Family Room Makeover

As mentioned in my previous post, this spring we spent a month remodeling our family room.  This is the "before" picture.  See the hearth under the fireplace that goes the entire width of the room?  It all started because we decided to take the hearth out before getting new laminate flooring.  If we were ever going to take it out, the time to do it was before putting down a new floor.  But the built in bookcases (and by extension, the mantel) were resting on this hearth, so that meant taking them down, too.

My hubs and all our boys, working together!

This is a blurry picture, but my boys insisted on having all their muscles' picture taken. ;)

We tarped off the rest of our house, but we still got cement dust everywhere during the process of chipping out all the bricks.

This was our bagster after just two wheel barrow dumps.

Making progress!

We lived with these two paint samples for about a month, and ultimately decided on the lighter gray color on the left.  The blue color on the right became our new school room color!

Once the hearth was completely out, we figured out how much brick we wanted to be left showing around the fireplace, whitewashed that, and then began putting dry wall up over the rest.

Doing all the final things to get ready to paint!  Painting had to be finished before the flooring guys came to install the new floor.  We did all the work ourselves, including the laying of tiles by my ultra talented husband, EXCEPT the laying of the new laminate floor.

I only wanted to move the books out of this big bookcase once, so we cut out all the carpet except the piece under this bookcase, did all the rest of the work we could in the room, and then moved the books out and lifted the empty bookcase up into our kitchen.  Once the bookcase was out of the family room we ripped up the last bit of carpet and painted the walls behind the bookcase.  This was all done the day before the flooring guys came, so we could move the bookcase and books back on to the new floor as soon as the installers left.

My husband was a rock star with the tiles!

Painting!

New floor!  I loved it immediately!

Then began the process of touch up painting, painting all the trim white, unpacking and putting together our new L shaped couch (which we were able to conveniently arrange delivery for the same day the flooring got installed), buying an area rug, and placing things back into the room.

What I have no pictures of (except this finished one) is the staining and hanging of our new mantle, and the hanging of shiplap above the mantle to make our "accent wall."  We absolutely love how it turned out!!  It is so peaceful and calming.  Less cluttered.  Enough seating for every member of the family (haven't had that in years).  TV at eye level instead of up too high (major complaint of our children for years).  It's just a room everyone wants to hang out in.  Which was kind of the goal.  Yay!

The flooring was the single most expensive part of the project, but the entire thing including the purchase of our new couch and easy chair, totaled less than $2500.

So, so, so happy and thankful for this space!

New Office

As promised, here are some pics of our new office.  The only thing missing is the beautiful new shade I plan on ordering for the window, but it has to wait a couple of paydays.  The futon couch folds down into a full sized bed.  Daughter G slept on it when she was last home, and has declared it "very comfortable!"

One of the baskets in this cube storage unit holds the sheets for the bed, and pillows and blankets are in the closet.  Because we started with basically an empty room, we got to put in only those things that were useful and/or meant something to my hubby.  So there is a place for everything, and everything in its place.

We love it!

Pre Holiday House Keeping

We interrupt this homeschooling blog to bring you pictures of my most recent deep cleaning and organizing project...our living/dining room!

Once again I neglected to take a "before" picture, so these pics may not be very impressive to you.  They represent hours and hours of de-cluttering, deep cleaning, and rearranging, and I am happy and grateful for how it all turned out!

We had a lovely old library table in the corner of our dining room, an antique piece which is very special to me, but which has a large flat surface to collect lots and lots of things.  I wanted to reclaim the dining room and make it look like an actual dining room, so this lovely antique library table became my desk in our schoolroom and our dining room instantly felt about twice as big!  We did still need to keep one computer in this room, so I bought a 2' wide table for $22.  It takes up very little space and has no big flat surface to collect junk.  Happy!

The china hutch pictured here, another special piece of furniture to me, used to be flat against the wall but I moved it to the corner.  In the process of moving it I dusted every dish and tea cup on it, remembering the history of each one and basking in the glow of some special memories.

The adjoining living room is currently used as a music room, but I re-positioned the drum kit to make a better seating area in the corner.  We finally hung the new stuff above this couch.  Little Man helped me arrange and hang it.  He was really helpful with this whole project!

I told my husband we have to have lots of people over RIGHT NOW before it gets messy and cluttered again!  haha

This room makes me smile, and that is happy.  With us mamas it's always the little things, isn't it?  

Now, something I learned in the course of this project....it may be better to tell your college aged daughter about the changes before she comes home for the weekend and discovers them on her own, because it's no longer "the way it's been all my life!" and that can throw her off just a bit. :)

I didn't know.....

...that on the same day I last posted, June 23, my sweet husband had lost his job and spent the day at the public library, marking time until he could ride the bus home as usual because he didn't want to tell me over the phone.  :(

The company said that they were "reorganizing" his department and his position, along with several others in his department, had been "eliminated."  And just like that we were unemployed again!

I didn't know.  My husband didn't know.  But God knew. And nothing else that I know to be true and real changed that day except my husband's job status.  I am so thankful that God is still God, He is still in control, and His Word is still a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

We had to spend a few days processing our emotions and grieving, because it was so unexpected and my husband LOVED his job.  I was overwhelmed with sadness for him.  After that period of processing, my husband spent several days re-writing his resume.  That was finished two days ago so his job hunt is now in full swing.

Meanwhile, *I* decided to deep clean and tidy up our "castle" in an effort to encourage my husband (and me!) and to show him appreciation for what his hard work has afforded us.  Our daily life, as you know, is somewhat chaotic.  Hence a lot of little daily chores just don't happen. Our home was in serious need of some tender loving FREE care. :)

I swapped out our two couches and rearranged the family room furniture to make the room seem larger.  In the process I cleaned every nook and cranny, and found new homes for all the junk that had collected in the corners.

Here is one corner of our family room BEFORE:

And the same corner AFTER:

Another corner BEFORE:

And that same corner AFTER:

BEFORE:

And the same corner AFTER:

And finally, the mantel BEFORE:

And AFTER moving things in from another room:

I love the family picture and the great reminder to pray!

 So now I am motivated to keep this deep cleaning and organizing thing going in other rooms in our home.  Sometimes the world beats us down, but home should be a place that comforts and lifts us up. Please pray with us for a new job for my husband soon, and that in the meantime we will wait expectantly, work diligently, and trust faithfully.

Graduation Party Projects - Part 2

The previous owners of our home put in a lot of flowerbeds throughout the yard, and they were very beautiful......when we bought the house 14 years ago.

It has been continuous work to keep all the beds weeded.  At first I really enjoyed it.  I had three little ones and I would work in the yard as they played nearby.  It worked.

But as we added more children to our family and moved into higher grades of school, yard work had to take a back seat to more important things.  This large flowerbed mocked me with its constant weeds.  I could *never* keep it looking neat.

So with our daughter's grad party coming up, I decided to get rid of this bed.  I pulled out every growing thing and dug up the lamp post.  Moved living plants to other beds, threw away the dead ones.  Moved 13 decorative boulders to other places in our yard.  Dug up the sprinkler system hose and plugged up all the little dripper hoses, then re-buried it.   Hours and hours of work ~ if only sweat translated to weight loss!

With just a large swath of dirt left, my husband leveled it and put down a base of small pebbles, then a second layer of sand.  On this he laid paver stones, and we enlarged our patio.  More hours and hours of work.

Now we have a paved area for our fire pit!  I absolutely love it and we will get so much use out of this space!

Thank you, me.  And thank you, hubby.