Boys Room Inspiration

Love any rooms above or have any ideas/suggestions for a boys room?
*all rooms I took off pinterest*

It's a.....

For those who do not want to know the gender of our baby, close this page now.
I do have to say though, I am sure you will hear someway or another, so why not stick around. Find out! It will be fun!

 I should start off by saying that the mid pregnancy ultrasound went really well. Baby is head down and when I feel those pains high up on my belly, I can now assume, it's kicking feet.
All measurements were good. Two arms. Two legs. Ten fingers. Ten toes. a beautiful beating heart.
Baby weighs a whopping 10oz! ha So tiny. Im hoping for no bigger then Mason, he was 8lbs at birth.

SO we found out at the end of the ultrasound. Brandon and Mason were in the room watching and we saw something. *hint hint*


Its a....























BOY!

Another bundle of laughter, mud, loud screams, cars, ball throwing.
Our house will be loud.. well louder. It's already loud with Brandon and Mason.

I made cookies with blue inside to surprise some family that lives close and it was so fun to watch them all nibble away looking for that blue or pink smartie. When they finally got to it we heard BOY! ITS BLUE! WHAT ITS A BOY!!!?

 Most people...99% of family and friends thought it was a girl and he tricked you all! Well that is our news, the name will remain a surprise. Something has to be a surprise right? And no mom we haven't thought of names yet. and Krystle I will not pick Michael (no offense to all Michaels out there)

Our boys will share a room (one reason I wanted to find out) and I cannot wait to decorate.
 We are also happy to be saving some money on clothes. Girls clothes are so cute and I would probably spend too much, so I am pulling out Mason's baby clothes from storage.

With all that said, We cannot wait to meet the next little man we call our son.

Elysha

Holidays

There was a light dusting of snow this morning. That means the holidays are approaching. Whether you like the cold weather or not, the holidays are always so joyful.
I dislike cold weather a lot. A LOT.
BUT I love Christmas and New Years.
I love it because...
People are happier
Snow is pretty (when I am indoors)
Lights are beautiful
Family get togethers are my favorite
Jesus was born!
We made it through another 365 days, alive and well
and the list goes on for many...

Well I just got my Martha Stewart Living December magazine and I thought I would share some good discounts.
Most people I know do holiday cards and the majority of those people do the cards online now.

Well below are some codes to save you money :)

www.hallmark.com (JOY10 - $10 off a $20 order) (HOLIDAY30 - 30% off + free shipping)

www.vistaprint.com/xmas (currently 50% off Christmas cards through that link until Jan 12/2013)
www.minted.com (MSLIVING - 10% off your order)

Happy Browsing. Can't wait to see what you all choose.

Chalkboard Remodel

Remember the chalkboard I made back in this post?

Well I made the paint and I used sanded grout instead of unsanded grout. So the surface was like this.

Not the best for writing on.
I tried sanding it down, didn't work. So I cut out the caulking to remove the glass.

Then nailed it to the wall, I guess I could have hung it a normal way but the nail gun was right there! lol

I then purchased chalkboard paint and painted straight on the wall within the frame.

There you have it!
This is sort of a sneak peak to the playroom I am working on.


I will show you what the room looked like when we moved the couch and tv downstairs.

98% there!

The basement is still in progress but with only a few things left to do.
If it was big enough, I would invite you all over for a movie. It is so cozy down here, we love it!

Our steps along the way.

First, we moved in! A great deal of a house with good potential.

Second - demolition. Demolition revealed more wallpaper, holes from all the nails holding up the wood paneling and studs that were not the right size or secured properly. So rather then tearing out some things, we just tore out everything.

Third -Framing with 2X4 ( I did miss a step here, design what the room(s) will be, the function, layout of furniture, so everything works out when done) Going off my design, Brandon with some great help framed out the perimeter of the room.

Fourth - Sub Floor. There are many things you can do for a sub floor, some more money then others. We choose Styrofoam and plywood.

Fifth - Install doors in openings (also remember your doors when framing)

Sixth- Tape and mud the seams in the drywall (I think this is most peoples least favorite step. It takes skills, time and patience. And sanding gets messy and the dust travels through out the house.

 Seventh -wipe down walls with damp cloths. Prime and Paint.Painting in our basement included the ceiling, walls, doors and the side walls of the stairs (the risers and treads would be covered with carpet soon)

Eighth - install floor. We hired a company to install carpet and we love it! We matched the carpet in other rooms of our house, it gives everything more flow.

Ninth - Baseboards and trim. With talented help the baseboards, window casing and door trim was all done in two days. Dap was used to fill the nail holes and the top gap. I went around with a small brush to touch up the wall just above the baseboard from the dap.

Tenth - Move furniture in!

Here we are today.

Some things left to do.
Decorative trim on the inner part of the window casing. There is a gap since our house is not square anywhere. Then I will paint the trim. And finally hang curtains.
We have decided and designed in our heads that we will do a sliding farm door for the crawl space. below are some inspirations thanks to Pinterest.
Last but not least, hide the tv wire through the ceiling of the laundry room and the furnace room.

Next room - Playroom!

A Peak at basement progress

I am so excited that we have progress in the basement. The future TV room and office is coming along and I thought I would share the progress.

When we viewed the house, the basement was like this.

We tore off the wood paneling to find wood wallpaper.

Tore out all the walls, put in sub floor, put in new studs (the old studs were 1X2 or 2X2- thats wrong if you don't know studs, we put in 2X4 studs *thumbs up*)

Brandon & Paul creating the Media wall

Drywall & Mud

Sanding

Mason helped and got a little dusty

He wanted to help paint but we wouldn't let him

Took me 1hour folks! I painted while Brandon kept Mason busy upstairs. Just some edging left to do.

Curtains against wall to give you an idea where I got the paint colour from

The lights were off, sorry.

Media wall. Where the TV and such will go.

Oh and I thought I would share Masons new angry face.

Handrail

You are about to look at a lot of pictures. Well if you are interested in railings. We have had a small railing for our lower set of stairs for about 2-3 years. We haven't put it up yet because the studs in the wall are in bad spots to put brackets. So I set out to home depot and found these toggles. Not just an regular toggle, this toggle installs a tad different and 1 holds up to 238lbs! Hello! there would have to be some major handrail sliding or leaning to get through that. Brandon was skeptical as usual, so while he was working, I just did it. Like Nike.

Here are my steps.

Find out where you want handrail, mark nail holes in bracket

marked.

 

each kit comes with 2, that means it holds 478lbs! I used two in each bracket.

Drill 2 holes for the toggle

following instructions on the pkg, I inserted the toggles

see the little tab on each toggle? you are to slide tight against the wall. Left one is done.

snap off extra end pieces

Done with the toggles

screw in the bracket with the screws provided with the toggler kit

since I used 2 toggle screws, I used the black screw provided with the bracket for the last hole.

Done both brackets

Another piece to the bracket to attach the railing

This was a HARD step when you only have two hands, but I screwed in the bracket pieces to the handrail.

Issue with the toggle screws... they are silver, bracket is black...

So I coloured it with a sharpie marker

BEFORE

AFTER