{Lily's Big Girl Room} Windows

This past Tuesday saw the start of Lily's Big Girl Room Remodel as my dad and his helper (my cousin Pat) started it. Doug and I had already taken down the ceiling fan (which will be reused) and removed the drop ceiling and the almost 1000 staples, not to mention cleaning it out which was a struggle because we used it to store pretty much everything.

So... my dad and Pat came over and started ripping things out. The removed all of the window trim, door casings, and baseboards. You can read about the details of everything here and see the plan of how it'll look here.

By the end of the day, the room had new windows!


This is the South facing window (it'll look out on our neighbor's house and their driveway so something pretty in front of it - a free standing trellis or something - may be necessary. Curtains for sure though. 

What happens when you take out the old windows... lots of junk.

Side view. Sorry it's hard to know what you're seeing, but you're looking at the wall where the window side was placed (and of course, more wallpaper).

Our front porch and the opening from the window. The maroon-ish plank of a wall (on the right) once was a door opening but is closed up now. I mentioned this in with the details post.


My dad removing the weights that were a part of the old windows.

Sorry I don't have a post of the window for the porch side. They use it to move things in and out of but will take one when it's all done. The porch swing will be back up in front of it so I'll get a photo of it before we hang that baby back up.

{Lily's Big Girl Room} The Details

After reading through some of the other posts about Lily's Big Girl Room Remodel (yes, that should be in all caps as this is a big event!), I realized I'm leaving out some details.

One - the room is the front bedroom in our house. It's the South East corner of our house for those interested. It's off the teal hallway.

Two - there are two windows in it and used to have an exterior door as well. That was blocked up before we bought the house but done so poorly, so this remodel will help fix that.

Three - yes, we're making the room smaller. This will benefit all of us as we are using the old closet for additional space in a future bathroom makeover (the share a wall and it's much needed!). She is getting a new closet, just two feet out of from the existing one. It'll all be fine.

Four - she has two closets in her room. The new one will be for clothes, shoes, and additional storage. The older existing one (original to our house), will be used for games and toys. We used it for everything through the 6 years we've lived here but it'll be a nice place to hold all of the board games and toys for both kids.

Five - the plan is here. She will have bright pink walls, board and batten (at 4.5 feet in height, more details to come), white trim, wood furniture (that we already own) and fun details that are still to come.

Six - here's the reason we're doing this... Our house is pushing 90+ years. It's all brick and the walls are two layers of brick with a small spacing between (one being the exterior, one inside). The inside layer of brick is covered in plaster (and obviously that was covered in a ton of wallpaper). There is no insulation like modern homes. The windows are also old and one has a crack in it. So in creating this remodel, she is not only getting insulation, she's getting two new windows and the door hole (mentioned in #2) will be properly fixed up as well. It'll be a nice, warm (or cool, depending on the weather) room.

Seven - we are looking into security systems because that's just the safe thing to do now that her windows will be easily opened and one goes to our front porch. For the time being, we have two overly protective parents (and 4 grandparents), a few guns with ammo, and a 100 lb dog that loves Lily and will do anything to protect her. So, strangers who are reading this, you've been warned. :)

Eight - maybe the most important one - my dad, who I've mentioned a lot on this blog - is an experienced carpenter. He started working in carpentry before I was born and spent the majority of his working life teaching construction technology at a local school. Now that he's retired from that job, he is back in full time construction. He took time off of other jobs to fit us in his schedule. He's the best!!! He now works with my cousin, Pat, who helps him and is learning the trade.

I think that covers it.

Oh, and her current room will be remodeled too for her baby brother (more details to come but you can see the plan here).

And for those that are really curious... this is a simplified version of what we did upstairs during that remodel. Being the "attic" of the house and how it had basically no insulation, we hired out professionals to install spray foam insulation (it's like that stuff in a can but on a giant version). It was sprayed in our four attic areas and all along the joists and some walls. Windows were also added there as well. You can see the whole process here.

{Lily's Big Girl Room} Before Details

As mentioned previously, we are remodeling our front bedroom to become Lily's big girl room. For those confused with the term "front bedroom" it's simply the bedroom at the front of our house. The second, or middle, room is her current room and the third, or back, bedroom is our TV room. Here's what it used to look like...

Brown paint (with texture and glitter... yes, that's the glitter's reflection and sparkle making all those white dots), pink trim (baseboards, door and window frames, doors), wallpaper, and a "chair rail" that was wallpapered as well.

Detail of the wallpaper

Detail of the chair rail and wallpaper
 And this is what I found under the above wallpaper... MORE wallpaper. There's another layer under this too. I didn't peal all the wallpaper off because my dad is covering it all up with 2x4's and insulation.

{Lily's Big Girl Room} Staples

Ugh..... Staples. Not the store, the type that hold things together. Roughly 1000 of them.

Yes, that's more wallpaper. Not touching it. See those wood stripes? Those will be used to hold drywall. Flat, smooth drywall. Such a simple concept with a big impact.

Those staples were easily removed, thankfully. The rest of the room is currently a giant mess. I'll post more soon. New windows, walls, insulation, drywall, board and batten, art work, and so much more!

{Lily Lately} Boo Boo

Last week, Lily fell down at daycare on concrete. She was holding her doll baby so her hands didn't block her fall. It's already better. The doctor said she's fine, no concussion or anything.




{Lily's Garden} June 2013

After some watering this morning (my hanging planter is a dying mess), I decided to take some photos. These are all with my iphone, so maybe some day I'll do some with my nice camera once the lilies bloom. 

This is the shade corner. The fence backs up to our backyard and the trellis that Doug installed is for my climbing hydrangea (that's hard to see from this angle). The black/silver thing is a bird bath I may refashion to a succulent container. The birds never liked it last year, I think it may be too deep.

Here's another angle of the same corner. Don't mind the weeds... or should I say tiny trees? And that basket of yarn is a project I saw on Pinterest and being an art teacher who does a weaving project, I made the kids save all the scraps. I don't know if the birds have used any of it or not but there are a lot of birds in the area. 

The hydrangea my grandmother bought for us with Lily was born. It's now 4 years old and doing great!  It even made a baby. 

The climbing hydrangea and the trellis. It's definitely got a lot of growth ahead of it but I hope it'll cover the whole trellis some day! 

My oak leaf hydrangea. 

The middle bed - right in front of our dining room windows. 


The front bed...




The view from the front of the garden (closest to the street). There's a lot of work still to do that'll get done this summer (hopefully!) but it's come a long way from all grass and no plants just a few years ago.

That dog house (the green thing by our garage) needs to go in our backyard but it's about 400 lbs and will take at least 4 people to move it. We forgot to have the family do it at Lily's party but are looking for helpers if anyone wants to move it! 

{Dining Room} Area Rug



Isn't she lovely?! We had a rug we bought for our living room when we first moved in, almost 6 years ago, and it was moved to the dining room a year or so ago. Well, between a cat that has stomach issues (I think hairball issues but we're not sure because it's 99% NOT hairballs that come up) and a chihuahua (that has since found a new home) with pee and poop issues (although house trained), the rug had seen better days. It had SMELLED better days. And although we vacuumed it, shampooed it, washed it, sprayed it, everything, it still felt nasty when walked on barefoot and smelled bad too every once in awhile. One corner was really bad. 

Enter Joss and Main. I had never bought anything from their site before but had been a member for a long time. So after searching other places and finding a style I liked, I went over to Joss and Main and found this beauty. Luckily I measured before buying because I would have bought the bigger one and not needed it. This one fit perfectly in between our china cabinet and our liquor cabinet and is the perfect size for our table. Even when we put the leaf in our table, it'll all fit on the rug. It's navy and slightly cream/white and it matches the cushions on our chairs perfectly. The dining room's ceiling is a pale blue and so our the curtains. It's definitely helped finish off the room (possibly the most finished room in the house even though that wasn't planned!) and helped make it more modern and up to date. 

I will say that it's not as plush as our old rug but I think if/when we buy a pad for it, it'll be ok. Plus since it's in our dining room, it's not like we're playing on it with Lily and the future Little Man. 

{Lily Lately} Fishing Day

As mentioned earlier, we happened to go to Bass Pro on a day that they were doing kid events for free. Lily definitely liked the fishing part of the day more than the shooting part. She caught two fish - a large mouth bass and a perch, I think. She was so proud of herself and has been talking about going fishing again. Luckily my parents have a lake on their property that is stocked and we live near lots of other fishing areas. Once the waters go down a little bit (thanks to all the flooding in the midwest), we'll get my parents' boat out and go fishing on a lake or river. 




Her large mouth bass


After throwing it back in.

Her second fish! She was so proud.

{Lily Lately} Shooting

This past Saturday, Doug wanted to go run some errands and so we went to Menard's (where I'm pretty sure I'll end up buying the fence for Lily's Garden...more to come!) and while there, we drove over to Bass Pro because we wanted to show Lily the big fish. As we were pulling into their parking lot, I had told Doug that we should pick up a schedule of events because the last time I was near there, there was kid stuff going on. Well, lucky us, it was going on then too! 

Lily was able to go fishing (and caught two!), practice with a bow and arrow (suction cup on the end, not a real arrow), and shoot a BB gun, plus do some crafts. She wasn't a fan of the BB gun, even though it was pink. Daddy Doug was a pretty good shot though, even for his non-dominant arm doing the shooting. I think she may like the bow and arrow though, mainly because it's not as noisy as the gun but I'm not sure. She LOVED fishing though! That'll be a repeat event and she already has a pink (Barbie I think) fishing pole. 


{Organize} Declutter and Simplify

The Nester is having a Simplify "party" over on her blog. I can't say I've completely jumped on the bandwagon only because I don't want to hide my stuff in another part of the house....I want to get rid of it!!!

The below pictures are of my office aka a dumping ground for everything. I'm on a mission to do three things in my house. Declutter, Simplify, Organize. If I can't find an object a home, I decide if I need to (and then do it) or decide to give it away.

I have donated hundreds of clothes (it's seriously crazy what we hold on to), household items and so much more. I'm on a mission to find more to get rid of. As I go through our rooms, I look at all the accessories. Do I really need the frog salt n pepper shakers that I've never used in over 7 years? No! Do I need all the napkin rings, lace sheets, or snowflake bowls that just take up valuable storage space? No, of course not. Soooo... It's continuing room by room.

The big thing is now that we know baby #2 is a boy, I can get rid of all things Baby Girl that we kept. 4 years of Lily's clothes we kept just in case we had another girl. I haven't gone through the toys but will soon.

I definitely like the idea of The Nester's simplify plan, especially for those with lots of accessories. I've stopped buying a lot of random things and go for simple accessories that can stay up year round. When it comes to dishes and other things, I go with white, clear (glass) and silver or mercury glass. It's kept me from buying cute, seasonal items and random stuff along the way.





EDITED... forgot to mention about the photos above. My office is the dumping ground for pretty much everything now a days. It's the whole "finding a home" process and all paperwork and arts and crafts stuff ends up in my office. Plus, there's all the family photos that aren't in albums, keepsakes for Lily and so on. So... it ends up looking like the above photos. I have since organized some of the supplies into the tall cabinet on the right side of the armoire. There's a door that belongs on there, that I have, but it wasn't going to fit with the stuff that was just shoved in there. Now it can. My dad offered to build shelves for it but I'm honestly not sure how much stuff will stay, what I want the shelves to be like, and so on, so for now I have some plastic drawers stacked on top of each other. The bottom picture shows all my paint supplies and a random box (on the right) of paper. It's going to school but the paint got put into bigger containers so I have all the acrylic in one and the oil paint in another. Leftovers from when I went to art school. The oils haven't been used in over 7 years, the acrylics get used at least a few times a year. 

As for the rest of my office, I am going to have my dad build some shelves along one wall for storage of bigger items and books. It'll house the boxes of keepsake paperwork for the kiddos, photo albums (that don't live downstairs in our living room) and loose photos in boxes. Our trip to IKEA last fall found us preparing for this day with lots of storage so it'll be nice to actually put it all to use! 

{Lily's Big Girl Room} The Ceiling

Lily is getting a big girl room (we've mentioned it a few times) and in order to create a brand new space for her, we have to remodel the bedroom. The list is long but not nearly like our upstairs remodel. Doug took to taking down the ceiling yesterday. Luckily we found that the wood that the drop ceiling was stapled to seems pretty secure and won't need ripped down. We can hopefully (my dad will be the final judge) screw the drywall straight into it. But in this house's fashion, we found more wallpaper on the ceiling. I'll get a better picture but you can see the shine of it. It's ugly and all full of curly lines but I'm not going to mess with it. 

{Lily's Big Girl Room} Before

I've shared some things I'd love for Lily's big girl room here and I shared a before photo here of what the room looked like when we first starting clearing it out. I wish I had a photo of when it was briefly a guest bedroom (way back in 2007-2008 when we bought the place) and when it was also our bedroom from 2008 - 2011-ish as we did the upstairs remodel, but unfortunately I didn't ever take a photo. 

Anyway, this has been the plan:
Remove everything. Find a home for everything - trash, donate, or somewhere appropriate in the house (no more junk rooms!)
Hopefully save the trim - it's original and just needs a coat of paint (hopefully)
Build out the walls to add some insulation. We decided to not do it exactly like we did upstairs but somewhere in the middle both cost and efficiency wise.
Replace both windows.
Add a new closet. The current "big" closet (there are two closets, one that's original and one that was added on, aka the big closet) will be sucked into the bathroom remodel to make it bigger, so we'll need to add a new closet for Lily's stuff.
Remove old ceiling.
Replace old ceiling with drywall. 
New walls - flat, smooth, pretty drywall.
Add board and batten (the easy way like so many bloggers are doing!) with a small picture ledge on top for little toys, picture frames, etc. 
Paint! Can you guess what color it'll be?! 
Decorate.

So... now that the list has been made (I'm sure there's more!), here's what the room is currently looking like, more or less... 

The window trim. This shows just how much hardware was on both windows. And the previous homeowner painted over everything. The trim is actually a light pink but it'll all be white to start matching the rest of the house (or what I've done at least). All of the hardware has been removed and thrown away.

Double rods... I so wish I had a picture of the "curtains" that were up here. Lace sheers with more lace crap on top. It was thrown away as soon as we bought the place. Same for the lace curtains in the dining room. YUCK! 

All of that stuff needs a new home. We kept the insulation boards in the windows while not using the room and they are blocking the room right now for some privacy. The window on the left looks out on our front porch and the window on the right looks directly into our neighbor's driveway and part of her front yard.

Another pile. It's so much better than what it was. This is almost all gone too... the paintings in the corner are all mine from college and will most likely go into storage for now. Other stuff in this picture includes board games, a box of pillows, lamps, a box of Doug's stuff, and more old artwork. The ladder is there because Doug removed the ceiling fan which we plan on reusing. 

The smaller closet. We've used it as a linen/storage closet since we moved in in 2007. I went through the linens and got rid of the ones we've never used. The rest of the stuff (minus the board games) will find a new home either downstairs or in our future bathroom closet (when we get to that remodel).

The board games will find a temporary home but I think they'll end up back in here (or one of the other kid closets) for lack of a better place. Plus, both kids' rooms have decent closet space. We may eventually redo the TV room's closet and they could be in there but that's way down the road. The stuff on the floor in the below photo was removed and some was donated to my work (we always need cups and plates) and other stuff went to the basement.

The trim and wallpaper. The trim is sitting on the curb for trash, the wallpaper has been removed, and I can't wait to to cover up the brown paint. 

So it's not that obvious but there's glitter in the brown paint... 

Wallpaper over wallpaper over even more wallpaper.



The window trim... yes, that's nasty stuff, and will be dealt with soon enough. That's when I left the room. I am pregnant after all.

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