Brecken

I have the cutest nephew!  He came down to visit me (and grammy) this last week. For those of you that don't know, Brecken is my little sister Cambria's baby.  I think he is a darling little boy...he will turn one in August.

Utah Valley Parade of Homes

I love going to the Parade of Homes.  The tradition started many years ago with my grandpa- he is one of the few people that opens every single door, talks to all the builders and loves going into the furnace room. Usually I do the Salt Lake and St. George parade of homes but since we moved down to Provo, I thought it was fitting. This is what I (the commoner, non-designer) learned.

Number 1-Rugs are a necessity...even if you have carpet

Number 2-Wallpaper is again in vogue

Number 3- Have fun with your ceilings

Number 4- Be creative



This is made out of penny tiles and is in a SHOWER!



Clouds made out of batting and glass rain drops



This is a functioning kitchen

Number 5- An indoor/outdoor pool is the best way to go for our  Utah climate

Number 6- Wainscoting is classic and timeless

Number 7- Your lights can be decorations

Number 8- The more seating the merrier

 

My fellow parade critique-thanks mom!

Number 9- Gray is awesome in the bedroom

 

Number 10- Bunk beds can look stylish

Operation case and base

Yep, we did surgery this weekend on our doors, casing, baseboard and crown moulding.  If you will take note of the lovely garbage bag on my head I learned the hard way that long hair and paint spray don't mix well-Bart called me a grandma after our first coat.

This is our "door factory" that we set up downstairs in our basement.  I thought is was ingenious of Bart to stand the doors up so we could spray both sides at once.  On a side note, I think I'm in love with the spray gun.  Setting up the spray gun we easy enough and spraying the doors and moulding was SO FAST-we had to sit around and wait for the paint to dry. The clean up was the worst part but that wasn't even THAT bad.

We decided to go with white doors and moulding to help the house look lighter and brighter. 18 doors down, now we need the hardware to hang them and then we can get the new doorknobs on...and then we can have a door back on the bathroom :)

We went to our favorite store Home Depot and loaded up as much case, base and crown as we could and then drove slowly home.  By this time we were finished with our door factory so we took them down and laid out our case, base and crown moulding. Then POOF the trim was painted.

I learned this weekend that a paint gun is the way to go. I also learned that your prep (sanding, wiping, sanding, and mopping) work makes your trim and doors look even better and that you need to open the windows and doors or you will get a headache from the fumes.

Dark Walnut was the winner

As the title implies, 55% of you liked the dark walnut stain-beating out the special walnut which received 44%.  I love the dark walnut so that is the color I decided to stain our floors.  Now, I have never tried to refinish hardwood floors before and let me tell you it took a lot of time, left my knee's skinned and was a mess.  When I have enough money I will hire someone else to do my floors :)

How to: First you need to rent a sander and get all the supplies for the sander, then ask your dad to do it for you :)---$150

Second: After you are finished sanding you need to vacuum the floors, then damp mop the floors and then use tack cloth to get ANY dust, debris or dirt off the newly sanded floors---$10

Third: You are ready for stain.  Buy your stain (Home Depot didn't have a gallon of dark walnut-only quarts BUT Lowe's had gallons.) Mine was oil-based so then I needed to buy lacquer thinner. You also need to buy the lambs wool applicator pads and a pole.  PLEASE NOTE- if you ever do this WEAR GLOVES! You then need to apply the stain, let it sit for 5-15 minutes and then wipe the excess stain off the floors.  Buy lots of rags or cut up lots of old shirts-I learned the hard way.---$84

Next: Let the floors dry...and you can't walk on them or you will get toe prints! Reapply the stain if the floors aren't dark enough.  Note-It literally took 3 days for our 2nd coat to dry.

Fifth: After your floors are dry and not sticky anywhere, you need to apply your polyurethane. Remember to use an oil-based top coat if you are using oil-based stain and water based for water based.  Applying the polyurethane was faster and easier than staining. But, yet again you must do at least 2 coats of polyurethane to protect your floors.---$105

Last: Enjoy your new floors for one day...until you cover them with builders paper to start the painting process.

As far as the cost goes, I bought enough supplies for roughly 600 sq. feet of flooring ( 2 bedrooms, the hallway and the front entryway) with 2 or 3 coats of everything and I have some leftover for the office and the family room. 

Come PIN with me.

Have you heard of Pinterest?  It's wonderful, amazing, terrific, exciting and yet another great way to spend time on the internet.  Did you notice how I didn't say WASTE time on the internet? Pinterest is an online catalog that will allow you to organize and keep all your inspirational pictures for the home, ideas, recipes, fashion or DIY's in one nice place....not cluttered all around your desk, or table, or floor.  Gone are the days of ripping pages out of magazines! For the last year I have had a hard time remembering what blog or site I wanted to remember certain things from-but not anymore.

I would highly recommend that you get a Pinterest account.  It is free and I can send you and invite ASAP so that we can start pinning together.  HOORAY. Or you could also request an account from pinterest.com-just note that it will take around 7 days for them to email you with an activated account. SO just leave me a comment and make sure I have your email address.

I found a great pinterest tutorial from Beth over at Home Stories A2Z.  The tutorial takes less than 5 minutes and it will help you navigate around the site- instead of muddle through everything like I have for the last month. Click Here

Come on what are you waiting for.?. Christmas has come early :)

We already needed a break.

Just as the title implies, Bart and I already needed a break from the house, so we went down to southern Utah for 3 days.  My best-est cousin Liz invited us to their cabin with some friend from their neighborhood. Now don't get me wrong I love all my cousins and have a great time at family functions but Liz and I are only 3 months apart.  Growing up, I thought that going down to her house in St. George and swimming and playing dress-ups was the greatest vacation in the world! Liz and I have shared many memories together including our semester in Nauvoo in 2003. FYI- Liz has actually know Bartus for almost as long as I have-12 years.

Back to the cabin.  

We had a wonderful time riding 4 wheelers, paint-balling, picnicking in the meadow, shooting guns, playing games and sleeping in.

 

Once Bart taught me how to actually AIM the gun I was a pretty good shot. I was even privileged enough to shoot Bart's Sig Sauer-all 6 bullets hit the target (mine are the bottom 6)-I took the picture for proof :)

 

We ate way too much food and had a run in with 20 horses grazing on the property. The horses must have seen us out on our picnic and decided that humans = food, so they trotted over...but they really scared some of the kiddos.

I am so glad that Liz planned such a fun weekend (even though she was diagnosed with pneumonia 3 days earlier) and that we were able to enjoy lovely weather, great company and beautiful Grass Valley.

Get out of jail

When we bought the house the front entryway looked like this.

It reminds me of jail bars. I have now referred to the entry way as a jail and the basement a dungeon-HMMM. Over the long Memorial Day weekend, one of our many projects was to remove the jail bars and the planter that held it up.  Really, the bottom was a built in planter box for plants-fake plants I assume.

I think the entryway already feels better and looks bigger.  We have begun working on other projects- like creating a sound barrier in the ceiling and sanding the floors.  More posts to come. Thank you for your comments and taking time to do the stain poll :) I'm glad that no one likes jacobean.