Lorax Inspired Truffula Trees in Girls Room

The girls room is not finished yet but I just had to share a photo of the Truffula Trees that Curt painted on their wall.

The day that we went to watch the Lorax in the theater the girls had a sleepover at their Auntie’s house.  While they were gone we got to work.  We chose the colours using their existing bedspreads as a guide.  The walls were are now a light pinky-purple colour (Luca needed to have a pink room) and the trees are bright pink, purple  and yellow.
Curt is still working on the trim in the room and I have a few ideas for book and art storage that I want to complete.  I’ll post an updated photo when the room is complete.















I'm linking up to  Skip To My Lou's Made by you Monday

A Summer in Review

Well hello there.  I figured since I basically took the summer off of blog writing I would catch you all up a little before I get started again.  So here it is, a summer in review.

•  Curt celebrated his 31st Birthday

• Nollie had her 5th Birthday.

 

• I painted our Master Bedroom 

• We enjoyed both a Martin and a Buchan camp-out.  I love the family get-togethers

• We enjoyed a free outdoor yoga & nature class for kids

• Luca won a new bike at the County Fair

•  We took part in a weekly library camp 
  

• We went to the farmers market

• We played in the mud 

• We took our first two week holiday as a family

•  We went to a friend's wedding

• We went camping

 

Babies who scootch on their butt get really dirty when camping

 

• Visited Grandma & Papa Hutch

• Spent a week at Buchan's condo

• Played on Grandpa's boat

•  Both girls learned to ride a two wheeler

•  Wavy practiced her tricks

•  I played in my garden and made a few new flower beds

• We planted trees

• Curt covered the beams and posts on the front deck

• We painted the railing on the decks....again, I think we're done for a year or two.

• We (mostly Curt) put in two brick patios, one outside the garage door and one outside the walkout door.

•  We started homeschooling

•   Nollie lost her first (and second) tooth..

•  We had a great summer!

Trim - One Room Down!

After two and a half years of living in our house the trim has actually hit the walls.  We've decided to work from the back of the house forward, one room at a time, finishing each room completely as we go, that way by the time we get to the main areas we have all the kinks out. ***That is a huge piece of of advice for anyone doing any home renovation/house build projects, especially something you have never done before.  Always start in the area that is least seen. You will make mistakes and you will improve as you go.***

Now I'm sure you know that you can go to your local home building center buy trim, paint it and slap it up in your house, as long as you have a miter saw and some patience you are good to go (I made that sound a little easier than it really is.)  That's not how we chose to do it though, we like to make sure we do everything the most difficult way (Curtis likes to make sure he gets new tools from each project).  It started two years ago when we purchased a giant load of rough cut aspen boards from a local lumber yard.  The boards were fresh and had to be dried before we could use them for trim so we stacked them in the garage to dry as we worked on other projects, building a shop, landscaping, drywalling the basement and such.  When the shop was complete we moved all the boards by hand to the shop and re-stacked them to dry further. At some point we tried planing some boards flat and got a feel for how much work would be involved using the planer we had.  Before you knew it Curt was driving home with a Woodmaster (new tool) that a local guy happened to be selling on kijiji.  It is one of those machines that they advertise at the back of woodworking magazines, they call it the "Four Way Money Maker".  It was a lot of money and we had to hold our breath the first time we used it, hoping it wouldn't blow our breaker, but it didn't and it does some nice work.  Curt put a lot of time into planing boards and then running them through the machine a few more times to make trim.  We then spent about a month paining a dozen sample trying to choose the colour, everything from white to light to dark.  Curt would come home each day with a couple more cans of stain and paint a chunk of trim and then we would stare at them unable to decide.  Finally when we made up our mind the trim went up and it looks amazing.

I love the ledges on the windows

One of the questions we got from everyone that entered our house was "what are you going to do with the beams?"  They are bright orange (you can see them in one of the photos below) and they really pop out at you in their unfinished state.  Voila, a finished beam, I love it!

I even got shelves in my bathroom closet. 

We still have a few things to finish up in the bathroom, taking the photo above I was reminded of the vent cover I need to put on the wall, oops, that's my job.

Curt also made a transition strip between the tile in the bathroom and the hardwood in the bedroom.

Thank goodness because prior to that it was an ugly gap that collected dust, dirt, Polly Pocket shoes, beads, Lite-Brite pegs etc.

Next on the list, the Master Bedroom.  I'd like to paint the wall behind the bed, maybe a raspberry red colour, I'm not sure.  All the walls need another coat of paint, would you believe there are dirty fingerprints all over the walls and even a few pencil scribbles.

We need to paint all the doors, put up the trim, finish the beam.

Maybe I'll even remove the crib, and the little girl that sleeps in it.

Parking in the Garage

Finally, the time has come....

We are parking in the garage!  I had hoped to be parking in the garage this winter but Curt has an order to how things get done and since his order insures that projects get finished and since he's the one doing the work, we do it his way.  28 months after starting the house, 19 months after the cement was poured in the garage and the garage door was installed, and 16 months after moving into the house we are finally parking in the garage!

We've spent the last month moving everything out of the garage and into the shop.  We then drywalled and painted the garage and installed the garage door opener.  I then promptly swept all the nails & screws out of the way and pulled my van in.

Curt then built me an awesome landing coming out of the house and into the garage since the garage is a couple steps down from the house.  My plan is to have our family only come in and out through this door and for the shoes and boots to stay in the garage.  Are you reading this Nollie & Luca, no boots in the house!  I would still like guests to use the front door so if you come for a visit don't feel like you have to come around to the back.  The stair coming off the landing is at an angle so that if I park too close (like I was in the above photo) we are able get down in front of the van and around on the drivers side.

The landing is complete with two benches and built in shoe racks.  I also have storage under the landing for out of season shoes & boots that perfectly fits some of my Rubbermaid bins.

Curt also built me two sets of shelves to store our camping and sports equipment and I'm quickly filling them up.  Next will be getting the bins for garbage, recycling, bottle depot & compost set up so that I can reach them all right off the landing.  I also want to put some coat hooks on the wall by the landing and hang so sports equipment up on the walls.  Ahh, I love it, so exciting to see things getting finished and organized.

Decorating

We've been living in our house for over a year now and the answer to the question you want to ask is no, it is not finished and no, the baseboards are not up. In addition I had not hung any pictures on the wall or really done any decorating.  Partly because it's not my thing and partly because the house was not "done" yet.  After Christmas I decided however that I would get started on beautifying my house.  I would try to do one decorating thing a week and this seems to be working for me.  It is not so overwhelming when you only have to think about hanging one picture.  I have also allowed myself to let my perfectionism go.  The picture looks much better hanging anywhere then it does sitting in a pile waiting for me do decide on the perfect location. 

I hung these curtains (which I already had) on a rod (that I bought long ago) in my bedroom.  They may not be perfect, but they will work for now.  I couldn't believe how much nicer the room felt with the curtains hung up.  As a bonus it helps to hide the unfinished edges of the window.

I put up the wall clock that my brother got me for Christmas.  I love it and look at it all the time but I guess I don't think of it as a clock because I'm always looking elsewhere to see what time it is when the clock is right in front of me. 

I was inspired by my Sister to hang up some picture frames even though I don't have photos in them yet and then add the photos after.  The frames look so nice and seeing them every day on the wall might even inspire me to get some photos printed to put in them.  Who want's to make a bet that next year at this time the picture of the flower with 8x10 printed around it is still on my wall.

The girls room got some curtains hung (purchased long ago as well) to replace the blanket and tablecloth that have been covering their window for the last year.  I have yet to shorten the curtains, I can't decide on the "perfect" length.  Agh, there's the P-word again, maybe I should just do that today.

End of Summer Randoms

Well summer flew by, I can't believe there is only a little over a week left of September. 

Since my last post....

We spent the first week of September at the Buchan Condo in Sicamous.  We enjoyed a relaxing time of reading and putting our feet up.  The girls enjoyed swimming every day in the pool.  We got out on the boat a couple times and enjoyed being the only boat on all of Mara Lake.  Nollie loved being out on the boat and riding on the tube.  This excites Curt because he can see 10 years into his future when his kids want to be out boating and riding as much as he does.

 

We said farewell to my sister Shelby as she took off to travel Australia with a friend of hers.  I'm sure she is having a fantastic time and we will see her when she returns next spring.

Curtis & I also celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary, OK, so we didn't really celebrate, we poured the cement pad for our shop that day and if it wasn't for calls from family we may have forgotten on the actual day.  We knew it was coming, I guess we're just not so good at staying on top of what calender day it is.

Baby #3 is growing well and kicks me all the time.  I'm 28 weeks now, 3 months to go.

The girls are fun, fun, fun.  Nollie started asking why to everything and I'm sure it was on her 3rd birthday that it started.  Luca started the why's shortly after so I have two girls that just question everything.  They are just learning, learning, learning.  They have both been enjoying riding around on their bikes and they both want to get outside even more now that they have figured them out.  Nollie has also figured out the teeder-totter on the swing set and gets it just rockin'.  It's great because both Nollie & Luca can get on and they don't need me to come push them every two minutes like on the swings.  They play together really well most of the time.  They have their spats but they also have times where they nicely use manners or techniques they've been taught to sort things out on their own.

My garden has been good to me, we've enjoyed the lettuce, onions, potatos, zuccini, beats, beans, peas and tomatos.  My strawberries have been producing but the grasshoppers get to them quicker than I can.  I've mad a couple batches of tomato sauce already and it has been fantastic.  There are still alot of green tomatos on the plants so as long as they don't freeze I will have quite a few more batches to make.

The Saskatoons, both wild and tame were plentiful this year and so I picked and froze, picked & ate, picked & froze, picked & ate.  We have tonns of wild bushes on our land but they are still young, in a couple of years they will be good producers, that and the 10 tame ones I planted this year.  I love saskatoons!

House Update
We covered the decks and put up railings on them so they are now usable & I don't have to worry about kids falling off and breaking their neck anymore.  I still have to paint the railings, maybe next week I can tackle that.

We built proper stairs off each deck, also a bonus since I no longer have to assist the girls in getting down the front stairs.

We finished the parging on the exterior of the house (the area just below the siding)

We have the cement pad poured for our shop and plan to push up the shop next weekend, hopefully.  The pad has been a great riding arena for the girls on their bikes in the mean time, they have both greatly improved their bike riding skills since we put it in.

Other than that we've just been living life, making our messes & cleaning them up.

July Randoms

Sorry I've been so bad with the posts lately, I guess it's lazy summer mode.  I've got some ideas for posts floating around in my head but they just haven't made it onto the computer yet.  Here are a few tidbits to keep you up to date.

1. Our current house project has been the parging (the area outside your house between the siding and the ground).  I didn't realize how much it would finish off the exterior of our house, it looks great.  I can no longer see any sign of foam basement or Home Hardware paper just a finished exterior.  As with nearly every other project this one has involved some hurdles and taken much longer than we imagined but we should have it finished up by the weekend.
   
2. Our grass is coming in well, there are lots of weed throughout but with it all cut it looks like a lawn.  There are some patches of just thick grass and no weeds.  The girls & I have even started running around in our bare feet with no shoes on outside, its like Heaven.
3. We've finalized our mortgage & worked out all of that business.  We ended up saying goodbye to the bank that didn't think we were 97% complete and wanted to see all the trim done first and have switched over to our home bank and have a regular old mortgage instead of a builders mortgage.  It is so nice to finally start paying off the money we have spent rather than just paying interest and now we can leave our baseboards unfinished forever if we choose.
4. We've been enjoying lots of visiting lately with close friends and extended family.  It is so nice to get together.  Sometimes the hermit in me is just so happy to hang out at home that I don't make an effort to get out and visit and I should, I enjoy it. 
5. The girls just continue to grow and play.  I'm so happy that they are so close in age and have eachother to play with every day.  I love to hear them running around and giggling or to see them sitting and playing together and my heart almost skips a beat when I hear them in another room using nice manners with eachother without any reminders.
6. The garden is doing great, well except for the carrots, I think I have two growing carrots, boo.  We've been eating lettuce like crazy to keep up with it before it bolts and it tastes good, a lot of time with home grown lettuce it tastes really bitter or just like grass but this stuff tastes OK.  This weekend I dug around and we ate our first bit of baby potatoes, they were amazing, ...amazing.  We have grasshoppers like crazy but so far they haven't eaten too much of the garden, I hope they stay away.  Tomatoes, they're coming, still green but I have lots on the plants and many more plants flowering, looking forward to a tomato extravaganza this fall.
7. Curt has been swimming 1 mile atleast twice a week at lunch time  for the last 4 months and I'm so proud of him for keeping it up.  He started with whatever he could, maybe 10 laps stopping between each one to catch his breath before going on to the next and each time he went he kept adding one lap until he was up to a mile, now he's just working on getting that mile a little faster.  He's my hero.
8. Me, I'm just doing my regular thing, reading, laundry, keeping the girls entertained, baking, thinking about but not actually sewing, on ocasion knitting, watching movies, playing in my garden.....regular stuff.
   
9. Just watched a deer walk through our back yard,... I love this place.
   
10. I've added a link on the left side to subscribe by email.  If you wish to sign up you can receive Ranch on Relaxo posts right to your inbox each day that I post them.  That way you won't miss any of this exciting business going on at the Ranch.

Grass

From this angle, it this lighting, it almost looks like we have a lawn.

Another Weekly Update

• We finally called for our final electrical inspection and other than a couple small things to fix up that is complete.
• 94%.  That's what the bank says we are right now, they can't just give us the extra 3% so we can close our effin mortgage.  Friday was not a good day when we heard this and we were about ready to just quit everything.  Still a touchy subject in this house.
• Curt got his first golf game of the year in and the girls and I got to visit with friends.  This helped us not to think about the above on Saturday.
  
• We enjoyed a beautiful Saturday & Sunday working outside in the yard.
  
• We got our lawn all seeded Sunday just before it started to rain & snow.
• We took a giant, double load of garbage to the dump, including the crate of garbage that has been in our back yard since fall.
• What would May long be without snow.

• The snow allowed us to burn the growing pile of scrap wood in our back yard.
• Curtis told me to look the other way while he threw a number of items I would not normally allow him to burn on the fire.  Although I didn't like the pumes of black smoke I was relived to see the stuff go.
• We spent Sunday evening and Monday organizing and sorting through the garage and basement.  It is so nice to have all the tools in one place, why couldn't we have done this earlier.  Now maybe we will be able to find what we are looking for.
• I'm busy prepping for our garage sale this weekend, so much to do for tomorrow.
• The basement is looking really good, I'm finally getting somewhere, much better than this.  I'll try to post some photos next week when I finish getting it cleaned up and all the garage sale stuff is out of there.
• I had my first shower in our bathroom since we finally got the shower fixture installed.
  
• Of course the girls are doing great, they play together so well and they love to be outside.  The snow, wind, rain it doesn't bother them, just let them out the door.  By the end of the day they are grubby, grubby, grubby, but I know they had fun.
  

Complete Tiling, Check

Curt had Friday off of work and we were able to knock one more item of the to-do list, a big one that's been lagging on and on and on.  The tiling.  We tiled the backsplashes in the laundry, kitchen & en-suite, around the jet tub and then grouted everything including the shower in the en-suite. 

Also this week Curt installed the last 3 sinks and toilet, finished up some behind the scenes plumbing work that the inspector wasn't happy with and started installing closet doors.  Curt seems to have gotten his drive back, I'm quite sure mine is still missing but since he's working, I'm working.    The progress means:

• I get to return my parents tile saw that I've been borrowing since tiling began in November
• All of the tools were moved out of the house, into the garage
  
• Less chance of sleeping on sand.  All of the grit from an unfinished ensuite woud get tracked into our bedroom and it was the last thing we stepped on before getting into bed.  Clean sheets didn't last one day.
• I had my first bath in the jet tub since we finished the main bath in February, wonderful!
• We get to close our plumbing permit
• I now have 5 sinks & 3 toilets to clean.  Who's idea was this?
  
• Only trim & closets to finish on the main level, plus lots of touch-up painting and a few other things I'm sure.
  
• Let the outside work begin.  Cleanup, landscaping, gardening, decks.
  
• 97% done????  We will see in the next couple weeks.  Show me the money.
  

Siding Complete / My Girls

We've now finished the siding, its complete, done!

On a separate note here are some photos of the girls I took today.