Friday, April 4, 2014

painted christmas paper

 Christmas wrapping paper... well sure, its kinda bright and kind bold and usually sparkly, unless you spend a lot of money for the designer stuff that is a few yards per roll and well still just wrapping paper :)

or you can make your own!!! get the kids involved
handprints in christmas colors

what kid doesnt love getting his hands messy... well mine turns out, he really hated it, so the big kids stepped in
Cut out a snow flake, use it like a stencil




cut out some foam stamps, we used some garage floor foam tiles (that we keep on hand for all sorts of projects)
stripes, polka dots,  swirls its all good 

paint on pre-measured cuts of craft paper and you wont waste your time and paint!




Wednesday, April 2, 2014

The Girls Room




A week after we finished the boys room, with the coming of the new baby looming, only two months away, we turn our attention to the "girls room" 



This is the only before picture i could find, i had made a tent for the bunk bed and was proud of it ;) this bunk bed got painted and moved to the boys room, during that renovation, and we used the girls room, carpet and all, to do the painting... so that was the first thing to go!
The bones of the room only had minor changes this time... time restraints and a desire to girlify the room led us to pushing things into the walls instead of removing them completely... this will become "the cottage" We didn't decide on that name until much later, for now we tried to call it the play house, but my pregnant brain can not compute this so i kept calling it the Doll House, and eventually we were all just calling it the doll house for the sake of moms dumb brain haha

My handsome hubs putting up sheetrock... after the boys room he was pretty much an expert, so he figured this room would only take 2-3 days... well we here at Anitra's house do nothing easy. There were so many "extras" and odd angles it took a whole week and it was miserable for every body!! Every extra waking moment was spent cutting and hanging sheet rock!!! I HATE SHEETROCK 




This is a picture of the sunk'n bed, dresser and bookshelf, I had originally only wanted a bed and its corresponding cabinets and trundle underneath, but hubbers was like "lets make things more difficult" and i was like OK. I make fun only because it is usually me that is like "i have this great idea and it will only put us back a day or so" and then a week later we are able to move on... more about this pesky book shelf later.











Sheetrock up and the facade of the doll house cut out and getting glued and nailed up! This was my favorite part, because until now no one really new what it was going to look like except me and even that was a stretch, because up until that morning i was still making changes to what i wanted... but after making a huge template of the wall with the brown paper we used to cover the floor, I drew what i wanted, we cut it out, and puzzeled every piece onto a single sheet of ply wood (boy was it close!!!!) then Handy Andy cut it all out with a jig saw.... oh year we had a baby by this point, so I sat on the couch and fed our new born, whilst he jig sawed the ply wood on some saw horses in the living room... did i mention it was a really really cold winter!!








And here we are at the finish of our project!! Girl #1 (cause we now have two girls) LOVES her new bed... its too high for her brothers to jump in easily and it is her OWN room. After a night or two in HER OWN ROOM she wanted the boys to move back in with her, because she is scared to sleep alone HAHA the bookshelf, is going to haunt my husband and i forever... we built it in the living room square and level... we installed it in the wall, and the realized later after it was too late to take it out, that it was very UNsquare! how it happened has been many topics of conversations and we have many theories but no hard evidence... so all we can do is laugh about it, maybe one day we will laugh about it -_-


Thats right kids, built in dresser drawers!!! I had this pictured for a LONG LONG time and when we started i said, this part isnt going to be easy, but it turned out not being so bad and husband was a champ at just going with it... i had wanted to put some kind of coordinating knobs on the drawers and trundles, but My man was like why dont we cut some hand holes like this and it was such a good idea, i was like "Hey i got an idea, why dont we cut hand holes like this" and BOOM it was my idea... no one noticed right?
The trundle that is the kids official favorite part of the room... even after explaining that it is not THEIR bed it is an occasional bed for when guests come over, they still just want to pull it out and jump on it  -_- sigh
Oh yeah, and the baby will share this room, one day when she is not sharing my room. Paint colors compliments of Martha Stewart... she has the best ideas, and i am so glad we are close firends!! Thank you martha for you insiteful input... also a martha rug of which she donated to us for only 300 ish dollars


the pocket door, husbands arch enemy, this one was actually much easier (for me to watch being installed) Taking out the closets adds SO MUCH ROOM it is just silly that they were ever there to begin with... They were where the chair is in this picture extending from the wall with the pocket door almost all the way to the door to the room. two closets but hardly any usable storage. but this closet though it has a slanted ceiling it has more floor space and so many great features
ikea shelves oh how we love thee, and use them ALL over the house!! Also clothing rod at a reasonable hight for a 6 year old! and boy does she LOVE dresses, and she was so enthused about hanging her own clothes, it was awesome... "okay mom i am going to hang up my dresses" and then she did I <3 having an independent 6 yo, i cant wait till the boys get that way ( may never happen)

the bench and the hooks... its the little details that really make a room work... but it is the little details that you don't add into the estimated cost of a room... the bench has to be there because it covers an air conditioning duct
Here it is: THE COTTAGE!!! yay cedar shakes and all... i still have to build a dutch door but that will come after the baby can sit up on her own,  right now it is just an accompishmnt to get the laundry into the wash
another picture of the cottage because it is my favorite part!!
The big picture!!
Inside the kitchen of a 6 year old, she organized it herself and really really hates it when her little brothers get in there and make "salads" there recipe is quite simple, cut up all the wooden food and put them in all of the bowls and then throw it all over the floor. delicious
We built Ikea compatible cubbies... not a simple task but good excersize for my drafting muscles... i wanted to just put those nifty baskets that fits perfectly into the ikea expedite shelves into the three cubbies but THEN one day i had an epiphany... if the baskets fit then the drawers will fit.... would have been perfect had i not painted the cubbies, so there was some pounding involved but they did fit eventually!!!
The child hight light switch!! and the blue paint that the girl picked out... it was her name so she was smitten!

There you have it folks... we spend more time than i thought we would in the bedrooms upstairs, probably because they are so open and spacious and make great dance floors for our wild dance parties!!