Entryway Columns and Archway

 Columns and Archway 

 The journey to getting this archway done was not an easy or a quick one.  My family can attest to the construction going on about a month.  But I wanted it just right.  I started by putting 2X3's on the wall, because I wanted it bulked out, more square so that it would look more column like

Then I wrapped the two by fours with mdf boards 1X7.  The main problem I had was not cutting the 2X3's to the length of the columns.  I just figured it would help bulk out the arch up top, but having the arch pieces out from the wall was a big problem in the end.  If I could go back I would cut those 2x3's to size and then add the arch piece directly to the wall.  Because of the dimensions of the wall.  I ended up with a gap on the inside of the column which was fine because I was going to cover the corners with more mdf 1X4's mitered at the corners.  But I did not account for the gap that would be on the inside of the archway.  But I figured it out and maybe I like it better then I would have. I covered it with the door stop that I use under my headers on my doors, it worked great.  But I will admit that it was my second attempt at a solution.  But them the whole columns are too.  I started by putting 1X12 wide MDF up as the column but it looked to fat and stubby for the space.  We live in a trouble shooting world and I'm fine with do overs.  sometimes after a good nap or a day of starring at it willing it to work so I don't have to do it again. 

I put up crown to match the doors.   Now for the stair rail right?

 Finished with really white paint color in semi-gloss benjamin moore advanced matched at Jones paint and glass.   I opted to spray it on.  I worked long and hard to get this right and the sanding was enough to injure someone permanently from any other DIY project.
 I bought the  Wagner 0518080 Control Spray Max HVLP Spray.

Which did a great job with the trim which I did by myself, my husband said it wasn't very powerful, and missed spots  but it suited me just fine.  He thought it looked spotchy but we later realized it was just the paint drying that looked splotchy.  But spraying walls does not work as well.  I think it takes too much paint.

The color of the walls is Benjamin Moore  Stonington

 When I had taken all I could with the archway.  I took a day to quickly complete this wall in my entryway.  The look on my husbands face was priceless.  "your starting a new project?"  I just wanted to spray all the white at the same time.  This wall was much more simple.  First I measured and remeasure the wall.  Then I drew it on paper then the wall.  Mind you the paper and the wall had different measurements.  I had already finished the molding in the entry way but I decided to take this piece out so that I could place it over my molding.  I like the effect. I took 1X6's of MDF.  I cut each piece to size horizontally and then routed them with this bit that reverses so that when you place the two overlapping they are seamless.  The bit is Freud Reversible Wainscoting Bit.  I also got this idea from http://www.creativechaosblog.com/2011/10/diy-wall-paneled-wainscot-board-and.html.  The columns have the same routing done.  Aren't they pretty.  I'll give some credit (but not much) to my awesome husband for teaching me how to use the tools, screwing in the 2X3 because I'm a pretty tough weakling and helping me hold the arch piece to attach it.  He also didn't complain about the dust while working (he works at home).  Besides that though I did this all by myself.  And although after every project I take a few days of breather and swear I will not start another.  I know better to believe myself.  LOOK AT THAT RAILING totally needs to go RIGHT. I think I may get a box Newel post for an early Christmas present.  But right now my laundry room is completely torn apart.  So again with the simontanious projects

My Dining Room

Although my dining room is a work in progress, I came across the before picture and realized I had to post at least the window for now.
After

Before
So when we moved into a house that had been flipped by someone the wool was pulled over our eyes a bit.  The house was completely staged.  From cheap drapes and curtain rods to hooks that pull out of the wall when you hang one jacket.  Our Flipper painted to deck brown, it was chipping before we were done unpacking. My favorite thing he did was put gravel below the deck because he had to take out a cracked cement pad and did not want the expense of replacing it.  

One of the first things I did was take down all the ugly drapes in the family room and dining area.  Luckily the rest of the house has blinds, or shutters.  We sold all of these walmart special drapes and rods at a garage sale for $2 a piece.  The ugly Oops paint that covered the walls in the kitchen and dining had to go pretty quick after we moved in.  Then I waited, I wanted to put casing around this and three other windows.  I had some finish carpenters come in and bid it.  I think I had 4 or 5 walk through and one gave me a bid.  One of the guys actually told me we could just go around the window seal.  What?  Since the window seal did not go out on the sides far enough, I though the only option was to remove it and start over.  This guy wanted to jimmy rig a way around the existing seal.  No that really wasn't an option.  I also wanted to have material MDF on the inside of the window seal so that the window case looked nice.  Maybe I hang out on DIY websites too much for these guys.  I do know now why they didn't bid me, I would be too picky for them and new construction is just easier and paid out with a loan, not a owners pocket.  So not wanting to take No for an answer, I ripped out the three easier  (because they didn't have an arch) window seals and used the old seals for a template.  Easy, then I realized how truly easy finish work it.  Except I still hate sanding and sanding and chalking and hole filling.  

This arch though

looked hard to me, there is material that binds I think but I had some extra MDF sheeting laying around so I made a template and cut it with a jigsaw, there was a lot of sanding going on.   The Paint is Benjamin Moore Kentucky Sky and I love it.

A fireplace should be the focus of a cozy family room

 

Fire Place That feels the room Up

When Tim saw this house he feel in love.  mostly because of the view and the massive shop/garage detached outback.  I needed more convincing, in fact I threw two or three hissy fits because I wanted to build.  But I did love the layout and the area so I conceded on a few conditions.  I could move the fireplace and do build-ins on the sides and that I could overhaul the laundry room.  I also made him promise I could get a new dining set.  But alas I kind of knew what would happen.  Since we moved quickly on this house and we had not put our house up for sell until we found it.  We had not sold our house when we moved it.  My amazing brother Greg who is Owner of RanLife was somehow able to qualify us for both houses but the loan was a bit of a stretch.  And was only going to happen if we came up with more cash.  That's right my spending money.  So the fireplace and laundry would have to wait.  Forget the dining table that just wasn't going to happen.  So after our house sold in march I was on the phone getting bids for the fireplace, running scared that we would spend our petty cash before my projects were done.

 So here is the finished product but wait until you see the before pictures.  Yes yellow of course there is was no other paint color 12 years ago right?  And in this enormous room they chose to put the fireplace in the corner.  It was truly awkward and squatty.  So we took it out, decided it was worth the money to get a new bigger fireplace.  We will be putting the other downstairs, that room is awful right now.  Payton at alpine fireplaces was fantastic to deal with.  And our neighbor an awesome cabinet maker made the mantel (which I adore) and the shelves and cabinets.  To save on costs and because we wanted that middle panel to move up to reveal our TV my amazing husband did the top over the mantel.  Cutting the finish work there from $3000 to about $200

Ugh,  I can remember feeling confused in this room which way do I sit.  20+ft ceilings and they just make a shelf out of the silly small fireplace.   You can see my attempt at decor, failing bitterly

Here I am trying out a million shades of Grey.  

 We settled on Revere Pewter.  but I have since cased the windows I will have to post again when that is complete

The Homework Room

The Homework Room

(the best use of space ever)

When I built my first house, I designed it with as much common space as possible,  meaning small bathrooms, a laundry room in the closet, hardly any storage and my biggest mistake, no mud room.  When we were looking at building, I decided I was going to have a monster mudroom, crazy big and because I did not trust myself I was going with a stock plan.  Well after scouring the world for the perfect plan, walking through parade of homes and finally finding the plan of all plans.  We were smart enough to walk through it.  We then realized that there is no perfect plan, the monster mudroom ate the house up, the kitchen was too small, in this particular plan. So even though we had bought a piece of land, and I had my heart set on building, we decided to look for an existing house.  This in my mind was not to find one, but rather to convince Tim that building was the only option, this method had worked for two years of walking through houses but... When I came across this house it happened by chance it was over our price range but just barely.  Tim fell in love and wanted to act quickly, I told my husband he was wrecking my dreams because I love to design and build.  Now I have had to change my dream, into recreating this house.  So here it is.  There was an office in the front of this house and a mudroom/laundry that was hardly big enough to call either. So since my husband made his office downstairs in a huge room with a view.  I decided the lockers would occupy the front office and then my imagination took over. 

Ceiling stripes
I started by painting everything white.  I'm in love with white for some reason.  And then the ceiling screamed to be painted with stripes.  I used this orange tape and glue stuff that was for striping rough surfaces it was $15 bucks on amazon.  The glue stuff stopped working quickly probably because I was holding it upside down on the ceiling. I tweeked it by using my fingers instead of this little cap thing, it was really messy.  Next ceiling I stripe I will be just putting the tape up and then using the flat white paint to fill in the cracks before I apply the color.


For this wall
 I had wanted to do a tongue and groove wall, but after pricing it all out it would have been more then $300 so after scouring the internet I decide to do a sort of plank wall but horizontal.  These are 5 1/2 inch wide by about 1/2 thick, I found the thinner planks at home depot and they were cheaper and I like them for this look better.  I can't remember the exact price but it was close to $100 dollar for the wall.  The desk was a down east clearance store find $90 pieced together by me.

Big Magnet Board
I have always wanted to do a big magnet chalk board.  I research and realized magnetic paint was not going to cut it.  So I made a visit to the metal mart in Lehi.  Lovely place,  they helped me but it was a bit scary. So I just bought a 4X12 $48 sheet.  This was far to big so I had them cut it for $8.  Which was awesome because then I had two pieces for two projects.  The biggest mistake I made with this who thing is I decided to paint it after it was secured to the wall.  There is a tile floor in this room so I thought no biggie I'll just clean up.  But the mess from the chalkboard paint was horrible it got everywhere and the ventilation was bad in the room.  My smaller piece I painted on the lawn, which was much better.  I took more 5 1/2 mdf for the frame and walla.  The awesome board is born.

The Window Seat

building a window seat

 The window seat was thought up but it was a day dream because how was I going to build a window seat much less a functional one.  But while at the downeast clearance store I spotted tons of these pieces of beds.  So I decide to spend the $40 and see what I could do.  This one I picked for the drawers already there.  So I bought some 2X8 lumber and made a box for it to sit on.  Then I made a tunnel with more 2X8 for the heater vent.  Covered all the roughage with molding and I love my window seat.  The cushion I used a big piece of mdf and a camping foam mat, found at homedepot for $20. oh never never buy this thickness of foam at the fabric store they are crazy expensive.  I had to cut the foam and the fabric took me forever to pick because I did not want to do navy blue because the rug was navy and the ceiling but I also did not want to see stains.  The hidden stain factor won out.  The side cabinet came from my laundry room that is under renovation.  It may need some updating as well as a new counter.  

 These are the lockers we had build and I love them.  They fit on this wall like they were build to go there,  there are shoe drawers underneath.  Now if only all the shoes could walk themselves in here.  Does anyone else out there have trouble with escaping shoes?

Before

I am horrible at getting before pictures. so these are taken during the process.  As you can see the room was yellow like the rest of the house.  I thought about leaving the wainscoting and painting the bottom blue.  but in the end this was not my vision of how I wanted the room to look.  As in a lot of things in my life it was a trouble shooting process.  Its a good thing I'm learning some patience along the way.  Just taught my daughter how to trouble shoot square roots while typing this up.  Yes we must find out what works whether it be numbers or paint color.  Don't stop until you have it right.

Birthdays

Audrey turns 3

Its Party Time with a few cute friends.

 Paige, Anna and Skylee helped Audrey celebrate her birthday

 Audrey absolutely loves horses, so we took her to Thanksgiving Point Farms.  She's a real natural, but when her turn is done it is difficult to get her off.

Tigers Birthday is a about a week after Audrey's.  Its a crazy birthday time.  He asked for a Skylanders Birthday party.    This is kinda funny because he doesn't even have the toys or know much about the game.  instead of buying decorations for the cake I thought I'd just give him a set so he could play.  I bought these on ksl for $15, there is wax paper on the bottoms so the frosting didn't make them unusable.

Don't ever leave Jello in the sun, ya it um turns in to liquid and the cute layers of different colors make it brownish black, no body will eat it.

 We played 7 games to signify the 7 different lands in skylanders they are pushing the sheep into the fence.
  They are looking for gold coins in the iris'

This game is played with water balloons being tossed without breaking them.

 Here they are crashing the ice on the ground to get the toy out.  This was a bit of a fail because some of the toys broke with the ice

 This was a favorite, tying a balloon to each child's foot and then having them run around a smash, trying to keep theirs unpopped.  We also did a magic trick with mentos and diet coke.  The kids had alot of fun and went home with their own candy box with the skylanders logo on it.  I spent tons of time making signs and getting ready for this party and although it was fun.  A couple weeks after we were at the splash park and I saw a bunch of kids and birthday balloons I said to myself um ya that looks easy and fun and no work at all.  Pizza, cupcakes, water shooters and the splash park done!!!  I'm ready for next year.

Camping ESCALANTE

 We were invited by our new friends and mirror family (they have three girls and a boy almost the same ages as our kids) to go camping in Escalante.  This is Devils Garden, what a blast hiking around the goblin valley like rocks.

 On the same day we headed further down the dirt, washboard road that Tim insisted (thankfully) to take at 50-60 miles a hour.  (it panicked me, but riding behind a slow car for 16 miles just was not bearable).  This family picture is at the beginning of Peek-a-boo and Spooky canyons.  They fit their names alright.  Good thing we had Kari and Trent there to help us.  Because there were some tough spots for sure

 Very narrow, Audrey had to walk which she thoroughly enjoyed and we actually had to take apart her carrier

 All the older kids even Tiger found themselves ahead of us in the Spooky dark narrow canyon.  If you are claustrophobic stir clear of this canyon.  We got seperated from the kids when we had to descend in to the rock far down.  while the adults all pitched in to help our kids and another family behind and us.  The italians who were ahead of us but that our children got ahead of kept us adult back behind our kids but encourage the kids to keep going.  They were more then a little scared so they being awesome kids said a prayer for our safety.

 Upper Calf Creek Falls.  Fun cold day.  Another family in our Ward joined our group this day

And Tim the show off jumped off the waterfall edge for a brisk swim and to show the 2 eleven year old boys, just how fun turning 12 will be.  He is there adviser in deacons, we won't mention that he almost killed a handful of boys in our other ward.