Boy's Bedroom Update - Let's go!

Last year or so we did quite a bit with our daughter's bedroom.  It's been tons of fun to do projects in there - big ones & small ones.  A quick rundown of projects - built out the closet, painted, new trim, created a memo board, and other stuff.  It's not done either (nothing ever is LOL), but it's time to shift our focus a bit.

Poor Chris.  He's suffering as the second child (not really).  His bedroom used to be Sarah's room, so when she moved out into her big-girl bedroom, the walls were princess purple.  And they have remained princess purple ever since.  Painting it wasn't the highest priority because of a few things, not the least of which was that Chris was an extraordinarily destructive toddler.  I didn't want to scrub, patch and paint walls only to have them dinged, scratched, and scribbled on immediately.   Well, the time has come!  The room has been adequate but a bit sparse in furnishings (but safe for his whirlwind lifestyle).  He's grown up a lot though in the last year and a half and now that he's approaching his fourth b-day, I think we can safely bring a few things back for him! The first thing we need to do is take a look at what we're working with - BEFORE PHOTOS!!  Jason already started patching up the holes & imperfections in the walls so that's what all the white stuff is :)   ENJOY!

The room is long and somewhat narrow.  Plenty of space for everything we need - bed & dresser (we are keeping what we have for now), toy storage, book shelf, and plenty of space to play!

Kid Fun - Sorting Beans!

I'm not one of those bloggers who spends their days coming up with unique/cheap/sensory games for their kids.  My kids play video games.  They play with legos.  They play with my phone.  Every once in a while though, I come up with something a little different.  Today it was an inspirational bag of mixed beans from the grocery store!

I hate beans, so when I saw this bag of beans, it looked more like arts & crafts materials than food, but it can be a sensory toy too.

  It's a pretty simple idea - dump some mixed beans onto a tray or bin (or onto a table if you're brave) and have your preschooler sort them by type, size, color, shape...  it's up to him & you. 

 
We sorted into an ice cube tray because I had one handy, but you cold sort into an egg carton, a muffin tin, little bowls, or even just piles.  The idea is to work on concepts like big/small, same/different, colors, shapes.  And it's fun for kids to play with them.  They have a nice tactile feel, too. 

With the stormy, snowy, icy, cruddy weather we've had, this was a fun and easy indoor activity for a bit.  

Kitchen Reno - Cabinet Craziness

Well, we've had some fun around here in the last few days.  
Friday morning the cabinets were delivered.  I should have taken a picture because it was a really impressive stack of boxes in the garage.  See that word "was" in that last sentence.  Yeah, the stack of boxes is gone.  I know what you're thinking, "boy that was fast!"  and it totally was because Saturday morning Jason's brother, Kevin came!  
Cabinet weekend was 2 long days of cabinet hanging excitement here.  Kevin, who is a carpenter and has done this stuff before many times, was able to lend his expertise.  We'd have been up a creek without his help.  
At the end of the first day they had all the wall cabs and half the lower cabinets hung on one wall, including the crown molding.  One thing to note (that I didn't know before) is that if you're doing crown on your cabinets, you probably need to add a nailer to the top of the cabinet boxes so you have something to attach the crown molding to.  Once the moldings are in place, you won't see the nailer at all.

Here's a progress pic from early on Day 1:

And at the end of the second day they were done!  The days were long (Sunday night ended at 10:30 PM - sorry neighbors!) but in just 2 days, the two of them completed work that would have taken WEEKS with just Jason and I to work on stuff on Saturdays and Sundays.
Before I show you how it's looking now, let's take a look at what it looked like when we bought the house...

And here it is now...

Note that none of the doors are on right now - we decided to leave them off until after the counter tops are done.  I don't want to risk a ding/scratch in a door during that whole process.


I'll have more pics once things are more done (counters & doors & drawers and whatnot).

Side note - if you do find yourself with a lot of boxes like we did - you may want to also get a big roll of tape and let/help your kids to build a cardboard castle.

Getting Away

I'm not quite sure how we got to the 12th of August before I realized, but wow it's been over a month since the last post!  Typical for this time of year, things at our house have been busy with the pool and a trip to the beach.  All in all I was there for about 2 weeks with the kids.  Here are some highlights!

We are big fans of south Jersey and the beaches there.  In addition to days on the beach we made it to mini-golf, the zoo, out for ice cream and the boardwalk to ride some rides.
The best part of any vacation is coming back home feeling refreshed and, for us, refocused.  We're recharged and ready to rock and roll on the kitchen.  Look for updates soon!

Springing Up the Front Porch

Well, this is more spring and summer (if I can remember to stay on top of watering and the plants don't die).

If you recall, last year I put out a few potted plants on the front porch.  I went cheap and got 2 plastic pots from Home Depot, drilled holes and put a bright pink geranium in each one. They were bright & colorful, but too small to be the star of the show on the porch.

This year, I needed to go a bit bigger.  I had spotted these pots at Ikea:

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And I truly fell in love with that blue color.  Last year's pots were yellow and I really love a blue & yellow color combo, so I picked up 2 of these bad-boys.  They were pretty big without being ENORMOUS.  And at $15/each the price was right.

Planting up the big pots was pretty simple.  I drilled a few holes in the bottom of each pot to allow for drainage of excess water.  Then I put a brick in each one (to prevent tip-over).  A bit of potting soil and then a few flowering and green plants and it was done!

Here's how they looked:

I made matching planters for each side of the porch.  Here's the look from the yard:

I'm starting another bigger curb appeal project, so I'm holding off on any from-the-sidewalk photos until that's more done.

What kinds of outdoor spring spruce-ups do you have going on??