Playroom Update!

We're finally making some progress in the playroom.  I've been slowly chipping away at the task of painting all of the trim white, and I've come to two realizations:

1. Painting windows is very tedious
and
2. I probably should have used primer.

But, live and learn, eh?  I actually thought for half a second before I started that priming might be a good idea, but then I discovered the nearly full gallon of white semi-gloss in the basement, and thought:

go out and buy primer (and therefore delay the start of the project)
or
jump right in and just start with the paint (not spending any money and getting immediate gratification?  It's a win-win!)

Obviously I opted for the latter.  So, two coats in on most of the trim, and it looks like a third will need to be applied (dag nabbit!).  That being said, I'm loving the white trim.  Makes the whole room feel lighter and brighter.

Then I got this great idea to make valances for the windows that look like puffy white clouds (why is it that every project I start becomes more and more involved along the way?).  So I've been playing around with a piece of white fabric I had laying around (me?  have spare fabric??  never!!), and I think I've got it pretty well figured out.  But, I will need more fabric to make three valances, so off to the fabric store I go.  In the  meantime, here's a little sneak-peek at the grassy hills, which I did finally manage to finish up this weekend:

April Recap

Wow, was April ever a whirlwind of a month!  We've had a lot going on this month, and I haven't had a moment to blog about any of our house projects.  So here's a little recap of our April:

1. Realized that painting the exterior of our house might be a bit more than we are capable of doing on our own this summer.  So...
2. Got several estimates from painters.
3. Raked and bagged more leaves.
4. Seasonal allergies kicked in (ugh!)
5. Fixed our broken garage door (well, I should say a temporary quick-fix...I expect we will have to revisit this little project again soon)
6. Put up a baby gate and baby-proofed the playroom for a newly mobile baby b.
7. Discovered half of our lawn is dead (more on this another day)

8. Continued sewing the rainbow quilt.
9. Started painting the play room (here's a little sneak peek:

I'm loving the blue, but I still have to get the green paint for the grassy hills, and...
10. I realized that I definitely want to paint the trim white in the play room (of course!)
11. Shuffled some furniture around.
12. Thought we had finally gotten rid of all of the squirrels above our attic (did I mention we had squirrels above our attic?  More on this another day)
13. Raked and bagged more leaves. (really?  more leaves??)
14. Washed the siding on our front porch (here's a pic of it half way done:

 


What a difference, eh?)
15. Heard something scurrying around above our attic and realized that we were wrong about #12.
16. Planted some grass seed in the mud pit (what I like to call the fenced area behind the house where there is nothing growing except for a couple hostas along the side, and apparently where some previous inhabitants had chickens!)
17. Pruned a few tree branches.
18. Passed an annoying cold around our family.
19. Realized we did not do a thorough enough job with #6 , so we moved more things around and out of the play room.  (As a side note, quite surprisingly, this is one of the most injury-producing items in our home:

because, you see, kids don't just sit on it.  They jump on it.  They climb on it.  They lean on it until it tips over and they land flat on their faces.)
20. Raked and bagged more leaves. (seriously, how many leaves do we have?!?)
21. Decided to start a children's music band. (because, you know, we don't have enough to do already!)
22. Found an almost full gallon of white semi-gloss paint in the basement. (score!)
23. Used newly found paint to paint a board for a height chart.
24. Installed newly made height chart board on wall, and began recording heights.
25. Celebrated baby b's 1st birthday!  (hooray!!)

So there you have it.  All in all, I'd say it was a good month, and I feel like we got a lot of little things accomplished.  We'll see what May brings!

Spring Clean Up and More Quilt Progress

We've been pretty lucky weather-wise so far this spring. With some unseasonably warm days last week (in the 70's in March?? Usually it's still snowy!), we were actually able to get outside and start cleaning up the yard a bit. So we raked up some leaves (9 bags full, to be exact), and unveiled some of the landscaping.

I knew we had a few crocuses, as they had already made there way up through the covering of leaves, and I was excited to see some daffodils popping up too. I think there may be some irises and lilies as well, but it's a bit early to tell since they are just barely coming up out of the ground. It will certainly be fun to see what else we have growing.

Then over the weekend we got a reality check when the weather went back to more typical March temperatures (40's and even some snow this morning!). So I decided to go back to my big indoor project of the rainbow quilt. Getting it all laid out was quite the task (1008 squares and no definite plan for how they'd fit together...what was I thinking?!?). I had to shuffle the squares around a lot to get the stripes even and blending together nicely. And of course I hadn't cut quite enough squares, and of course I didn't have quite enough of one of the colors, so I had to go pick up one more fat quarter to fill in the gap. But all in all, I'm quite happy with the progress, and also with how much of my fabric stash I have been able to use in this project.

Anyhow, I did finally get it all laid out and have even started sewing! Yippee!! And in the process, little g is getting her first sewing lessons. She was very curious about my sewing machine and iron, and asked me all kinds of questions them, wondering how they worked. I guess it's time to find a simple sewing project for her to do and start learning some mad seamstress skills. But for now, she's happy to help line up the squares after I've sewn them together. It's nice having a little assistant!

Playroom Plans

I love having a playroom.  I pretty much knew from the get-go that we would be able to have a playroom for the girls in this house, and where it would be.  At some point in this house's history, an addition was put on the back.  So straight behind the kitchen is a little laundry area, off to the right is a bathroom, and off to the left is this extra room.  Perfect place for a playroom!

So here's a few pics of the playroom in its current state:

While the color of this room is not intolerable, as you can see, it is a bit drab for a kids playroom. I feel a playroom should be cheerful and vibrant and happy, not dull and muted. So we will definitely be painting it soon. I was talking with little g about painting and suggested we get creative and paint grassy hills and blue skies. She loved the idea, and thought we should add a rainbow on one wall.

So here's a couple of rough sketches of what I'm thinking:

As for the rainbow, we're still debating whether to paint the entire rainbow, or only include a section of it. I think we're leaning towards a section of it. What do you think?

I'm thinking we will probably paint all the trim white as well, but I haven't decided for sure yet.  And I'd love to put in a new ceiling fan/light fixture and new flooring, but I have to keep reminding myself: one thing at a time...one thing at a time.  So for now, the next thing on the agenda will be deciding on the shades of blue and green.  Off to the paint store!

Quilt Progress

So I'm a few weeks into the rainbow quilt project now, and I'm pretty excited about the progress I have made.  There have, of course, been some setbacks (there always are, aren't there?), for instance, not being able to find my rotary cutter.  I looked in every place I thought I would have packed it, and I kept finding all these extra blades and even a couple of blade sharpeners, but no cutter.  So eventually my sweet hubby just ordered me a new one.

Once I got my new cutter, I could get to work cutting all those squares (1008 to be exact).  Of course, being that I am trying to use up a bunch of scrap pieces of fabric, I didn't really have a definite plan of how many of each color I would need.  So I just kind of winged it and started cutting away.  And of course I didn't keep track of how many squares total I had cut (what fun would that be?!?), so I'm at a point where I need to start laying them all out to see where I stand.  So for now, here are the rainbow quilt squares:

Oh, and that missing rotary cutter?  I just found it in my box of thread.  :\

Our Front Porch

When we first looked at our house last summer, one of the first things that I fell in love with was the front porch (seriously, the columns, the bench swing...how could you not??).  It's a beautiful porch, but it certainly has seen better days (note the dirty exterior and chipping paint).  We will definitely be needing to give it some love, but living in Maine, it's just a wee bit chilly to be doing much of that kind of work outdoors right now.   So as eager as I am to start sprucing up the front porch, I guess it will have to wait a bit longer until it's consistently well above freezing.  But I still wanted to share some photos of our lovely porch, so consider these the "before" pictures.

 

The Redecorating Begins

We were pretty fortunate that when we moved into this house there weren't any redecorating projects that we felt we would need to do immediately.  Sure, some of the paint colors and wall paper wouldn't have been my first choice, but they certainly wouldn't have been my last choice either.  So it was nice to just move in and get settled before diving into redecorating.  But now that we are getting more settled, I'm itching to get started!

I promised little g that her room would be the first room we would do this spring.  Since we're still a ways off from being warm enough to open up the windows and paint (it was a balmy 42 degrees today), I've been thinking about bedding.  She recently saw a quilt I had made for someone, and was fascinated by it, so I decided that I should make her a new quilt for her new room.  In typical me fashion, I scoured the internet for some ideas (collecting them on a Pinboard, of course).  After first she had said she wanted a frog quilt, then she saw one with ladybugs and daisies that she liked a lot, but then she saw the rainbow quilt.  She got really excited and said, "I want that one!".  So rainbow quilt it is.

So I started digging through my fabric stash.  I didn't really have a proper workspace at our last house, so my art/craft/sewing supplies were scattered around (a few things in this closet, a few things in that closet, some in a corner here, some packed up in the basement, etc, etc).  Now that I have everything all in one spot, all I can say is wow.  I didn't quite realize how much stuff I had accumulated over the years.  After the initial shock, I was pleasantly surprised at how many fabrics I found that could work for this project (using up my stash and saving money...can't beat that!), and I had a pretty good start on a rainbow:

But it wasn't quite complete, so we headed to the fabric store to pick up a few more fat quarters to fill in the gaps:

So now we have this:

Now that I'm looking at the stack, I'm not sure if I'll keep that dark green in there or not.  Looks like it might stand out a bit too much.  But all in all, I'm pretty please with the rainbow.  Now to start cutting!