The New Kids' Bathroom

The other major problem was that there was no other bathroom on the second floor that was not an ensuite. Our guests would have to go downstairs or through the girls or our bedroom to use the bathroom. We dealt with it for a while but after Derek's arrival and the future arrival of our little Russian we realized something had to be done.
I wanted another bathroom added. Willem put his foot down and said 3.5 baths for one house is plenty. Not wanting to be in charge of cleaning five toilets I conceded....So we devised a plan. We would close off access to the bathroom that once was the girls and create an access to it from the hallway. (Savannah's tea parties and constant concoctions of what she called "perfume" was getting out of hand anyways.)
Knowing this bathroom would be used by four kiddos we tried to design it for high traffic and multiple functions going on at once. We put in high wainscotting to keep my walls from being marked and nicked from all the munchkins. The sink was something I had my eye on for some time now. We tried to find a vintage one that would function the same but no luck, so we splurged on this one from Kohler. It is actually considered a laundry utility sink. I really wanted the bigger version that allowed for three faucets but space wouldn't allow it and our budget wouldn't either! In any event I love it and I really love seeing the kids lined up brushing their teeth.

The other wall pictured here is not finished yet. We have a carpenter building us a countertop to fit underneath that light. We also have a mirror to hang above that allowing the girls to have a counterspace to put on make up and to style hair. The lockers are vintage pool lockers we found on Ebay and assembled. It stores towels, hair accessories, cleaning supplies, etc... Each kid has a cubby as well. One day we will paint those lockers a cooler color...we ran out of steam and decided it would be a project for next year some time.

The other portion is your typical bath area with tub and toilet. The tub was a terrible beige color and we had it coated in place and now it is a beautiful white. It was very cheap to do and I highly recommend it.

So there is the bathroom. It is amazing how much cleaner it stays now that it is "open" to the public. The girls used it before to play kitchen and science experiments! Now they know they can't get away with it so they don't bother trying.

NEW ROOMS!

They cleaned! Maddy did it without me asking! Savannah did it because she saw her sister do it and felt guilty. :)

Here are pics of Madelynn's room. I wanted something a little sophisticated but still fun. She loves blue and initially wanted her room blue but I decided to go with a gray and lots of blue accents. I love this space. We still have to work out places for some of her stuff and we hope to put a window seat under the big window but for now it is mostly finished.

Next up Savannah's! Savannah wanted a pink room but again I decided I was sick of renovating and painting so a neutral white with pink accents was what we went with for her. She also begged for a chandelier so we got her one. Savannah has an eye for fashion and loves anything associated with it. I got her a dress form and wanted her to have a long table so that in the future she may be able to do some sewing in here. She also wanted some Paris accents so there are a few of those. It is definately a girly room without being over the top.

I still have plans for additions to both the girls bedding. I have all the fabric to make a quilt for each but simply have not had the time. For now they are doing fine with what they have.

Now for lounge room and a pic of their massive closet...

The lounge room will soon be getting an upgrade of a flat screen to go in that recessed space where the tv is now. It'll give them more floor space and clean things up a bit. The Christmas tree makes things a little tight too for now but they love it.

The closet isn't the cleanest but I can't expect too much...

Hope you like it...I'll post pics of the bathroom tomorrow.

Girls' Bedroom Suite

One of the things we wanted to do before bringing our adopted son home was get some much needed renovations done on the inside of the house.

Our girls are polar opposites. One likes pink and everything girly, the other loves blue and sports and asks for boy toys for Christmas. We always wanted the girls to share a room and to be close. They have shared ever since Savannah moved into a big girl bed. But, as they have gotten older we were finding it harder to mesh their very different tastes.

When we moved into this house there was a huge room the same size as our master that had an ensuite bath. At the time it was the best room for the girls. We quickly found however that bigger is not always better. While they had tons of room for their things, they also had room to make huge messes. They would manage to fling socks, toys, clothes all across the room and then the inevitable "I didn't make that mess, my sister did!" response would bellow down the hall.

We decided we wanted the girls to each have their own room but we still wanted them to have to share a space of some kind. We also didn't want their rooms to be huge. Just enough space to study and sleep and have some personal space. They end up sharing toys and they like to watch movies together so we wanted them to have a "play" area that would be shared. So we divided the space into three smaller rooms. The bathroom we will get to in another post. Anyways, here is the floor plan we came up with.

The girls room is accessible through a room we call the lounge room that is off of the main hallway. They have a TV in there, a couple of mini couches that fold out into mini beds and a bookcase/storage unit where they house their toys and books. When they have sleepovers they pile into this room. I wish it could be a little bigger but it is what it is.

This room also gives access to their huge walk in closet that they share.

Construction began on July 5th and they moved into their rooms around Aug. 15. Their rooms were not decorated by then but liveable. Here are a couple of pics of us in mid construction. I'll post pics of the girls individual rooms later (need to clean them up and get some pics).
By the way, the girls are writing scripture on the "bones" of their room. They also ended up drawing smiley faces and something about a peanut....Everything turns into a game with them.

We're Back, Floors and All!

I can't believe it's been a month since my last post. We are back in and have been for a little while. What was supposed to take 6 days ended up taking 10! The floors were in such bad shape that it took an extra two days of stripping and an extra 4 days of drying time! We moved back in on May 3 but were unable to use the downstairs for another 5 days! We had our refrigerator outside and a plank to walk from the stairs to the front door. We'd wake up in the morning trek outside then around the house to the fridge for milk and back up the stairs so the girls could have breakfast in their room. Then we'd wisk them off to school. The rest of the meals were spent at my parents house. Thank God they live around the corner!

Keep in mind we had to move all of the furniture from the first floor into the mud room for the floor job so it took us a while to "unpack" and get everything back to normal again. We still have a few unopened boxes upstairs but for the most part we are unpacked.

Check out the before and after pics

BEFORE ------

AFTER ---

These don't even do them justice. You should have seen these floors! You could actually see the dirt waxed into the surface. It totally made the first floor brighter. In the kitchen it looks like someone covered everything with a honey hue but we are thinking we will paint the cabinets white and install some grey concrete countertops to brighten up the place and put a contemporary yet still country spin on the room.

That's all for now. We've been busy with dance reviews and kindergarten graduation. Savannah's bday party is in two weeks and Willem is finishing off a playground/treehouse for her present. We'll post pics of that and the party when it is all done. For now here are a couple of shots we took outside the house and of the past couple of weeks.

Cool Floors!

Okay so as promised I took a couple of pics of the first floor. It took me so long cause well it meant I had to straighten up. I said to heck with it and took the pics anyway.

Well the first thing that attracted me to the house besides the location and property was the uniqueness of it. The entire first floor is covered with real old chicago brick. In addition to that there is cypress wainscotting over the bottom half of every wall on the first floor. I'm not sure i like the wainscotting and I'm certain we will do something with it in the future but for now it will stay.

Here are a couple of pics of the living room. As you will notice the there is some serious issues with the brick floors. They are totally different colors in some places. Some places have a thick waxy surface some are right down to the brick. Luckily we have a floor guy coming in Wednesday to refinish the floors. He will completely strip them and then reseal them. We think the brick above the fireplace will be a good indication of what they will look like when they are finished.

Notice the set of cabinets in the living area in the distance. Those will be coming out, in fact they will come out this weekend as we need to refinish the floor underneath. We think it was intended to be a bar of some kind. That area will be somewhat partitioned in the future and will be an "Away Room". We hope to sound proof it somewhat and make it an office/ guest room. A place where one can go and do some work but still feel like they are apart of the family room without the noise.

Next up, the kitchen and dining room. It's pretty big and the cabinets are custom built and in good condition. Only problem, we hate that honey color! Here is where I want some viewer participation. We can not afford to completely overhaul the kitchen right now. We are thinking about just putting something over that hideous white formica for now and painting the cabinets, probably white. I'm a bit clueless on wall color and i think the red makes that room so dark right now. Any suggestions? Also, note the huge window seat. We think it's pretty cool too.

In addition to these huge rooms there is also a half bath, linen closet, stairwell and mud room on the first floor that are not pictured. We'll get to those in time.

Anyways, that's it for now. I may post a short blog later tonight as I got Willem a new toy and I've yet to get a picture of him on it. I'm writing today cause we are about to be displaced for the next week. The floor guy comes Wednesday and the process takes 6 days. Two of which we can't even sleep here. So it's back to Mom's house. In addition to that I have jury duty starting Monday, ughhhh! But next week we'll have new floors which I'm sure will be a dramatic difference. Bye for now!

The Biggest Weeds you've ever seen!!

BEFORE.....

AFTER.....

We spent our weekend clearing out the overgrowth you see in the first picture. All that remains are three satsuma trees. We'll move those in the winter when they have a better chance of surviving. There were several banana trees, a kumquat tree, an old fish pond, etc... There was even an old fence or trellis of some kind burried in a sea of honeysuckle. We only know it was there from the wreckage after Willem plowed it down with the tractor. Of all of the stuff we removed though our favorite was the two layer thick pathway of bricks. Yep, bricks tons and tons of brick buried just below the surface of weeds and dirt. We placed them in our horse stall for the time being. Take a look!

We got tired of stacking them after a while. And by the way there are more in the front yard! The pic on the right is the beginnings of the girls club house. Maddy had two friends over to spend the night and they decided to help by finding good use for the bricks. I'm told you're looking at Aubrey and McKenzie's room, Maddy and Savannah's rooms will be completed at the next sleep over. The girls were actually a ton of help. They hauled branches to the trash pile and helped us by catching every earth worm that was under the brick pathway. Those pesky earthworms!

Willem also found time to bush-hog the front three acres. Maddy rode along and Savannah and I watched, until she got bored and went back to playing with the earth worms. Anyways, here are some more pics of the weekend, including one of Maddy with a surprise we found in the dirt. Savannah named it "Cristy" since I found it. She keeps telling me I need to find Cristy's legs.

Maddy doing a little dirt work

Maddy and "Cristy" the alligator

Savannah taking a ride with daddy

Willem and Maddy bush-hogging

The after shot of the front three from the house

We've got blackberries!!!

Anyways, I promise to post some interior photos soon. I'm sore and tired so I'm off to rest but I'll leave you with our "aww sha!!" shot of the weekend.