Living Small - Update #3 The Kids' Room

I found the photos!  I finished the kids' room last week - for the most part.  Some of you might think I'm crazy for getting rid of the kids' IKEA storage bins, and yes, they were nice - but I believe in selling stuff while I can still get some money out of it, and I had a set that literally lined every wall in the room, and it was just too much stuff.  I also took apart the bunk beds since those aren't selling on Craigslist, and used them as twin beds.  Yes, it takes up more floor space, but now I can actually make the beds, and they really seem to like the new setup, it's a little more "big boy".  The nice thing is that I can easily put them back into bunks if necessary.


I'll warn you that it looks a little institutional in all gray LOL, but the idea is to bring back color into their room through fabric which I can easily change at whim, instead of becoming sick of colored bins and furniture, does that make any sense?


Believe it or not there's a theme, here - what's the one really important "room" that we don't have here at our house?  A GARAGE!  So now, the kids' room is a "garage".  I styled it that way so the bikes and outdoor gear we have to stow in the open anyways is now an integral part of their decor, and as a bonus the furniture is cheaper that way!


Here's the before, during and after:

Before, the bins I sold - they were awesome, but they were everywhere!

Before, bunks

Painting

Below, all furniture moved out except beds, which were broken down into twins just for a change

 here's where it looks like a juvenile detention facility in monotone :)

One of the things that helps space and save money is that none of us in the house have dressers, we use the closet to the utmost!  They used to keep their clothes in some of the former bins that were sold, but I purchased these drawer carts for each of them and they stow right in the closet.  I figure if the clothes start overflowing these, it's probably time to purge.

Drawer storage bins - $40

Next I framed some of their own artwork to bring some color and their personalites in.  I store just a few things they have brought home or done at home over the years, so this freed up space in my closet!

 Frames - $0 (they were reused from other old photos and things I no longer wanted framed and hung)

Wire rack bookshelf/nightstand and bedside lamp - $30

Here's where things get really "garage-y"!  After tossing and donating many toys they no longer use or need, we were down to a very manageable amount that would fit along one short wall on these very inexpensive ($19 each)metal garage racks.  Combined with some extra bins to contain small things like Legos, building sets, etc, it makes for a nice area that's easy to keep clean, as well as portable.  If they want to play Legos or something in another room, they can just bring the whole bin with them.  We already had the fishing rod rack, it was stored in my craft area LOL, so this is a MUCH better place for them!

metal racks -$57

storage bins (some we had already) - $36

In the above photo, I can't get a good shot of the open space thanks to my massive seed starting contraption that's in the way, but they have a drafting table that can seat one on each side when it's folded down level, with a art storage cart repurposed from my old yarn storage.  They already had this, but it was kind of stuck in a corner, now it's easily accessible from both sides, near the sunny sliding glass door and they are playing Legos or drawing and painting every day there.

Below, I can't seem to get around that darn seed/light setup, but they each have a cool footlocker ($22 each) at the foot of each bed they can store their "own" things.  They are already begging for locks, haha, Finn wants to lock up his precious rock collection and Loch is convinced somebody might take his duck calls :)  Ah, to only have to worry about these things, eh?  Must be nice :)

Footlockers - $44

There is quite a bit of open floor playspace in front of the beds, I just can't seem to capture it here.

For obvious reasons, I haven't had time to even dream up quilt designs for them yet, but I intend to get some more color in there with quilts and a couple of funky fabric panels I will attach to a few random shelves on the metal shelving unit.  Of course Finn wants a black and white "skull" quilt, and Loch wants "chess"...  I need to have a talk with them about color!

Remember how everything in this house has to have 2 purposes?  HA!  When the kids leave home now we already have all the stuff we need for our future garage :)  That's kind of the idea here, to not spend money on decorating that is only specific to this house - not only are we military and the living situation could change at whim, but we are also starting to prepare for leaving the military in a few years.  We want to be able to have things we can easily repurpose for any room in the house as we do not know what type of home we will have. Will it be a farmhouse?  A cabin?  A yurt?  Who knows, but all this stuff can easily go from kitchen to bedroom to basement or garage and we will have lower expenditures on furniture when we really need "low", i.e. no more government paycheck LOL.

Project Totals

                    Week 3: - $207   (kids' room - storage, accessories)

Week 2:  -$146  (furniture, accessories)

   Week 1:  -$196  (paint, painting supplies)
Sold via Craigslist:        +$275  (sold kids' IKEA storage bins)
*net spent on house refreshing to date:  $274.00

Still trying to catch up

Ever feel like the current is faster than you are swimming?  That's me right now - I had a long list of things to do today but after spending hours trying to retrieve all my photos, I barely got one other chore done, starting another flat of seeds...

These flats were seeded with herbs and flowers this morning and they went outside on the deck, Mother Nature can decide what to do with them and when, because I'm done tripping over my indoor lights, when those tomatoes start hardening off in another week or so that contraption is being put away asap.

I will say that in spite of being somewhat ignored, the tomatoes and peppers are doing fantastic, I do need to start spraying them with seaweed though, that was on my to-do list for today but I didn't get to the store yet to get any.

After all those hours of working on my hard drive, hallelujah!  Look below and the age of the photos is obvious - there they are marching back into iPhoto!  That was the definite upside to the overall very frustrating day - I was actually ready to walk away when I hit something and these photos started copying, I almost did a dance, but my butt had fallen asleep at my desk from sitting so long :)

Problem is, they are all out of order and there are no dates on them to organize them by... over 10,000... there is still work to do - now where did my intern run off to??

What's on your sink?

So what's your favorite "garden hands" rescue?  

Yes, that's the best I could do... I'm still downloading my backup zip file, so all my photos I wanted to post on the before/after of the kids' room today are still M.I.A.  

We had very nice weather over the weekend, so instead of fretting about my computer, I was able to get my garden manicure supplies down from the upper cabinet, a few more miscellaneous seedling chores done, as well as a bit of weeding done in the yard.  Nothing too spectacular, as I don't intend to get caught off guard by a late frost as has happened in years prior.  The artichoke and broccoli seedlings have been hardened off and did get planted, and the peas are now up, but any other outdoor sowing will have to wait a bit longer.

Another sign of spring:

A teeny harvest, but a harvest at least, parsley and scallion for our belated Saint Patty's Day dinner

Our annual tradition on Saint Patrick's Day usually includes dinner and the planting of the potatoes, but it was all thrown askew this year due to the kids' music lessons that evening and the ensuing computer crash, but we still managed to celebrate a couple days late.  I figured with names like Lochlann, Finnegan & Erin every day is Irish day here, prick us and we bleed green :)

Bangers & Mash & Guinness tastes better on a Friday anyways, right?

Potatoes will be planted this week, hopefully that's not bad luck for us for breaking tradition!

I spent most of the day watching my download wheel on the screen spin, waiting, and sketching random quilt designs on scrap paper.  Yeah, I pretty much got nothing done today :)

not the kind of work I wanted to do today...

You probably hadn't noticed, but I have been quiet over here!  That's because I had to have a new hard drive put into my mac on Friday, yikes!  My mac guy brought my baby home last night and I really have my work cut out for me today.  While hubby finishes painting the kitchen, I get to try and recover all my data from my online backup service.  I'm sure you can imagine how horrifying it is to fire up the computer to see iPhoto saying "ZERO" images, yikes, considering I had several thousand before, among other semi-important things.  I consider myself lucky though since in 20 years I have never even had the need for a "mac guy" until now, but he came to the rescue quickly!


As I wait for this long, long backup process to start, I hope I'll be able to check in to all your blogs today - I was able to set up my internet first thing and was floored by the "42 posts!" in my google reader waiting for me :)


One upside:  I will soon be able to provide a REAL review of Backblaze Online Backup from someone who has had to actually retrieve the data!  


Thanks for hanging in there with me, I felt so out of the loop the past couple of days, now I know how Gran feels with her AZ internet snafus.


At least I did get 2 whole days of yard work done while waiting for my computer, more on that when I can set up my photos again.  Zip files, here I come...

kids

I haven't posted much about what the kids have been up to lately - but they are keeping me busy as usual!  Last week was the school Book Fair that we always go to since the prices and selection are great.  Loch is such an avid reader we have to stock up when prices are good, he likes fiction that we can always get at the library too but he also likes to have a lot of non fiction reference type books that he reads and refers to all the time so I never mind spending money on those.  Finn is just beginning to learn to read, so this is the first book fair where he got to select books to read himself instead of me or Loch reading to him.  They always have a great selection of the beginning level readers.

We didn't purchase these, since my kids are pretty keenly aware of this stuff already living in a military family (their uncle is also boots on the ground in Iraq and has flown missions in Afghanistan), but I thought it a worthy comparison to what types of material kids read in other parts of the country... can you tell we live in a 90% military town LOL?!

What saddens me is that save for about 5 families the book fair was a ghost town.  Considering how large his school is, there were a few kids in there that happened to be in the after school care program, browsing, but where were all the parents and families interested in reading and their kids?  It is so important to us that hubby even fanagled his way home early from work so we can all go together.  It would be so sad to see events like this disappear due to lack of participation.  The kids sure seem to want to be there, but where are the parents?

Right after the book fair we had to hustle to Loch's classroom to get him dressed for his school program. The 2nd Graders did a program about Egypt, which is what they have been learning about.  

Loch is 2nd row down, all the way to the left.  Check out the "mummy" behind him LOL - poor kid was messing with that toilet paper the whole program, trying to see and/or breathe!  Apparently the other kids got to help with his costume :)

I asked him what the "lightbulbs" were on their heads, and he replied they are snakeheads, like cobras... really?!  LOL, they did make their own costumes though, so bravo!

Loch is the "narrator"...listen carefully, he's fast!

A sign of the times:  Finn kept calling the mummies "zombies"!  Zombies sure are everywhere these days.

The photo below shows what I have resorted to at home to keep them occupied while I ransack their room, redecorating.  Yep, I got my kids owl poop to dig through LOL!

In all seriousness, this is pretty cool and right up their alley as far as science goes.  It is a "synthetic owl pellet" in a little package containing the skeleton of a starling, which is something that would normally be found in an owl pellet.  They dig through it all, pulling out the tiny bones, and glue together the skeleton of the little bird.  They got as far as retrieving all the bones, the rest will wait until daddy can help them this weekend.  (Little boys and super glue tubes don't mix well unsupervised!)

Finn above, checking out the bones.  Below is the owl "pellet".

For the furry kids, last night was bath night!  Poor Sprocket the Outback Jack looks like a drowned rat, although she loves it.

Marley doesn't care for it much but she puts up with it since she's "the good dog".

I finished the jammie pants for Loch.  Notice the lack of jammie shirt?  Yeah, I'm done with those LOL. From now on, jammie pants for everyone and we'll just use white tshirts or something, those sewn ones are a pain, I'm definitely not ready for v-necks, although with a few more mitered quilt bindings' worth of experience, I may be ready to try the v-neck again someday.  Poor Loch, I went to the fabric store to look for something he'd like, namely chess pieces or math equations - of course there was none of that, so I ended up with dinosaurs.   "Dinos?  Really, Mom?"!  But he is my kind and patient one, happy with whatever he gets, I wish some of that would rub off on Finnegan.

With that miscellaneous update, I now have to do a speed clean of my floors and bathroom and get outside!  With temps scheduled to hit 66 today and 80 tomorrow, I need to put everything indoors on hold and get out in the garden, there's still so many prep chores to be done.  Sunday looks to be cold and rainy so that will be our kitchen painting day hopefully.

Living "Small" - Update #2

Whew... I just finished catching up on everyone's blogs I missed the past few days, y'all are busy!  Busy here as well, here's the update on what got accomplished the past week:

that's me, still painting!

I am trying to do a really "good" job, painting all the trim and everything, now if that darned housing market turns (yeah, right...) we'll be ready!


This past week I actually made a few purchases for myself and the house, but first I sold stuff on Craigslist, storage bins from the kids' room - sold for $275... in one hour!

Some of you may remember that I don't wear jewelry, at all, so imagine how surprised I was that I actually liked this ring I saw in an antique/junk store!  I'm sure it's not valuable but I just happen to like it, and after talking them down to $9, I bought it!  Since I am now sewing, I just wanted something pretty to look at while pushing and cutting fabric - sounds loony, I know, but hey - it makes me smile :)

I decided to wear the ring over to another antique (mostly junk LOL) store and lookie what I found!  The  "50's Ford pickup truck" of sewing machines!  I was starting to think the ring was my shopping good luck charm.

Had to have it!

I talked them down from $98 to $65, didn't even care if it worked!  Once again, it just makes me happy to look at it!  I liked it so much in fact, that I created a little "inspiration corner" next to my desk where I can look at it and get inspired retro-style to make things!  It is sitting on the cart that I made the panels for to store all my fabric.  Upon further research, it appears to be a 1961-1964 made machine, how "mod" - I'm loving that since mid century "stuff" is my favorite.

Hubby got home from work, laughed at it, then proceeded to sew on it - it works!  Now he's pretty excited to get it all cleaned and shined up, just like that old pickup truck that he's always wanted...
- it may be my favorite thing ever!


Speaking of Mid-Century Modern, although it is my favorite design period I have rarely been able to obtain any of it due the high price of reproductions and complete unavailability and cost of the actual thing, until now....


Found at the Salvation Army the other day...  (I was wearing the ring again!)

I almost passed it by, since there was an ugly blanket draped over it with old china stacked on it, I think that's the reason it was still there, nobody had noticed it!  It needs a bit of cleaning and strengthening on the bottom, but has solid wood drawers and is just plain "me".... $60

Again, it makes me deliriously happy to look at it!  I'm done with having anything in my house that I don't absolutely love... life's too short to store stupid $hit!  (hey, that may be my new motto!)

Still wearing the ring, I headed to another antique store, where I found this train case - 

Ever since I was little I have loved these, they just seemed to always exude romance and adventure!  This one was in beautiful shape, a Samsonite covered in leather from the 60's, and the latches and key work.  I put it in my sewing/craft hallway and it now is perfect for holding my patterns...

$12

I can already see that my "someday" dream sewing room will definitely be a Holly Golightly inspired space, full of retro funky finds that inspire me and make me happy, it's my space after all!

About the "end of the hallway" - hubby built these shelves in to an otherwise unusable area of the hallway years ago.  The space is only about 6-7 inches deep so I couldn't even keep a standard bookshelf or side table there.  Now I am able to store my machines, (yikes I'm up to 3 working machines now thanks to hubby working on them!), magazines, crafting books and a basket that holds my library books.  It's also perfect for displaying a few photographs or other "favorite things".  Just sayin', there's space everywhere if you just look!

I took the day off reorganizing yesterday to sew my first paper pattern!  I know I'm psycho, who quilts before they learn how to sew?  I was SCARED!  Looked like rocket science to me.  I did it, but the v-neck on the jammies was horrible and they are a bit big, Finn looks like a tree stump in them but he is overjoyed that I made them in the fabric he got to pick out himself.  Go ahead and have a laugh at my expense :)

someone give that kid a haircut!

 (a job for the intern...)

I am almost finished putting the kids' room back together so that will be my next update, I didn't want to overwhelm you with all these photos.

One really good thing happened this week, I cleared a path to the kitchen to cook last night!

Standard freezer busting stir-fry, look at all of last summer's stuff in there - have to make room in there, spring is coming fast.

This Week's Purchases:  -$146  (furniture, accessories)
Last Week's Purchases:  -$196  (paint, painting supplies)
Sold via Craigslist:        +$275  (sold kids' IKEA storage bins)


*net spent on house refreshing to date:  $67.00

I think the ring is definitely going on my finger whenever I go shopping for bargains!

I'm still here!

Don't give up on me yet!  I've been so busy the past few days, it seems like the list of things I want/need to get done before spring descends upon my garden is never ending, anyone know of a place where I can get an intern for FREE?!  Ok, I'll cross that one off my list as un-doable.


I'm still painting every day... good news is that the whole house is painted except the nightmare kitchen job, bad news is that there is stuff everywhere, I've been working for days now on tossing things and rearranging, I hope to have photos of a finished room or two and an update tomorrow.


We stayed home all weekend, me working on the kids' room and hubby brewing two batches of homebrew.  When we finally ventured out yesterday, I was almost knocked flat by the display our local trees are putting on now, the dogwoods and pear trees are blooming, along with several of the older cherry trees.  I should have been overjoyed but instead felt this urgency to get home and get all these indoor projects done!

Front of the school

I almost forgot I needed to repot my seedlings!  I was doing this until late Saturday evening - notice how the tomatoes on the right are in danger if I don't get my butt in gear?!

Every year, the concept of "72 cell tray" doesn't seem to register with me.  I happily sow all the cells and feel confident in my large supply of peat pots, plastic containers and other vessels for repotting...DUH!  Halfway through the process I had to run to the base exchange for more pots!  It's always an emergency, I don't guess there is ever a time when I will remember how quickly the real estate needed morphs from one tray to the repotting of 4-5!  I did have plenty of pots last year, however many were for the Master Gardener Plant Sale, meaning I don't get my pots back - note to self!

Emergency!

They are finally repotted deeper and into larger pots, and are safely back under the lights.

It's becoming more and more difficult keeping pizza boy (hubby) away from my little basil plants!

We went out to eat one evening since I had no energy left by dinnertime, and I just had to post the kids' meals - I love it when restaurants make decent kid's meals!

Spotted this week at the kitchen table....

He's 8 going on 40!

I'm supposed to be framing photos for the wall today and rehanging stuff on the wall... instead I got out my sewing machine and am making the kids pajamas!  I was at a good stopping point with the house paint and really needed a day to "connect" with my new hobby!  This is the first time I have ever used a paper pattern so I'm kind of stressing out over it and I'm sure I'll be up all night doing it.  Hopefully the upside is getting that "first time" out of the way so I'll be a bit more confident next time!