Paint Fumes and Design

Last evening my son had a function at church. I took him over and decided to work on the children's ministry stuff that I had to get organized for the start of the new year. I was walking into another Sunday School classroom and noticed the room had recently been redecorated. It was heading toward a tree house type theme. But the thing that was even more noticeable to me, not by sight but by smell, was the new paint. They had recently painted the room in new colors and it smelled divine. I LOVE the smell of new paint, it makes me think of freshness and new projects being accomplished. I could have stayed there much longer just sniffing to my hearts content. But I had work to do in another Sunday School class... one that unfortunately did not smell like paint.

Today, I'm supposed to be working on preparing for our first full week of homeschooling. But in the schoolroom are a bunch of magazines. Country Home, Cottage Living, Kitchens and Bath Remodeling just to name a few. With three kids keeping me busy, I rarely ever have the time to look at these. But today the littlest is taking a nap and the two oldest are with dh at football evaluations. The house is quiet... perfect for planning the school year.... or looking at decorating magazines. Hmmm.. tough call.


I'm being inspired by do-it-yourselfers who have remodeled their kitchen and done so on a budget. We did that before, so I know it can be done. But, I also know it's several months of major upheaval and work. A lot of upheaval and work! Plus, previously we just redid the cabinets (a huge job in itself). We also replaced the counters, and lighting and built a new island.


We've lived in our new house for 3 years now, and I have never felt like the kitchen worked well for me. Many friends have commented to me that it is quite big... which it is, but the flow is all wrong for me. For this new kitchen I would want to re-do all cabinets, counters and lighting, plus the ceiling (making it beadboard), and the floors. (perhaps hardwood). New appliances are a given..... but also very expensive. So, I keep walking into my kitchen and re-designing it, looking at it one way and figuring out how to make it all work and flow.


I can tell I'm getting the itch to remodel again....

It must've been the paint I smelled at church last night..... :-)

Photos

As promised here are some photos of the half finished curb appeal. Below is our home, I love the black shutters and black door now. You can see the roof and all the tiles we lost... I can't wait until our new roof goes up!

Here are some photos of my new hanging baskets. I got the baskets for $6 each and the plants to go in them for $2.oo. They were distressed plants at Lowe's and I nursed them back to health. Yay me!

Finally, I had to take a picture of the bench and pillows from the other side of the porch. This is where I'd like to put a porch swing eventually. But for now... the bench works just fine!

Another Update...

Okay, hopefully photos coming soon... The front porch is coming along. I need to find a little round wrought iron table for between the rocking chairs. Something that will hold drinks. I also want to find a porch swing that we can refinish. That would be awesome, and I can move the bench out under a shady tree.

We are getting our new roof in about 3 weeks, and after that we will be sanding and painting the entire front porch. That should finish our mini-curb appeal project. I have lots of photos to take of the plants etc. It really is looking nice and the roof will make all the difference!

We are also in the process of re-doing our entire swingset. Dh disassembled it, moved it over about 5 feet, and we'll be adding on. It's gonna be awesome when we are finished. Seems a project like this is a magnet for all the neighborhood kids. We have several of the boy's friends helping us to sand the old pieces we are salvaging. I'm sure they will want to stain it as well. :-)

I'm so excited for the additional space, plus making our swingset sturdy. It was quite dangerous before up on cinderblocks and swaying horribly when anyone would venture to actually swing on it! Yikes! This one will have five options for swings... two kids, two toddler swings and one two seater. Plus it will have the current big slide, and a rock wall with a rope to climb. The fort part will have a telescope and steering wheel for lots of imiganiation play. Yay! It will probably be done just in time for the heat of summer.... lol!

Picture posts will follow shortly....

Mini-Update on Curb Appeal

Sorry I haven't posted in a little bit. We still have some finishing things to do to the front porch and yard. One thing we have to do is sand, wash and repaint the porch... especially the stairs. That is gonna take some time and decent weather to accomplish! It's been raining like crazy here... so we just have to find a good weekend to do it!

We also had 80-100 tiles blow off our roof during the last huge wind storm. So we will be getting a new roof hopefully soon. We have been blessed that insurance will paying for that.

Finally, we have to mulch all the landscaping... and for that we also need decent weather. So.... no pictures until we can find the time to get finished here. I'll leave you with a picture of our youngest little guy hanging out a few weeks ago while we were doing the shutters and door.

Rocking Chair Renovation!

Last year I found these rocking chairs locally for $25 a piece. Dh drove after work and strapped them to the back of his little Audi. They are super sturdy, almost Cracker Barrel quality, but needed a LOT of TLC. The finish on them was the worst, peeling varnish and rough like they had been left in the elements for a long time. Here is what they looked like when they brought them home.

I spent many many hours sanding these... Did I mention MANY HOURS?? lol! But it was so worth it because the finish is so smooth now. Then I began the process of priming. We chose gray to start us off, since I knew our final paint color would be black. It helped to lesson the amount of coats of black paint I would need in the end.

Here they are primed with the gray color:

Finally I put two coats of gloss black paint on them. I decided to leave the rush seats the natural color and I'm SO glad that I did! They look awesome. I added some rocker cushions and pillows that I purchased at Target. They now grace our front porch and look amazing! Dh saw the last photo and was so pleased... he said it looked like they were out of a magazine. Aww... Thanks honey! Total cost was around $55 for the cushions and paint! Yay!

Working on some Curb Appeal

For the past couple weekends we have been working on making the front of our home look different on a very small budget. I don't have after photos yet, because we are still not finished.... but I will post maybe in a few more weeks. Here are some before photos of the home and what we have been working on. I can't wait to finish this up, but it's gonna take a LOT of elbow grease!

Here is our home before with green shutters and a very badly peeling front door. To say that door was an eyesore when you first walked up the porch is an understatement.

You can see the peeling paint below and notice the two different finishes. Polished nickel on the door handle and polished brass on the kick plate and door knocker. I'm embarrassed to say that has been that way for almost 3 years.

Also from the heat here this inner glue like substance would leak from our windows and look like some type of sap. It was sticky and very gross looking and it coated the door under those inserts.

So on a beautiful spring day dh took the door down and decided to strip it and repaint it. The new color will be black.

Since we were changing the door color we also needed to repaint our shutters. So those came down as well for a quick coat of black paint. Here are a few shots of the porch without the lower shutters.

And here is what we found behind all those shutters.... yuck!

Here are some of the lower shutters lined up and ready to be painted. I'm definitely ready to get rid of that green color.

The cost for the paint and paint stripper was $30. So for that small amount of money we totally transformed the look of our home. But we aren't done yet. Planters, an old bench and awesome old rockers that we bought last year for $25 each need to be redone as well. Plus cushions to add some color and flowers for the planters. We're going to try to do it all for under $200. The cushions are the most costly.... we'll see how we do. I'm re-doing the rocking chairs right now, and dh just re-painted the bench. I wish we had taken a before shot of it! It looks a million times better. Tune in for a picture update on each of those projects!

Why?

I just want to know why do I come up with all kinds of absolutely fabulous and "do-able" remodeling ideas for my home, when we can't do a single one because of our budget? I find that very curious. Usually I am stuck with some kind of design brain freeze, but today.... in my mind I completely redid two upstairs bedrooms relocating walls, doors, and closets, and remodeled my entire kitchen. Now what is up with that???

Too bad we are on Baby Step 2 of the Dave Ramsey Plan and paying off all our debt(except the house). We'll be starting Baby Step 3 hopefully this summer. That step involves having an Emergency fund of 3-6 months salary saved should we lose a job or something. I know I will be thankful when all this is done, and we actually have a cushion to fall back on and our debt is gone. It's just hard now. I guess I'll just draw up the ideas and keep working on them. They'll be ready for us when we have the cash in hand. :-)

Budget Cuts

I posted below that I know I can do our remodelilng on a budget. However, my budget just got smaller. Way smaller......

My husband and I started reading through Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. I have read many of his concepts before, but we have never read the book together. We have never been on the same page together. So, this is a good thing.... and a bad thing. Good because I want us to be on the same page with our finances and to both be on board. The bad thing is that we are going to have to take a good look at our budget and make some cuts. The one thing we agree on is that no remodeling happens unless we have the money up front. Period. So, the bathroom that I want to re-do (even frugally) will have to wait until we have about $700 to replace all the fixtures and shower. (This should be interesting!)

So, for now I am focused on cleaning out and organizing to make our house seem more put together. We already did the garage, and while it isn't organized the way I would like with all the clutter behind closed doors, it is better. At least we aren't tripping over an obstacle course to get around everything! Plus we can park dh's car in there and work on it until we are ready to sell it......Here are before and after shots.

BEFORE

AFTER

I know it's hard to tell between the before and after pictures, but trust me.... it does look a whole lot better! And we got rid of a ton of stuff! One big contractor bag full! There is more to "go", and I eventually would like to see a work bench of some type for dh.... but for now this will be okay. The next thing is the attic. It is a war zone up there... and I want it to look spacious! I DO wish we had more storage in this house. The attic is not one of my favorite places to store things. I know it's not economical and it's why we don't do it....but a storage building that is climate controlled would be awesome! Especially for the things we save should we ever have room in another home. Plus it would be great to get rid of all the clutter!

So today is cleaning out the attic day. I hope we get a ton accomplished and that everything feels more organized, like we did after the garage transformation.

Now is the Winter of our Discontent

This phrase from Shakespeare describes me to a tee lately! I don't know what it is.... but as far as my house goes... I'm in a small spell of discontent. I hate to admit that... because I know that I should be just grateful to have a house! Very true!


I'm not sure if it's having just used every last cent on our adoption, and finally having that complete that makes me want to think about home projects. Maybe it's that it is still considered winter here... and while we have been working on the yard, we can't really "Do" a whole lot yet either. It's not quite spring. I guess I should be grateful that I'm not back north where the planting always seemed to coincide with Mother's Day weekend. I'd have to wait awhile for that. At least March is right around the corner, and we can begin attacking some spring projects soon. One more month or so.......


I guess it's that feeling of inactivity... or knowing how many BIG projects this house needs, and knowing we don't have the money to do them. For instance, the siding needs to be replaced, and really so does the roof. The front porch needs to be sanded and repainted and the wood steps need to be tended to. What I'd really like to do is make them brick and the porch concrete, but that too is out of the budget. The garage doors need to be replaced and so does the front door! I would love to fence the yard, but as you know that is way too much money. I also would love to add onto this house, but again.... not now. Sigh... and that is just the outside of the house, I won't even go into the inside. See what I mean? Winter of Discontent. (Notice the word "winter")

My IRL friend posted here about Spring Fever on her blog, and how she is having trouble getting organized. She like me is great at having many ideas but not so good on imlementing them. Too many distractions......Maybe that is part of the problem for me too. With bringing the new little one into our home, I can't seem to get organized at all! Some of the systems that worked for us then, don't work now that we have a little one in the house. So, I have to create new ones.... but like I said I can't seem to catch up. And I consider myself a fairly organized person..... hmmmm.... I'm not sure what is up? If you've made it this far in my jumbled post... thank you.... but you really have too much time on your hands.... LOL! :-)


Pop on over to this post over at the Nester's place.... it really REALLY hit home to me. It's written way better than what I have posted here... but it addresses the discontent that I was rambling on about. Despite our lack of finances, I can still make our home beautiful. I can still remodel frugally. I KNOW I CAN! I can make the home that I have now, be the best that it can be for our family and the memories we will make here. So, I decided to see what things we can do outside that will beautify the house. Things we can do ourselves, that will really make a huge difference. I'll post those things in my next post, because the baby just woke up, and I need to get running!

Weekend Warrior

Today we begin another work weekend around our house. It's raining, so we'll primarily focus on the garage. I haven't been able to park in it for quite some time. Quite frankly you need to clear a path just to walk through it! So, the garage will be the focus today.

And about my fence.... I'm completely bummed out. Dh talked to a subcontractor at work, and guess what the estimate is for the fence? $19,000!!! Yeah, that's pretty much out of the picture. Dh called me and said, "Guess who won't be putting a fence in this year???" "Us....." :-( Oh well!

Gotta get moving on my day... I have bills to pay and checkbooks to balance and taxes to file as well!

Spring Fever...

Yes, I have spring fever and it's a little early it seems! I seem to go in stages of home remodeling... mainly because of finances, although sometimes it's because I'm just uninspired.


The last 7 months have been b-u-s-y.... but not on our home renovations. Nope we've added a little one to our family, and we are finally beginning to settle in. Add to that it's starting to feel like spring here in the south, and that typically gets me antsy to start some kind of project or other.


My mind goes in a bunch of directions when I think what we would like to work on. We've been prepping for the spring by cutting back our beautiful shrub roses, and all the rest of the landscaping. This weekend we'll be working on pruning the crape myrtles We opt for natural pruning not "crape murder" like so many like to do. Plus, I'll be taking clippers to the lyriope and cutting it way back for the spring. This year I'd like to have all the landscaped edged weeks before the mulch goes down. I like prepping it now little by little so we can enjoy the spring weather when it hits.


Jumping towards the top of my list this year is a fence. I so badly want to fence our yard! We have a large side yard that I'm always talking about how bad the grass is... or rather the dirt patches. Well not only is that a part of it's problem.... but it is also a magnet for dogs all over the neighborhood. I am so sick of people letting their dogs out and having them use our yard as some sort of a field or something. It's gross and we have kids playing out there all the time. Back north we used to have a dog, and we would have to do the dog poop pick up in our yard. Now we don't have a dog and I am ticked that I have to go and clean that up! Last week a dog marked it's spot on the slide to our swingset. Uh-huh.... seriously. (I'm sure he's not the only one who's done that...) Like I want my new little son sliding down that now. So you can see why a fence has jumped up the priority list.



I've been wanting to get a fence for awhile now and in my head I have a simple landscape design for around it... creating privacy for the side yard that it's never had before. My dh is going to talk to a fencing company that he knows through work so that they can give us an idea of the cost. etc. I'm not sure when we'll be able to afford it... but I'm hoping in a few months.


Also about that swingset, that is actually a priority higher than the fence! We actually will be rebuilding and fixing it ourselves. The fort part is good, but the rest of it is off of cinder blocks, so dh is going to actually get the swing set in the ground to stablilize it. A new swing beam with pressure treated wood, and a new A frame for the sides. We are planning on sanding and restaining the entire older part and staining the new build-on to match. Plus we'll be leveling the ground around the swingset and adding mulch or some sort of ground cover for the kids. Anyone recommend a good ground cover for a swingset? I'm not crazy about sand at all.... The swingset will be a project for the next couple of weeks.... right after the landscaping! That is a must for spring.... I see hours of pushing our little one on the swingset in my future!



Finally as my thoughts gravitate to the outside, they naturally go to the garden that I've always wanted to try to plant. I would SO love to try it this year! (Maybe after the fence goes in.) Can anyone recommend any good beginning gardening books? I have NO CLUE how to do this.. or even what I'd be doing. When I say beginner I really mean beginner!



Those are my thoughts as spring hits... I have a ton of ideas ruminating in my mind about the inside of our house... but realistically we'll be focusing on the outside for now. :-)