Home renovation ({by the numbers}

Because I'm a record keeper and a number lover I found it interesting to keep track of how many cans of paint I bought, trips to the dump etc.

Here are the grand totals for our 7 weeks of work on our new home:
PAINT:
9 gallons of primer
12 gallons of ceiling paint (I know!!)
5 gallons of paint for the family room, halls, stairway, storage room and laundry room
2 gallons of paint EACH for; master bedroom, boys bedrooms, alivia's room and powder room, office/music room and den = 8 gallons
3 gallons of paint for the basement and stairwell
3 gallons of paint for the doors and trim/baseboards

CLEANERS:
2 bottles of pine sol
1 bottle liquid sander
6+ magic erasers
1.5 bottles of carpet shampoo (for the carpets that we kept)

OUR CLEANING PROCESS to almost every inch of the house:
Clean/disinfect
Patch
Sand
wipe down with liquid sand paper
Prime (1-2 coats in most rooms because most rooms had a dark color we had to cover completely)
Paint 2 coats (except for the kitchen. The paint we used only need 1 coat)
Wipe down baseboards and doors
Paint trim, windowsills and doors

TRIPS TO THE DUMP:
3 (for old carpet and pad)
1 for misc items

MOVING LOADS:
by Mom's van: 24!!!!
by truck 4

MOVING & CLEANING HELP:
14 family members
2 missionaries
8 friends

NEW APPLIANCES: 3

HOURS OF WORK:
COUNTLESS by so many

That is a LOT of work and a LOT of help in a short amount of time. We could NOT have done it without all of your help. Thank you thank you everyone for your help and thoughts and prayers.

Home swatches

Probably because I'm a nerd I want to keep a record of our paint and carpet swatches. Disregard if you don't need to know. ;)

Family room Carpet

Stairs and bedroom carpet (disregard the paint swatch. Did NOT end up using it)

Master Bedroom- HGSW3317 Delicate Delia **

Master bathroom, kids bath, & basement powder room- Olympic Embellishment OL669.2 **

Alivia's room and powder room- Gray Screen SW7071

Jackson's & Levi's rooms- Useful Gray, SW7050 **

Entry, hallway, family room, laundry room and storage room- Valspar Possibility 5007-1A

Kitchen and breakfast room- Caught in the Rain HGSW2347 **

Office/music room and dining room- Wintersweet Gray HGSW3487 *

Basement/downstairs stairs- Basalt Powder HGSW2457 ***

I am SO very pleased with how the colors turned out. You never know how they'll go in your room with the lighting etc. I like all of them, but I LOVE most of them. Yesss!

Our home renovation

{5.27.16}

We have been SO blessed to be able to buy this home for our family! I love this home, the layout and all the room we're going to have.

 One of the things we love about this home is the open kitchen, breakfast room and family room, in addition to ALL THE WINDOWS!! It's amazing what some sunshine to the soul makes.

The home has been vacant for 17 months and needs a lot of TLC, including a BUNCH new carpet, patching, priming and painting EVERY wall and ceiling along with some water leaks and other little fixes.

This is ALL the old carpet and pad we got rid of. It's a whole mountain's worth!

Because we had SO much work and painting to do the kids were able to help with some of it.

Here the boys are priming Levi's room.

Here are some BEFORE and AFTER shots.

Master bedroom BEFORE was a mustard yellow, and then we painted it a light smoky blue. Very calming and serene. I LOVE waking up to this color.

This is Levi's room BEFORE and AFTER. It was rust orange, and is now a light tan. MUCH better and there's no hole in the ceiling or walls. BONUS! :P

Jackson's room BEFORE and AFTER. It was a caramel brown (walls & ceiling), and is now the same color as Levi's (a light tan). It's amazing how different the boys' color looks with the varied lighting. I LOVE the color it is. Seems like the color is better shown below in Jackson's room.

Alivia's room BEFORE and AFTER. It was a gray blue and is now just gray.

Our family room BEFORE had a red accent wall. It was primed and is now all painted a light beige/gray.

These 2 cleaning supplies have worked WONDERS! Honestly!! I cleaned the doors and cabinets in the kitchen and the transformation was incredible. The easy off cooktop cleaner allowed us to clean on TONS OF grease off of the fan blades that seemed otherwise impossible. Woot woot! So happy to find great cleaning supplies to save me some elbow grease.

It took us 7 weeks and many many helping hands to do all the work we did. We recarpeted 2/3 of the house and painted every inch- all the ceilings, every wall, door and trim. My father in law was able to help us with a broken sump pump, some water issues/leaks, new wood flooring in part of the kitchen along with so many other tasks I can't even keep track of them. 

My birthday wish was to be IN the house and all moved in BY MY BIRTHDAY. My wonderful husband, extended family and friends made that possible. We moved in July 16 with  5 days to spare. BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!!

Bathroom renovation

We were able to renovate our bathroom and finished just a while ago. But first, I have to show you the transformation it's gone through.

This is what it looked like when we bought the house 8 years ago.

Jack & Jill bathroom. 4" white tiles everywhere, carpet, and thick, oriental-themed wallpaper.

A few months after we moved in we tore down the wallpaper, painted the walls red, painted the cabinets brown and then later took down the shower door. Ahhh. So much better. (Sadly I don't have a picture to document that but you can get an idea as we started demolishing it for the FULL rehaul.)
No more white tiles everywhere and no more leaky spot under the tub! Woohoo! I can breathe better already!

Looking great! New 18" gray tiles. Love love LOVE THEM!

HOLY COW! How is this possible?! Is this my house?! I feel like I'm in a hotel! My father-in-law is amazing. He did ALL of this, with a little help from us. Doesn't it look great?! We love the huge mirror that takes up that whole space. It really makes the room bigger. New semi-custom cabinets, along with an engineered quartz countertop, (custom) lights, bead board all around. Love love LOVE it all!

No more knee wall. It really opens it up. This IS a big bathroom. 

New curved tub and tub surround with TONS of storage!! Awesome!

And last but not least, new shelving unit in the linen closet. SO MUCH STORAGE! Woohoo! (Note: I was SO excited to re-organize this because I LOVE to do that! Looks great and everything in it's place.)

Thank you SO very much to my very talented father-in-law. He is fantastic and we love it all. Thank you so much! And a big thank you to our tile guy Tim and my sweet hubby for helping get it all done. It's wonderful!!!

favorites in the kitchen

I like cooking, and BAKING and here are some of the things in my kitchen that make me happy. They make me smile.
1. My cow mixing bowl. I had 2 others to nest with this one, but they broke, so now I'm down to one. I REALY love this bowl. It's just so fun and cute, and a good bowl!

2. My new Sil-pat silicone baking sheets I got for Christmas. They make baking SO nice and easy!

3. My RED toaster. When I bought I thought it was kind of flashy but I LOVE it. It's such a fun, happy piece in my kitchen.

4. This cool strawberry huller/melon baller my sister got me from Pampered Chef. It's so cool and I use it ALL the time with strawberries. LOVE IT!

5. Dishwasher! SO wonderful! I love making a big mess in the kitchen and then putting it all into the dishwasher. So nice!

Thank you modern-day conveniences and advances! You make me happy!