A sink skirt!

This process has taken forever it seems, but I finally finished off the laundry room two weekends ago with a cornice box for the window and, mostly exciting, a sink skirt for the (very ugly, but totally useful) utility sink.  The fabric sat on my floor for a good week or two before I managed to sew anything.  And then the photos sat on my camera for a few days.  And then I processed them on Monday.  And now I am finally getting around to posting them.  Just a lot of little things got in the way over the last couple of weeks!

Anyway, here is a shot of the room, which I am loving:

(I love that washboard, by the way, that I picked up at a yard sale in Ohio.  It was made by the Columbus Washboard Company in Columbus, OH.  I thought it was a nice reminder of one of the places we've been.)


And here is a better shot of just the sink skirt:

I just adore this fabric, which I bought at JoAnn's (something I rarely do -- I usually prefer to order my fabrics online from fabric stores, as I think JoAnn's quality is sometimes lacking).  The color doesn't present well on my computer screen, but the yellow is a mustardy color, which I am loving.  I think I will have to pull that color into the rest of the first floor to tie things together.  And not to pat myself on the back, but my sewing skills are getting quite good.  This skirt looks SHARP in person.  I hope that puts a smile on my Grandma M.'s face way up there (or over or around or wherever the hereafter happens to be).

The cornice box took FOREVER, but only because Jeremy would just not do it the way I asked.  Well, in the end he did what I asked, but first he had to try his own version (which just didn't work).  I am wishing we had made it a bit taller, as the ceiling is so high in the room that I think it needs the extra length.  We are NOT redoing it, though.  I might make some for the office as well, and if we do, you can bet they will be bit more substantial.

I took a ton of pictures of the sewing part of my sink skirt, in the hopes that I would get a tutorial up.  Maybe it will happen next week...

Snow!

Yes, it has been a while.  We're busy.  Jeremy is working 6 days a week most weeks (7, when are lucky enough to hit a drill weekend).  In the past month I've made a trip to Ohio (and got to meet my new sweet little nephew) as well as taking a weekend away for a church women's retreat.  Plus, the spring Box Tops submission deadline was last week and prepping all $1,400 (yay!) worth of Box Tops was a major ordeal. 

Anyhoo, mid-February brought us the rare treat of a winter snow storm!  And by storm, I mean we got enough snow to cover the ground for about three hours and then it melted.  The kids were in heaven.  The only thing that could have made it better is if it had fallen on a school day so that we could have gotten a bonus day off.  

I wonder how many years it will be until we see this much snow on the ground again?

Odds & Ends

So, I'm not sure how it has been two weeks since I posted.  In that time, however, I have gotten the laundry room cabinets finished (yay) and made a trip to Ohio.  

First things....here is a shot of the cabinets before & after:

I am soooooooo happy with how this turned out.  I still need to decorate and make curtains, though.  As I pretty much loathe shopping, I have no clue when the curtains will be finished.  If I can't pretty quickly find what I'm looking for online, I tend to give up.  And I haven't been able to find fabric that I like yet (and I am tired of looking).

I also swore up and down that I was done with house projects for a while.  However, this morning as I was cleaning the basement bathroom, I was hit was a sudden urge to demolition the entire room.  I want to beadboard the ceiling down there (which I haven't sprung on Jeremy yet).  I really should wait until next fall, as I have a lot of gardening/yard stuff that needs done now that it is warming up (FYI to y'all Ohio folks -- the daffodils are blooming here and the trees are starting to bud out, too).  We'll see...once I'm bitten with the urge, we usually have to go with it.

As a total side note, Lucy did the sweetest (and very responsible) thing today.  When I picked her up from preschool today, she announced that she brought her donut home from the party because she wasn't sure I wanted her to eat anything yugery (translation:  sugary) this morning.  Wow!  But the sweet part is that she came and found me after we got home and gave me her donut, because she knew I would like it.  I told her we could share it, which she was quite pleased with.  What a sweet thing she is (sometimes)!

Happy Valentine's Day, y'all!

Vanity!

One of Lucy's best friends is a sweet little girl with a head full of very very curly (and gorgeous) blond hair.  This little girl, of course, does not like the constant commenting on her hair.  And, of course, Lucy has become decidedly jealous of it.  She has repeatedly made comments about wishing she had hair like K.'s and that she doesn't like her own hair.  

Enter mommy guilt:  I have clearly done something wrong if Lucy is THAT concerned with how her hair looks verses her how her friends hair looks.  

Anyway....she has been begging me to curl it.  Finally the other night, at the recommendation of a friend, I twisted her hair up into a bunch of mini buns.  This was the result in the morning:

It actually looked better than the picture indicates.  And she seemed to love the results.  There are two problems, though.  One is that it took forever for me to do this -- we just can't make this a part of our nightly routine.  The other is that I want her to be happy with the head of hair she was given.  And, really, a third problem is that I don't want to tell her how to do her hair.  If she wants to curl her hair, then that should be her choice.  And if she wants to color it (some very far off day down the road), then she should be able to do that to.  It ticks me off when someone (anyone) tries to tell me that I should or should not be doing something with my appearance.  Darn it, it is my body, so butt out!

And then all this comes back to what I started with.  The little girl with curly hair doesn't appreciate the constant commenting, but it also effects the other kids.  The other kids hear, in the silence, you aren't pretty and aren't good enough to merit notice.  Just something to think about.  I know people are well intentioned, but commenting on little girls appearances constantly leaves them thinking about their appearances constantly.  (And I am sometimes guilty of this, too, for the record.)

So, I sit here trying to figure out how to balance teaching Lucy that she is beautiful the way she is, but that it is also okay to take pride in her appearance (which means she can wear her clothes and hair in a way that make her happy and comfortable).  I've yet to come up with a good solution.

...and the laundry room after.

Or more accurately, I should probably say here are some shots of the laundry room in the middle of the redo.

I really wanted to paint the room pink or purple or something else fun and different from the neutral grey/blue that we used in the majority of the house.  It's not that I don't love that grey color, because I do, but I just wanted something different in the laundry room as it is a non-public space that doesn't necessarily have to be well behaved or proper.  However, Jeremy insisted on it matching the kitchen, so I'll be adding color in the curtains and other fun touches (whenever I get around to those!).

I have decided that the counter is THE BEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD.  I love it!  You aren't supposed to leave things on top of a front loader when it is running as it can throw the machine off balance (plus the stuff will probably just shake off during the spin cycle), so I never had a good place to fold laundry. I got the idea for the counter from here.  We purchased a $40 sheet of birch plywood (that Home Depot cut for us and we have a TON of leftovers for other projects), a $6 package of iron on finishing for the front edge and a $9 bottle of danish oil.  It took two coats of danish oil and then I added 2 coats of a clear polycrylic (which we already had on hand).  For support, we nailed mdf pieces on the side walls (which we painted to match the wall and you can just barely see in the left photo below) and a bigger 2 x 4 along the back.  The counter isn't screwed down (so we can easily access the machines and water shut offs), but it is heavy enough that isn't a problem.  We also shimmed the middle of the counter by gluing a piece of mdf to the underside of the counter and sticking a strip of foam padding on the mdf (to protect the top of the dryer).  We placed this piece over the edge of the DRYER (so that there is absolutely nothing touching the washer) and so that the frame of the dryer can bear any excess weight (don't put this piece in the middle of the dryer, else it will just push the top cover down).  The counter is supported well enough that I can stand on it without problem.

So grand total, we spent about $55 (all the support lumber came from the basement), which is a far sight better than the $400 + we were quoted for a custom butcher block counter.

And, for everyone who is so concerned that I can't reach my cabinets....I previously could only reach the items on the front of the bottom shelf anyway.  Now I can reach the items on the bottom shelf completely and the stuff on the front of the 2nd shelf, too.  Sounds like a good trade to me.

I realized I had a narrower hamper sitting in my basement which I was using to hold wrapping paper rolls.  I swapped it with my old one and found it would slide between the wall and my machine.  The trash can in front in for our wet towels/rags.  Yay....no more dragging around the hamper!  And the bonus is that you can't see that corner from the kitchen, so even if the door is open the room will look much neater this way.

I didn't think to take a before picture of the opposite wall, but here is an after shot.

We previously had an itsy bitsy foot long plastic organizer to hang mops and brooms on.  I love that the new hooks (hung on a piece of painted mdf) look so much better, plus give me a TON more space (including getting my step stool off the floor).

Now to paint those doors...

Laundry room before...

I am surprised to find myself saying that the laundry room project is mostly under control.  The room is totally functional once again.  The main thing missing at this point is the cabinet doors -- they are sitting in the basement waiting to be painted.  I haven't even looked at them yet, so it may be a while.  I need to do some organizing and decorating (the most dire need being a new window covering), but it looks really good.

Since I haven't taken pictures of the (mostly) finished product (and I am just way too lazy to do it tonight), here are a few of the before shots.

I HATED the way this room looked.  And, really, I spend a lot of time in there so I should like it.

Note the hamper and step stool in this picture (not to mention the super cute handy man).  I quite literally had to move the basket and stool out of the way EVERY TIME I opened the dryer and then had to move them back so they weren't in the middle of the room.  I managed to fix that problem, which makes me a happy girl.  It is the simple things, people!

 Maybe tomorrow I will be motivated enough to clear the laundry out and take a few photos.  Or maybe not.  Yoga is the number one priority for tomorrow...my shoulder is acting up again, so I need to go.

And on a completely unrelated topic, here is a shot taken out our bedroom window last week (you can see the edge of our lawn and then the empty lot next door):

We have had a LOT of deer this year.  I think we counted something like 8 the morning I shot this photo.  And they were BIG and came right up to my house and ate my bushes.  I'm told human hair deters them, so maybe I should try that around my shrubs before they damage them.

Happy Birthday, Ross!

Last week we celebrated Ross' 6th birthday, which seems absolutely hard to believe.  I'm going to be honest here -- I am not a baby person.  I love other people's babies, but I am usually quite happy to hand them back and head home sans baby.   And I really did (and do) love my babies, however it has been a relief to me as they have outgrown that stage of life.  I know that isn't a popular mindset, but it is what it is and I'm not apologizing for it.  A room full of teenagers is far less intimidating to me than a room full of toddlers.  Anyway, what I was trying to get to saying is this:  I'd like to freeze things just the way they are right now.  The kids are independent enough that I feel like I can breath again, but they are still kids -- the boys still come barreling off the school bus with a huge smile and yell "mooooommmmmyyyyy" all the way the the front door.  Lucy is quite happy to be mommy's little helper.  And heavens, Hannah is getting too close to being grown up.  Really, where is the pause button?  

So, yeah, I'm a little sniffy over Ross' birthday.  How did he get so big?

Here are a few of his birthday shots.  I am, as usual, digging the black and white. 

Of course, he had to throw a few silly pictures in, too.

To my disappointment, Ross requested angel food cake with strawberries (which is Jeremy's usual birthday request).  Not that I don't like that combo, but I will be making it again this week for Jeremy and it doesn't leave any room for decorating.  I did talk him into letting me flavor it lemon, so that it wasn't exactly like Jeremy's.  I liked the change, but Jeremy gave it a thumbs down and told me to leave the angel food cake recipe alone.

I also found it very interesting that the kids got in a conversation that night about what they all wanted for their next birthday.  And, no, they weren't discussing gifts, but what they wanted for the meal.  (Ross requested steak this year, by the way).  I'm glad they enjoy my cooking, because I sure do enjoy the process and it makes it so much more fun to have appreciative customers!