Before and After

My husband did a great job of tiling the basement bathroom. Thanks Brandon!!! (For more details; see entry about the Tile Man)

Before


AFTER (Good job Brandon!)

Now the toilet needs to go back and it's time for grout.

My Tile Man

Well, Maddie overflowed the tub last week to such a point that we had a drip through our ceiling. Not great, so my husband decided to take out all the linoleum in our bathrooms and put in tile. He had tiled most of our downstairs in our Springville home, so it's not his first time. Anyway, after several trips to the Home Depot with three toddlers this week, I was able to choose out some tile. 16 by 16, light, and cheap. They were around $1 a tile. Pretty good for the larger tiles I thought. I am feeling so lazy, the weather is so great, I tried to cajole my husband into waiting to work on the tiling and just play this beautiful afternoon away. (When I get home from work, I just want to play, and that's what happened this afternoon.)
But, he's sticking to his plan, no matter what I have been offering---just kidding. I have to put in some spice every once in a while. Anyway, our van is in the shop and ouch!!! it is going to cost a bit of a fortune to fix the air, and something to do with the steering. Yikes. I sure hate being stranded. Nothing gives me greater cabin fever.

My tile man; my husband. Almost as good as a pool boy!


The linoleum

Practicing on our basement bathroom before he gets to our Master Bath

The tile from Home Depot (16 by 16)


So, since I am stranded currently, I guess I will plant some of the bulbs I was supposed to plant in Sept/Oct. I can see them starting to bloom in the bags. So, I guess it's time to plant. Wish me luck.

Procrastination at it's best.

And.....I am so excited, garage sale time is almost here. YAY!

Painting Project

My husband has become quite the master of painting. I am the queen of finding furniture at DI or a garage sale, having a vision, and then begging my husband to create that vision. It usually involves spray paint and a couple hours. 6 cans later, we had this master creation. I bought this cabinet at DI for $100 about a year ago. It was cream colored and had some hideous hardware on it. The kids decided to give the furniture a bit of charm with some markers. So, we really had to paint.

One reason I love having company come, it forces us to do some of the projects that have been stacking up! Anyway, here you can see some of the before, and the after!!! Didn't my husband do a marvelous job? Who knew pray paint from the local Walmart could make my day! Well, I guess I should include the hardware from Home Depot! It is truly amazing what a little paint can do! Thank you Brandon!

The side of the cabinet as my husband began the paint. The front of the cabinet also displayed the artwork of my children.

How it looked when we bought it from DI almost a year ago, before my kids decided to color the front with markers!


After!
With some embellishment from the darling children!


For anyone interested:
Krylon Spray Paint
Indoor/Outdoor
Satin Finish
Color: Italian Olive
(from Walmart)
LOVE IT!

Decorating on a Dime!

OK guys, this is why I LOVE to garage sale! Today was garage sale heaven! Talk about decorating on a dime! I had incredible luck in finding decor for my home----and such AMAZING deals! Why pay retail? Seriously! Anyway, I had to show my finds. I am so grateful for my husband, as soon as I returned home, he got to work putting up all my finds! He is such a stud! I really appreciated getting all the stuff up and in the right place! It puts me in such a good mood! So, here are some of my finds:

The $1 circle mirror! It definately needs some paint, but for a dollar? Are you kidding me? What a no brainer! Love a great sale like this! The mirror is quite large; you can't see my husband who is holding the mirror. Best $1 ever spent! The mirror does have to go in the garage temporarily until it is painted!



At another sale, I found all these dragonflies. Dragonflies hold special meaning for me since Benj, Maddie, and Dylan's birthmom had a special love for dragonflies. I am really loving the new look! Nothing like a little something for a bedroom semi-makeover!

$3.00 for all the dragonflies


$2.00 for the dragonfly picture



Ethan & Benjamin's new nautical themed room!
$3.00 for the shelf, 10 cents each for the sailboats and glass!

Sailboat picture 50 cents

Big sailboat on dresser 50 cents, little boats and little boat picture were 10 cents each

Lanterns 25 cents each

Big boat shelf $4.00


Aren't these iron frames so cute? LOVE them! Luckily there were five; one for each of my children! They were only 50 cents per frame! One of the glass insert pieces is broken, so I will have to replace it! (The $1 store is great for that!)




I also found these clipboard type hangers. They were $2.50 for the two of them. Lucky again to have five of the clips. That way I can display one piece of artwork for each child!




At another garage sale, I found this Mexican oil painting. Perfect for the dark stairway going to my basement. The garish colors add a light and brightness to the dark space!

$5.00


The guest room is coming along! Inch by inch we go decorating, as we find the deals! Can you believe she gave me all these curtain rods (many new in the packaging for 10 cents each? Seriously, it doesn't get much better than this in my opinion!)
Ten cent curtain rods

A great ten cents!

A $5.00 picture for the guest room


I also love square everything; plates, wreaths, you name it, so how could I resist this square wreath for $1? Maybe now the "Valentines Day" decoration can be taken off my front door!!! I need to add something to it, so we shall see!


And they say the power of the dollar is weak! Not at garage sales!!!

The Results Are In!

I had many questions about how I did in the "Hilltop Methodist Consignment Sale". I was not ignoring the questions, but rather waiting till I got the results back!!! Today was the lucky day!

Before I tell you the results, I will tell you, I was thinking I hadn't made too much money. I thought I had probably sold about half the clothing, but wasn't sure. I got all the clothes back in bins, and wasn't about to look through them all and try to figure it out. That would take math skills! And who wants to sort through an inventory of 423 items to find out which ones sold and didn't.

After the sale, and seeing all that came back from the sale, I was thinking I should have taken it all to DI as my husband had suggested. He would rather just get rid of it all! However, for a maximizer such as myself, it is hard to just get rid of all these cute clothes without benefiting in some way. I mean hey, it has taken me hours of garage saling and thrift shopping to accumulate so much junk. So, you have got to get something for all that work, right? (Don't worry about my thinking errors, I am aware of them, just unable to work past them!)

Well, I had hoped to make $400 from all the work. I fell short of that, but overall, I feel it worked out pretty well! I got a check for $321.24. My stuff at the sale came to $458.86, and then they take 30%, so $321.24 was my take! Pretty good! That should help replenish my garage sale budget so that I can have some fun this summer!!! So, sometimes maximizing works out. But I can't lie, it was quite a bit of work over that week!

The sale lasts for 3 days: Thursday night (a preview sale for volunteers), Friday all day, and Saturday where everything is 25% off.

My breakdown was as follows: Thursday night total: $189.50
Friday total: $223.50
Saturday total: $45.86

Anyway, I think I will be working toward the Fall sale! Let's face it, it is nice to get some cash, nice to get rid of stuff, and nice not to have to sit outside at a yard sale with five kids running around. This is a pretty good alternative!

Other random info: they ended up with 139 sellers and sold over $27,000 worth of merchandise. Not a bad fundraiser I would say, when they get a third of that!!!

Reclaiming the Backyard!

I think I am feeling a little kidded out!   We have been working on our backyard makeover (a constant process!)  We finally got our new gas firepit set put together, and I am REALLY enjoying some adult spaces in our yard!  It was definately time for some of the kid crap to take a hike!  So, I got on KSL, listed three kid playhouses, etc. and cleaned up our yard.  Within 5 minutes of the ad, I had three phonecalls and everything was sold.  So, if you have kid crap that you want to get rid of, I highly suggest KSL.  Anyway, I finally realized my kids didn't need SOOOO many play things, and it was time to RECLAIM my backyard!  I think the last couple years, with so many little ones, I have felt "in crisis" and have acquired all these playthings in an attempt to handle everything better.  Wow, I feel so much more freedom in unloading all this crap.  It also doesn't hurt anything to make a little cash and let other families enjoy some of these playthings!!!  Yeah, we will also have a nicer backyard for Ethan's birthday party tomorrow!  I just love to accomplish these little or big projects.  If we just move a little more in the right direction every day, maybe one day we will make it to where we should be!

Bye-Bye Log Cabin!

Bye-Bye Castle we have had WAY too long!

Bye-Bye little swing & slide


Hello adult space! It is so time to reclaim my backyard----a little bit, at least! Oh, and I know you cannot guess where we got the gas firepit or the gazebo! You get one guess, and if you haven't guessed yet, you don't know me at all and have never read my blog! COSTCO is the correct answer---once again!

A little, big blessing!

OK, I know that makes absolutely no sense, except to me, but anyway............I am grateful for the "little" big blessings!

So, our walls are looking not so great these days as a result of all the "artwork" done by our children. So, we had run out of our touch up paint, and there were no labels on that paint to tell us the brand, color, etc. So, we called our builder to get the name of the color and manufacturer of the paint. So, the builder gave me the number to the "paint" guy who happens to live in our subdivision. Anyway, I called him, and it turns out that our builder no longer uses that color paint, so he happens to have 5 gallons or so. He told us we could just come and get it. DREAMY! How nice to not have to go buy it, and to have the perfect shade. I just love NICE people like this who are SOOOO helpful. Maybe I won't have such an ugly feeling in my stomach next time my children decide to do artwork on the walls. After all, we now have 5 gallons. We better hide that from the kids, or our couches and floors might end up with "artwork".

Recycling for Money

My thumbs are hurting so bad from all the pin pricks.  What a week of work!  It probably was not worth all the effort, but hey, it is worth a try.  A neighbor, Karen, in our ward, told me about this sale they do every year in Sandy.  It is a consignment sale, done by a church.  They sell all kid clothing.  Since I always have such an overabundance of kid clothing, I thought it might be good to get involved in this sale.  So, this whole last week, even though I have also been a bit sick, I have been hanging 443 items on hangers, pinning tags to all the hangers, trying to print off all the tags and inventory sheets accurately, and hoping that I will make a good amount of money for all that work.  As a result of all the pinning, and my clumsy nature, my thumbs are feeling quite pricked from all those pins. 

Anyway, it was such a relief to get to the church, drop off my 443 items, and hope that the sale tonight, tomorrow, and Saturday, will bring in some cash.  The way it works, I get 70% and they get 30%.  Hey, to me it is dreamy to not have to worry about watching 5 kids and try to have a garage sale.  As many of my friends know, I have some "clothes" issues.  Let's just leave it at that.  I have a definate problem, especially with the girls clothes.  I create such a problem for myself laundry wise as a result of this weakness.  Anyway, this sale was for Spring & Summer items, in Fall you sell all the Winter stuff.  I am going to start preparing now for that sale.

On Saturday I get to pick up all the crap that didn't sell.  I will then be able to tell you if this grand effort this week has been worth it!  I tried to price everything pretty cheap in hopes it will all go out, but there is only so much of a need for 0-2T girls outfits.  Considering I have 4 boys, it is quite funny to think that at least 80% of what I am selling is girls stuff.  Probably too, because so much of it is in great condition, as it only went through Maddie!  Anyway, we shall see if my "recycling" has been worth it.  Goodness knows I  need to make room in the closets for my garage saling this summer!!!!

I had to laugh when I was leaving the church tonight.  There were tons of ladies waiting outside with laundry baskets, just waiting for the doors to the sale to open.  The preview sale tonight was for the people willing to "volunteer" at the sale.  NOT ME!  You should have seen them all---like vultures, hoping to get to the goods first.  Some of them had been waiting over an hour. (I can say this cause in the past I have been one of these vultures. I still have a little of that vulture in me during garage sale season!) As I left, I was just hoping that they all had little girls that needed new wardrobes!!!  Please choose items from seller #366! 

Here is some information about the sale if you want to hit it this weekend:

Hilltop United Methodist Church:
985 East 10600 South
Sandy, UT

Fri: 9am-8pm
Sat: 8-2pm (everything is 25% off)

I am glad to be done with this---time to actually mop our floor and do some of the vast amount of work I have been neglecting this last week!!!

Our Newest Project

What would life be like without a project? Relaxing, enjoyable----we definately don't want too much of that around here, so we are sure to fill our lives with projects. It has taken Brandon (the big one) a couple nights and help of a friend to put this hoop together. Now that the basketball hoop is together, I am feeling the family fun coming on! With five boys (including my husband), I think we will make good use of this! Ethan just came in and told me "I love the hoop, Dad holds me so I can make a basket." Now the key will be keeping balls and kids out of the street!




(I think the boots help Ethan play basketball better!)

Backyard Makeover

What a weekend. We really worked hard and the results are worth all that work. We bought this gazebo last weekend. Where did we make this purchase? Don't be too shocked----COSTCO, once again. Anyway, we have been trying to find the right solution for getting some nice shade in our yard. This seemed to fit the bill. It took my sweet husband all day to put this together, and with the help of some neighbors, we actually got it standing and stabilized. I have to admit, I love it! I am getting sick of all the kid toys and am definately ready for a more adult backyard. Yeah, we are on our way!

While Brandon was putting together the gazebo, I planted SOOOOO many Spring bulbs. My favorite thing. I just love to plant, plant, and plant some more. Of course, I had Maddie and Benj trying to uncover and dig out the work I had done, but it was a great family day with lots of work!

Purging!

You saw our wall of weeds.....it was time to get rid of them and lots more. So, I called our city, and for $75/day you can get them to bring out a dumpster. Of course, I couldn't get a hold of them till about 2:30 today, and they don't work on weekends, so if we had kept it the whole weekend it would've cost a little over $200. I was so anxious to get all the crap out of our yard, that we had them bring it till 4pm. They got here a little after 3, so we had less than an hour to fill it. We went to town. It was awesome. We got rid of SOOOO much; the weeds, and a LOT of garbage. SO enjoyable to purge! Feels so good. Sad to say, we could probably fill up a couple more quite easily.

Before & After

A little piece of "the before"

"the after" is much better!

You can see the top layer where we added the mulch. It makes me so happy!



I love the smell, the feel, the look of mulch. I just love dirt. I love planting. It is close to the best feeling in all the world for me. If I had extra time & money, I would love to build a greenhouse and do planting experiments all year long. All winter seems long & dreary, waiting for the Spring when I can get outside, get my hands in that dirt, and plant. I just love plants. We/I had so much fun raking 15 bags of mulch onto the two tiers of our rock wall today. Invigorating and fun. All the kids had fun around us, playing in the dirt. I have a vision of how I want this backyard to look. I want it to be a sanctuary for plants, children, and relaxation. Anyway, this is such a great time of year and I am loving it! We have got to go buy more mulch to have some more raking fun!

Spring Cleaning!

Oh what a night! Brandon and I spent the evening trying to clean our backyard out. The weeds were so overgrown on our back rock walls from last summer. We were too busy to worry about them last summer. So, I have been so anxious to pull them all out and clean it up. I am so sick of the white trash look of our backyard. So, I thought you might enjoy some pictures of our "Wall of Weeds." Literally, that pile is the pile that we pulled out from between the rock walls. I know, it is quite disturbing. We are excited to plant in there. The rock walls are my big priority this spring and summer! We also have to clean out our flower border gardens, the vegetable garden and our front garden area. It should be a fun weekend. Actually, for me it will be. I get such a happy feeling working in the yard.

Now we have to figure out how to get rid of them all. I wish it was time for the city's Spring Cleaning, but it isn't, so we will have to figure out how to get rid of our weed mountain! Any suggestions? Is it better to hire someone, take several loads to the dump? or what? Is there a safe, legal way to burn them? It may be research time!

All the weeds that were pulled! I know, unbelievable. It is as tall as our double rock wall! The weeds are so thick!

After much of the work is done!

Brandon working hard!

Daddy and Ethan!

"Mommy, you haven't sewed since I was four"

This is my "fall" inspired quilt that I almost finished a couple years ago, I have to edge it, still! (I just LOVE fall colors; can you tell?)
This is my Halloween quilt, that I finally edged and finished. I LOVE IT! It is from the Moda "Bittersweet & Boos" line I loved a few years ago. This was easy, just sewed many fat quarters together. The squares have witches hats, the word "boo" and pumpkins!
I LOVE my new IKEA drapes; look fabulous with my burgundy leather couches!
The velvet "wine" curtains were highwaters, so I bought a moss-colored velvet panel, cut it up, and added it to the bottom of each one. See, I can recycle, just not the way most people do! I love the result. I love Fall, it is my favorite season!
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My goldish drapes I got at a yard sale for $1 per panel; LOVE THEM! They look great with the green couches!
My Target deal, I found these for my formal dining area for $7 per panel.
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to sew. I find the sound of the machine so calming and soothing, and I love the creativity and fun of sewing quilt blocks together. I found it so funny when my 7 year old son Brandon came home from school and was so amazed to see me sewing. He said, "Mom, you haven't sewed since I was 4!" I thought, that's about right. He then told me how much he loved me sewing for him and he wants me to sew him a new quilt. He can be so sweet! It just makes me melt to make quilts for my babies that they can enjoy! When the adoptions began, I had started on several quilt projects. (I had a goal then to make a quilt for each holiday. Ha-ha, we won't discuss my lack of progress in this goal area.) I started with Halloween and a Fall quilt since they are my faves! I did most of the work, but just never finished the edging! (Back then I was ashamed at my ability to finish only about 80% of most of my projects. What time does for you. I wish I was an 80%er now. Now, I am lucky to get about 50% or even 30% accomplished. I cannot begin to tell you how many projects are "on the list" currently!) So, today, I was very happy, a couple years later, to finish the Halloween quilt. I have to say, this quilt is SOOOOO yummy and beautiful. I also am in the midst of finally finishing Ethan's Star Wars quilt that also had to be edged! Now, I still have to work on my Fall quilt and then I may even, dare I say, begin yet another quilt project. I have all the fabric, and then some, for a fabulous Christmas quilt!!! Oh, how I love quilts!

We have also been working to put many window treatments up around the house. I was so excited to put some new IKEA drapes up which I LOVE! Anyway, what is it about Fall which makes it PROJECT time! Who knows, but I love it! When I once again find my camera (I chronically lose things and then they reappear---perhaps the kids are once again enjoying playing hide and go seek with my things!) then I will take some pics of some of the final finished projects. It is amazing what some color, drapes, and quilts can do for a home! I was also able to use my old velvet wine drapes from my Springville home. I just had to cut up some moss velvet curtains to add several inches to my old "highwater" drapes. Now, they look new, updated, and I am loving them! It is fun to do some new projects; especially when it involves the sewing machine! I have made up for my sewing inactivity the last couple years this last week!