Color

We now have color on the walls!  The NEW room:



The painting is now complete on the inside and outside of this room!  I'm so glad to be mostly done with this project.  I keep forgetting that the french doors need to be painted.  Once the carpet is in, we will put the baseboard back in place.  Let's just say that the difficult part of the project is complete.

LittleBigMan's room is almost done.  I just need to re-trim and roll on a 2nd layer of paint.


LittleBigMan has been happy as can be... he's been watching his "moo-bies" (movies) a lot lately while we work.  Here he is watching his favorite movie, Curious George.


I am SO happy to be nearly done with renovations for awhile.

Painting

We have texture on the walls!!!




And we have a base coat of paint on the walls!




Already in love with power tools...


We are going to be doing lots of painting this weekend.  Here are the paint colors we'll be using:

The red is called Red Velvet and will be used in the kitchen.  It is Behr Premiun Plus Ultra paint and it looks frighteningly bright in the can, but I've been assured it will darken to the color it's supposed to be after it dries on the wall.  I'm still nervous! I previously painted the kitchen a pumpkin color, but never really liked it. 

The blue is called Healing Waters (for LittleBigMan's bedroom) and the tan is called Aviary Nest (for the newly enclosed guest bedroom).  The blue and tan are The Freshaire Choice paints... they have no VOC's whatsoever and are great to work with so far. 

As of right now, I have trimmed out the guest bedroom in the new color and it's ready to be rolled tomorrow.  After the drywall finishing experience, I am actually happy to be painting.  AND... we are scheduled to have our new carpet installed next Wednesday and Thursday.  Aside from future tile laying in the bathrooms & kitchen, we are nearly done with our Home 2010 Project!!!

Favorite Photo Friday

Playing in the sand

On our 1 year anniversary in Pensacola, Florida

Primed and ready for texture

We have been SO busy working on our Home 2010 Project lately.  We are slowly but surely making progress!

The mud & tape portion is complete.  I will N-E-V-E-R voluntarily do that again. 


Sanding the joint compound was terribly messy.  Dust everywhere.  But we seemed to do a decent job of containing it.


Let me reiterate, I will NEVER voluntarily do a project like this again!

Troy and my mom put some caulk along the gap between the new drywall and the existing ceiling.  I'm glad for this tip from our neighbor.  Otherwise we would have ended up scraping some of the ceiling and taping the gap.  Then having to re-texture the ceiling.

 
We have also primed the walls and will be adding texture today...

It looks pretty good for non-professional work.  Of course, we aren't done yet.

21 months old

It is hard to believe my baby will be 2 years in old in only 3 months. Here's what he's been up to lately...

He's about 31 inches tall

He weighs around 25 lbs.
He wears size 18 month clothing, toddler size 5 shoe, 3T-4T size hats

Some new things he's been doing...

He's become very affectionate... lots of hugs and kisses

He likes to give a family hug (if Troy's holding him, he'll pull me into the hug too)

He can point to and say most of the animals on our animal flashcards
He's liked books for awhile, but now he LOVES books

He hates diaper changes, so I've been trying to get him to use the potty more often
He can be quite whiny when he doesn't get his way, but cheers up quickly.
He has some awesome dance moves... he LOVES TO DANCE!!!
I don't let him watch much t.v., but he LOVES the Curious George movie
He lip syncs
He tries to whistle
Typical of his age, he is a bundle of non-stop energy

Some new things he's saying...

"Here go, baby"

"Here go, mom"

"Wash hands" (likes to use the hand sanitizer)

Says " 'Mon" (for 'come on') and pulls your pants/shirt to get you to follow him
Once he pulls you to where he wants you to be, he tells you to "sit!"

Says "dine-ore" (dinosaur) and roars a lot

Can point to and say most of his facial features (nose, eyes, cheeks, chin, mouth, tongue, teeth, hair, ears, eyebrows)

He's learning that things belong to individuals (not everything is his!) and he'll say "Dada's" when holding something that belongs to his dad.
Just learned the word booger (isn't that nice)
Starting to say simple sentences like "monkey's in bed"
He likes to ask for one of his favorite foods: "Ap-bel-saush" (applesauce)

Typical conversation with LittleBigMan...
A: "Momma!"

Me: "Yes, sweetie?"
A: "Momma, momma, mommeeeee!"
Me: "What do you want A?"
(repeat several times)
A: "momma, vroom vroom Rooooaaaarrrrr!"

We have walls!

Home 2010 Project update:
The walls are all up!!!


Now the scary part begins... you know the part that creates (hopefully) nice smooth walls. Mud & tape. Eek! Wish me luck.

Making progress

Home 2010 Project update:

All of the carpet in the house has been removed!!!

And the new walls are completely framed and we are about 60% done with the sheetrock!

Jan 12th - my mom helping remove the old carpet


Jan 12th - Finishing up the carpet removal. I'm SOOOO happy to be done with that!


Jan 14th - Soon to be a power tool pro!


Jan 15th - Putting up the doors for the new room


Jan 17th - Putting up the sheetrock

Favorite Photo Friday

My girl

Photo of my dog Chloe taken in November 2006.

Home 2010 Project

When we moved into our house over a year ago, we had big plans for it. We started out by painting the entire interior. That was my first experience painting and I was very naive about the whole process. I swore I'd never paint again... but I will be doing it again soon.

We have just begun our largest project. We are replacing the half wall that encloses the office (formerly LittleBigMan's room) with a full wall. This room will become the guest room. Yesterday we were able to completely remove the wall. It wasn't as bad as I had expected!

LittleBigMan helping Daddy remove the baseboard

Our little handyman

Tearing down the sheetrock... bye bye lovely paint job

No more half wall

And we are also removing the carpet so it can be replaced. We originally wanted to do wood flooring, but if you haven't noticed by other pictures it can get VERY COLD here. We need something a little warmer under foot.

We have also decided to replace some of the controls for our baseboard heaters. I don't think they were all working correctly. These are programmable and I'll be happy to wake up to a nice warm bedroom!

In the (hopefully not so distant) future, we will be tiling the bathrooms and kitchen. There was CARPET in all of those areas. I know it's warmer than tile, but carpet (in my opinion) should NEVER be in the bathrooms! More pictures to come as we continue on our Home 2010 Project: bringing our home out of the 80's and into the present day.

Weekend retreat

On Friday, we headed north for a little weekend retreat with family/friends. We spent the weekend with Troy's cousin Wade and his wife Dulcie. We really enjoy spending time with them. They are such kindhearted people who love the outdoors. We always have a good time together!

They were generous enough to share their weekend with us (don't forget that US includes a 20 month old toddler!) at a beautiful lodge owned by their friends!

The drive to the lodge was slow going because of the snow, but beautiful


The lodge was AMAZING!


Views



All of us


The dogs


Our room


The bathroom and the beautiful views from the tub


The guys working on the log splitter

Since we were staying for free, the guys tried to split a lot of firewood as payment for the wonderful amenities.

Me and my sweet boy


Daddy and his sleepy son


The dogs playing


Taking a hike


Boy's best friend


PASSED OUT on the way back home


It was such a wonderful weekend. They were so gracious... preparing us meals and telling us to just relax and enjoy our time there They even took us to a DELICIOUS Ethiopian restaurant in town. It was a nice way to end the holidays and unwind before Troy returned to work today.