Life {Lately}

Feb 4, 2014 /

Hey, guess what?! It’s a SNOW DAY! Mike is home from work – working from home I suppose – and I am catching up on laundry and house projects that need to be finished before this weekend. AKA the basement. We are having guests this weekend and I think they would really appreciate a door on the bathroom and their bedroom.

Prepare yourselves for a photo dump of this last week with Katie. We had a blast – and now we’re both recovering with a day of snow.

I spent some sweet quality time with this little guy during a basketball game awhile back. He was so sleepy but was too excited about the game to rest his eyes. He was so sweet.

We had a couple really cold days last week so before school we did some serious bundling. How cute are these animal hat scarves?! She also has a husky one… precious.

{1} a cookie nightcap
{2} kansas day
{3} wednesday night youth group
{4} crockpot meal
{5} breaking ground on the doors
{6} coloring
{7} napping
{8} kansas sunrise
{9} celebratory snow day dance
{10} SNOW
{11} SNOW

It was a great week and we are loving the snow. I wasn’t loving it yesterday when I made a quick trip to the grocery store. It was like apocalypse mixed with absolute fear had taken over all the humans. That’s the last time I go to the store the day before a snow storm!

How is your snow day? Building snowmen or snuggling up by a fire?

Happy Tuesday!
Love, KJ

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House Updates {part two}

Jan 29, 2014 /

We’ve been working with white paint a lot. I have a whole paint station set up in the basement and a room full of doors that need to be painted.

I don’t think I’ve hit “I hate everything about paint and never want to paint a piece of trim again,” but I know I’m getting close – and my motivation is slowly decreasing. So the doors aren’t painted yet, but the third bedroom is 100% done.

Isn’t it pretty? I’ve started storing things in the closet (suitcases, bags, and Christmas decorations) but I’m trying to leave some room free since this will eventually be a guest bedroom. Also, painting the closet white was a huge pain, but makes a HUGE difference. I know I won’t want to paint the other closets in this house, but I think I will grit my teeth and bear it because it makes such a huge difference! Just for comparison sakes here is the before of this room…

I’ve also started a few other projects. One of them is this bookcase.

I bought it at Walmart my freshman year of college – so that makes it 5 years old. It has been with me in every place I’ve lived since then and is beat up and ugly. The top had started to chip off and it just looked gross. I forgot to take a true before photo, but trust me, it was bad. I started with coat of primer and then two coats of paint.

I’m not sure if this is where it will stay. I really want a table like this in our entryway, but this beautiful new white bookshelf will do for now! I need to find something to fill the top two shelves though. I’m sure I’ve got something in this mess…

The 2nd bedroom is always one step forward and then 3 steps back. Right now we’ve been walking backwards for like 14 steps…

Here is one last update before I leave you… The scarf holder is up!

I also feel like I should mention how much we love our new couch. We hosted Betsy’s birthday celebration on Friday evening and spent the whole evening on the couch eating yummy food and watching Netflix.

Happy Wednesday! I hope you’re working on little things around your house that make you love it even more (assuming you love where you live).

Love, KJ

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Project: Paint Trim White

Jan 27, 2014 /

Phase two took over our home last week. Phase two and a few other projects (insert sneaky side glances here). I’ll get to the projects later.

We tackled the rest of our basement and wow! It makes a huge difference! Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lot of work. There is a long process of prep (which I’ll cover in a few jiffy’s) and the 13 corners and 4 doorways made it a lot more work than just the small 3rd bedroom with 6 corners and 2 doorways.

I’m going over the steps to prep trim from my own experience. I will be covering the actual painting later on. It’s tricky with carpet, but we figured out a trick that I think is amazing and it works really well.

You could tape off the hardware if you wanted, but since I am also painting our doors it was MUCH easier to pull the doors off and take the hardware with it.

This is a step you really don’t want to skip. You don’t believe me? Look at the picture below… That was after two rinses and starting again. Yuck!

Caulking was really important for us because our trim was never sealed to the wall. I learned this the hard way in the 3rd bedroom. There is a slim crack between the trim and the wall – after you pull the tape off there is a very distinct black gap between the trim and the wall. It was not nearly as “clean” looking as I’d hoped, but no worries, I fixed it.

Sorry about that sidetrack. Caulking is important for really clean lines. And I love those clean lines. It’s also T I M E C O N S U M I N G! This was by far the longest step besides painting (including dry time). It’s important when you caulk that you wipe the caulk off with your finger or a damp rag. I found the most success with a damp rag – more wet the dry, but not drippy. It worked great and my hands stayed clean.

Allow for the caulking to dry completely (dry time will be on the caulk tube) before you start taping. I went ahead and taped everything around the trim besides the carpet. It took a lot of time, but was worth it for me. I’m not an expert paintbrusher and the safety of the tape made painting go a lot faster.

After the tape is on then paint away!

The ledge wasn’t completely finished when I took these photos, but we got the trim done on Friday morning – right before our big delivery!

WE BOUGHT A COUCH! It’s our first big purchase in the new house! We love it and it looks so good in the basement!

We’re happy couch owners and we will soon be happy rug owners! I can’t wait to show you that.

Today starts our week with my littlest sister so we are busy busy.

Happy Monday! Are you tackling any big projects like painting your trim white? I hope so, because it’s exhilarating!
Love, KJ