Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Two Bathrooms
After being in Christina Francisco's lovely home on vacation, I have been inspired to try harder at home decorating. My current room that I am working on is our bedroom. This has been especially hard, mostly because our bedroom is huge (15 by 20), and is used for two very different things: half is our bedroom, and the other half is David's office. So far, I'm not having much success. If anybody has any brilliant ideas, let me know!
However, I have had two exciting successes: two bathrooms.
This is our downstairs bathroom. It started white when we moved in, I painted it brown with darker brown sponging, and then 3 years later David and I painted it blue. The blue was starting to worry me, until I remembered that I could put things on the walls! David installed a new lighting fixture, and I went to work trying to figure out ways to fill up the walls. The first thing I did was these three fabric-covered panels. I love fabric, and I'll try anything to be able to decorate with it. I love the way these turned out, and they come with an added bonus: in a room with no carpet, they absorb a ton of sound!
My next idea was to use plates from Pier 1's clearance section to decorate the tall wall behind the toilet. After a few different attempts to affix them to the wall and a few broken plates, we finally got it right. I love the look, although David's not totally sold on it. The wall that you can't see I stenciled very lightly with this cool wallpaper-looking stencil (you'll see more of that in the next bathroom!)
I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and it's fun to have a sort of funky bathroom in the midst of my cream-and-white downstairs.
Moving on, we come to the upstairs bathroom, used by the kids. It also was white when we moved in (noticing a theme yet? why don't builders do something more interesting?). The upstairs loft that this bathroom comes out of is light green with a dark green accent wall. I used the same dark green paint, took the plunge, and painted a small room a dark color (something I'd always heard was a no-no.) I really liked it, but it stayed boring green for about 4 1/2 years--until Deb was here last week. She and I used the same wallpaper stencil in light green on the biggest wall. Then, I made her help me take pictures of the kids in the woods. It was not a very pleasant experience, between crying when I tried to get them to sit still and eating leaves and dirt, but I was able to get 2 shots of the kids having fun, and Deb got a few of me holding crying Laura. I used a cool website to turn them into old-looking black and white photographs, used cream cardstock to mat them, and put them in some super-cheap Bed, Bath, and Beyond frames I've had lying around forever. It turned out way better than I even dared to hope! I finished off with a trip to Sam's for sage green towels for the girls (who had been using baby towels), and it's done!
I love being in there now. It doesn't feel like it only belongs to kids, though they do have toys in the bathtub and a fish toothbrush holder. I love having pictures of us on the wall. And the kids think it's really funny. "Look Mom, that's me!"
I'm hoping that with a lot of thought, I can somehow turn our master into a place that I love also!
P.S.--That second bathroom doubles as our guest bath, and we'd love to have you come visit!
However, I have had two exciting successes: two bathrooms.
This is our downstairs bathroom. It started white when we moved in, I painted it brown with darker brown sponging, and then 3 years later David and I painted it blue. The blue was starting to worry me, until I remembered that I could put things on the walls! David installed a new lighting fixture, and I went to work trying to figure out ways to fill up the walls. The first thing I did was these three fabric-covered panels. I love fabric, and I'll try anything to be able to decorate with it. I love the way these turned out, and they come with an added bonus: in a room with no carpet, they absorb a ton of sound!
My next idea was to use plates from Pier 1's clearance section to decorate the tall wall behind the toilet. After a few different attempts to affix them to the wall and a few broken plates, we finally got it right. I love the look, although David's not totally sold on it. The wall that you can't see I stenciled very lightly with this cool wallpaper-looking stencil (you'll see more of that in the next bathroom!)
I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and it's fun to have a sort of funky bathroom in the midst of my cream-and-white downstairs.
Moving on, we come to the upstairs bathroom, used by the kids. It also was white when we moved in (noticing a theme yet? why don't builders do something more interesting?). The upstairs loft that this bathroom comes out of is light green with a dark green accent wall. I used the same dark green paint, took the plunge, and painted a small room a dark color (something I'd always heard was a no-no.) I really liked it, but it stayed boring green for about 4 1/2 years--until Deb was here last week. She and I used the same wallpaper stencil in light green on the biggest wall. Then, I made her help me take pictures of the kids in the woods. It was not a very pleasant experience, between crying when I tried to get them to sit still and eating leaves and dirt, but I was able to get 2 shots of the kids having fun, and Deb got a few of me holding crying Laura. I used a cool website to turn them into old-looking black and white photographs, used cream cardstock to mat them, and put them in some super-cheap Bed, Bath, and Beyond frames I've had lying around forever. It turned out way better than I even dared to hope! I finished off with a trip to Sam's for sage green towels for the girls (who had been using baby towels), and it's done!
I love being in there now. It doesn't feel like it only belongs to kids, though they do have toys in the bathtub and a fish toothbrush holder. I love having pictures of us on the wall. And the kids think it's really funny. "Look Mom, that's me!"
I'm hoping that with a lot of thought, I can somehow turn our master into a place that I love also!
P.S.--That second bathroom doubles as our guest bath, and we'd love to have you come visit!
Friday, October 24, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Making Grandma Earn Her Keep...
Grandma Talcott came to visit us this week. She somehow knew to come right when we would need her the most. All 3 of the kids have been sick this week, and she has been helping wipe noses, comfort kids, and even stay home from church and Bible study when they were too sick to go. It has been a huge help! She leaves tomorrow, so I decided to send her home nice and exhausted, ready for a vacation from vacation: today we made and canned 34 quarts of applesauce. Here are the very first fruits of our labor:
Here's Carver, turning the crank (look familiar? Thanks for the loan, Heather!)
Here's Grandma, filling jars:
Oh, and we decided to throw a little pumpkin canning in at the end, just for fun! The pumpkin I had picked was so huge and unwieldy that I ended up cutting it with a saw from the garage. The kids helped scoop out the seeds:
Oh, and we decided to throw a little pumpkin canning in at the end, just for fun! The pumpkin I had picked was so huge and unwieldy that I ended up cutting it with a saw from the garage. The kids helped scoop out the seeds:
And, just because there are no pictures of Laura yet, here she is!
An exhausting but successful day! We will be eating yummy homemade applesauce all winter!
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Cinnamon Rolls
Last Tuesday was a drizzly, dreary fall day. I love those kinds of days. It means I can stay inside, read books to the kids, make cookies or treats, and wear cozy fall sweaters. So our treat this dreary day was cinnamon rolls. Carver and Ellie did a great job helping, and an even better job eating!
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Applesauce!
With all the apples from out apple-picking trip, we made applesauce. I went over to a friend's house for the day, and we made about 45 quarts of applesauce. Heather had a hand-strainer that we used to make the applesauce. It would've been much more work, but between our 3 older boys, we very rarely had to turn the crank! Here is Carver, taking his turn, while his friend Nathan helps (in all fairness, Heather's two boys did the majority of the hard work!):
While we had two bushels from an orchard, we did have about 1 1/2 bushels that Heather had gotten from a friend's house, and they were organic to the core (ha ha...)! We cut out a ton of bad spots and worm holes, but they sure are interesting looking:
Here's Carver, stirring cinnamon into the big vat of applesauce (Heather's two oldest, Jonathan and Nathan, in the background):
And here are the kids, playing a game together. From left to right: Nathan (5), Josiah (3--adopted from Ethiopia), Ellie, Carver.
And little Laura found something to climb on!
You'll notice that often the girls don't have pants on. Wierd, I know. Usually, I just get to some point in the afternoon, and I'm tired of putting pants back on after diaper changes and potty trips, usually sometime around 3 PM. So that's one way of telling what time of day the pictures are taken :)
The applesauce stats:
2 orchard bushels--1 1/2 Jonathan, 1/2 bushel Cortland
1 1/2 home-grown bushels--random assortment of varieties
We bagged 47 quart-size Ziploc bags for freezing at the end of the day.
Time spent? Who knows, between cooking, cleaning, diaper changing, feeding kids, monitoring fights, and generally trying to keep 7 kids out of the kitchen...somewhere around all day.
Verdict: Totally worth it!
While we had two bushels from an orchard, we did have about 1 1/2 bushels that Heather had gotten from a friend's house, and they were organic to the core (ha ha...)! We cut out a ton of bad spots and worm holes, but they sure are interesting looking:
Here's Carver, stirring cinnamon into the big vat of applesauce (Heather's two oldest, Jonathan and Nathan, in the background):
And here are the kids, playing a game together. From left to right: Nathan (5), Josiah (3--adopted from Ethiopia), Ellie, Carver.
And little Laura found something to climb on!
You'll notice that often the girls don't have pants on. Wierd, I know. Usually, I just get to some point in the afternoon, and I'm tired of putting pants back on after diaper changes and potty trips, usually sometime around 3 PM. So that's one way of telling what time of day the pictures are taken :)
The applesauce stats:
2 orchard bushels--1 1/2 Jonathan, 1/2 bushel Cortland
1 1/2 home-grown bushels--random assortment of varieties
We bagged 47 quart-size Ziploc bags for freezing at the end of the day.
Time spent? Who knows, between cooking, cleaning, diaper changing, feeding kids, monitoring fights, and generally trying to keep 7 kids out of the kitchen...somewhere around all day.
Verdict: Totally worth it!
Monday, October 13, 2008
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