Plank wall makeover

The kitchen did not get done over the weekend but we're so close now I can feel it!  I ran out of paint yesterday in the home stretch of repainting the walls.  The timing couldn't have been better though because I could use a little break.  We've been working hard for over three weeks.

The walls look so much better!  I love the pine planks walls but the knots showing through the paint were finally starting to bug me.  I covered and filled them and the nail holes with sheetrock putty.  Jeff prefers it over wood filler.  He says it's easier to work with.  I then repainted the walls with Valspar's zero voc paint and primer in Garlic Clove (an Olympic color).  It's white with a hint of warmness.  It's been my go to white for the past eight or nine years and I still love it.

Here are before and after pictures.

I covered literally thousands of nail holes!  You can see the yellow knots and knot holes and some of the planks have cracks running through them.

Here it is after filling the holes and knots.

So, so, so much better!  It has a crisper, cleaner look now.  Next, we need to tackle the ceiling.  I'm sure that'll be loads of fun!

One of the nice thing about using sheetrock putty is there's no dusty sanding.  If it needs to be sanded after it dries just use a damp sponge or rag and wipe it smooth.  No mess!


We're getting into our new fall schedule (even though it's still summer...grrr) which includes getting up at 5:30 every morning to milk the cow.  It's not necessary to do it that early but the girls still need Jeff's help at this point and he's got to leave for work around 6:30.  Once Bonnie (the cow) learns the routine well enough to get to the stall pretty much on her own they'll push it back to 7am or so.  I can't wait.  I'm so sleepy all the time!

Yesterday was Evelyn's 6th birthday.  Normally I'd cancel school for the day but since it was only the second day and she still looks forward to school I gifted her with a little extra school work.  She loved it! She also helped Gracie bake sugar cookies which all the kids had fun decorating.

These are the very best sugar cookies in the world, by the way!  Way, way better than store bought.  I've had the recipe so long I don't remember where I got it but I think it might be my cousin's grandma Lil's recipe.  I hear they were legendary.

Cookies or cupcakes are how we celebrate actual birthday's when the party doesn't fall on the same day and it rarely does.  It's a tradition the kids always look forward to since we don't eat a lot of sweets around here.

We also decided at the last minute to pull out Jeff's great aunt Jewel's fine china and wrinkled bunting and fabric scraps and have a "tea" party with milk.  As you can see by Evie's face (the one with the heart on her shirt) she's feeling pretty proud.  It's fun that it takes so little to make a kids day.

Sugar cookies:
1 c. softened butter (no substitute)
3/4 c. white sugar
1 egg
2 T. milk
1 1/2 t. vanilla extract
3 c. flour
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
Cream butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl then beat in the egg, milk and vanilla.  In a separate mixing bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Gradually add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture.  Chill dough for one hour or until easy to handle.  On a lightly floured surface, roll dough to 1/8th inch thickness and cut with cookie cutters.  Place 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets.  Bake at 375 degrees for 5 to 8 minutes until just slightly beginning to lightly brown.  Cool before frosting.

Frosting:
1 c. powdered sugar
1/2 t. vanilla or almond extract
1/4 t. salt
1 to 2 T. milk
food coloring, optional

Mix all ingredients well in a medium bowl and frost right away.  (It will begin to get dry and crumbly if you wait too long to use it.)

*Update:  TODAY is Evie's birthday!!!  not yesterday...  I guess we'll be making cookies again.  Am I a bad mother because I mix up birthday dates?  I don't think she'll be disappointed when I tell her.  Jeff and I have on more than one occasion celebrated our wedding anniversary on the wrong day.  I blame it on the aluminum in my deoderant.

Roof bones

Time is really flying fast around here. Sophie's already one month old! She's starting to plump up a little like she's been eating too many sopapilla's, which by the way, isn't her real name. Jennifer, my own sister, called me after reading the blog to find out if her name is really Sopapilla or Sophia. I could never actually name her Sopapilla because years ago, that same sister made sopapilla's for us and I guess I was sick because shortly after eating them I "lost" them, if you know what I mean. That memory has stuck with me. Anyway, I don't know what any of that has to do with anything so forgive me, I'm not quite myself these days. In fact, I think "I" took a leave of absence and some other women have moved into my body to take over for a while. Like Coma Momma. She lacks energy and personality but is really good at nursing and rocking the baby, all.day.long. If "I" were still here and in charge of rocking the baby, I'd probably be trying to break records in speedrocking...grandma Barbee style. For those of you who didn't know my grandma Barbee, she had a lot of kids who gave her a lot of grand kids and in order to give us all equal rocking time she had to POWER ROCK us...every time she saw us...till we were about FOUR. It was borderline traumatic but now it just makes me laugh! She was the best grandma ever and I really, really miss her.


So which woman is writing this post? I don't know. Possibly the one that's married to Jeff right now...she's a little bit crazy if you ask me. Poor fella.


Maybe we should get things on track before you all start to think I suffer from some sort of multiple personality disorder.




Jeff and my dad have been out at the house all week except for rainy Thursday (they needed a break anyway.) JJ spent a couple of days helping too and I think Eric might be out there today. They've been working on the roof assembly which looks to me like it's turning out great. Hopefully Jeff will have some new pictures for me tonight and I might add them to this post. As of Wednesday, however, this is what the house looked like...




We're getting down to the wire financially and by the time we move in we may have gone over budget a little. I haven't added up our expenses in a while so I'm not sure where we're at right now and we've decided to go ahead with a few things that we we're going to leave out till sometime down the road so we'll see what happens.

Here's something interesting, or odd...We are planning on (meaning we may change our minds) taking down the privacy fence we just put up last spring and using the pickets for horizontal siding on the house. Our neighbors are really going to think we're crazy when they see us doing that because we're also going to dig up a lot of the landscaping I just put in a year ago and we're taking our big metal garage with us. We want to take everything but the grass. No, we're not pack rats, we're frugal.