Boys' Bathroom Redo (Phase 1)

I know I mentioned a few posts ago that our next home improvement project was going to be board and batten in the dining room.  I lied.  Well, I didn't mean to lie, but one thing led to another and I ended up redoing the boys' bathroom. It all started when the night light burned out in Carson and Jonas' room. Carson woke up terrified of the dark, and did what any resourceful little boy would do: went into the bathroom, grabbed the Scentsy plug-in warmer (which was turned on and full of hot wax) and took it to his room and plugged it in.  I had no idea what he'd done until the next morning when Jonas came running out of the bathroom yelling, "Mom!  Carson got blood all over the bathroom!"  I ran in to see red wax all over (and was very thankful that it wasn't really blood!). The wax came off of everything easily, except for the paint.  It just kept peeling it up no matter what I did, even running a blow dryer on it to re-melt it didn't work.

I didn't have any brown paint left over to touch it up.   When I first painted the bathroom, I had used the left over paint from an accent wall that I had done in my kitchen. It was one of those, "Hey I have some extra paint so I'm gonna stay up late one night and paint the bathroom" kind of things. I know that a little bit of peeling paint probably wouldn't bug some of you, but I couldn't let it rest. And to be honest, the brown paint made the bathroom look waaaaay too dark. So, because I am a "ready, shoot, aim" kind of person (as my husband so kindly tells me) I went down stairs, grabbed some aqua paint samples (that I had left over from the nursery), and painted streaks all over the bathroom.

Then I went to Home Depot (with all four kids in tow) and broke one of my own painting rules: I grabbed a paint sample card and went with it. I didn't like any of the shades of aqua I had tried and just wanted to get the painting done (because, you know, it had already been three days and I have the patience of a two year old when it comes to projects like this).  Well, this time around, it was a success and I picked a color that I love, love, love (Almost Aqua by Glidden)! These pictures do NOT do it justice.  It is gorgeous. You need to see it in person.

As you can tell, new paint meant a new shower curtain and a new shelf for the towels.  And new towels. Jeff laughs at my sign above the toilet...he says it has a double meaning for little boys who don't aim the greatest when using the potty...I think it encourages creativity :). If you follow me on Pinterest, you may have seen that I pinned a picture of a shelf like this a few weeks ago. Since Jeff was home for a week, he made me one, mostly out of wood we already had. We were able to paint it with left over trim paint our builder had left in our basement. It ended up being a pretty cheap alternative to the nasty towel bar that was there before.

A few years ago, I read in a parenting magazine about assigning each child a certain color of bath towel.  That way you would always know who had left a towel out and who was in charge of putting it away.  I'd been wanting to do this ever since, and was telling my mom about it.  She surprised me and sent some new towels the other day.  I was so excited! Thanks Mom! Now I just need to invest in a second set so we can rotate them while the dirty ones are in the laundry.

So the bathroom is almost done.  Phase 2 will include framing out the mirror and making a t-shirt rug  (both Pinterest ideas)...and crown molding to cover my nasty paint lines at the ceiling. Phase 3 will include taking out the vinyl flooring, installing tile, and getting new baseboards. Maybe if we get really ambitious we'll get a new light fixture. I have no idea when this will get done, because at our house we like to start projects and only finish them about 90% :). I have no idea why this is.  It may be that I am a bit too over zealous in home imporvement projects...I still have some things to finish up in the nursery, and Jeff needs to finish the closet shelving in the big boys' room. One thing at a time...

A Month in iPhone Photos

My poor DSLR camera hasn't made it out of the case in the past two weeks. Life's been a little crazy lately, so here's a recap of our month with pictures from my phone.

Carson had a bunch of dental work done including a cap, sealants, and teeth extractions.  He has a small mouth and his permanent teeth were coming in behind the baby teeth.  The kid is hilarious on laughing gas.

Porter started cooing.  I love it.  I love the expressions on his face when he is telling me "oooooh" or "goooo". One night he and Jeff were having quite a conversation.  My heart melted.

 We've had lots of sleepless nights.  The boys have had some weird stomach bug that causes abdominal cramping and bloating.  No throw up, no diarrhea, just lots of pain in the gut.  And it lasts 10 days. It took the doctors a while to figure out what was going on because the symptoms didn't fit any classic illness. In fact, our Ped sent Jonas to the ER at Primary Children's because he was crying so hard that his stomach hurt and they couldn't figure out what was going on.

We hired someone to pain the bead board, trim, and doors in the nursery.  Now I can't wait to get the rest of the doors in the house painted.  Good quality paint makes such a difference!

 Jonas is obsessed with Porter.  He can't get enough of him and is always trying to pick him up or feed him.  It has been a little stressful trying to reign in his love of his new brother.  I found him trying to feed Porter shredded wheat one morning. Enough said.

We went to Family Skate Night for Carson's school.  We rented the boys scooters and let them go on the little kids rink with them.  They had a blast.

I took the boys to see the baby chicks at Tai Pan Trading.  Its something I like to do every spring and they love it.  Plus I get to shop around one of my favorite stores :).

We took Porter on his first trip to Idaho.  We hung out with cousins and fed ducks at the Nature Park in Rexburg.

I love watching Carson hang out with his cousin TyLee.  It reminded me so much of how my cousin Ben and I were at that age.

Carson drove everyone around on the four wheeler at Grandma's house.

 About two seconds after I took this picture, Porter rolled over.  He's such a big boy (90th percentile) and I've already switched out his 0-3 month clothes for the 3-6 month ones.  Babies always grow too fast!

The Best $11

Ever since we moved into our house, I have been wanting to put a ledge on my kitchen window. It just seemed so boring and plain without one. And, to be honest, I was a little unnerved that our builder was so cheap that they couldn't even case out the windows. Well, I finally talked Jeff into doing it and the grand total for this little project was $11.38. Such a simple and cheap way to make the kitchen look so much nicer! Next on the home improvement list: board and batten along the dining room wall and the back kitchen wall. I can't wait...although I will probably have to because I've got these darn medical bills to pay off first.

Sorry for the blurry pictures. I'm blogging from the iPad and too lazy to get the nice camera out.

A Paint Story

When we were picking out the interior of our house at the design center, we had decided to leave our walls white because we thought they wanted too much money to paint them a different color. So when we moved into our house 2 1/2 years ago, I was so excited to finally be able to paint walls. I went to Home Depot and Lowe's and grabbed a bunch of paint color samples (just the paper ones), came back to the house, and decided which color I wanted.  At the time, beige walls were really trending and I wanted a light brownish-beige color.  We bought a five gallon bucket (it was on sale and cheaper that way) of a color called Gallery Taupe.  From the paint sample, it looked like the perfect color.  Once it was on my walls, it was the absolute worst color.  I was pregnant with Mason at the time, and left for the day while Jeff painted.  I came home excited to see my beautiful walls, and walked in to see walls that looked a purple-brown.  I cried. Jeff told me that eventually we could repaint, but I would have to do it because he wasn't going to redo it. So for two years I put up with walls that looked pinkish-brown in the mornings and purple-brown at night.  It drove me nuts.

In those past two years, I've bought about ten different paint sample colors and tried them on my wall.  I learned my lesson the hard way and now I always try the paint out first.  I've tried various shades of browns, beiges, taupes, and grays on our walls. Since my couches are an aqua color, I knew I had to find a neutral for the wall.  Last month I'd finally had enough of Gallery Taupe and settled on a shade of light gray. 

I painted most of our living room/kitchen by myself.  I did happen to have my mom here when I was painting the kitchen and she helped me.  Then I finally talked Jeff into helping me cut the paint in by the ceiling because I didn't want to get on the ladder.  He was so nice about it and even left me a note...

I am in love with the new color.  I was hesitant at first because it looked bluish next to the old color, but now that everything is painted and its had its two weeks to cure, it looks amazing!  I love how paint (and new curtains) can change a room. I'm love, love, loving my new white ruffle curtains! The house looks so much brighter.  Just what I needed right now!

The Nursery

Here's a little peek at the Nursery.  We've been working on it for the past few months and its almost together.  I've had a hard time getting a good picture of it because the lighting is tricky in that room so here are some shots I took straight from the camera. The walls look yellow, but they are really a pretty shade of grayish-green called Plum Passion.

 The original plan was to put up bead board on all of the walls, but at the last minute I changed my mind and decided I wanted it to go up 5 feet and make a nice ledge that I could put things on.  Good grief, I don't know how my husband puts up with me changing my mind every five minutes!  He must love me :). We also pulled off all of the builder's grade baseboard and installed a nicer, taller one.  Jeff also cased out the window and put a nice ledge on it.  We still have a little bit of touch up paint to do on the green and then we are having someone come in to paint all of the new moulding and bead board.  We had to buy a few pieces that weren't pre-painted because of size issues, so we decided we'd just have someone paint it all the same shade of white so it would match. Also, our builder painted all of our doors with a yucky flat paint, and as you can imagine, after two years and three little boys running around, the doors are not so much white anymore, so we'll have those painted too. I'll have to post some more (and hopefully better) pictures when it is all finished.

Jeff and I both agree that it is our favorite room in the house.  I'm pretty sure Mason concurs.