Baby Chicks

We now have our first pets, according to Zara. She says the goldfish didn't count. We picked up four baby chicks yesterday at the farm store. Now it's time for M to get to work building the coop! I'm looking forward to fresh eggs and chickens roaming around the backyard this summer.

Big Girls Room

Its been a few months in the making, but the girls "big girl room" is finally done. Lexi and Zara moved in about a month ago, but it took us the last month to finally get the decor up on their walls. This was an empty room with gross ivory walls that we used for storage. Now with baby #3 arriving soon, we are going to continue using Lexi and Zara's old room as the nursery so they were lucky enough to get a new room with new furniture, bedding and decor.

M and I spent at least a few nights debating different beds and measured that long wall several times to see what beds would actually fit. These twin daybeds were some of the shortest and only ones that would fit on that wall so it was meant to be.

This was so much fun, but my nesting brain is ready to dive into finishing up the nursery and the guest room that I painted last summer.

Snowbound

We are in the midst of the biggest snowstorm Portland has seen since 2008. For three days straight the snow keeps piling up. We have about eight inches of powder at our house now with a nice icy top layer of sleet falling outside now. We will likely be snowbound for at least another couple days until it all warms up. We are having a great time playing in the snow, baking, watching movies and playing lots of board games.

Thankfully we had some warning so I stocked up at Costco and we are well prepared with sleds and snow gear from all of our time in Yakima (where snow is normal).

Day 1 snow

Lexi

Hot chocolate is requested for cold bellies after playing in the snow. Good thing I received lots of fancy hot cocoa for Christmas!

Zara

Lexi

Zara - day 3

Zara

Not happy about face planting in the snow

I actually stayed inside baking and cooking the first two days while Marcus and the girls played outside. At 27 weeks pregnant, I don't really have a warm winter coat that fits. Today I barely zipped my rain coat up over my belly and went out to help the girls sled. So much fun! 

MVI 4281 from Natalie on Vimeo.

Tomorrow we might have to break out some toys I have stashed away for birthday presents and call the grandparents on Skype. I can only play Zingo or watch Frozen so many times. Yesterday we made Valentine cutout cookies and made a huge mess with dough and flour. The girls play really well together up in the playroom for an hour or two, but after that we end up breaking out the busy bags, board games and movies.

Our Cozy Family Room is Finished

A year and a half later, our family room is finished. Well, I have a couple more minor things to do, but finished enough to call it done. When we bought our house, this huge empty brick fireplace was massive. The hearth stuck out really far into the middle of the room. It was a tripping hazard to say the least. We knew the long fireplace wall needed built-in bookcases. The lights were there pointing to blank walls. So weird. 

Among all the other major house projects that had to be done when we moved in, this one was not a high priority. We do spend the most time in this room since our TV lives here and its open to the kitchen so it's so great to have it done. I LOVE it! Now I just need to fill all those shelves. Time to go shopping. 

Right after we moved in last year, we demoed the front of the fireplace hearth so it didn't jut into the middle of the room so much. We got this done right away before we had the new carpet installed so the carpet would go over the old brick. Note that baby gate we had covering the open fireplace for a LONG time. Classy. 

We also replaced the windows in this room last year, along with several others in our house. We  chose to replace the three same-sized windows with a larger center window and two smaller ones on the side.Then we didn't do anything else to this room for another year while we tackled other projects.

Last month we bought a fireplace and had that installed. Now its so cozy when we all sit on the couch and watch football or movies. The biggest task was building those shelves. We lucked out that the IKEA Billy shelves were almost a perfect fit (width) for our space. We used 4 of the 79" x 31" x 15" white bookcases. Of course those were just the beginning. Marcus spent many hours building platforms for the shelves to sit up off the ground, re-working the electrical outlets that used to be on that wall, trimming out all the shelves and finally painting all the trim.

I'm so proud of my talented husband who takes my ideas and executes them about ten times better than I could even imagine, dealing with all my questions and opinions along the way. When he lets out a long sigh and answers my naive questions with "Natalie" instead of a nickname, I know I need to be quiet.

All that's left for this room is a little armchair for that space between the TV and the bookcase on the left. Plus some baskets and other decor for all those shelves. 

The Finished Kitchen

This project is hands-down both the cheapest and the most time consuming in our house to date. As much time as I spent removing that awful wallpaper in the dining room, the kitchen takes the cake (but not for long because I love cake...) 

Since the last post about painting the kitchen, we (my hot hubby) stained the island and command station and installed all the cabinet hardware. It was all done before Christmas and we have been enjoying and loving it for a while now. The blog is playing catch-up as usual.

Before, in all its 1989 glory

We have only spent about $400 total on the kitchen so far (light fixture, faucet, paint, stain), but it has been at least a hundred hours of labor, probably a lot more. Obviously, I'm not counting refinishing the wood floors in that number because that was practically the whole downstairs, not just the kitchen. Eventually we will replace the ancient oven with my dream double ovens, but for now it works ok so we will throw the cash into one of the other 3,914 projects we have on our list!

The Bookcase

I want to update this nursery post with new pictures of the bookcase in action. We used it as a changing table in the nursery at our old house, but we moved it into the playroom at the new house.

The nursery post is the most viewed post on this whole blog (its linked to Ana White's knock-off building plans website). Here is the building plan. Marcus and a friend built it from scratch when I was pregnant. They modified the dimensions to make the top shelf shorter. Here is what it looks like now:

Formal Living Room Fireplace

I'm way behind on documenting house projects, but want to show the update I did back in October to the formal living room fireplace. It had this super cheesy wood decal glued on the front. Barf. You can see it in the far right of this picture of the unfinished new floors.

I pried the decal off with a screwdriver first. Then I was left with unpainted wood under the decal. Marcus filled in the indented space with putty and sanded for me. The whole fireplace and a lot of the off-white baseboard/window trim downstairs needs to be painted. The most boring job ever is still pending. So we picked out some bright white trim paint and its first client was the fireplace. Four coats later we have a nice clean white fireplace. So much better!

It took me a few months to take pictures so now we have Christmas mantle decor :) The stockings were not cooperating for pictures, but I am used to non-cooperation for pictures so no biggie to me.

The Power of Paint: Kitchen Progress

Update: to see the finished kitchen check out this post.

Marcus spent a little over a week tirelessly painting our kitchen cabinets white. I have been pinning white kitchens for a while now and the minute I saw this kitchen, I knew it needed to be white. So he decided to start tackling it while the girls and I were gone last weekend.

Don't let me mislead you though, it took several days to finish, not just a weekend. We both spent the night hours of 7:30 - 10:30 (after the girls went to bed) every day last week painting (me the frame and drawers, him the cabinet doors).  Finally this weekend we painted the walls grey.

One late night when we were both tired and still painting we got into a stupid fight about nothing. Isn't that how fights usually happen? I snapped at him for criticizing how I cleaned up a paint drop he dripped on the floor and it went from there. I know, it was late.

Next up is installing hardware on the cabinets and drawers and staining the island a darker brown. Three cheers for handy husbands!

Marcus did a lot of research beforehand and modified a bit as he started. Here is the process we followed:
1. Sanding all surfaces with sanding block
2. Apply deglosser
3. 2 coats Zinner shellac primer (sand in between coats)
4. 3 coats SW satin white paint (sand in between coats)
5. Apply silicone dots on inside of doors for cushion

Plus LOTS of waiting in between all the coats of paint.

We spent the week in various states of progress. First we did the whole process on the upper cabinets and then again on the lower ones. The girls were really great about staying out of the kitchen when we were painting and out of the open cabinets. Thank goodness for small miracles.

Look at the amazing power of paint in the before and after! Goodbye orange fake and bake wood!

After Thanksgiving we will stain the island and install all the hardware. I might even paint that pantry door red. What do you think?

Anyone else paint their kitchen cabinets white? Any tips for making the finish last? Any crazy DIY couple fights?