Happy Fall Ya'll

This fall has been a journey in healing. There is nothing that prepares you for the hardships that we have had to endure as a couple this year, but I think going through this has helped us to grow closer together, closer to God, and to appreciate everything just a little bit more.

Part of my process to healing was to talk. Talk about what happened with my husband and my family and my friends. The rest of my process was to return to some sense of normalcy. I continued to coach volleyball. It was hard because there were definitely times when my heart wasn't in it. I continue to teach because this is the area of my life where I can truly make a difference. I can form relationships with my students and help them to be better while I make myself better. There are definitely days when I walk out of my classroom knowing that I didn't do the best job that I could, but it just reminds me that I have to take it easy on myself. I am still healing and not every day is going to be perfect. I continued to work on my masters degree. My goal in life is to give my future children everything I had growing up and more. I want them to live in a house, with a dog, and have everything that I could possibly give them, and pursuing my masters degree makes me better and more valuable, which will make things better for them in the long run. It's been difficult, stressful, and has caused me a lot of anxiety, but all of the challenges will be worth it when I walk across the stage in May officially a Michigan State University Alum. The last thing that I have continued to do as a stress relief and a method of healing is to craft.

My home is one of the most important things to me and when I am given a spark of creativity, I have to run with it. The following projects that I am about to share were completed with my mother-in-law while she tried to keep me positive and help me heal. Fall is my favorite season of the year. It is the time where we are reminded to give thanks. To appreciate what we have and what we have experienced and thank God for all that is coming in the future. When September hits, my home turns into a fall haven of reds, yellows, oranges, and browns, and I spent a lot of time on Pinterest pooling ideas and thinking about ways that I could make them my own. My mother-in-law and I spent a whole afternoon crafting earlier this fall. We made two different kinds of wood pumpkins and then a stacked pumpkin address stand for the front step. In the rest of the post that follows, I will give you details about the supplies you will need and how we completed these projects for our homes.

1. 2 x 4 Pumpkins

This project was almost an afterthought as we were walking through the hardware store getting a 2x6 and some spray paint for a couple of my other ideas. As a shameless Pinterest addict, this is a straight from Pinterest special. This is the post that I originally saved and they include a supply list for what they used. I will preface with the fact that I am not super into the new - old look type of thing and while I think weathered wood looks pretty, it's just not my style. With anything that I do on pinterest, I tend to make a little my own.

Supplies

• 2 X 4 X 8 - I bought mine at Lowe's for less than $5. The original post used scraps that she had her house. I bought new.
• Saw - My husband the DIYer for our home of course has a table saw that I used to cut the wood pieces. If you are truly using scraps, obviously they don't have to be perfect.
• Sandpaper - You don't have to, but I recommend sanding the wood down for a cleaner finish. My husband has a Ryobi sander from Home Depot, so that came in handy.
• Hot glue gun & glue sticks. Those are pretty much a staple of any craft project.
• Paint. I used acrylic paint called Pumpkin Spice and then just regular brown for our stumps.
• Ribbon - The ribbon that will is pictured in our final products was something that my mother-in-law had in her crafting stuff. Any ribbon that you like will work :)
• Fake leaves - again, not necessary, but definitely something that we liked. We also had these laying around from a previous project.

 I am the one that purchased the 2 X 4 from Lowe's and cut it down to size. I followed the measurements laid out in the blog post above for two 6" and two 8" pieces. My husband screwed the pieces together before we started painting. The stem pieces were made with the scrap wood left over from the piece of wood and cut down smaller. Then we painted. I just used regular acrylic paint from the craft store. The particular color of the orange was Pumpkin Spice. It's a little darker, but still pretty orange. We painted the stems brown. My MIL is pretty gifted with ribbon bows, so she tied those for the both of us. And then we used a hot glue gun to add the leaves to the stems. They are fall colored, but you could use any that you like. To the left is our finished product. Mine is sitting proudly on an end table in my living room.


     2. Three 2 X 6 Pumpkins

 Our second project together was actually the one that started the whole premise of the crafting day. I saw these pumpkins at a craft show and then upon some perusing on Pinterest once again, I found them again, and they looked fairly simple. Just like the pumpkins we made above, these were again made out of scrap pieces of wood, some paint, and then a little something here or there for embellishments. A majority of the posts that I had seen on these pumpkins were from Etsy where you could buy them already made, but so very often I think to myself, "I could make those cheaper than I could buy them from this person," so I made them myself.

Supplies

• One 2 X 6 X 8 - I bought mine from Lowe's again.
• Saw and Sander - again, love that my husband is a DIY guy because we have these in our garage.
• Acrylic Paint - we used Pumpkin Spice Orange, a brighter neon looking orange, rose gold, silver, and then brown and green for the stems (the stems are not done yet)
• Hot glue gun - again, a staple
• Painter's tape - how else would we make those straight lines and that fancy chevron look
• A ruler - what perfectionist doesn't love straight lines on her work?
• Miscellaneous embellishments to finish it off

So this project is one that is not quite complete yet. We each got the first two pumpkins of our three completed, and then just ran out of time before dinner and they had to head home. I got the project started for us by getting the 2 X 6 from Lowe's. I cut ours into 8", 10", and 14" pieces. We wanted one of them to look short like a pumpking and then the other two to be taller. I then used smaller pieces to make the stems as I did with the previous pumpkins. I sanded them down to a nice smooth surface, but did not have my husband attach the stems. We learned from the other pumpkins that painting them while they were attached was difficult and touching up was a pain in the butt. Sanding just gave them a nice smooth surface and cleaned up the rough edges from cutting them with the saw.




My mother-in-law decided that she wanted her pumpkins to be silver and orange because a lot of the accents in her house are silver or brushed nickel. We have a lot of warm tones in our house, so I went with rose gold and the pumpkin spice orange. We started off by painting each of our pumpkins the base color. I did the rose gold, and she did silver. We decided that it was easier to paint the orange over the top. My pumpkins were going to have vertical stripes, horizontal stripes, and then a chevron pattern. She did vertical, chevron and polka dots for hers. The only one of each of ours that is not complete is the chevron. They are the hardest to accomplish perfectly when using painter's tape and we ran out of time. I used a ruler to measure the different increments where we would put the painter's tape, and then I also used the ruler to keep my lines straight. My mother-in-law used different sized bottle caps to make her circles before she carefully painted them in.

Like I said before, these are not a finished product, but I will make sure to add more to this portion when they are completed. Which is hopefully soon!

     3. Address Pumpkins

My final project, also a Pinterest inspiration, was to make something for my front porch that was super cute and fall themed. Again, my mother-in-law was in on this action. It is a craft where I merged two different ideas together to form what I came up with.

The photo on the left is what inspired the fact that I wanted the address on the pumpkins that I put together, and the photo on the right is where I drew the rest of my inspiration. Below is the supply list of the things I got for this project...

• Four trick or treat pumpkins (or however many you need for your project) - I got mine from Wal-Mart for $1 each
• Bronze spray paint - I got mine from Lowe's for $6. You can obviously get whatever color you would like.
• Flowers/Embellishments - I got mine as a bouquet from Hobby Lobby when they had all of their fall floral on sale. It is obviously up to whatever you want.
• Vinyl - I had some leftover from my Cricut starter pack. I used tan for mine and silver for my mother-in-law. Again, use whatever color you deem necessary.
• Cricut - to cut out the vinyl, I used my Cricut.
• Hot glue gun/glue - to put the pumpkins together
• Pea gravel/sand - I used pea gravel as a weight to weigh down the bottom pumpkin to keep it from falling over.
• Mod-Podge - to seal the vinyl on the pumpkins
• Florist foam block - got mine from Joann

My husband, the wonderfully supportive man that he is, spray painted all 8 pumpkins for me once I took all the handles off. One side of the pumpkin has the jack-o-lantern face on it, so we just faced those the other way. I bought a florist foam block from Joann to hold the flowers in place for the top. The bouquet that I bought had a variety of fall flowers in various colors - purples, maroons, golds, oranges, reds, etc.  I had to cut the block down because it was a little too big, but was able to use one block for both of our top pumpkins. We did address numbers, so the next thing was to load up the laptop and get the Cricut ready to go. I still have to seal the numbers and glue the pumpkins together before I can put it outside. It may be one that gets saved for next year since it's nearly time for the Christmas decorations to be out!

The top picture here is the almost finished product. The bottom picture is the flowers that I arranged for the top pumpkin.















Until next time...

13 Weeks 4 Days

13 Weeks and 4 Days. That's how long I got to know you. On June 25, we got the best news of our lives. We were pregnant. After 4 months of trying, we were pregnant. It seemed so fast, but it seemed so perfect. Seeing that little plus sign was everything I had ever wanted. I've always wanted to be a mom. I've always felt like I was supposed to be a mom, and now I was going to be.

The first 12 weeks of pregnancy seemed like a breeze. I hardly had any morning sickness. I was always tired and super hungry, and man did I always have to pee. All of those things were just a minor setback for a dream come true. At 11 weeks and 3 days, I heard your heartbeat for the first time, and it was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. As I laid on that exam room table with a doctor standing over me, I have never concentrated on a ceiling so hard in my life. And when he got that doppler in just the right spot, and I heard that fast little heartbeat for the first time, the tears just poured from my eyes. You were in there, and this was real. I was going to have a baby.  We were becoming a family of three.

At 12 weeks and 2 days, I experienced one of the scariest things in my life. A gush of blood. You're not supposed to bleed when you're pregnant, and I was terrified. It was a Sunday night, and unless I went to the ER, there was nothing we could do but wait. At 8 AM on Monday morning, I called the doctor thinking I had already lost you, and they were going to tell me the same. We had an ultrasound at 10 AM to see what was going on. Sitting in that waiting room, waiting for my name, I couldn't stop the tears from falling. I had lost my baby and they were going to confirm it. They took us back to the ultrasound room, squeezed that goo on my belly, and stuck that wand on me, and there you were. Your heartbeat was a strong 167 and you were rolling around and stretching all over the place. It was a miracle seeing you on that screen, healthy and perfect. The diagnosed me with a subchorionic hemorrhage, a small cut on my uterus that was discharging and causing the bleeding. You were fine and everything was going to be okay.

Over the next week, I was nervous about this hemorrhage, but tried to stay positive. The following Monday, August 14, they brought us in for a follow up and said the hemorrhage was gone. They could no longer find it on my uterus and everything was looking great. You were growing. Bigger than the last time I saw you, and moving around just as much. We were sent home with another array of baby pictures, and so much hope in our hearts because you were healthy.

That night, I don't think I slept. I was up all night passing clots and they told me it could be residual from the hemorrhage, but something didn't feel quite right. I called the doctor the next morning, and to ease my nerves, they had me come in to listen to your heartbeat again. I heard you at 10:30 that morning, and less than 30 minutes later, I lost you. I thought it was my fault. I thought I did something wrong. I couldn't even cry for my loss when it first happened. I was too shocked. Now, I thank God that I was at the doctor that day and for everything that they were able to do for me without having to go to the emergency room and have surgery. When your daddy walked in the room, I burst into tears. I couldn't hold it in anymore. I felt so lost and broken and empty. I still do. Some days it feels like it's never going to get better. I am thankful for every single day that I had with you. There was never a time when I didn't think I was going to hold you in my arms for the first time in February of 2018. The last week has been the hardest of my entire life, and I've experienced pain that I never thought was possible, but I am so grateful that God gave me you even if it was only for a little while.

I know that God has a plan. I may not understand it right now, and I may never understand it, but I know he does. I know that I am going to be a mom someday, and for 13 weeks and 4 days, and forever for me, I am your mommy. It may take a while for me to be ready, but we are planning on trying again. The doctors are positive. We conceived you naturally. You were an answer to so many prayers, and the next one will be an answer to so many more.

Birthday Crafting Volume 2

In my first post about birthday crafting, it was all about my best friend and her beautiful twins. This one is about another special little boy in my life. My, now four year old, nephew. This little one has been extremely special since before he was born. He's the first baby for my sister-in-law and her husband. He's the first grandchild. He's our first nephew. So of course his birthdays are going to be special.

As I also mentioned before, I have become quite the crafter. My sister-in-law is quite the planner. She tells me what she wants, and we work together to execute. My nephew has had a theme birthday party each year, and this year was obviously no different. His first birthday was monster themed, and I can remember being up until two in the morning making decorations and decorating cupcakes for a party that this kid wasn't even going to remember. His second birthday was Mickey Mouse themed thanks to a little show called Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Thank goodness that Cricut exists and we learned how to use it. It made things so much easier, but again, we were up until all hours of the morning making everything, but he was so excited because everything was Mickey and it was just for him. His third birthday was Toy Story themed. He had just seen Toy Story 3, and was in love with Jessie after our trip to Disney World that winter. And again it was another late night before the party getting everything all finished up.

This year was no different. The phase of the year was Moana, and more specifically for Cameron, Maui. He loves Maui and wanted a Maui Birthday Party, and we were only too happy to oblige. We began looking up different ideas much earlier this year. Because I have the Cricut Explore Air, if we had vector images of the characters, we would be able to cut them out accurately and create some pretty incredible decorations. The banner above was created using stock images and fonts that were available on the Cricut Design Studio. The Moana accents were added by cutting out vector images that my sister-in-law purchased off of Etsy. This banner was a main focal point at the party, and it was hung in the dining room area of their house.

The week of his party, my sister-in-law came over to our house in order to use our Cricut and cut out everything so that we could get things together before the night before the party. She had a massive list of things to accomplish, and we checked off most of them.

She wanted to make...

• Maui's fish hook for each of 48 Shiny Cupcakes
• Signs for the cupcakes and heart of Tefiti cookies
• A large cutout of Hei Hei
• A large cutout of Pua
• A large cutout of Tamatoa
• The happy birthday banner and accents
• Palm leaves to create palm trees
• A large cutout of Maui - this one ended up being wishful thinking. We couldn't get it to work for some reason. It was very frustrating.
• A You're Welcome Poster 
• Cocamora boxes for trail mix
• Cocamora coconut cups
• Popsicle stick canoes for the tables

We'll start with the popsicle stick canoes. She bought a box of crafting popsicle sticks and had her mom assemble the little boats. The sail is a triangle cut out on the Cricut with red glitter glue in the form of the Heart of Tefiti.

The Cocamora boxes were a task. My sister-in-law bought the pattern for the boxes on Etsy, and you were supposed to print them on paper, cut them out, and then fold them up. My amazing husband was able to create an image in order to cut them out on the Cricut. We had to estimate the lines in order to fold them up, but it ended up working out. He was then able to create the images in order to cut out each part of their faces in order to put them together. Quite the genius, that husband of mine. And I know he's going to be super helpful when it's time to do this for our kids (which is hopefully soon!).

The cutouts for each of the characters were simple and complicated all at the same time. We ended up having to use several different features of the Cricut in order to make these possible. It's fantastic that you are able to draw, cut, weld, attach, and view the layers separately and together all on the same screen. Hei Hei was extremely intricate and we ended up using the writing feature to display the finer details. Tamatoa was just a lot of layers that all needed to be cut out separately. The gold glitter paper was several layers that I welded together in order to cut it out as larger pieces to make them easier to glue together at the end. Pua was extremely simple and made with larger pieces that were easy to put in the right spot.

The Heart of Tefiti and Shiny Cupcake signs were made using stock images and fonts from the Cricut Design Studio that I just made the right size. The cupcakes were made from box cake mix in chocolate and vanilla, cream cheese frosting from a can, and gold shiny sprinkles. We cut out Maui's fish hook at about 2 inches to glue them to toothpicks for the fish hook that is supposed to be on Tamatoa's back. The Heart of Tefiti cookies are made from sugar cookie dough that was dyed two different shades of green. We flattened the dough and rolled the two different ones together. I then used thread to cut the cookies without having to slice through it with a knife and ruining the round shape. I'm glad I retained that one trick from cooking class in high school! We then rolled the edges in green glitter, and they came out awesome.

For the palm trees that we put together in the basement, I found a vector image of several different palm leaves, and picked one that would be easy and quick to cut out. We had about 16 leaves which were used for 5 palm trees. The trunks of the trees were made from brown streamers that were hung to go all the way to the floor. We used three to give it some thickness. The coconuts are made from brown balloons. They were blown up a little too largely for the task at hand, but it ended up working out. Then we used the leaves to make the palms of the palm tree. Turned out super cute!

The last thing we did on Friday night before the party was make these Cocamora Coconut cups. They were purchased on Amazon and we had a dozen of them. We painted the round part of the face on first in a tan color. There were several different designs in the Pinterest post.

The image that we started with is below. Some of the designs are easier than others when you're using various paint brushes, and I wish I had a picture of our whole group of them because they were so cute. The kids loved them and got to take them home!

I can't say whether or not I will put all of this effort into my kids birthday parties. I guess it depends on the time of year when they take place. I want them to have adorable birthday parties, but I don't know if it's worth taxing myself beyond belief because this kid isn't even mine, and I feel like I am just as exhausted as his parents when the party is over. I guess what helps me is that my Cricut will be at my house already and I will probably know my plan well before two weeks before the party.

Planning and doing things like this make me extremely excited for when it is my kids and I can make their day as special as they are.

Until next time...

Renovations and Transformations Volume 3: The Deck

So when I dreamed of owning a home, I never thought it would be a fixer-upper. As you grow up, you see a lot of different homes between family members and friends, but you don't ever see the work that goes into making that home. Then I started watching shows like Property Brothers and Flip or Flop and realized that if I wanted my dream home, I was going to have to make it that way. There was no way we were going to afford a house that was already done, so we were going to have to work and earn the house that we wanted it to be. This was the back of our house when we first bought it. There was a covered, screened in porch on the back. The furniture in the next picture was not included when we bought the house. And there was a sliding glass door entering into the porch area, and a screen door leading out into the back yard.

 It was a disaster. The screened in porch was causing issues with the gutters, so we had to tear it off. That was stressful. As we started to dismantle the different parts, the wood that was used to hold it up was rotting away. It could have fallen on us at any time. This was our second experience with a dumpster at our house. In my opinion, two dumpsters too many! We got rid of the screened in porch, and we were left with a cement patio that had cracks and holes in it. After we tore that off, my husband's brilliant idea was that we add a deck that met both levels of our house: one level would meet the sliding glass door so we could walk right out onto to the deck with no step, and the second would meet the level of the door leading out of the back of the garage. Now, it was just down to making that dream a reality.

But before we could add a deck, we came across another issue. Our sliding glass door was leaking. After we tore off the porch, and got the back of the house fixed from it's removal, the first heavy rain revealed that the door was not sealed correctly. We did some research and price checking at the various home improvement stores, and decided on a modified French door from Lowe's. The cost of the door was $418 and the install cost was around $800 due to the issues from the old door. It was a small price to pay to preserve our beautiful new kitchen and keep the water from causing any other issues.

My husband works for a printing company that specializes in sporting goods, and one of the guys he works with used to work for a contractor that built decks. This person offered to complete our deck on his own while only charging us $18 per hour for his services. Now, if you've ever had a contractor work on your house, you know that labor is the most expensive part, and often it is more than the amount that he was charging. He came to our house, measured, helped us order all of the lumber, concrete, screws, and anything else that we needed, and as soon as it all showed up at our house, he was there to work. He spent a total of 5 days and about 45 hours working. My husband helped dig 5 of the post holes, but other than that, his friend was on it. He was precise, worked hard and quickly, and the deck came out beautiful. Below is a timeline of how it was developed.

The first thing he came and did was framed in the upper portion of the deck.He had to install six posts by breaking pieces of the concrete patio off and digging holes. I can't even imagine what it was like smashing a sledge hammer against concrete until it broke, but he got it done. Once he had the upper part all framed in, he started cutting and screwing down the deck boards to complete the upper portion of the deck. This was a good thing because we have a little pup and she did not like trying to go outside when there were joists in her way.

Once he'd finished laying all the deck boards on the upper portion, he began framing up and putting the joists int he lower portion. Slightly easier this time because there was not as much concrete to bust through. 

 

 Once the lower portion of the deck was finished, he began installing a three foot stair around the corner of the deck that leads into the back yard. This idea was with Callie (our pup) and someday our future children in mind. We can't just have them falling off a 16 inch drop into the backyard. He assembled the framing with the remaining wood from the joists and then used deck boards, which he took the time to cut at 45 degrees, to create the top of the step.



Here is a photo of just the step all done. It looks incredible.

Don't mind the mess, but this is a photo of my husband installing the motion sensor back porch light that we got at Lowe's so that our dog would have some light in the back yard. This is also a photo of our completed deck minus the railing. We plan on adding a railing as we can afford the pieces. Building a deck is no easy task and it's definitely not a cheap one.

Lastly, here are some photos of the porch light installed as well as the deck lights that my husband put in for the step down onto the lower deck.

 This is a project that I was extremely wary of at the start. We were asking a friend to complete a large task, and while we were paying him, it is always hard to ask that of someone. I was also stressed out about the cost. Every time it feels like we're getting somewhere with this house, we end up spending more money than we thought we were going to, and I am the budgeter in the house, so it stresses me out. But, at the end of the day, I am happy that we decided to go for it. Not only does it add value to our home, but now I can spend some long summer days sitting on the deck while my puppy plays in the yard. I can only imagine what it will feel like when we have a couple little ones back there.

Until next time...

Homemaking

If you haven't figured it out yet, I draw most of my inspiration from Pinterest. I am not super creative on my own, but put an idea in my head, and I will run away with it in many different directions. Many of the projects that I save on Pinterest, and plan on completing, are not usually done exactly how the tutorial says or how the image looks. With that in mind, here we go...

Sewing is something that has always intimidated me. My dad could do enough to fix holes in my shirts or put buttons back on. I didn't think it would ever be something that I would be interested in doing. Then I got married and started thinking about the possibility of a family. The first real Christmas I spent with my husband and his family, my nephew was 6 months old and it was his first Christmas. My sister-in-law pulled out her sewing machine to make him his own stocking as a member of their little family. I saw those three stockings hanging together on Christmas Eve, and the only thought I had was that I had to do that for my family. So for Christmas last year, which will have its own dedicated post (I went a little crazy!), I made stockings. I made them. With a sewing machine. Something I never thought would happen. From there, it started a sort of addiction. I started looking at all of the different things that I could make with a sewing machine: curtains, baby blankets, bibs, burp cloths, etc. It had so many practical and decorative uses. I asked a friend if I could have her old one because she got a new one. Turns out, I didn't even have to do that. My mother-in-law was paying attention to my new obsession, and bought me one for Christmas. She got me a Singer sewing machine and many of the accessories that went with it like bobbins, thread, scissors, a piece of fabric to practice among other things that go with someone getting their first sewing machine.

At this point, the project ideas seemed endless, but I kept coming back to one: curtains. After seeing my sister-in-law's curtains at their old house, and knowing that it wasn't too difficult to do, I wanted to make my own. It just seemed like a personal touch that makes your house that much more a home. First, I had to pick out fabric. That was an adventure. But after several trips to Joann Fabrics, Field's Fabrics, and Hobby Lobby, I finally picked one.

This is a home decor fabric, and I ended up buying the last 6 yards that they had. The fabric was originally $9.99 per yard, but was on sale for $6.99 per yard, and I also had a 20% your entire regular price and sale price purchase, so the total for the fabric was $36 which is not too shabby considering all I have to make.


First on the agenda was the window above our sink. Something about it looked unfinished, and I thought that curtains would be the perfect touch. I browsed on Pinterest, and found this image. I think it was originally more about the wreath than the curtains, but I liked the design of the curtains, and my husband loved the checkered pattern for the kitchen. Obviously, I convinced him otherwise! We decided to do a simple tension rod in the window frame which worked out perfectly size-wise. Our window measured 36 inches wide and 36 long from the top of the window to the windowsill. The fabric that I purchased was 45 inches wide and I cut a little more than 1 yard of fabric off of my 6 yards for the sake of hemming and creating the loop at the top for the curtain rod.






I kept the entire 45 inch width to start and cut the fabric into two equal pieces at 22.5 inches. I wanted the design to be vertical which will eventually match the French door curtains that I am going to make. Even with the total width of the window being 36 inches, I kept as much width as I could for the gathers at the top. Laying the curtain panels long-ways, I hemmed both the left and the right side 1 inch leaving me with a 20.5 inch wide panel. I pinned and sewed the hem on each side in white thread. Then I had to consider the top and the bottom. The bottom I hemmed 0.5 inch for a nice clean look. For the top, I folded the fabric over 1.5 inches. This was the hem and the loop for the curtain rod all in one. I did not hem and then fold again for the loop. This still gave me a total hem of 2 inches. The curtain rod slipped right through, and I now have curtains above my sink as shown in the picture, excuse the dishes!

I went from being completely intimidated by sewing and using a sewing machine to wanting to do everything I could to use it and make different things for around the house.

 With my remaining yards of fabric, I've got 5 left, I plan to make these. We just got brand new French doors installed in our kitchen that lead out to our deck. Traditional curtains are hard for French doors because of the way they open, so my husband and I started browsing curtain ideas on Pinterest and found these. We plan on finding magnetic curtain rods, Bed Bath and Beyond has them, and then I will be using my trusty sewing machine to make the curtains. Post on that coming as soon as it happens! This probably will not occur until sometime after school gets out, or unless I feel extra motivated during the week when I get home from work. Measuring and putting all of those pins in gets to be a pain in the back after a while!

Until next time...

Renovations and Transformations Volume 2: The Family Room

When we first moved into our house, everything was drab and dated. Every room needed something, and we have made it our goal to transform this house into our home. The first room that we tackled was the kitchen, and I will get to that story. Believe me, it's a good one. This is the downstairs living space, and what we have transformed into my husband's Spartan Room, and what I hope will one day be our family room. When we started, the room had dark blue carpet, the hallway had laminate tile, the stairs going upstairs were the wonderful tri-colored carpet from the living room. There was paneling below a chair rail, one wall was covered entirely in several layers of wallpaper, another wall was covered entirely in paneling, the light fixture looked like it was meant to be outside, and the beautiful wooden beams in the ceiling were painted to match the walls. It was hard to know where to start. Pulling up the carpet in all of the other rooms in the house gave us a place to go. When we re-carpeted the master bedroom (another story for another day), we also did the downstairs family room. Before carpeting, we wanted to get rid of the wallpaper and the paneling, and get paint up on the walls to save us the trouble of protecting the carpet later. This is the one room in the house where my husband got to pick the paint color because I promised that he could have his Spartan Room just like his dad's. We painted one whole wall white, the area below the chair rail a dark green and above white, and then the wall of paneling was painted dark green as well. We chose a tan carpet with some variation in it for the general wear and tear.

 We also decided, with his mom's help, to paint the beams on the ceiling dark green and keep the stripe down the middle white. They were painted already, so we figured, why not just paint over that.

The first picture shows just after the carpet guys finished installing, and we had already done the painting. The line looks a little uneven because in the next photo we added the chair rail to make the straight line.

The only thing that has not been changed out in the entire room so far is the window trim. We have not yet figured out how to cut the quarter round so that it sits the right way in the sill to seal it up.

The TV went up in the corner on the green wall, and now above the TV is four posters from when the Michigan State football team went to the Rose Bowl in 2014. Of course my husband has LED lights hooked up to the back of the TV that glow different colors and whenever the Spartans play, they glow green.


The DVD cases have since moved to be up against a flat wall because we want children and didn't want them to be able to pull them over onto themselves. Those are black/brown Billy DVD cases from Ikea. The TV stand is a Hemnes TV Stand from Ikea and has the extension on one side to have two glass doors and a drawer in the middle.




















 We had to take the original railings down to paint and redo them, and my husband thought they weren't fancy enough for our house, so we found ourselves back at the hardware store looking at stair railings. Of course, I picked out the super fancy one that has a delicate design on it. My husband did all the cutting of the railings himself, and even figured out a way to make cuts so it would turn into the wall, and have that awesome finished look.

 

 For a while, when we first bought our house, we didn't have a whole lot of furniture, and our family room downstairs had a TV stand, two DVD cases, and bag chairs for us to sit in and watch TV. I will always remember our first Super Bowl in our house sitting in a bag chair next to my husband. I won money on that game, too! Last summer, we came across one of the greatest finds for our house: a 4 piece, La-Z-Boy Sectional sofa. We were at a clearance sale at a furniture store, and my husband happened to walk by this sofa, and it had a $500 price card sitting on one of the arms. It seemed too good to be true, but it wasn't. We had it delivered a week later, and our family room looked just a little bit more finished. And let me tell you how much this couch is my dream sofa. I have always wanted a sectional with a chaise lounge on one end and a recliner on the other, and that's exactly what I got. It was unbelievable! The pillows are decorative pieces that I added for my husband as part of his Christmas present. I found the pillow cases online through an ad I saw on Facebook, and the pillows themselves are forms purchased from Joann Fabrics. I always use coupons at Joann so I didn't pay full price.

The next thing my husband wanted was curtains for his Spartan Room that were Spartan related. My sister-in-law made Roman shades for the bathroom at their house, and it seemed pretty simple. The tutorial that I followed from Pinterest is linked here! My husband chose Spartan heads with football helmets backed with opaque black fabric to make them more light tight. I sewed the two fabrics together similar to a pillowcase, and then followed the directions for the Roman shades.

Then it was time to add the rest of the decor. Being a Spartan fan for life like my husband means that you have lots of stuff. I have only recently begun adding to his collection of things. The large mural is a fathead of the 2014 Rose Bowl game which my husband took his dad to, so he was there. We added the small panorama of Spartan Stadium when we lived in our apartment, and I got him the two other signs. One is family rules that includes being a Spartan fan and the other came from Campus Den, a store filled with college items that says Love You to East Lansing and Back because that may as well be his moon!








We have since added a new coffee table and end table. I bought the end table for my husband as a Christmas gift, and his parents got him the matching coffee table. They really add a touch to the room that the old coffee table was unable to do. They match the rest of the black furniture, and they have Spartan heads on them.

 This renovation was a little bit cosmetic and mostly decorative, but my husband is happy and that's what matters.

Until next time...