go Justin

In honor of Justin Bieber and his 4 American Music Awards... one of our favorite SNL skits.

ksl classifieds

I've been spending some serious time on KSL classified's website, searching for some budget opportunities on this basement project. It's a love/hate relationship with me and the classifieds. There are so many great deals out there if you are willing to search and then drive to pick them up. I just picked up a great double, deep sink for the craft/sewing room, with all the hardware included for $30. I was super stoked about some cabinets for the same room, but when I went to pick them up I found they had been in an doctors office and weren't even close to standard cupboard height. Darn it!  Here are a few ads that I've come across that made me laugh, scratch my head or want to remodel my whole house.

"I bought this and my wife does not like it."

Really?? Why, I can't believe she wasn't jumping with joy when you brought this sink home dude. 

"This is for a red Kohler birthday bath tub--it is BEAUTIFUL!!! It is in need of some polish and a good clean, but would look so classy in a bathroom. It does have some scratches, most of which would be covered by the feet when they are attached, and is missing one small piece on the handle that I'm sure could be replaced...It includes all the plumbing needed for installation. It retails for around $7000! I'm only getting rid of it because my husband is sick of moving it around waiting for us to build a house for it. Call, text or email if interested."

Classy?? You mean like, "I drive a Corvette" classy, or mirrors on the bedroom ceiling classy?  I think these two sellers need to team up and design a bathroom together.

"I have five 10' x 14' Aluminum Full Glass doors. Each door comes with an electric key operated door opener. Doors are in excellent condition. Asking $1,000 per door, or best offer!"

OK, now I'm being serious... quickly help me think- where can I put these doors? I love them so much, can't I think of somewhere to put them? a pool house, studio, modern dream home, garage for parking a classy Corvette...

"REMODELING! GOOD TUB COULD BE USED FOR ANYTHING. $20"

Once again, love... 'can be used for anything' huh? Do you think my neighbors would care if I half-buried it into a flower bed or better yet, how about just an outdoor bathing spot.

tile, doors and paint

Basement update: the tile in the bathroom is all finished (and covered). We kept it simple, figuring matching the upstairs was the best idea at this point- a no brainer, just had to find a tile that matched. The bathroom turned out pretty large and spacious, in the end... probably a good thing. The linen closet and extra cupboards will surely fill right up.

The walls are all textured and the doors have arrived and are being installed right now (yippee). As soon as the doors (and trim around the doors and windows) are in... I can paint. And that is what I've been waiting for all along, the step where I can finally get in there and be useful. I don't mind painting.  I hesitate to say 'I love to paint', which is what Steve O would claim... but I do love what fresh paint, (or in this case- any paint) can do for a room- change the whole look and feel, for a relatively small amount of money.

And so, I prepare for my upcoming duties...  I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the choices.  I'm used to thinking small scale, like one room at a time.  Not to mention the chaos of kids throwing in their picks for room colors. To tell you the truth, I really don't have much preference in color right now. I've been enjoying the white(ish) walls I've been sporting for about a year now, since I decided to paint over all my colors in my last house, bring it back to basic. I think I'll keep it pretty light, whatever I decide, it is a basement after all.

I hope I can: #1 make relatively few trips to the hardware store during the process, #2 pick out decent colors that we are all happy with.  After many re-paints in the past, because of horrid color choices based on tiny paint chips... I now religiously choose from Martha Stewart's color palette. Here are all the chips I've saved throughout the years, from when Martha paints were at Kmart, the Sherwin Williams and now Home Depot.  

So, here's my 2 cents about painting, and what I've learned (the hard way) over the years. Martha colors are real colors, tried and true, made by people and not randomly mixed by computers and slapped on cards. They will always look fantastic on the walls and not like they belong in a crayon box or on a tennis shoe. If you have to repaint, it will be by some fault of your own and not because of a bad color. How do you like that for bossy?

what is the world coming to?

Cat and dog strollers...really, what is the world coming to? 

Actually, we we're looking up possible ways to show off our own fluffy cat Pierre around town, without losing him. I  guess we would need the blue one...

 The manufacturer says there is a 27 lb. weight limit. If you pet weighs more than 27 lbs... then perhaps it should be walking...

Oh, the innocence of youth

Right off the bat I'd like to say, I'm not complaining- I love my new house. That being said, I'd like to share some giggles with what we'll call 'building-bloopers-in-house-built-by-a-technical-school". I'm pretty sure the cabinets pictured here were built by said school's cabinetry class, probably in the range of 17-20 year old builders, with some supervision, but perhaps not all the time.

What I'd like to know is with what kind of saw was this crazy cut made with... then backed out of? Hasn't anyone heard of a fence for a table saw?

Here is one of about 8 footings, poured in the wrong place, then cut off and abandoned in the basement floor. Just a few inches away from the load bearing wall (where I presume the proper footings are incased). I love to watch the puzzled looks from sub-contractors (who are helping us finish the basement right now) when they spot this line of mistakes and try and puzzle out what happened.  

Now, I get to chip out an inch or two of wood with a chistle, then grind the concrete down flat, fill in the hole and cover what's left of the wood with some kind of filler/sealer- all so I can lay laminate flooring over the top. A lot easier said than done.

Someone was dreaming about facebook, video games or texting while grouting the shower...

Nobody's perfect, (even old people like myself), but there is nothing wrong with laughing at minor and cosmetic mistakes (hopefully that is the extent of it...gulp). 

diagram of an igloo

I've been doing some tidying up in my iphoto this week, trying to get things archived, hauling

 pictures to external places to liven up my poor bogged down computer. I came across these blueprints for an igloo that the kids made a few winters ago (with hot chocolate stains and all). Appropriate because it's snowing outside, it's supposed to snow a lot more too... winter is really on the way.

basement update

Here is how the basement is looking this week- all sheetrocked, hallelujah- and they just started taping up all those seams...  

Here is the family room- long and narrow, gas fireplace for cozy purposes, a cut out for TV hardware (like hanging brackets and wires) above the fireplace because I've recently been introduced to hanging skinny TV's on the wall- a fabulous idea.

Here is what you do when there is a pipe that cannot be moved, (as you can see from the black cleanout  pipe plug near the floor), we dreamt up this very narrow shelf/display thing, because the room is so narrow and it's in a weird place where everyone will be walking to and fro. It has been looked at speculatively by many visitors, luckily, I have lots of tiny things that will fit in the tiny space quite nicely, thank you very much.

The bathroom... big tub, but no jets (sorry kids). I heard you can make your own bubbles, if you want to...

This is the cold storage closet that lies directly under the front porch, jam packed full of all the basement stuff waiting to be put away in it's new place, including all my fabric and tubs full of archived film negatives that belong to Steve O.  The silver hose you see is left over from venting the bathroom (they changed it out for a bigger hose), you can bet you'll be seeing it in a Halloween costume next year...

What soon will be the craft room or Noelle's giant craft room/office (as some like to sarcastically refer to it). I know it's big, has a big closet and will have a sink and cupboards too.  

I don't care what anyone says- when I will be spending most of my waking hours here, storing all of my fabric and supplies- it needs to be bigger than an average bedroom... everyone can zip it up.  Someday soon, everyone will be eating their words when it turns into the favorite room in the house that everyone can use to be creative (as long as they clean up after themselves). There, I said it... now move along.

wear a smile, and a v-neck

rug day

I have been on the hunt for a rug for our family room for weeks now. On foot and on the internet, I searched. Finally- I found one I liked, mulled it over for a week or two, searched for a coupon, ordered it and waited. They (World Market) warned it could be up to 15 days until delivery, I hunkered down to wait and was pleasantly surprised when it only took a week, and arrived in such an intriguing package. I don't know why I was so tickled to have to 'unstitch' my rug out of it's package- apparently it doesn't take much to make me happy.

Here is it's new home. This room is super echoy, very annoying when everyone is home.  Hopefully a rug on the floor will help.  

One last swiffer...

Taa daa... I like it. It feels cozier already, still an echo, I think I'll hang a quilt on the wall too.

 Now, if I can just get a plan into place for the rest of this room.  I like having the computers in a central place, but the desk in the corner is messing with the fengi shui.

Sound of Music drapery costumes

Years ago, when the internet was a baby and no one was blogging (2000ish, I think) we went to a Sound of Music sing-a-long at Sundance. We wanted to participate, Rocky Horror Picture Show dress-up-and-run-around-on-stage-during-your-scene style, so I sewed us up some play clothes/curtain costumes just like Maria.

Thinking economically and in a bit of a rush (as I recall now) I didn't try and match the movie costumes exactly (more of a green fabric) but just went for the goofy upholstery/drapery fabric look. Here we are, all of the Von Trapp children in our winning stage moment- Gretel, Kurt, Marta, Brigitta, Louisa, Friedrich and Liesel, and Captain Von Trapp too. If you remember Gretel has a hurt finger in the movie, the real broken arm on Gretel during our stage moment was a big hit.

These costumes have been in storage all of these years. Because they need to be worn all together to bring the full effect and none of my kids have been interested in taking part in such silliness for Halloween- we have never worn them again.  I set them out at the yard sale (about a month ago) and the Warren family here took full advantage of their purchase over this past weekend. I heard this picture was taken at the end of their performance... even better.  Way to bring back the curtain costumes guys!

For more photos, look here.