout the house will be painted advantech flooring, unsanded. There just isn't enough time to sand them. Which reminds me, yesterday, our friend Chad Miller (not to be confused with Chad, the doctor's husband) and his father-in-law, Sid, helped Jeff all day on the house. Chad Miller also talked Jeff into painting the walls and ceilings before we move in instead of after. (Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!) AND, we've never even met Chad Miller's father-in-law before. He just came to help out of the kindness of his heart! (Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!) Sid also works for a local cabinet company and took measurements of our kitchen to see what he can find for us for cabinets when we're ready. I've been amazed at how kind and helpful people have been throughout this whole process!

Anyway, back to our haves and have-nots. The second floor will not be anywhere near finished when we move in. There won't be any bedrooms or walls yet. But, like I said earlier, there will be a toilet up there. The end. Oh, and a ~~hot~~ water heater. The end. We have interior doors but, for the sake of time, they probably won't be installed until sometime after we move in. We won't have all of our light fixtures right away, but I have lots of lamps. The fireplace flue will cost another $1,000 so that will have to wait but we only had to pay $320.00 for a never before used, pre-owned fireplace that had a retail price of $2,000. We don't have exterior siding on the house but we have most of the materials already (our privacy fence pickets!) There will still be a lot of work to do once we've moved in, but the biggest hurdles will all be behind us. I consider myself blessed and my "haves" list the winner.

P.S. Bathroom update. I said, not too long ago, that we were going to hang sheetrock in the bathroom, but we decided to do the pine wood in there too.

We'll primer and paint the wood, as well as, caulk between them to try to keep moisture out. Then for the bathtub surround, we're planning to use corrugated metal like someone did in this bathroom:

Courtesy of Country Living

??? daze ???

2009-12-27T13:32:00.015-06:00

Aside from a couple of near death experiences over the past few days, things are moving along smoothly. A couple of days ago, the kids and I were out running errands in the Suburban when at some point the hand held propane torch that also happened to be in the truck got stuck in the on position. The kids were being noisy, the baby was crying and the radio was on so we only noticed the hissing sound once I parked the truck and turned it off. After I got the kids and our groceries in the house, I went back to investigate the noise and noticed a strong foul odor. Once I found out it was the torch, I quickly thanked God that none of the kids nor I were smokers. We might all be wandering around with singed eyebrows, or worse. (No lectures on the propane torch, please.)

Then the next day, I talked to Jeff on the phone for a little while around 3:30 pm and a few minutes after our conversation, I called him back to tell him something I'd just read on the Internet about metal and condensation but he didn't answer the phone. I tried a few more times over the next twenty minutes or so with no luck and just assumed he was on the phone with one of his parents or something and would call me when he was finished. About two hours later, I realized he had still not called me back so I tried him again. Still, no answer. I started calling every couple of minutes thinking he's probably sawing and nail gunning a lot so he probably just didn't hear his phone. After about twenty minutes of that, it dawned on me that he may have had an accident. I realized that he had probably fallen twenty feet off a ladder after sawing off his hand and passing out from the blood loss. Then I realized this probably happened a couple of hours ago when I couldn't reach him the first time, so more than likely, he's dead by now. That's when I began to have a serious panic attack. I told the kids, "Get your coats on and get in the car! We've got to go get your father, RIGHT NOW!" The kids naturally wanted to know why and what the hurry was and not wanting to scare them with the story of their fathers accident, I told them, "He forgot his wallet and might need to get gas." Which was true. Then I thought, maybe that's the problem. He ran out of gas on our little country road and no one has passed by to give him a lift to the gas station. Then I remembered he hasn't answered any of my phone calls over the last 2 1/2 hours so my mind went right back to the vision of him all broken to bits at the bottom of the ladder he was working on. So I grabbed his wallet and the kids and I rushed out to the Suburban to find that the only door we could get open was mine. All of the other doors where frozen shut. I started the truck to thaw out the other doors and contemplated calling 911 to ask them to send an ambulance out to my husband. I decided to call my parents instead. I managed to choke out a few words to my mom about how Jeff hadn't been answering his phone, that he's alone, and most likely dead so the kids and I were going to get him just as soon as the truck thaws. To all of that, my mom calmly said, "Okay, we're on our way to Branson so call me when you find out what's going on."

The kids were all in the driveway crying about things like the subzero temperatures and 700 mile per hour wind gusts so I decided they should wait in the house for the truck to thaw. I also decided to give Jeff another call and run back outside to try the truck doors again and noticed what a mess my house was and that everyone from Oklahoma was going to want to stay here for the funeral. Once I got outside I opened my cell phone and pressed 3. He's number 3 on my speed dial. I don't know why or how that happened. He's also the only person I EVER speed dial. "Hello?" he whispered. I gasped, then I yelled, "JEFFREY MICHAEL DIXON!!!! WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON????? ARE YOU ALRIGHT? I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!!!!" He continued talking softly and acted like he had no idea what I was talking about and told me he was outside tracking the biggest rat he'd ever seen. "EXCUSE ME? I'VE BEEN CALLING YOU FOR HOURS AND YOU HAVEN'T BEEN ANSWERING SO I ASSUMED YOU WERE DEAD AND YOU'RE DOING WHAT???? I'M GONNA KILL YOU WHEN YOU GET HOME!!!" Then I cried. He chuckled sympathetically then said, "Hang on, your parents are calling me."

It turns out that when your phone is stuffed in your pocket under seven layers of clothes, the extremely loud propane heater is on, the radio is blaring, the air compressor is running and you're using no less than four power tools, you really can't hear a phone when it rings. Now Jeff is no longer allowed to leave the house in the morning until I have inspected the duct tape that holds his cell phone over one ear.

My imagination occasionally gets the best of me but for good reason in this instance. Jeff always answers my calls and even complains on a regular basis that I don't call him enough. So naturally I assumed there was a very good reason, i.e. death, for him to not answer my calls. I'm never calling him again.

***

Jeff's been hard at work trying to get the house ready for us to move into it. Over the last few days, he's been nailing up wood planks on the walls. I haven't been out to the house in a while, but from the pictures, the wood walls have really changed the look of the house.

My dad keeps telling Jeff we need to stain or seal the wood. I guess he likes the rusticness of wood. I don't really care for that look myself. I'm one of those people that loves wood, PAINTED. Stained, sealed or raw wood is yucko to me. We'll be painting it all white in the spring.

It looks like Jeff's been missing me.

I've been missing him too. It's starting to feel like this has been going on forever. What's today? I'm not sure. We, meaning Jeff, has been working so hard for such a long time now that I'm having a hard time keeping track of the days. BUT, our projected date of moving in is set for January 2nd and 3rd. Will you all come help us please? We're old and frail and could use all the help we can get. We're so old, we've been mistaken for senior citizens. I'm not kidding. Last night, the kids and I ran to Lowe's to meet Jeff there about 45 minutes before closing time so we could get a few light fixtures for Jeff to install today and as we were going through the checkout line, the little, red headed, twentysomething, checkout lady looked at our two year old, Evelyn, and said, "Awww. Have you been shopping with grandma and grandpa today?" I was standing back a bit, holding fussy little Sophie, and thought maybe I misunderstood her and I gave Jeff a confused look. He turned to the lady and politely said, "What?" Then she said, "Have you guys got the grandkids tonight?" Mind you, Madison is only a few inches shorter than I am which gives testament to her age and there were FIVE children altogether. That means we didn't even look like fresh, first time grandparents to this lady. She repeated her question so confidently that she must have genuinely assumed we were the kids grandparents!!! Jeff let out a big, "Nooooo! These are our KIDS!" and I laughed so hard I thought I was going to blow a gasket! Her face immediately turned as red as her hair and she began apologizing profusely and saying something about how her dad has a beard. Once I finished my Tom Hanks, Money Pit, laugh, I said, "We're only thirty!" Jeff corrected me and told her, "Actually, we're 34." Like that was really necessary. My point in saying thirty was that's the general category you could put us in compared to the 70 something category she had us in.

Do you know the laugh I'm talking about? Have you seen that movie? I love it. Tom Hanks character, Walter, had just been through one ordeal after another with their money pit of a house and then this happens...which is exactly how I reacted to the grandparents comment.

10 daze

2009-12-21T14:44:00.008-06:00

Yesterday, while Jeff and my dad worked on house stuff, my mom, sister and I watched the movie, Julie & Julia. When Erin told me she brought it, I asked her if she had watched it yet. She said no, but had heard it was pretty good. I had heard that it will make you cry.

Now, have you all seen this movie? It's a movie about a woman named, Julie, who blogged her way through one of Julia Child's cookbooks in one year, testing every recipe and then posting about them. It's a true story that was turned into a movie. Well, a few months ago, Kendra from My First Kitchen, had mentioned on her blog that she saw it in the theater and cried a lot during this movie. In fact, she said it made her do the "ugly cry." You can read what she said for yourself here and check out the rest of her blog while your at it. (I love her blog and I don't even really like to cook.) Anyway, this left me with the impression that it was possibly sad or something tragic happens, and I hate to cry so I had no intentions of watching this movie, ever. But, since my sister brought it I figured I'd do my best to muscle my way through it. Apparently I misunderstood where Kendra's tears were coming from though, because not a single tear was shed by any of us throughout the entire movie. In fact, we did a lot of giggling and making comments like, "Oh, that is so Julia!" as if we actually personally knew Julia Child. It is possible that my family and I are more familiar with her than most people because, while I was growing up, we regularly watched her cooking show on PBS on the weekends. And none of us like to cook. What's funny about this though, is that the only reason we ever watched her show was because of my dad. He doesn't cook anything, ever, but he does enjoy watching people cook. I'd say a lot of people must, because there are so many cooking programs and channels dedicated to it.

Anyway, Julia Child was a very unique person and Meryl Streep really nailed the role. I enjoyed the movie enough that I would probably buy it if I came across it at the store. I'm sure it's not a movie everyone would enjoy, but if you have a past history with Julia Child like I do, then I definitely recommend that you see it! Just a little F.Y.I.

Today, we're all back at it. Only ten days left till move in time. Have I mentioned that we'll have open rafters in the house? Is that the right term when it's actually the second floor floor joist that will be left open on the bottom? The ceiling height of the first floor will be the usual eight feet and the second floor floor joists will be painted white. Which reminds me, I'm a little concerned about the knots in the pine boards bleeding through the paint. I don't mind if there's a little bleed through and I don't want to have to shellac the wood first, so we're just going to go with a good primer and hope for the best. It will hopefully look something like this ceiling when we're done.

courtesy of Better Homes and Garden

11 daze and counting

2009-12-20T20:24:00.001-06:00

Today is the first day of the real final count down. Eleven is the number of days left in the year as well as the number of days before we move into our little cottage in the woods and here's what the house looks like right now.

It looks about two weeks away from being done, wouldn't you say? No? Well just take a look up~~stairs~~ladder.

Doesn't this picture say to you, "You better get packin' because it's almost movin' time"? Well it should. Just this morning Jeff looked into reserving a rental truck for the 31st. He's serious about the moving date...I think. Don't let this get you down though. Remember, it only has to be "livable" in order for us to move in.

Jeff and JJ worked till almost midnight last night and Jeff just walked in the house after working all day, to take a shower so he'll be ready to pick up JJ at 7am tomorrow to finish the plumbing. There's a lot of hard, long hours going into the house to get it livable. The house will be a work in progress for who knows how long, but it will be nice when we no longer have to drive an hour one way to work on it and when Jeff does work on the house in the future, we'll always be right there with him.

Just thought I'd give you all a quick little update.

12 daze left

2009-12-19T12:29:00.003-06:00

Jeff, JJ and my dad are, of coarse, working right now on the house. I'm not sure what all they're doing because I've stopped asking. I know that last weekend they, as well as Jeff's friend Spencer, worked on insulation. Or, as Jeff calls is, itchulation. I haven't been out there in a while and Jeff hasn't taken any pictures for me so I'll just have to improvise.

Here's some insulated walls.

And here's Spencer.

Like I said, I don't have any pictures and this guy doesn't look anything like Spencer, but he'll do in a pinch. I don't really know him that well, but I'd like to think Spencer loves the limelight which means I'm sure he wouldn't want to be left out of the blog and miss a chance at being seen by my tens of readers. Well, make that nine readers. He's from the OKC area like my husband and, while they only met recently through work, it turns out Spencer knows some of Jeff's kin. Pretty well, in fact. It really is a small world, isn't it? Anyway, we really do appreciate him taking time from his wife and their new baby (he's just a day or two younger than my Sophie!) to help us. (There you go Spencer Brown. Don't let the fame go to your head!)

Jeff has the rest of the year off and will be working day and night getting our new love nest ready. My dad also has the next week off and plans to help him. Isn't that nice? As soon as the plumbing and itchulation are finished, Jeff will start nailing up 1x12's on the walls, horizontally. I only thought I had choices. Hanging them horizontally will save us time and money which is fine by me since it's my favorite anyway.

He'll also be hanging sheetrock in the bathroom. We're concerned with moisture getting trapped and growing mold if we were to hang wood on the walls in there so we're going with sheetrock to prevent that. And speaking of bathrooms, check out this one from Country Living.

I love the corrugated metal around the tub!

Now I must get back to work!

14 daze

2009-12-17T21:08:00.005-06:00

This is the final countdown. I think. Our goal is to be moved in two weeks from today, December 31st. Jeff wants me to post everyday until we're in. I can barely speak in complete sentences. This is going to be challenging. In fact, don't count on it.

Here's what I'm dealing with,

And this,

And hoping to accomplish more of this,

And this,

And, all the while, keep up with never ending tasks like this,

And this,

And of coarse there are the irresistible distractions like this,

and this,

And there just isn't enough of this,

Or this,

What's a girl to do? Can anyone please tell me?

Calgon, take me away!

2009-12-10T13:33:00.003-06:00

Jeff has just about finished the electrical rough in and JJ has been up to his elbows in plumbing stuff. "Stuff" is layman's terms for plumbing words these lips of mine have never even uttered. I will most likely use that term when referring to electrical things as well. Or, evidently, the word "things." Got it? Alright, here we go.

Here's JJ the plumber, doing his infamous impersonation of a man encountering an octopus in a linen closet. He's responsible for all those white tubes shooting up out of the floor. Jeff helped JJ shove these things into the house through a small hole JJ cut in the floor which, according to Jeff, was really hard to do. He told JJ that if he were doing it, he'd make the whole bigger, to which JJ replied, "That's why you're not doing it." So there. Apparently, the tubes vibrate if they're not held tightly in place which is something you don't want. Don't ask me why. I have no idea, but I guess that would be bad.

Here's some plumbing and electrical stuff in the laundry room wall. Now, I'm no plumbing expert mind you, but the washing machine goes on the left. That much I know for sure. I am a laundry expert. I may not fully understand what all is going on in this picture, but to me, it looks like the plumbing is happening on the right side of the laundry room...WHERE THE DRYER GOES. "Guys...you got some splainin' to do!" Wait, maybe this is a picture of the laundry room's backside, taken from inside the bedroom closet. If that's the case, "Keep up the good work guys! You're doing GREAT!" *i'm so confused!*

Here's Jeff doing something to the breaker box. How many of you saw this picture and the words fuse box immediately popped into your head? That's so old timey. Nowadays we use what's called a breaker box. I would never confuse this with a fuse box, ever.

This is Jeff making a list of what each breaker is connected for. There are a lot of breakers and the finished list is very long. It looks like just about every outlet and light switch has it's own breaker. The purpose of a breaker box has something to do with controlling or interrupting the flow of electricity or something along those lines. I don't know. Ask me something about placentas or childbirth. Then I would surely astound you with my vast amounts of knowledge. Unless your a doctor or a midwife. Then never mind. All I know, is if you aren't careful with how you wire a house you could end up with something like this...

And that would be really bad.

We are working hard to meet our goal of moving in by the end of the month, so while Jeff is working 27 hour days, 8 days a week, the kids and I have started sorting and packing things away. I hate sorting and packing and have often tried enlisting others to do it for me but that never works out. Just ask my family, they'll gladly tell you. Since they can't ever seem to read my mind, I have to tell them whether any given item goes in the pack, trash or donate pile, then I get all bossy and realize I should be doing this myself. I've never understood how hiring people to pack your things works. Do you stand over them and just bark out orders all day while they do all the work? That sounds really lazy, even for me. Anyway, we are so insanely, crazy busy right now that I may not have time to post much but, rest assured, I'll visit with you when I can and be back, undoubtedly, after the move. Now, I must go and get to work...right after I take a Calgon bubble bath.