First born is 13 and baby girl is 10

Today is Mason's 13th birthday , doesn't the time fly , how can I have a teenager ?

I am letting her play hookie today from one of the last days of school , two more days to go then summer officially starts for us. Mason is waiting till the bunkie is completed to have a party , won't that be fun !

Yesterday was Sophie's 10th birthday , baby girl is in the double digits now , they are getting so big.

She has been spreading her wings lately , it was time to get her a cell phone so I can keep an eye on her , there is nothing worse for a worry wart mom not to know exactly where your baby is .

Yummy cherry chip cupcakes , with sprinkles and a cherry on top , served with Shirley Temple's of course.

Beautiful pink heart balloons are always festive.

Bright and early and ready for present time.

We had a busy crazy weekend , bunkie work crammed in with birthday celebrations , I am officially exhausted.

Bunkie decor ,braces and birthday's

I am eager to get the roof on and to get the bunkie closed up , but our jobs are getting in the way again ... we all know how that is ! regardless of our progress I decided to check Home sense for a lantern and bunkie worthy decor , I found some great clearance items that I just fell for . Mason and I found dozens of great lanterns ,lot's were colorful and then there was this perfect white washed rattan lantern, it spoke to me , it will hang from the ceiling , soon hopefully.

I also have decided that we will need a rug , either the dash and albert rug I have in the laundry room or this rug in the photo above, I want the bunkie all white, the only color will be from the accessories, like from quilts and rug and bedding , of course I will get bamboo blinds.

We are going to try and get lots done on the bunkie this weekend, in between the girls Birthday's , Sophie is turning 10 on Sunday and Mason is turning 13 on Monday .

Mason got her braces a couple of days ago , which was really big news here , she chose three colors of elastics pink, yellow and blue , they look so cute, poor girl is hurting and don't I remember those days well , I just adore the dentist doing Mason's braces I will be forever indebted to her .

I dug out this cute simple plywood art from a pile of clearance items, perfectly suited to our bunkie decor , it was only $10.00 I also got an alphabet one, love them they are perfect. And since the bunkie will not have electricity the lanterns are a must , most battery operated lanterns are UGLY but these were really cute , $29.00 which is also a good price, because you don't want to give your children open flames really ever.

Someone's got a beef with our bunkie/ shed

Well we have been plugging away at the bunkie as much as our spare time will allow , there is not a lot of spare time in our lives right now sadly so it is slow going , but I do like to share the process.

I came home from the gym last Friday to find a notice from the city on my door , they had been made aware of construction being done at our address that "may" need a permit , first I was in a panic , but then I knew I had done my research and according to the city if my shed is under 100 sq feet I would not need a permit , I know we will be fine but the inspector is stopping by this morning to verify my measurements.

This means someone is hating our building , don't you want to know who it is , I hope I can find out today , just who it is , we have 6 backyards backing onto us that it could be I know awful eh! , but we think we know who it is , I just wish they had asked us about it instead of calling the city in ...

Oh well , we get to have out building and they will have to accept it , it will be nice to look at soon , I promise.

The toughest part has been figuring out the roof of course, but the joists are up , I did one whole by myself , it actually wasn't hard at all , thanks to the handy brackets I found at Lowe's.

I have decided to clad the front and back peaks and ceiling in v groove panelling so that I don't have to recald the interior with v-groove, it looks so nice , I am hoping this will save us some money and time. The walls will be clad over the framing with v-groove.

You can really get a sense of the space now , I am glad we didn't make it shorter , I wasn't sure if it would be too tall, but we like it , and it is well under the height restrictions , we may even add a cupola , although I think that sounds a little challenging , but I think it will look great.

Wish me luck with the building inspector , I will keep you posted. We Passed !!!!!

Moving along nicely and bunny watching

I nearly died when I saw this house , it clearly jumped straight out of my mind and dreams and came to be ... have you seen this gorgeous home featured now on House of Turquoise

This house has a lot of features that we are going to use on the bunkie , the bold white trim ,the blue door, the grey shakes and port hole style window , which we found at a local re-use store , which mimics the front of our house. I hope they don't mind me sharing this pic of this beautiful home.

Moe is doing a little quality control , what are the odds we would find one of these at the re-use store , for $30.00 now how do I make rounded trim ??? any tips ?

Yesterday I framed out the peaks , this was fun....as long as we keep at it a little at a time this project will get done before the summer is over , the kids are so eager to get in there and have sleepovers , I can't blame them.

I never had a chance to show you this Nantucket beachy style bathroom makeover I did before winter , I love the charm trim work adds to any space.

I am so excited about our new addition , baby bunny , its a cotton tail bunny that has been hanging around for the last week , it's wild , and so darn sweet , it is tiny the size of a soft ball, sorry about the bad picture it is very skiddish , it nibbles our grass and hides in the garden and explores its world , I love bunny watching , it seems to be hiding under our bunkie quite a lot...which is fine by me , but I don't have a vegetable garden for it to destroy and if it wants to eat our grass and morning glories that are everywhere that is fine by me...I am really enjoying the bunny , we don't have much around here as far as wild life , so birds and bunnies are welcome at my house any day .

Weekly update

I think this may be what it comes down to , a weekly update , I wish I could blog often and about new and exciting things but there is no time for blogging much these days , so I will have to do my best to post weekly. Monday's after the kids are off to school I try to catch up on some much needed cleaning , you know how it is , I am lucky to have Monday mornings for that because things have been getting a little out of hand with the pace of my life as of late.Funny fact : we have never picked or bought a BBQ grill , when we got married we were given a space saver grill for our then rental condo , then when we moved to our current home my father gave us his Weber grill which was great but I don't know if you have noticed but grills have come a long way since this Weber was purchased 15 years ago at least ....you can find a cheap as chips good looking BBQ anywhere these days , you can spend $200-$2000 whatever your budget.
I thought it would be the perfect time to buy Todd a nice new grill for Father's Day , so we started looking , there are so many to choose from ? It was a very tough decision , I decided to make sure whatever grill we got it needed a good warranty , because what would be the point spending our money on a grill that only has a one year warranty , that's no good! I think that is the sign of a low quality BBQ , because I don't want to buy a BBQ every other year , I took my time and did some research and digging.
What we settled on was a Cuisinart , yes a Cuisinart BBQ available at Canadian Tire stores , but then we kept going around in circles , I didn't have a strong opinion on which one to go with , they were good looking well priced and we wanted a side burner and they all seemed to have that too and most importantly the tank would be concealed by the closed cabinet and a 5 year warranty of course , I wanted to take advantage of the great savings offered , so we went early to purchase his new grill.
But we changed plans and went with a Kitchen Aid BBQ , it was all stainless , and was really good looking and had no plastic parts at all , has the side searing burner and a closed in back as well and is a beautiful product. It was perfect , except it came in the largest box ever and was so crazy heavy to move , but it came fully assembled which was a huge perk. Ok enough about our grill , it looks so pretty in the backyard too, and best of all I know Todd is really happy with it . We have plans to build a large BBQ deck where it will move to later , more space to move.

I don't know if it was my recipe or the grill but the burgers were extra delicious.

I have great bunkie news , we have windows...I know I had planned to use old windows but the wind blew them over and they both broke...so we started pricing windows , we started at the re-stores where you can get used building materials , but the prices were steep, we loved some windows but $400 and $600 a window seems unreasonable for our bunkie. We looked at stock windows at Home Depot , which were ho hum, and then we priced custom windows which were actually pretty reasonable , we could choose size and grills , then we had decided on a local window manufacturer Mason windows , which is where all our house windows come from , and I was just about to order them , then I learned where my Mom works they had two casement windows left over from a reno last year, I went to take a look and they were so beautiful , smaller than we wanted but I thought we could make them work with trim work, there was no 3-4 week delay or high cost and this would not hold up our build.

The grills are on the outside and inside , they just look so lovely don't they?

I was so pleased they are unpainted wood inside , which means I can paint them whatever color I want , what fun.

We framed the rough window openings and clad the front of our bunkie this weekend with chip board , it's really coming along.

Next step we frame the peaks and then the rafters go up , that should be fun huh !!! so then roof and wrapping the exterior , windows and door install , flooring , siding which is going to be shakes , and interior paneling the walls , I would love to have this closed up in time for the girls birthdays at the end of the month ...wish us luck and good weather too please. I should say how happy I am my husband is as eager to complete the bunkie as I am , we are so looking forward to having it to use and I am dying to get it to the decorating stage of course.

I completed the book cases I was working on , oh painting beadboard is so not fun.

I added bead board to the fireplace mantel as well as the back of the cabinets linking it all in style, I love how they look , so fresh and clean and Nantucket style.The paint color is Benjamin Moore cloud white.

So I'm off again to another busy crazy week , hope all is well with you and thank you for stopping by .

Chris

Sidekick crosses over

Check this out, my husband Todd's cartoon Sidekick is coming to Cartoon network on Monday , you all can now tune in ...we are super proud and super pumped about this launch .



Check out a trailer here or on the link above , simply click on the word Sidekick .
http://youtu.be/lu8yqAHYJSM

Bunkie building begins

How inspiring are these images , this is a real dream backyard we love...

traditional pool design by charleston general contractor Kirk Wood Homes

You don't need a big space to have a beautiful space. This space clearly has a bigger budget than we do , but isn't it beautiful?

traditional pool design by charleston general contractor Kirk Wood Homes

I had this Saturday off from work and the weather was gorgeous , so I talked my husband into getting started on the framing part of our bunkie /shed , this will mostly function as a shed but in the few hot months this will be a fun place for guests to sleep and most fun for sleepovers for the kids.

I know it seems big , but it is only 96 sq feet , there is no real benefit for us to keep our smallish yard empty , we want to create a get away right in our own backyard , some where to relax , entertain , BBQ and spend our weekend in the summer . We are trying to create a low maintenance backyard for our family.
My husband was such a trooper all weekend getting this work done , thanks so much Todd , we are celebrating our 14th anniversary tomorrow , I even bought a new dress to celebrate , we don't normally make a big deal over these things , actually most often we both forget our anniversary as we are thinking more about the two girls birthdays coming up in a couple of weeks.



It was so summery this weekend and we spend most of our time outside enjoying it thoroughly , even the hammock came out.

Isn't he cute ...well both dogs got the doggie stomach flu which was brutal , have you ever given a dog Pepto well you know how yucky it tastes , dogs don't like it much either , but it helps a little.

By evening we had sunburns and some walls , next we will clad some more walls , some weather wrap , cedar shakes , windows to order , roof joists , roof , pine cottage flooring , paneling for the walls and ceiling , just a little bit of work , right ...! I think we are officially weekend warriors now.