ONE PROJECT LEADS TO ANOTHER || the joys of remodeling your own home

We are loving this sunny, warm weather!  What about you?

We have been working hard, but balancing it out with some fun play too.  Matt is just finishing up a couple bathroom remodels and starting to build the cabinetry for a client's home library, it's going to be a beauty!!  (I hope to get pictures of the bathrooms soon, they turned out really nice.) On the weekends and some evenings, we have been working on our basement.  The playroom is progressing….

And one thing always leads to another….Matt has to rebuild the stairs leading to the basement, which leads to new trim work, which leads to 'why not add paneling to the wall', which leads to ' let's make some changes in the powder room since you see the wall and stairs from the powder room'….we have a sickness.  Seriously.  And the worse part is, we feed off of each other!

So, now with all of my other half finished projects, I am going to start on the powder room.  Below is a quick sample board I threw together and a few pictures of the powder room as it sits now.

We are going to cover the existing wall paper with a neutral buffalo check wallpaper, add new doors and new trim to the current built-in and then paint it blue, new lights and plumbing fixtures and I am going to attempt to paint the tile.  I am thinking a black and white check?!?  I have seen a lot of painted tile projects online, so I am going to try my hand at it!

In the mean time, I am off to make paper chains with my sweet pea!

Happy Summer!!

THE PLAYROOM || progress

So the 'to-do' list is never ending, as well as the grocery list, the 'project' list, the 'friends we would like to have over for dinner' list and so on.  I have always been a list maker.  But, shortly after we moved in February, I realized the lists had a bit too much control over my mind and my attitude.  What's with that?  That's not how I wanted to live.  I wasn't leaving room in the margins, and if someone or something came between me and crossing off an item on my list, I was snappy.  Not so fun to be around!

All of our house projects are taking a lot longer than we anticipated.  We have hit some speed bumps with the house, but that is just part of any remodeling project!  But you know what?  I have let go of the lists (not all of them ;-))) and it doesn't bother me that the house projects are taking longer.  A lot of things don't bother me like they use to.  This 'letting go' business turns out to be really good for my heart.  And my family appreciates a wife/mama who isn't so project oriented all.of.the.time.

I thought I would post a few photos of the play room.  It's taken quite a while to get to this point, and it will still take me at least another month to get it finished.  But, it's further along than it was when we moved in {wink}.

There is no natural light in this space, so it's hard for an amateur like me to get decent photos!  You can see I still have a lot to do!

I am curious to see how the door knobs turn out.  They don't lock, they act as a handle to open the doors.  Once I paint the oak doors, I will wax the doors and the door knobs, I will let you know how it turns out.

The flooring all comes up soon so I am trying to paint everything now while it doesn't matter if paint gets on the floor.  In the mean time, the girls love playing in the space and I can't wait to get it finished for them.  There is something so sweet about siblings playing together, even if it only lasts for 30 seconds at a time ;-)