Archive for the ‘Home Stuff’ Category

The Basement Playroom

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

So we have been working on making the basement into a playroom for a couple of months now. We finally got it cleared out and set up and all ready for play. Here are some pictures from it. First off is the wall for toys and such.

Next to that is our chalk walls, the side of the toy storage and the back wall area are red, and the main wall are blue, we got the chalkboard paint at Joanne’s, Desmond loves the fact that he is allowed to write on the walls there, and we like the fact that we have one area we can send him to write on the walls. You can also see his new IKEA kitchen, which he is really loving. He uses the two door compartments in the storage unit as his refrigerator, we figure eventually we’ll get him a small 2 cube with doors, but at the moment his solution works.

There is also a small table and chair set for him to sit on and use, and Eloise as well, when she is big enough to sit on the chairs. I don’t have any pictures of it right now though, well I do, but they are going in a different post *grin* since they are more focused on Eloise and Desmond.

Cleaning and Such

Monday, November 6th, 2006

So we’re slowly buy surely trying to clean up the house. Last week was K’s room and the upstairs hallway, this week was the master bedroom and the guest room downstairs. Well K’s room is sort of done, though it still needs to be moved around and such, though since Dan was painting it isn’t a big deal. The hallway is a lot cleaner though there are still a few things to go. The master bedroom still has a bunch to be done, though I can do it this week, if I am motivated (hahaha). We did get the closet done in the baby’s room and Dan should be able to do the closet in K’s room next weekend. We also bought a new bed for our bedroom, since the Queen Bed just isn’t working now I’m pregnant, so King bed here we come!

I am hoping that we have the house mostly clean by New Years, we are slowly getting it done, but it is getting done though you can’t really tell yet.

Painting is going well

Tuesday, August 1st, 2006

So Dan spent the weekend painting the nursery (what will eventually be the nursery at least) well not the whole weekend. Friday we took Jabby out shopping for her birthday since we had no clue what a 14 year old would want for her birthday, she got a bunch of small stuff she seemed to like. Saturday was game day at Greebo’s and Caylor’s and Jabby’s birthday, so we went over for that played a couple of games, tried our new killer rabbit game it was fun. I also knitted a hat with this round knitting thing, it was kind of cool, but I think I will skip getting one because I know I won’t use it enough to justify it.

So Sunday we started the painting. Went out and picked up the 4 base colors, a light blue for the ceiling, a sky blue for the top 2/3rd of the wall, an orange for the bottom 1/3rd and green for the trim. Atty did the ceiling and one coat of the orange on Sunday. Monday he painted a bunch more, did a second ceiling coat, a second orange coat and the first blue coat. He then did a second blue coat and third orange coat later in the evening. It looks really good. There are a couple of spots that need to be patched up, but overall the colors work really well together. This weekend we’re going to try the stenciling and hope it works. If not we’ll go the easy way and use the border, but the stencil will look way cooler so hopefully it works. Then the room will be done! Yay, then we’ll be able to clear out the dogs room to start working on it. Poor Dan lots of painting for him.

Painting and other stuff

Wednesday, July 26th, 2006

So about a month and a half ago, Dan put wood laminate flooring in the second upstairs bedroom. It still needs a bit of wood stuff to be put in the cracks but overall it is done and looks good. So since that room is empty because of the new floor, we are planning to paint it. So this weekend we went out and looked at paint samples. We are going to go ahead and do the room in the color scheme we want for our future nursery since we don’t want to have to repaint the room in another year or two. So we have a Winnie the Pooh theme semi planned. We aren’t using the pre-done Disney ones because they are a bit too pastel for my tastes, but I think we’ve come up with a good color combo, though we will be using between 5 and 7 different colors based on a couple of various conditions.

I also want to get some pictures for the room. I found a gorgeous one that is exactly what I wanted for the room. It is $700, so we’re waiting till we go to Disney, I am hoping to find something more in the $50 to 100 range, $700 is just a bit more then I’m willing to spend on my future nursery, no matter how perfect the painting.

After that is done we’re going to redo the dog’s room. We are doing it in a finding nemo theme, fortunately for that one we only need 3 or 4 colors of paint which makes it easier (and two of those colors will be the small paint cans). Then we’ll hang up the various nemo pictures we have and rearrange his room so it will look nice.

In other news not much else going on around here. We went to the gamestore the other day and bought a couple new games that all look fun. I’m thinking of going out to get the civ4 expansion later this week, but other then that not much else going on.

Grocery Game

Tuesday, October 4th, 2005

Well we tried the $1 one month trial of the Grocery Game, or at least the first 3 weeks or so of it, and have decided to cancel it. We just don’t buy the stuff on the list enough for it to be useful. We are pretty good about figuring out sales on our own, and we don’t buy many processed food and we buy almost no junk food (excluding icecream, mmm icecream). So it just wasn’t working for us or worth our money to continue with it.

We did learn, stockpile non-perishables while the price is cheap, and that the first sale might not always be the best sale so keep an eye out on sales just in case. Other then that though it was really a bust, oh well.

Kitchen is almost done

Monday, October 3rd, 2005

Well they came today and put on the countertops so I have new pictures to share.

Old kitchen:

New Kitchen, with countertops:

The kitchen is now about 95% done there are still a few small things they need to finish, but overall it is now a working and functioning kitchen!

The Grocery Game

Sunday, September 18th, 2005

So I found a link to the Grocery Game from somewhere. What it is, is you clip coupons (blegh but okay) and then use a list provided (that you do have to pay for) to get the best deal on various groceries and such. Thus cutting your bill in half or more. So we decided to try it out for the first month and see if it actually works. Figure cutting the grocery bill would be nice since we tend to spend about $600 a month on groceries which is pretty high for just two people.

Two Kitchen Pictures

Thursday, September 15th, 2005

Here are two pictures of the kitchen I’ve put up. We’re almost done except for the countertop. So here is a preview of the new kitchen. If you click on the links it will show you the full pictures of the the kitchens rather then the cut verision on the site.

First a picture of the old kitchen:

And now the new kitchen:

As you can see we’re still missing the countertops. We also need to do some touchup painting when everything is done and we are planning on putting a stampped border of butterflies along the top area as well. However it is a decent look at the kitchen.

Painting the Kitchen

Sunday, August 28th, 2005

So we are painting the kitchen this weekend so that at least the base color is down when they finish up the construction in there. We had to decide on a color for the kitchen. The living room is a color called Soft Wine.
softwinejpg.jpg

I really like the color. We needed to find something that would contrast it but not be jarring. We finally decided to go with a green color and chose Sea Scent.
seascentjpg.jpg

We also chose a color called Carolina Strand.
carolinastrandjpg.jpg

We decided to use the Soft Wine and Carolina Strand colors as an accent. We are going to paint the kitchen Sea Scent and then around the top of the kitchen above the cabnets stamp butterflies in both Carolina Strand and Soft Wine. We figure that should help pull the color of the living and dining room through the kitchen.

We thought about using stencils but they are a pain to use and don’t look quite right so we found a cute butterfly stamp that was put out by Disney and are going to be using that. I think it should look really cute.

Dan did the first layer of paint this afternoon/evening and it looks really good. There are some spots and it definately needs a second layer of paint, but overall it is a very nice color for the kitchen and should keep it looking open and light.

Dang Custom Picture Frames are Expensive

Saturday, August 27th, 2005

So Joanne’s is having a 60% off sale on framing today. And only today. It happens once a year, according to the lady at the frame counter. We found out about it yesterday when we went to check out stamps and stencils for the kitchen and decided to come back today to see about getting some things framed.

Dan has had his diploma’s for the past 6 years or so rolled up and my Mom promised to frame them for him for his graduation present, when we found framing on sale. We also have a gorgeous dragon print that he bought back in 2000 or so at DragonCon that we needed framed. And since I just got my AA we had that diploma as well.

(more…)