Happy Halloween & Kitchen Table

Mornin! Happy Halloween!

Yesterday was a busy day with Toast at school, running errands and a dentist appointment.  But Yay for me because I have no cavities!

Last week I told you about our kitchen chairs.  Well, I also re-did the kitchen table.  It had the same orangey top as the chairs and a blue bottom.  I never liked the color of the bottom so I finally just painted it.  You can see below, behind the chair, the old color blue on the leaf (which I didn't re-do until later) and also the old color of the top. I primed the bottom with Zinsser Bullseye 123 and painted with the same light aqua as our master bedroom at the time.  I like it much better than the old blue.

Finally in June of 2012, it was time to refinish the top. It had gotten quite scratched and dinged up.

I took the table outside and DS helped me sand the top.

He sanded and sanded...

And I sanded a bit too. ;-)  

Then it was time to stain it.  I used the old Minwax Early American.

Here's the table with half of it stained. 

 I put a really thick coat on to make it look darker.  I should've just put multiple thin coats because it was kinds sticky when I tried to wipe off the excess.  Here it is with the first coat.

It didn't turn out as dark as I wanted so I did a couple more thinner coats.

Here's the table still outside.

And here's the pretty after!

Have a great Halloween!  Don't eat too much candy! :-)

Tasty Tuesday

Hi!

I'm feeling a bit blah lately. I'm guessing it's because of the days getting shorter and colder.  We had frost this morning!! BBRRRR! I had to wear my winter coat, hat and big gloves for my walk.  I'm dreading when we have to set the clocks back this weekend.  I keep telling myself that it's only for a couple mos until the days start to get (slightly) longer at Winter Solstice.

Yesterday the kids had to go to the dentist in town.  In 6 mos they need to get checked for orthodontics because there's not enough room for their big teeth to come in.  I had the same problem, but didn't get braces till I was about 14!  They are starting earlier and earlier with those things now!

What shall I cook for this week?....

• Mon- Amy's Burritoes for kids, Frozen tuna, basil pesto pasta (HH gone)
• Tues- Pasta with Spinach Sauce
• Wed-Haddock Brazilian Stew Canned Chicken Soup (Kids don't like)
• Thurs-Halloween!!- Frozen Homemade Chili Haddock Brazilian Stew (Delicious, but kids don't like)
• Fri- Homemade Pizza
• Sat-Roast Chicken Nuggets (I used ground pretzels and bread crumbs!), Potatoes, Veg
• Sun- Frozen Salmon Frozen Chili

Last year's meals:

• Mon- Salmon Cakes, Green Beans, Salad
• Tues-Chicken Nuggets
• Wed- Halloween!- White Bean Chili (Vegetarian Slow Cooker pg 69)
• Thurs- Garlic Scallops, Rice, Squash
• Fri- Tortilla Pizza
• Sat- Leftovers
• Sun- Goose at In-laws

Talk to you Thursday! :-)

Monday Musings

Mornin!

We had a great weekend!  The kids spent Friday night and Saturday morning at their grandparents so HH and I were able to get a lot done on Saturday, before the rain on Sunday.  Plus, Sunday was HH's birthday so we had a nice dinner (fried chicken from the store) here with his parents.

So, here's HH working on the front porch.

And, here it is now. 

We ran out of 2x2's so HH couldn't finish up the rails.

Here's the before:

 And a way before!

Here's the driveway.

And before:

This week will be busy with actvities and Halloween!!

Have a fantastic week! :-)

Week's work

Hi!  

So, we're still plugging away at the front...

The post are in at the top of the front stairs.

(Remember here's how it looked before the stairs.

And my "vision".)

We're getting closer!

Also, we are making slow but steady progress on removing the sods.  

On Saturday it looked like this:

It's not too hard to remove the sods that grew on top of the grey gravel.  Or on top of regular dirt.  But there is some soil with rocks the size of walnuts under some of the grass. That's really hard to dig up because the shovel keeps getting blocked by the rocks.  It's being rock blocked. (Haha!)  So, that's the last part that needs to be dug up.  I'm not sure why that gravelly dirt is there... We must've put it there at some point.

I'm also finishing up the drywall mudding.  I was debating whether to get a small can of kitchen paint to touch up above the wardrobe pantry and by the new doorway to the backroom.  Or for just a little more money I could get a whole new paint color and I could just redo the whole room!  But I actually still like the color so I guess I'll save myself a lot of unnecessary work and just get a little can for touchups.

HH's birthday is this Sunday!  We'll invite his parents up for dinner which will be take-out from the store.  ( I don't think I planned for that in my menu.  I"ll have to change it :-))

Have a wonderful weekend! :-)

Kitchen Chairs

Hi! 

Look at this funny Lupin that's blooming in the fall!  They normally bloom in June!  I pass this little plant on my walk and I finally took a picture. I wonder why it doesn't know it's the fall?

And speaking of fall, here's some lovely fall foliage in our backyard.

So, this week I'll share my kitchen chairs.  A long time ago, my mom and my in-laws bought this table and chairs for us.  The table came from a set that some friends had bought but didn't need.  I'm not sure where the chairs came from.  Anyway, they looked like this.

(This was when I was just trying out the microwave and toaster oven on this side!)

I'd been tired of the yellowish finish for a long time, but never really did anything about it.  Until finally I did 3 things!

First, I did a white chair.  I used Zinsser primer with a foam brush.  Then I did 2 coats of cream + white with a foam brush. Then a coat of white with a bit of cream on the seat and back and lastly another white coat.

So, that was nice, but I wanted to try something different with green home-made chalk paint.  I used a green latex paint I got from the Restore and the green latex paint that's used as the accent color in our kitchen to make some chalk paint.  I could never find calcium carbonate and I didn't want to buy a bunch of unsanded grout. (My MIL actually gave me some sanded grout which I tried, but it didn't work! ;-))  Somewhere I found a recipe that used powdered plaster of paris.  Here's a good link that compares the different recipes.  

Anway when I found this Venetain Plaster for $5 at the Restore,

I thought I could make it work.  

I used 1/2 c water, 1/2 c plaster, 1 1/2 c paint.  

I smudged it all over one chair, let it dry. Sanded and smudged more paint on.  I finished it with an old can of Minwax Wood Finish Early American (that my mom had used to refinish the wardrobe.)

I tried this with one chair and decided I liked it so I did the other.  That's why they don't quite match exactly. 

  But they're close enough.

Here are the four chairs.

 

I went ahead and did the last chair white.  With some white chalk paint I made.  I did the same as the green, but finished with my wax.

 I thought I could compare the latex chair and the chalk paint chair.  So far they seem to be holding up the same!  And the green ones are doing ok, but they're getting more scratched up on the edges.  I should probably put some wax on them. :-)

Till tomorrow! :-)

100th Post & Tasty Tuesday

Hi!

It's my 100th post today!  That's a milestone of some sort!

Yesterday I did not go for my walk or do too much besides regular housework (except I did dig some sods in the front...), but today I'm feeling like I've got more energy so I'm off to my walk.  The kids just left, but I'm still finishing my Green Smoothie, so I'm getting this typed out first.  My left hamstring usually feels tight when I walk. I've got a theory that it's because when I walk on the road that's slightly tilted, my left leg has to go down further than my right.  So, I'm gonna be a rebel and walk with the traffic so I even out! ;-)

This week's meal plan:

• Mon- Frozen Lasagna, Arugula salad
• Tues- Salmon Cakes
• Wed- Slow Cooker Lentils (125 Best Vegetarian Slow Cooker Recipes, pg 114)
• Thurs- Eggs with Black Bean Salsa CheeseBurgers
• Fri- Mac & Cheese (my mother-in-laws recipe, as requested by DS) Leftovers
• Sat- Roast Chicken, Potatoes Frozen Individual Pizzas for kids, leftovers for grownups
• Sun- Cheese Burgers Chicken from Dillon's, Tabouli, salads (HH's Birthday!)

Last year's meals:

• Mon- Pasta
• Tues- Frittata
• Wed- Salmon (HH mtg)
• Thurs- Beans
• Fri- Tortilla Pizza
• Sat- Pizza (HH's Birthday)
• Sun- Slow Cooker Beans

I noticed on last year's menu plan that we had started our new ticket chore system.  Where you can earn tickets for chores and then trade them in for $.50 each or a 30 min tv show or 30 min of computer.  I don't remember how long that lasted, but not too long.   Now the kids are doing no chores except loading their dinner plates in the washer and occasionally cleaning their rooms.  Although, DD has been keeping her room clean and DS's room is pretty clean now too.  I'm not sure what to do to get them to help out more... Something to think about!

Have a good one! :-)

Front Stairs!

Mornin!

It was a busy weekend.  DD started skating on Sat. and both kids had swimming Sun.  We spent the afternoon yesterday in Summerside- visiting and shopping.

HH finished the front steps!

  Now he just need to do the rails! 

We also got some landscaping done-  notice the sods at the top of the pic below. That used to be part of the driveway.

The sods were moved from the right hand side of the drive.

We still have to move all the sod to the right of the car below.  It's a lot of work, but I'm sure we'll get it done eventually!  Hopefully, soon because we want to get some gravel and be able to park the other car there.

Here's my progress on the kitchen drywall in the kitchen.  It's up and taped with one coat of mud.

And here are the clipboards up on the wall with some art from Art Class.  The local morning show is on tv!

We've pretty much got the same stuff planned for this week- front steps, drywall, landscaping!

Have a good one! :-)

TGIF

Hi! 

We had a nice day yesterday.  Both kids were at friends' in the morning, then we went to Charlottetown in the afternoon. Here are the kids enjoying some smoothie's from CharlotteTea in the Confederation Court Mall. 

So, this week was spent doing a bit more drywall and framing out of the hall.  Not too exciting.

But most exciting is the progress HH made on the front steps this week!

 

 We hope to have them done by Halloween.

Here's how the front used to look.

I also cleaned up under the front porch and put plastic down on top of the ground.  HH's sailboat can now go under there for the winter.

Here's a pic of the that space before, but it's hard to see under there.

Today, DS has gone to a friend's and DD has a friend over. I'm working on putting the drywall over the wardrobe pantry in the kitchen.

It used to be a window, then a door to the old tv room, then the doorway to the kids' room, then the door to DD's room.  Here it is with the pantry in place.

Here's the progress I've made.

I'm also painting some old clipboards.  I bought 6 or 9 of them many years ago to hang on the wall to organize papers by the desk area. I'm guessing I did that, but can't really remember.  Anyway, I found 3 of them and decided to paint 2 with chalkboard paint.

Then, I'll hang them on the tv wall in the back room so I can easily change out the kids' artwork!

Have a great weekend!

:-)

Stenciled Ceiling

Hi!

No school today or tomorrow for the kiddos. It's a super long weekend!

Today I'll share the master bedroom ceiling.  What's so great about a ceiling? Well, I stenciled it!

(This is the corner above the bed)

A while back, I found this ceiling at Not Just a Housewife.  I thought it was a great idea!  So I made my own stencil and set to work.  

But before I got to work, we had to re-do the ceiling (and roof!).  Here's how it started out when it was the living room.

Or rather, after we started tearing down the old ceiling in Sep 2010.  The door is where our headboard is now, in front of a window that replaced the door.

  

Here's another view of the old ceiling.  This is where the hallway is now.  We had used paneling and tongue-in -groove boards to hide the seams.  I must've been pregnant or something because it seems HH primed the paneling with oil-based primer and I used latex to finish.

Oops, here we have no ceiling or roof!

Ah, a beautiful sky! :-)

Here's a bird's eye view looking down into the future master bedroom. 

(Here's some pictures of the outside: :-))

Back inside, here's looking from the door (future window) into what will be the bedroom and hallway.

Here the roof is starting to get back together.

All insulated and plastic-ed.  And look, the first sheet of drywall on the ceiling!

Here I am taping up some more plastic by the hallway, where the laundry closet will go. (That mirror stayed from the living room to our bedroom, but we did have to move it over about 6 inches.  HH brought that up from a PA (I think) Ikea on the roof of our car. It ended up cracking the windsheild!)

More drywall! Looking good!

So, evidently I didn't get any pictures of the actual painting of the ceiling. But it went something like this:

1.Prime.

2. Paint with leftover paint from old master bedroom (now DS's room) and old living room.

3. Make stencil on plastic desk protecter from Staples.  ( I copied image from somewhere and HH made a copy of it for me so I could trace it out.  However, the pattern was way too small.

So he had to go back and get it enlarged. Here it is on 4 big sheets with the smaller pattern beside it.

I got a bigger desk protector to draw the stencil on and cut it out.

  FYI, I ended up using the old desk protector with the small pattern drawn on it but not cut out for the stencil I just used on the front room floor!)

4. Use spray adhesive to hold stencil on ceiling and use foam roller to roll on paint from the Restore.

Here's how it looks from the bed: 

I like how the stencil goes around the angles.  This is from the hallway where our door opens into a taller section, then goes into the cozier lower angled ceiling.

Here's the bedroom again with just a peek of the ceiling.

It's fun to look at the old  pictures and see how much progress we've made! :-)