Christmas 2014

It is hard to believe that Christmas has already come and gone... it always goes by so quickly!  This was Luke's 3rd Christmas and he was an absolute joy.  He loved each and every gift, no matter what it was!  He was so sweet and kind to everyone that gave him a gift--  he would just say over and over "awww" or "thanks" or "i love it".  Luke's first gift came from his godfather, Matt.  He gave Luke a Jake and the Neverland Pirate's lego set-- we call it Jake's Buccaneer Blast, if you've seen the cartoon, you know what we are talking about!  No gift compared to the legos. no. gift.  On Christmas morning I was explaining to Luke that he gets to go downstairs and open more presents and he would keep saying was "I already got Jake's Buccaneer Blast".  It was so funny!

Luke and Daddy got harmonicas!

Santa left Luke so many goodies!

Cousins at Christmas at Yaya's house!

Luke has a future in music... really, he loves to sing! 

Family Pic!

Always loves Pluto!

Luke's biggest gift, a 12 volt tractor that he absolutely loves!  This thing goes pretty fast but he is getting the hang of steering and stopping pretty well!

Merry Christmas and Happy 2015!!!

Kitchen Update

Taylor and I have always loved doing silly, little DIY projects from pinterest... but this one takes the cake.  This project was our biggest, most fulfilling, worth the money, worth the time kind of project!  I have grown to love Buy, Sell, Trade facebook pages for our area and I was lucky and quick enough to snag the greatest kitchen table for $100.  The best part of the sale was that the sellers lived less than 3 miles from my house.  I loaded up Luke one evening, we went the ATM for our cash and traveled the looong (ha!) distance to make our purchase.  The sellers were super nice, too.  Here is the post and the original look of the table.

The table was COATED with the thickest, most shiny clear coat in all the universe.  We knew it was going to be time consuming to sand that all off.  We opted for a chemical to get the removal process started.  

This stuff worked magic.

After the stripper sat for the recommended time, we began by scraping off the gunk that had become of the clear coat.  It was amazing how it was just peeling right off.

Next, we sanded off what was left.  Then we worked on evening out the color and texture as best as possible.

The top is covered in the stripper, the bottom half had been treated and sanded. 

It did not take long to get the table to a very natural, ready for staining state!

We laid the table top of our card table so we could get up off the sawdust.... this was luxurious!

Next, stain!

We chose a VERY dark brown color.

We were so worried that is looked black at first.  After our first coat was painted on, we rubbed and rubbed and rubbed to get this brow, distressed look.  It was so easy and we totally surprised ourselves with the outcome!

Our garage was full of fumes & sawdust!

Luke came out to help once in a while.

We moved on to the chairs and the base/ legs of the table. 

The chairs took a bit more time, because of the detail in the wood and the small size of each piece.

And for a grand total of $225, we have a new-to-us table and we love it!

But, the fun did not stop there.  We brought the new table in and realized our kitchen was still so blah and it needed more.  

So, we moved onto painting.... stripes... in our kitchen.  Looking at pinterest, it seemed that stripes were best in an office or maybe a bathroom.  I would have never thought about the kitchen.  I love the character it adds to our space!

First, we measured the whole wall & divided evenly into 5 spaces.  (In the end, after several re-tapings, the measurements were swayed a bit)

The best tip I can give is to "X" the wall sections you are not going to paint!

As you all know, taping is the hardest part of any painting project.  Luckily, Luke was napping through this project.  Taping the wall took about 2 hours.  One.  wall.  took.  2.  hours. 

So worth the perfection, in the end-- i promise!

Easy as pie!  Luke was so excited to wake up to a painted wall!

Our new table looks a million times better with a pretty wall!

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The Girl Creative

Laundry Room update

I want to share more about the house.... although it is a slow, on-going project in our laundry room, that is what I am sharing today.  The bedrooms of our house are all upstairs, even the master.  Naturally, the laundry room is upstairs as well. At first, I found this to be so odd-- but quickly realized that is an absolute perk!  The sound was something to get used to!  We would be downstairs watching TV and wonder if there was a helicopter landing on our roof at times, but now that is all water under the bridge! 

At our first house, I loved making the laundry room a cute, girly space.  After a few years of searching laundry rooms on Pinterest, it became an obsession.  :)   Here is a picture of our first laundry room: 

The "in" thing was to have a fancy little chandelier...  So, we had one!  The storage in this room was questionable.  It was one built in shelf with a hanging rack under it.  I could not stand for all of my junk to be in clear view, so we covered it with a handmade curtain that was the length and width of the entire area.  

Then fast forward a few years... we moved into our new house.  The laundry room had a  tad of an upgrade, it included a cabinet and a hanging rack!  YAY!  The room is smaller than our old one, but it should be-- it is not an entry to our home.  

Here is a before of our new laundry room:

The room is functional, but it had the nastiest CARPET.

So, we ripped out the carpet and spent about $40 and laid some stick-on- tiles to spruce it up a bit!  

The stick-on cheap tile still looks better than the carpet!

This room is still a work in progress.  I am wanting to add a counter top and possibly more storage/ cabinets.  Hopefully that will be finished before another 11 months of living here rolls around.  

We can only hope!

Around the house...

We have now lived in our house for 10 months and to be totally honest, not much has changed.  I just spent yesterday actually organizing (unpacking) our closet since September.  That's bad! But overall, we have added our personal touch here and there.  Here are some before and after pictures of our living room.  This room has taken the most time, money and energy to get it to where it is now.  It is NOT in any way complete.  It is far from that, this room needs a lot of TLC!

Before (these pics are from Zillow, and show the previous owner's furniture)

Needless to say.... our very first project was wood flooring!  That funny shaped carpet area was considered the living room.  It was so small and nonfunctional.  We knew that having one type of flooring would really open up the space... and were we ever right!

The floor was a fairly easy process.  We spent the night away on a Friday, after they worked all day and we were able to come back home on Saturday evening. 

Things were pretty dusty and it needed a tad bit of sprucing up.

Before we began flooring, our first major purchase was a couch.  This was MUCH HARDER than it seemed.  We went through 3 before finding the one.  Luckily, the store we purchased from had a 72 hour return policy without having to pay any type of restocking fee.  Thank goodness!  

After the couch and flooring came the small things, rugs, side tables, pillows... we are still working on lamps and gallery walls and mirrors and all that fun stuff.  With time, it will all come.

The most recent project we did was paint.  Pinterest really helped us on this project.  We knew we wanted a grey color for the living room walls.  I love the way it looks with the dark floors and light baseboards and crown molding.  So, we went with this:

We did a few samples on the wall and then chose our favorite.

Painting a wall really adds character to a space!  

The living room has definitely gone under some changes sine we moved in!

Luke is 2!

It is so hard to believe that our Little Dude is 2 years old... 2 years old!!  He is the most joyful little boy around and we love him so much.  Luke has such a fun spirit and is happy to just be at home with his mommy and daddy.  He is such a chatter box and it is hard to keep track of his vocabulary nowadays.  Here are a few of our favorites: "Sit down right there, I love you so much, I go outside"  Luke is weighing in around 25 pounds and eating like an absolute champion! Luke is in love with anything tractors, cows, farm and trains.  This year, Luke's party was tractor themed.  We found the best park that was an old dairy farm turned suburban park.  It could not have been more perfect!

All about the party:
Frosting and Ink - all printable party decor
Hot Chocolates Bakery- cake
Tee With Sugar- personalized birthday shirt

Chocolate covered donuts

Chex-Mix

Rice Krispie Treats

We have the greatest friends and family and we appreciate them all celebrating Luke with us!

Luke and his Godparents, Courtney and Matt.

Still hard to believe that our baby boy is 2 years old!

Happy Birthday to you, Luke!