Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Christmas Mantel


All the decorations are up! 

It's starting to feel a bit like Christmas!


Linking up with The Lettered Cottage Mantel Link Party!
The Lettered Cottage
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Friday, November 23, 2012

Happy Holidays!

Bright Happy Cheer Holiday Card
To view our most popular holiday card designs, click here.
View the entire collection of cards.
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Friday, November 9, 2012

Playpen Playhouse

I've been thinking lately that my twins are now old enough to crawl out of the playpen now and I should get rid of it.  It's practically brand new though so I was hesitating. 
Then I saw  THIS on pinterest.
And I thought. I could do that? Yeah... but I could do it better....  

I wanted to make it match my living room decor and be girly and posh. So I started with cutting out a bunch of flowers from some old fabric placemats I had. Then hot glued them all over the playpen.  I added little sparkly jewels and cut out one side of the mesh on the playpen to make an entrance.

I had one of THESE old laundry sorters that I'd put in the recycling to get rid of and I pulled the tubes out and made a roof structure which I tied, then glued and then duct taped to the frame of the playpen. 


Then my lovely assistant and I draped fabric over the roof and pinned like crazy.


We fitted and sewed until it was nice and tight. Then hot glued all the corners to
the plastic caps on the playpen.


Added some more flowers, and Voila!


She's especially in love with it.


Cheese!!!



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Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Laundry Room

Anyone remember this room? Yeah. That's our 2nd bath/laundry room.  And that wallpaper was the first thing to go, the day we got our keys in November 2009.
 Shudder. 
 Last year we had a work party and all the kids had a blast demolishing this room.
 Unfortunately... it sat like this for about a year before I got fed up. We are having 6 relatives come stay for a weekend. That means 9 people - 1 toilet. You could call that incentive.
 So the hubby added some drywall.
 And I spent hours taping and mudding.
 I did some tiling.  The pattern was super easy and he whipped out the cuts as I set, it took a total of about 3 hours.
I was pretty proud of myself.
 Last night the hubby whipped out the grout in under and hour. And today! I'm ready to add some cabinets and a toilet!

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Monday, September 24, 2012

Family Room Mantle

 We have always talked about beefing up the family room mantle.
The old one was pretty small and wimpy looking, kinda crooked, and I hated the finish.
Imagine my sheer joy when I came across this while hunting for a desk at the ReStore!
 I quickly called home for measurements and it was a perfect fit!  For $25!  You can't beat that! 
Heaven.

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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

New Sink

 Update on the sink
Before
After!!!!
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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Kitchen Update

The last time I showed everybody the kitchen it was pretty bleak. We have been living with no backsplash and half painted plywood floors. It's been a while since I blogged so let me fill you in!

We tiled the backsplash on a diagonal.
Grouted.
Sponged.

 And while I was in Michigan this month my husband tiled the floors!
 

 Shall we do a before and after?
  Before
After!

Before
After!

We aren't done yet.  We still are going to rip down the ceilings and put planks in like The Lettered Cottage did.  And my mom and I have always hated the sink that came free with the countertops. So today I bought a shiny new stainless sink and a new faucet because this one has a broken button.  Hopefully by tomorrow it'll be installed!


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Sunday, April 15, 2012

Crazy Life

Ok so I'm a horrid blogger. But hey, I'm raising twins. BTW their first birthday party is coming up. My life is crazy. But Our Brick Ranch continues to change and grow with us.
I'm finally starting to like the living room now that's it's not just a pile of excess furniture and junk.

That banjo belonged to my husbands great grandma I believe? We dug it out of his Grandma's shop attic. DH put some new strings on it and oiled it up. Sounds lovely :) I still haven't gotten this decorating a mantle thing down, but I'm learning. Hopefully it'll fill in and look lovely.
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Saturday, March 10, 2012

My parent's ranch.

After embarking on our remodeling project my parents got the bug. They bought another ranch house and decided to gut it and change almost the entire house. It's been several months, but yesterday they moved in! Now everybody knows what it looks like the day after you move in. :) So you can understand how much trouble I'm about to get into by blogging these photos before they are all unpacked! But I'm just so darn excited. So here they are!

The most amazing transformation was probably the kitchen for me. It was really dated and had an odd desk thing that protruded into the hallway.
Before


After.. Isn't it gorgeous!?!?! Ok so you can't even see the counter tops and my brother should definitely put a shirt on. But I'm impressed.


My parents also weren't a fan of the old stone fireplace and stove insert.

So they had a new gas insert built on the right and on the left had a built in media center attached. All of their electronics are built in, and they even have a sweet little ledge for their Xbox Kinect sensor to sit in under the tv! They also built up the ceiling in that area to match the other living space. It has the coolest mood lighting up there.

This is the other living area I was talking about. They kept this room the same, but they did change those double doors. Before they were huge and heavy and took up the entire entry way.

After. They decided they wanted a space for a bench so they shifted it sideways and went with a single door. They are having a local artist craft a special metal screen door. I can't wait to see it!

This is probably our favorite. Before.

After. It's only my favorite because my kids have their own dedicated room at Nana's house :)

I'm so incredibly happy for them. And of course dreading the phone call when my mom realizes I posted these pictures of her messy new house. You all understand though right?
Sorry mom!
Oh.. and on a side note. I kept those big double doors of my moms to do this.
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