Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the big day! Ellie will be coming home and Eric and I will be proud dog owners! We are very excited and want to show you how cute she is! She is a golden retriever and is 7 weeks old! Have a great weekend everyone! Ours is going to be a busy one teaching Ellie all about her new home!

The craft room!

Here it is!  When Eric and I moved in, I really had no idea what to turn the orange room into.  For a while it was storage.  But when the snowpocalypse happened last February and we were all snowed in, I decided to use the time to clean the room up.  It then became the craft room.  It was still called the orange room because it really didn't look crafty or a place to create.  It was still a dark and orange room.

Here is a shot of the room when we moved in:

Doesn't it look amazing?  Yea... we weren't sure what to do with it either.

Here is what the room ended up looking like:

Nice new craft table to the left, somewhat organized shelves crammed together in the back, to the back right is junk not organized, and then to the right is the futon that felt out of place...  and the orange carpet just glares at you!  So do the wood panel walls too... yuck.

This was the awesome lighting we had too - anything on the craft table was hard to see because there was no light!  There were only a couple lights and they didn't even fill the whole ceiling tile spot:

So, one Sunday afternoon, we began the project!  And the orange carpet came up!

It was a long debate what ceiling to do, paint the existing, buy new, or keep what was there...  We ended up taking the ceiling down and deciding at the last step.  Here is the room with no more orange carpet and a coat of primer on!

Then came the paint dilemma... 

I wanted gray, I knew in my mind what I wanted, but when I got to the store, I panicked!  There are SO many grays in every shade of color!  I thought I had found the right color, I even started painting and thought I liked it, but as it started drying it looked too blue.  A very pretty color, but not the gray I wanted for the clean and crisp craft room.  So back to the paint store we went.  (That is such an awful feeling!)  But I found a MUCH better gray and as you can see below, it was actually GRAY!

The wall to the left is the blue gray and the wall to the right is the gray I wanted.  Phew.  And yes, we painted over the blue gray.  The room REALLY started to come together with the gray walls.  The room was already looking brighter!

So then we decided on the ceiling.  And we went with buying new tiles but painted the existing metal grid.  It really worked out nicely, however it was like a puzzle putting them in and cutting them.  The rafters above the ceiling didn't give you much room to push the tiles up and get them into the ceiling.  Another challenging part of the room.   

Side note - all the stuff from the craft/junk/orange room sat in our living room for about three weeks.  We joked we were on hoarders.  It really was not fun (for me - Erica).  The last few days of construction were driving me NUTS!  I hated seeing the room like this!

Slowly, the room started coming back together!  I LOVED the white trim with the gray walls.  JUST what I had pictured!

Then came the floor.  We picked a laminate flooring and Eric installed it himself!  It had some challenges as well, but it looks wonderful!

Eric also got the idea for some track lighting above the crafting desk.  It looks pretty sharp too :)

THEN IT WAS ALL DONE!!!!  So before we show the big reveal... here is before:

and AFTER!!!!!!

Hard to believe its the same room huh?  I still have decorations to work on but it is done!!!

It is usable, inspiring, and already being used for crafts and wedding invitations!!!!

So there you have it, our orange craft room is complete!!!

E & E

Craft Table

So before I show you the whole transformation of the craft room, I first wanted to show you how crafty Eric and I were in creating the craft table for the room.

This was the inspiration:

Pottery Barn Project Table

But... the price tag for that table... over $1,000

Not the price tag for our lifestyle...

So after some researching online and through pinterest, we came up with our own idea:

We got two cheap hollow doors at Menards and painted them white:

(Using our newly cleaned out basement)

Then we got bookshelves from Target:

And assembled them with varying heights of shelves:

Set them at the distance of the doors and then put the doors up for the tabletop:

And then it quickly was filled and placed in the (awful) craft/storage/orange room:

You can see the shelves hold many crafting things.

It is at a nice height for me to stand or use the bar stool.  

Stay tuned!  The next blog will be about the whole craft room reveal!!!

E & E

Basement Redo

Back in December there were a couple days in a row where it rained and rained.  It was a Wednesday and Eric and I were ready to head to Morton for our dinner with his parents and the CORE program at church.  I decided to go down and make sure the sump pump was running well and make sure the basement was doing well with all the rain.  I opened the door to the basement and could only say "oh no!"  (over and over again)  Eric was upstairs and immediately knew what I was looking at....  

About two inches of water throughout our whole basement!!!!

 Eric and I know everything happens for a reason.  And God surely was watching out for us!  Because just the weekend before we had gone through a couple things in the basement and put items such as childhood books, toys, and house decor into bins.  So all those items were safe!!!  And the reason I decided to move those things into bins?  I just had an itch to do it.  God is so good.  

We also know that this happened because we had a lot of boxes (like the one in the picture) full of junk or nothing and all of it was thrown away!  Something we learned?  Boxes for items in your house, like the toaster, blender, camera, etc... don't need to be saved.  

Here are a couple other pictures of the mess:

The sump pump... not working

You can see the newly organized and labeled bins in the background.

So... we spent the next 24 hours buying a new sump pump and cleaning out the basement.  We had a lot  of junk! (and have only lived in this house a year...that's pathetic).  Oh and guess what else what cleaned out... the mice living in our basement.  They were floating throughout the basement as we cleaned up... at least we know there aren't any mice now! 

We then spent some time getting it all cleaned up and looking like this:

But then we needed to do something with the bins.  AND make sure that if the basement ever flooded again (we hope not) we wouldn't have everything sitting on the ground again.  So thanks to my my grandpa's design he had done in my parent's basement, Eric began working on putting up shelves.  (In the spot of the last picture above).

  

He is becoming such the handyman :)  I guess you have to when your house is always falling apart!  

Here is the final picture:

Here is the entire back hallway section - we hope to redo the right side of the shelves, they are very warped, but work for now.  

And here it is!  The final picture with all our labeled bins!  Yay organization!!!!  (And yes - we already filled the whole thing!  But we really did get rid of a lot of junk!  And a lot of the bins still have room for more things and are organized into seasons, decor, and childhood stuff)

Hope you enjoyed!  The next post?  All about the orange craft room!  Get excited!  It is BEAUTIFUL!

Ps.  I think there is a way to "follow" this blog (if you have a google account) so it can alert you when there are new posts.  

E & E

  

Welcome!

Welcome to the newest blog.  It is a lot easier to use and I can even post from my phone!  AND we have lots to share and I really want you to hear all the wonderful things happening around here!

So here is a quick recap of the last couple months before I share all the exciting things happening right now :)

We had a beautiful and blessed Christmas.  We spent time with my family and Eric's.  Here are some pictures to recap:

Here was our Christmas tree and all the presents :)  We LOVE our Christmas tree.  It makes the front room so warm and cozy.  

We went over to my parents house Christmas morning.

A wonderful meal on Christmas!  (Yes... my family LOVES the Packers, if you couldn't tell!)

We got some exciting news from Eric's sister and brother in law....

This nephew just recently had a baby brother- our nephew number 3!

It was a fun age for the little ones to be opening presents!  Lots of "oooos" :)

Then New Years came and 2012 began!

Eric and I made apple nachos (a pinterest find) and they were wonderful!!!

We played games and ate the yummy apples.

Here is a fun group picture with our glow glasses :)

I even pulled together a few decorations for the night.  

It was a fun night and a nice time with friends bringing in the new year!

Stay tuned - Eric and I have had a busy remodeling year so far!  The basement was reorganized and the orange room became a completely different craft room!

E & E