March, April 2020
Before the world collapsed from a virus, we had a "play date" with our new friend Julie from church. She loves baking and kids, so of course we made strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. They were superb and promptly disappeared.
It was the day I learned Teddy can handle a mixer, and Andrew was really only interested in distributing the paper liners and frosting the goodies. Teddy and Bridget got good practice cracking eggs.
Randy and I had promised each other that as soon as we moved into the "birfday house," we would potty train Andrew. Whether it is his personality or the fact that he was already 3.5years, I'm not sure, but he was trained the fastest out of all the kids. Now he rarely has an accident, and he even does the best at night!
Below is his set of construction vehicles, which he got to play with as a reward for using the potty on his own. The LR was still just a subfloor at this point, and there was an extra hole for where we had first intended to put the floor outlet. So, it was a perfect imaginary "pit" for a tiny excavator.
On days when Randy doesn't have pressing work to do for other people, and it's raining or too hot to work outside, we chip away at the basement. As I write this, it's probably 80% sheetrocked and I've started taping/mudding the boys' room so they can move into it soon. We'll put up plastic sheeting to separate the upstairs and their room downstairs from the rest of the basement while we finish it, so the entry (in the basement) we've been using since the house came into existence will not get us upstairs. Hence, building the stairs in the garage to the actual entry (upstairs) will have to be prioritized. MAYBE we can clear some tools in the garage and park the van in there too (on the sand)!
March 17: The countertop-epoxy post is coming soon, but this is Teddy finishing his stool top with the extra 2-3 ounces of epoxy left over from one of the stages of the kitchen counter's project. Each kid got to do a stool top. Teddy's looks kinda like Jupiter. With metallics.
March 19: All the kids got "potty training" as Dad showed them how to install a toilet in the master bathroom. It's SO nice having two potties in the house!
The sink we found at the Habitat Restore (*ahem* before we had even started the house, I believe!) was JUUUUUUST small enough to fit in the cabinet Tim and I built. We must have measured wrong or something. Randy had to trim out some of the counter top nailers to get the sink in, even removing one completely. Then it was so tight it didn't want to quite sit all the way down on the counter, so I added as much heavy stuff as I could find while the caulk set up. It's doing fine since then.
I caught Bridget and Andrew dancing to the music from a toy CD player in their "new" room. 😊
ANOTHER DIY project I was inspired to do: make my own curtains for the DR/LR! Medium-weight dropcloth from Menards: $14. Ribbon-lattice stencil from Amazon: ~$20. Then we used the leftover paint from the walls in the DR/LR and went to town. I learned about halfway through that using a small roller is WAY faster than sponging the paint on (after Teddy and Bridget grew tired of helping). I learned after it dried and we picked up the cloth that the paint went through. And we learned while scrubbing paint off the floor that our floors are quite durable and we're still glad we went the make-your-own-plywood-floors route. Next time I will put plastic sheeting down.
The finished first curtain was stashed away for months until we got around to making the first brackets and rods (even here, the brackets haven't been routered or painted, and the curtain hasn't been trimmed to size and split in two yet, so it eventually won't have the extra fabric hanging over at the top there, and the seams in the dropcloth will be much less visible when the window light is not directly behind them). The hanging of this curtain was prioritized as the weather got HOT and this west-facing window was one of the only places the sun could still stream in. I wasn't sure whether I liked it at first (I thought it looked too much like obviously a dropcloth) but it has definitely grown on me, and seems to fit with the remodeled-farmhouse style our house has become: with a little rustic, and a lot of clean-cut simplicity. Sooooo, I will get the others done when the sun starts streaming in the other windows again.
April 12: One little indoor project that TEDDY and I did together was use a wood-graining tool on some free wood we had acquired. Then we assembled them how we liked and glued them together, cut it in a circle, and applied a special piece of rotating hardware we un-installed from our entertainment-center-turned-computer-desk. The end result? A really cool-looking Lazy "Steven!"
It was the day I learned Teddy can handle a mixer, and Andrew was really only interested in distributing the paper liners and frosting the goodies. Teddy and Bridget got good practice cracking eggs.
Randy and I had promised each other that as soon as we moved into the "birfday house," we would potty train Andrew. Whether it is his personality or the fact that he was already 3.5years, I'm not sure, but he was trained the fastest out of all the kids. Now he rarely has an accident, and he even does the best at night!
Below is his set of construction vehicles, which he got to play with as a reward for using the potty on his own. The LR was still just a subfloor at this point, and there was an extra hole for where we had first intended to put the floor outlet. So, it was a perfect imaginary "pit" for a tiny excavator.
On days when Randy doesn't have pressing work to do for other people, and it's raining or too hot to work outside, we chip away at the basement. As I write this, it's probably 80% sheetrocked and I've started taping/mudding the boys' room so they can move into it soon. We'll put up plastic sheeting to separate the upstairs and their room downstairs from the rest of the basement while we finish it, so the entry (in the basement) we've been using since the house came into existence will not get us upstairs. Hence, building the stairs in the garage to the actual entry (upstairs) will have to be prioritized. MAYBE we can clear some tools in the garage and park the van in there too (on the sand)!
March 17: The countertop-epoxy post is coming soon, but this is Teddy finishing his stool top with the extra 2-3 ounces of epoxy left over from one of the stages of the kitchen counter's project. Each kid got to do a stool top. Teddy's looks kinda like Jupiter. With metallics.
March 19: All the kids got "potty training" as Dad showed them how to install a toilet in the master bathroom. It's SO nice having two potties in the house!
The sink we found at the Habitat Restore (*ahem* before we had even started the house, I believe!) was JUUUUUUST small enough to fit in the cabinet Tim and I built. We must have measured wrong or something. Randy had to trim out some of the counter top nailers to get the sink in, even removing one completely. Then it was so tight it didn't want to quite sit all the way down on the counter, so I added as much heavy stuff as I could find while the caulk set up. It's doing fine since then.
I caught Bridget and Andrew dancing to the music from a toy CD player in their "new" room. 😊
ANOTHER DIY project I was inspired to do: make my own curtains for the DR/LR! Medium-weight dropcloth from Menards: $14. Ribbon-lattice stencil from Amazon: ~$20. Then we used the leftover paint from the walls in the DR/LR and went to town. I learned about halfway through that using a small roller is WAY faster than sponging the paint on (after Teddy and Bridget grew tired of helping). I learned after it dried and we picked up the cloth that the paint went through. And we learned while scrubbing paint off the floor that our floors are quite durable and we're still glad we went the make-your-own-plywood-floors route. Next time I will put plastic sheeting down.
The finished first curtain was stashed away for months until we got around to making the first brackets and rods (even here, the brackets haven't been routered or painted, and the curtain hasn't been trimmed to size and split in two yet, so it eventually won't have the extra fabric hanging over at the top there, and the seams in the dropcloth will be much less visible when the window light is not directly behind them). The hanging of this curtain was prioritized as the weather got HOT and this west-facing window was one of the only places the sun could still stream in. I wasn't sure whether I liked it at first (I thought it looked too much like obviously a dropcloth) but it has definitely grown on me, and seems to fit with the remodeled-farmhouse style our house has become: with a little rustic, and a lot of clean-cut simplicity. Sooooo, I will get the others done when the sun starts streaming in the other windows again.
April 12: One little indoor project that TEDDY and I did together was use a wood-graining tool on some free wood we had acquired. Then we assembled them how we liked and glued them together, cut it in a circle, and applied a special piece of rotating hardware we un-installed from our entertainment-center-turned-computer-desk. The end result? A really cool-looking Lazy "Steven!"
Here it's pictured with our big pizza pan and homemade grilled pizza. YUM.
April 14: We kept chipping away at the master bathroom, including using leftover plywood and epoxy from the kitchen project for a bathroom counter!
The leftover epoxy from THAT project was used for BRIDGET's stool top, and I really like the colors she chose! Very much more artsy, as our girl tends to be.
April 15: The carpet gets installed in the LR and hallway! People, carpet is a luxury. It's been 2.5 months and I still feel this way.
April 17: My wood-graining tool came in handy for finishing this cool door we found at the Restore. We cut it down to fit the closet over the stairs. Again, it's been 2.5 months and I still like looking at it. It's that cool. I look forward to the day we trim off the shims that are sticking out and apply white trim around it too!
I also still like what we often find INSIDE! We decided it would make a great homeschool-central "book nook." I think the most we've had in there was 6 kids. That was a little tight.
Late April: Mostly Randy (I helped a little) got the west of the house sided! Eventually we'll have a screened porch out that door with wood storage beneath. Maybe in 5 years.
April 23: Teddy made himself a "toolbox" out of scraps and old nails he found, and even uses his hammer he found on our land. He's quite the capable 8-year-old.
April 29: Some new friends from church picked up this table and 5 chairs from the side of the road, found it was too big for their DR, and asked if we wanted it instead! We did a couple things to help it out, but for a free table and chairs it's GREAT.
April 14: We kept chipping away at the master bathroom, including using leftover plywood and epoxy from the kitchen project for a bathroom counter!
The leftover epoxy from THAT project was used for BRIDGET's stool top, and I really like the colors she chose! Very much more artsy, as our girl tends to be.
April 15: The carpet gets installed in the LR and hallway! People, carpet is a luxury. It's been 2.5 months and I still feel this way.
April 17: My wood-graining tool came in handy for finishing this cool door we found at the Restore. We cut it down to fit the closet over the stairs. Again, it's been 2.5 months and I still like looking at it. It's that cool. I look forward to the day we trim off the shims that are sticking out and apply white trim around it too!
I also still like what we often find INSIDE! We decided it would make a great homeschool-central "book nook." I think the most we've had in there was 6 kids. That was a little tight.
Late April: Mostly Randy (I helped a little) got the west of the house sided! Eventually we'll have a screened porch out that door with wood storage beneath. Maybe in 5 years.
April 23: Teddy made himself a "toolbox" out of scraps and old nails he found, and even uses his hammer he found on our land. He's quite the capable 8-year-old.
April 29: Some new friends from church picked up this table and 5 chairs from the side of the road, found it was too big for their DR, and asked if we wanted it instead! We did a couple things to help it out, but for a free table and chairs it's GREAT.
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