Bathroom ... again

Well, hindsight is 20/20, and in hindsight we see that our bathroom problems of a few years ago were not caused by the toilet tank explosion. In fact, our shower door has been leaking and causing dry rot since it was installed by the previous owners of our home. We started noticing the drywall next to the shower was a little soft. We had people come look. They had wildly different ideas on what caused it, whether it was still a problem, and whether we should do anything to fix it. We didn't fix it and it seemed okay for quite a while. Then it got really soft and we decided to look into it again. The stud on the corner was totally rotted on the bottom. Ick. We got in touch with the company who originally supplied the shower stall for a DIY install. They came right out and looked at it and have been so nice and friendly through the whole thing. I broke a piece of the shower while removing one of the shower walls, and they had a replacement piece (which I'm sure is in the bill, but still, nice that they continue to carry the right color!). We've been waiting for about a month for them to get here and fix it, because it is a small job and they are pretty busy. But yesterday was the day!

They hacked out the rotten wood, and even crawled under the house to replace a little rot underneath, instead of making a huge project to replace it from inside the house.  Luckily the rot was localized and all the work we have already done was not affected by the continued leaking. They were really careful and only had to remove one base tile, which they cleaned up and reinstalled. We had already taken off a little corner one when we were exploring on our own.

They finished the work this morning. Shower wall reglued, water control reinstalled, recaulked the whole thing, redid the drywall with great looking texture, reinstalled and regrouted the base tiles. Just a really well done job all around. And since a professional installed the door, I don't think we'll be having any more problems with leaking.  Knock on (not rotted) wood.

I made my bed

I love www.ana-white.com! She has fabulously simple and stylish woodworking plans for all kinds of furniture around the house. I finally built a headboard for our bed and couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out. I simply hung it on the wall with D-rings screwed to the back of the headboard hooked onto screws attached to studs.

Oh, what do you do in the summertime?

I've put off posting for far too long. We were just having so much fun this summer! I made some collages of our favorite outings. Click on the pictures for a better view.

First, we went to LaPine for our annual Wilcox Reunion. Good Times!

 

Then, we spent a delightful 4th of July with my sister's family. Epic water fight! After we got home, we climbed up onto our roof to watch fireworks, which is not as scary as it sounds. We have a really low pitched roof.

 For our Langford Campout, we went to Quinn River for a few days. We tried out our new mini kayak and some yummy dutch oven recipes. The absolute best was fresh homemade ice cream with our apple crisp!

 

And our last big trip was with our good friends, the Palmers. We went to Paradise Campground. Bee-u-tiful river right by our campsite. Gorgeous falls and pools and flowers. Lots of hiking, but that's all good. What wasn't so good was the crazy windy road we took to a trailhead. Eek!

 

To be perfectly honest, I was sort of looking forward to school starting. Summer wore me out! But now, I'm already looking forward to the fun we'll have next year when the sun comes out again.

Update on the Langfords

Shonee and I bought a landscape print on our anniversary this year, and we needed an odd size frame for it. Since I am getting into woodworking, I thought I'd give it a whirl.  Here's what we've got.

Then I went and volunteered to build this little side table for a friend of mine. I really like how it turned out.
Since I already had sawdust everywhere, I decided to whip out this drawer divider system that fits my things perfectly. No more "junk" drawer, since Dixie Taylor said if it's organized, it isn't junk.

Montana performed as Mr. Mayor in the Seussical Jr. production put on by his 8th grade class at Howard Street.

Everyone in the cast did a fabulous job! 

Montana surprised everyone at tryouts with his charming singing voice.

Mr. and Mrs. Mayor scolding their son JoJo.

Our first hike of the year happened on New Years Day. It was freezing!! But we had endless fun poking holes in the ice layer on the little creek.

We had our annual family snow trip. The weather turned out fantastic. We took our camp stove and had hot lunch and bottomless cocoa.  That's the only way to do a snow trip, in my opinion.

Savannah spent 72% of the time with her hat or gloves off. Brr!

Sledding down the hill in awesome powder.

Having the sun come out made everything more fun, even crawling through a snow tunnel.

 

 Montana conquering the 4' snow pile. It was a rough climb.

Hooray for family traditions! This is one of my favorite, the Nativity put on by the nieces and nephews.

And of course, we have our own, exclusive LEGO nativity set. Note the trash barrel, Bethlehem was a tidy city.

That's all for now! Hope you had fun catching a slice of our life.

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?