kitchen color

I finally settled on a paint color for the wall between counter and upper cupboard. I took it from a plate that Rebecca gave me years ago.

I think I got a pretty good match.  It adds a bit of springtime to the kitchen and makes the white crisp.  Now if only I could do something with those counters! 

Kitchen Progress

WARNING: If you like the look of shellac-coated wood, don't read this post.

When we moved in two and a half years ago, this is what the kitchen looked like:

Not bad, but a little heavy for my taste.

Then, two and a half weeks ago, it looked like this:

Also not really to my taste, who likes "primer white", and randomly placed non-kitchen furniture?

Finally, after two and a half days of solid work, it looked like this:

Hoorah! It looks so much better!  I want to paint the backsplash wall, but I'm having trouble deciding on a color.  What do you think?  Also, in my fantasy world, I get new countertops too.

Working Toward Simplicity

We live in a modest 1300 square feet.  Three bedrooms, two bathrooms.  It works very well for us. . . . for now.  I've got three girls in one 10 x 13 room.  It's a bit crowded.  Just imagine when those three girls are all teenagers.  The chaos.  The drama.  The angst.  Things could get ugly.
So I've been thinking about how to increase my living space and give the girls some breathing room.  I've spent countless hours playing on http://www.floorplanner.com/, designing endless variations on a theme - more room.
Should we add a room to the middle of the back?

Should we add it to the back corner and remove an existing window?

Should we convert the garage to a bedroom/music room?

We've gone round and round about what to do.  It's just so darned expensive to do any of it.  And the garage room would need to be able to revert to a garage if a future buyer wanted it that way instead of as a room.  Too much wasted money and effort.  I've driven myself and my poor husband crazy with thinking and talking about it.

The real fact of the matter is that the girls don't mind sharing a room right now.  We fit just fine with what we've got, and there are better ways to use our money when we're talking that much in one chunk.

My goal is to work on living a more simple life, and remodeling is not simple.

Here's another alternative using their existing space more effectively:

I'm not a huge fan of bunkbeds, because they are a pain to dress in linens.  But, it's not my room.  My girls like this concept.  It would give them space for homework desks.  It would work beautifully in their long, narrow space.  It's one tenth, or less, of the cost of a remodel.

What do you all think?

Things we do. . .

Alena received a Fairy Flower Press Fashion kit several months ago from Auntie My, but she hasn't been able to use it since we've been stuck in Winter for ages.  Now, it's Spring, there are flowers, and her creativity is off like a shot.  Check it out:
 

She didn't end up pressing and drying the petals, she just used them fresh.  This means that the dresses are very temporary, but she's okay as long as there are pictures.  In fact, she strips the dried petals off the cardboard dress form and designs new ones whenever she wants.

Today, we had some very expensive dirt blown into our backyard for instant garden beds.  Yes, I am that lazy.  A friend of Shonee's gave us a bunch of berry bush starts, and we need to get them into good soil pronto.  We don't have a tiller.  We don't want to spend hours trying to dig through sod.  Excuses, excuses.

 

I made myself some new hiking pants with actual tech material.  The first pair I made a year or two ago were in some kind of raincoat material.  Very water resistant, but not very breathable.  This stuff is the same you get in a pair of hiking pants from REI or North Face or wherever.  It's water resistant, breathable, quick-dry, khaki. Very cool stuff!  I learned from my first pair to move the cargo pockets up so they don't dangle at my knees while loaded with hiking goodies.

Savannah had a money making scheme recently where she danced and sang for us.  You can't quite see the collection jar at the bottom of her pedestal.  Emma was the costumer and makeup artist.

Montana survived and thrived in his last year of "childhood".  He is now officially a teenager!  He finally got scriptures with his own name imprinted on them.  I honestly didn't know he wanted them until he told me.  I feel like he will really care for them, because he actually asked for them and was excited to get them.

Does it ever feel like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders?  Poor kids.

We went hiking to Shellburg Falls on a sunny Saturday recently.  They have this fabulous old pump that the kids always like to have a turn on.  The water is very rusty smelling (and tasting, I assume), but who's pumping it to drink?  Not us!

Shonee was hunched over the trail with the camera about 6 inches from this guy, trying to get a shot of him with his tongue out.  I guess he got it, huh.  I was standing safely 5 feet away.  I do not like snakes.

That's our fun.  Now to plant the garden before nature does it for us.  I don't intend to grow a crop of weeds and preserve the extra for winter.

Sewing Nook

This is basically what my sewing supplies have looked like for a long while. Stuffed onto cheap plastic shelves in a corner of my laundry room.  I would pull out my machine and put it on the kitchen table when I had projects. Imagine the chaos with four homeschooling kids who also use the kitchen table for projects. And then there's the inconvenient truth that we use the kitchen table for meals three times a day.  Not pretty.

(I honestly didn't muss up the supplies for this before shot, isn't that sad.)

I hacked an idea for mini fabric bolts and made them out of foam board.  They are perfect for displaying all the fabric I have.  I might actually use it now, instead of going out and buying new stuff all the time.

I built a custom worktop to fit this nook in my laundry room.  It's just my height for sewing.  Then I simply installed a set of shelves for my mini bolts, and voila! I have a beautiful, functional sewing space all my own.  My laundry room happens to have an east facing window.  Bonus. 

 It's possible I might someday be able to match my sister's sewing genius, but she's got an entire studio, so maybe not.

The Winter Creativity Bug

The kids have been filling the gray days of winter with lots of indoor crafts and fun.  Alena decided to paint her own arm instead of having Emma do it.

Emma set up a face and body painting studio for a few days in her room.  She earned a buck or two.

Alena performed in her first orchestra concert of the year.  She wasn't as nervous as she was last year, and really ended up enjoying the whole experience.

We've had a snowy winter (for Oregon), so Alena made a snowman that lived in our freezer for a week or two.  We let him go when we thought the snow was finished for the year.

 

 Little did we know Spring Break would begin with four inches of snow on the ground!  We made a slightly larger snowman.

It was so beautiful and sunny, I really didn't mind the snow in March.

In another creative moment, Emma dressed Savannah and our friend Joshua as a prince and princess, then dressed herself as a preacher and married them.  Henry is acting as best man.

Yet another game for Emma was setting up a cafe in her room.  She had a tiny table for two where Shonee and I enjoyed a romantic snack. 

 

You'll probably see a common theme starting:  Emma likes to set things up and dress up.
 

In fact, Emma and Savannah put on a fashion show for us last week.
Who knew my little black dress would also look good on a five-year-old?

 
This is a costume I made for Alena last year for Halloween.  It already fits Emma!

Emma striking a pose.

 

I hope this girl never outgrows her flair for the dramatic and the creative!

Today we had an art show in the living room.  I was especially impressed with this drawing of a helicopter toy by Savannah.  She looked at the toy, then drew it.  Ignore the scary eye sockets at the top of the page, and you'll see the dark blades attached to the body of the copter, with the tail going to the right.  The handle of the toy comes off the bottom with the pull string on the right.  She won the platinum medal.

We found paper dolls on the internet and mounted them on posterboard for durability.  The older girls spent an afternoon designing clothing for them from my scrap baskets.

I love the dyed to match satin shoes on this little number.

This isn't a creative thing, but Savannah lost her first tooth!!!

Montana bought, built and painted this WWII german plane on his own.

So much for indoor activities.  I am ready for some gardening fun with my kiddos.  If only the weather would cooperate!

Food Storage Room Stage One

We once had a tool room.  It had lots of workbenches and shelves and was completely crowded with all of our tools.  There were hundreds of little hooks in the pegboard that lined all the walls.  We couldn't actually build things in it very easily.  This is a picture before we put our tools and shelves in.  I'm sure you can imagine the chaos.

Then we had an idea, why not use that little insulated room and put our extra food in it.  Let's build some shelves, we thought.  Let's insulate the ceiling.  Let's put an air conditioner in the window for summer heat protection for all our food.
We've built one set of shelves, still have the other side to do.  Then we get to finish filling them up!  Whee!

As an absolute bonus, our new location for the tool benches makes cutting long boards a breeze!  Hooray for serendipity!

Big changes

This is what my kitchen sink usually looks like:

I have a drainer on one side, and dirty dishes on the other, waiting to be washed, rinsed, stacked in the drainer to dry, and then put away.

. . .

This is what my kitchen sink looks like today:

Our first improvement is right here, this lovely single basin sink and pull-out faucet will greatly facilitate cleaning those few items that won't fit into our next improvement:

A dishwasher! Ta-Da!

My Sister

I went to visit my sister today with my kiddos.  We try to arrange play days when school is off.  During the course of the day we chatted and she told me a terribly funny story about her birthday weekend.  I was laughing so hard my stomach muscles were cramping.  But it was awful too.  It was such a sad birthday to have in some ways.  Just a bad day that happened to come on what should have been a good day.  But she said there were bright spots in it too.  And at the end of the day, when she was writing in her journal, she remembered the bright spots.  She looked for the beauty.  And by today, she was able to laugh while she told me all the drama of it.  She has so much talent for so many things that I can't even wrap my attention around.  She makes simple things special and beautiful with her detailed touch.  She's an awesome auntie to my girls, and my boy.  She's always willing to have a sleepover party with them, and she makes it fun!  She is a remarkably talented woman and I look up to her, as I always have, and always will.  She's my big sister, and I love her.  Happy Birthday!