Demolition

We tore out our whole main level this past weekend (and by we - I mean Chris, Dad, and a few friends).  This is what it will look like for a couple weeks and hopefully by then we'll have all the holes plastered and painted and then we'll lay our flooring down.  Cabinets should go in in about a month.

This is our "kitchen" for now.  Plus our laundry room has been taken over as a pantry and dishwashing station.

I missed out on demo so I could take foster care classes - Chris is just going to make up the classes later.  We are hoping to do some respite care while we are waiting for our adoption.  Our adoption is continuing to be delayed - we are expecting September now for a referral.  I'm thankful for all these distractions right now and I think the time will fly!

I Hate Painting

We are going to tear out our kitchen this weekend, so we are trying to get some painting done.  The plan is to paint before we put in flooring.  We have ripped off the baseboards and painted them and then painted most of the room (still needing a second coat though).

Here is a before picture:

It was a light cream and now is a light grey...not a hug difference.  We are painting all the high gloss black doors to match our trim (which is matching our cabinets).  I love the white door versus the black one.  

We found out that our island was not attached to the floor so it has been handy for moving around and painting with a ladder on it for reaching those high spots.

Chris is going to pick up flooring tonight and maybe in a week or two, if demo goes well and we find a plasterer and finish up painting (whew!), we will figure out how to DIY install engineered hardwood.  

Chris Was Right

So I lasted less than a week.  I'll maybe try weekly...

I was getting a lot done around the house today and the girls were playing so well together, I love days like that.  Here's a few pictures:

Finley got tucked into bed by Harper.  There are probably 10 toys under those two placemats. 

Harper is so cute like always.

They had an elaborate birthday party going on for an hour.  Everyone had a mat to sit on and many popsicle sticks, straws, and cupcake cups were required.

Stairs!

I actually have before and afters for this project.  Here are the befores:

We are replacing our floors with a darker hickory wood floor so we decided to paint our stairs to save some money and I've always loved painted stairs.  I'm seeing my thumbs are making an appearance in these pics, but I don't have time to take more.

the wall color is going to be a very light grey which will make them look better.  I'm also contemplating adding a thin dark brown line on the sides of the grey stripes.  Here was my inspiration picture:

Lazy Day

Lazy day at home today.  I feel like we are still recovering from the holidays.

Finley took all the couch cushions off by herself.  I was impressed by it because it must have taken a lot of work.  The rest of the night she pretended to go swimming on the couch.

I got some homeschool materials for 3/4 year olds.  It is basically a ton of books to read and a few games.  The girls have been loving the books.  This is Harper with the Fairy Tales book.  This girls lives on fairy tales.  Yesterday she told me that kids at daycare talk about a place called Dance World and there are princesses there and she would like to go there someday.  I figured out she was talking about Disney World.  

She knows it exists now.  I thought that would take longer. 

Craigslist Chairs

I wish I would have taken a before and after picture...all I have are the afters.  We stripped, stained, and reupholstered 6 chairs that we bought for $50 off of Craig's List.  We bought them from a weird dude with a lot of crap in a huge barn.  He told Chris that he can't pass up a garage sale.

The table looks a lot better with chairs around it.

I am most surprised at how easy reupholstering is.  I am on a DIY high.  Tomorrow I might have our stairs done...

Brittany's Challenge

My sister-in-law is going to go through another year taking a picture a day...I'm going to see how long I can last taking a picture and blogging everyday.

Chris says I'll last less than a week.

I must prove him wrong and make it over a week.

Day 1:

Annie Sloan Chalk Paint Project

It's hard to see in the pictures, but it looks aged because I put dark wax on it.  Chris was pretty proud of me.  We are slowly working on stuff for our kitchen remodel.  Tomorrow maybe I'll post some pictures of the chairs we refinished.  We are DIY crazy right now.