Fresh Mantle

I'm linking up to Layla's mantle party today.

I've had this wooden box for months.  I got it at Savers for $5.  It was raw and unfinished.  I finally decided to paint it in a very light color and sand some of it back off.  I wanted the original stained stamping to still show through a little.

I filled it with my best plant and a pitcher of some purple flowering things from my yard and the twine topiary I made awhile back.

The top of the mantle has been like this for a little while but I still like it because it's light and fresh.

Last day of school

Fourth graders sure have alot of fun.  They've had two Superbowls this year which were very competitive!!  These kids love football.   Two fieldtrips.  They earned a waterballoon fight one day.  And they end their year in style!

Determination and concentration are always demonstrated by sticking out your tongue.

 

Her teacher Mrs. Michalski has more energy than her entire class.  She's a great teacher and if you picture her with short blonde hair, you just might see a little bit of Ellen Degeneres.

So long fourth grade.  I'll miss you.

Ms. or Mr.???

Here is Ms. Isabelle looking very lovely (even though she didn't smile)

But wait! Here's Mr. Isabelle looking very dapper. What's going on here?!?

Oh, It's Freaky Friday at school today. Well that explains everything.

One more week of school left. I think their brains are already on summer vacation.

Wannabe

Today is wannabe day at Isabelle's school.

Can you guess what she wants to be when she grows up???

When you go to visit Grandpa....

You get to drive his sweet old truck! Emily and I both took our turn behind the wheel, with Grandpa giving instruction along the way.

It's almost like going back in time, getting a little taste of what it must have been like to drive one of these old classics. Driving around Pima, over to the 'ol drugstore for a grape knee high. This was Emily's very first experience driving a stick shift. What a way to learn! Grandpa is a much more patient instructor now than he used to be when I was learning stick shift.

And later we enjoyed a delicious dinner of beans and rolls, roast and vegetables. We sat in the nest and enjoyed Grandma's flower garden and the girls oohed and awwed over all of Grandma's treasures and tried to talk her out of some of them. I loved looking at Grandma's BEAUTIFUL house. I mean, my goodness! It should be in a magazine! A quick trip, but an enjoyable one.

Good times, good times. Ya'll come back now!

Kids Bathroom: Before and After

This has been a long time coming. We knew we wanted to redo this bathroom from the beginning. So after we got our refund we started doing some checking. Phillip has done bathroom redos before but didn't know if he was up for the "adventure". So we had someone come out and give us a quote. The quote was almost $6,000........ We decided we needed a little adventure. So we began operation bathroom remodel. All six of us showered and got ready in our master bath while this was being worked on whenever he had the time.

Here is the bathroom before. Same tile on the countertops, bathtub surround and floor. blah.

Bathtub that no one takes a bath in and the shower wall was leaking, so we knew we had a problem to be fixed.

It was outdated and very oakey. Everything was oak. towel bars, cabinets, countertop trim, even the toilet seat and lid.

Here are the results of all the hard labor. The pictures just don't do it justice. We took out the builders grade mirror and replaced it with two oval pewter finish mirrors. The countertops had to be custom made through HomeDepot. It's kind of hard to pick something from just a little square picture on a paper. They're not granite, but made to look like it. I wanted something dark so my three girl's dark hair wouldn't show up as easily. I painted the walls and the cabinets. I still have to paint the big linen cabinet behind the door and the door and trim.

I knew I wanted to do a board and batten wall. It was pretty easy. I just measured everything and had the boards cut to my measurments at home depot. Then painted the wall white and attached the boards, installed the hooks and hung the pretty ruffled towels.

The shower was the difficult part. We cutsom ordered the cultured marble panels and Phillip cut them to fit and installed them(with my help). We had a plumber come and move the drain and install the new fixtures.

It's soooooo much better than what we had before. We'll probably have a shower door or glass panel installed someday. But for now the shower curtain works fine.

We replaced the standard above the mirror lights with this pretty fixture.

Got a new water efficient toilet and new floor tile. Again, I went dark because of all the long dark hair in this family. I added dropcloth to the shower curtain to extend the length because of where the window hits, the shower rod had to go up quite a bit higher.

Overall, we're happy with the way it turned out. Projects like this have a way of taking on a life of their own. What you start out with in your mind doesn't always come out that way in the end. You make it all work out somehow. Remodels are very challenging on a marriage. Moving the 200lb. shower base together from the garage to the bathroom on two furniture dollies just about made me want to move out. But we kissed and made up eventually and we're done with this project. I don't want to start another one for a very long time. Or until I forget how stressful this one was and get something new stuck in my head. Yeah, that's pretty likely.

Emily's performance

Emily's choir ice cream social.  There were many kids performing solos.  And ice cream was served.  It was alot of fun!

Sunday afternoon photography

Here are some samples of my amatuer photography. These are all from around my backyard:

Lovely lantana

The pool waterfall

A stray helium baloon floating in the sky

Isabelle's upside down reflection in the pool

palm trees reflected in the pool

a straight up shot of the inside of one of our trees. It's pretty big.

the sun setting through the orange trees

some funky looking flowers

And there you have it. Sunday afternoon/ evening photography.

Before and after x 2

I can't seem to stop these little makeover projects.  I wish I would makeover all my organization in my house!  Oh well, that'll be a good summer project.  The weather is so nice outside for painting furniture, I'm taking advantage of it.  First up is this little chair I got at Savers for $2.  It didn't have any paint on it and the finish was very light, it almost looked like bare wood.

So I used a free sample paint I got in the mail.  It was kind of the color of dijon mustard.  After painting the whole chair I sanded some paint back off and stained it lightly and rubbed it off a little.  Here she is all gussied up for the front door.

Kind of looks like she's been around awhile and seen alot of things.  She's worth more than $2 now and she feels so much better about herself!
Next up is this desk Emily got at Goodwill for $8.  She has been wanting a vanity for her room forever.  I've been looking, but haven't found anything.  So with the help of her friend Savannah and her dad, they brought this home one day:

This thing is massive!  We're talking a huge, hunky desk.  It is solid.  I can just imagine it as a teacher's desk used for many years.  So I got to thinking, and thought it would be way to big for Emily's room.  It would take up most of the space.  I asked her about switching it out with the desk in the office and giving her that one.  She seemed to like that idea, so I got to work.  I gave it a light sanding, it is full of scratches character, and I like that.  Since the top was already black I just painted the top with chalkboard paint.  I thought it would be fun to be able to write on the desk top.  I painted the drawer fronts with very pale blue leftover laundry room paint.  Then I drybrush stained the rest of the wood until my stain ran out.  And this is what we have for our office desk now:

It works much better for us.  It's alot bigger and can fit the printer on top now.  I'll show Emily's new "vanity" next time.  Not bad for $8 and a couple hours, though.