New additions

Since we have now just enjoyed Mason's grade 8 graduation followed by Sophie's 11th birthday and then Mason's 14th birthday I think its time to show you a few things that have happened in the meantime.

I have decided it's time to focus on the master bathroom. We are expecting the arrival of the carrera marble for the tub deck on Friday, cross our fingers it actually comes , deadlines seem to come and go when it comes to my marble. Smile! I cut down some masonite and attached it to the tub apron tile that I think is dreadful on a vertical surface . I used no more nails and I will attach beadboard to the center and I will paint it all birch white. 

 I finally sanded and stained the upstairs hall, today I will top coat.

I baked Sophie some red velvet cupcakes for her birthday yesterday , these are Betty Crocker and come with frosting. I found this pkg cake mix at Wal Mart. So very moist. Like my wooden cake stand , purty.

 Back to the master bath then, I moved this cupboard into the bath because I was finishing the upper hall , but then figured it works well here especially since we will be hanging a tv right above there , it will work perfectly for the little cable box. It was blue yesterday but I painted it the wall colour to keep things calm.

 Last I told you I was planning on painting my side tables, but I finally found these new lamps and they seem to make the tables work. So no painting the tables then.

 As soon as I saw these lamps I knew I needed them , the pretty blue and lucite touches, perfection and they were on clearance.

Here is a photo of the lamps I had that weren't the right scale. Cute but too small.

 I am not a big fan of the antique brass door hardware that come standard, it had a lock pad which is convenient but not so pretty. I have had my eye on this lock set from Rona for about 6 months. It has so much style and character. They are closing the Rona near us and are clearing out lots of great stuff including this lock set so I grabbed it before it was gone forever. Let's just say it was a good deal.

 It was fun installing it with its Ikea style directions. I was left with some holes to deal with but it luckily fit right into the exsisting holes, phew to that . I used bondo to fix and fill the holes since our door is metal , it works quite well.

So the door is all done , the lights are up , now bring on the grass , PLEASE, I am told July 3rd .....yippy for progress.

Graduation time

 Mason graduated grade 8 last Thursday , it was an exciting day. We went to the hair salon for an up-do and make-up. I think the dress we chose was perfection , she looked so beautiful. She is so grown up now.

 The hot hot weather turned nasty right as we were to leave for the ceremony, major thunder storm, so we didn't have a chance to take enough time for proper photos. It was so rushed. I didn't get the coming down the stairs shot I always thought I would, darn , I hate being rushed. Oh well.

 Her make-up was amazing, her skin is so pretty.

 The parent child dance was sweet , this is their very first dance, sniff sniff, it was so dark and crowded , it was difficult to get a good photo, I'm glad I at least got this photo of the occasion.

                         

The ceremony was long , lots of awards were handed out. Mason received the visual arts award , amazing as well as an achievement award. We are very proud of our young adult. Her birthday is in a couple of days she will be 14 yrs , it is kind of freaking me out that she is 14 already , didn't I just have her.  

The ceremony went on and on and it was one of the hottest days , it felt like 100 with the humidex, so the non air conditioned gym was stifling. 

Mason found this neat hair on pinterest , it was a challenge for the negative nelly  hairdresser we had. OMG she was so annoying, the curls might fall out , your extensions are too wide the color is wrong , blah blah blah, after a second stylist saved the day and made a bow the style stayed in all night and the extensions were perfect. I wish the stylist was quite so negative, I had to bite my tongue. We thought it was so funny when a second stylist asked if the extensions were in and said how they matched so well, some people need to look on the bright side.

Onto enjoy the summer with the kids .

fresh coat for the closet

Here is the before of my laundry room pantry/closet. It is outfitted with built ins I made out of MDF 12"x 8' shelving, edged with primed select pine. Lots of shelves to keep things stored and organized. When we bought this house I was very excited to have this space , I looked very forward to having a dedicated spot for my vacuum and brooms and such. I also looked very forward to getting the dog food , bowls and gear out of my kitchen. It has turned out to be a great asset and I just love it. I even have space for drinks and extra food items which I never really had ever before.
It needed to be primed and caulked , which I was putting off because who really wants to do all that .
I was thinking of painting it all a punchy color , but I was easily swayed to keep it fresh and white, or off white I guess with our Birch White.

After taping off and filling holes and sanding then dusting I tackled the priming followed by caulking. 

 Gave it all a couple of coats of semi-gloss Birch white general paint.

 I re-attached all the gadgets.

 Doesn't it look fresh and crisp , I love a good built in.

Now I wait to be able to put all the contents back where it all belongs , and maybe I will make some doors for this closet , or maybe it will just get a curtain, that might just work better. Heck maybe I'll keep it open , its my laundry room.
OMG I just realized since I added wheels to the dog food container I have room for another shelf... that I can make from scraps....

Survey says...

Hope everyone had a nice weekend and a great Father's Day. They were calling for rain so we stayed close to home, we should have done what we wanted which was going to the big theme park near by because it didn't rain , of course. But we did go to Costco and picked up a boat load of ribs. After a road bump we ended up eventually with some really delicious ribs. I made this beautiful dessert that I knew my husband liked very much. It is now my favourite dessert ever.

Its puff pastry rolled out with one large layer on the bottom with a second layer to be the frame poke centre with fork , bake 12 minutes at 400 degrees , push down centre to flatten, then let cool, with a creamy centre made out of 1/4 c lemon juice , 2 tbsp lemon zest , one can of eagle brand condensed sweetened milk, 1-1/2 cups cool whip , topped with berries , easy peasy.

 Saturday I tackled the exterior lighting. I moved the smaller ones over to the garage and installed the big lanterns at the front door. You were all right and as I thought the bigger the better.

 Gorgeous right. I might be going to go get a new door handle today , as the one I love most is being cleared out.

 I finally found a nice big rug , it took months before I was able to find it , Homesense of course. I love these ferns , so easy and simple. The little fireplace we pull out for roasting marshmallows we picked up at Walmart last year , it uses gel fuel or a little propane cannister , I love that little fireplace.

These lanterns look so much nicer , perfect size. 

Grad is a few days away , what an exciting time. I'm going to try to tackle as many house projects as I can this week. Busy week as usual. 

I try

 I will try to answer a few questions before I show you for real what is going on these days.

First the kick plate section I added to the sink cabinet , well I don't have a real how to but I thought a close up may be useful to help see what I did . I really just cut out a decorative foot out of MDF and attached it to the underside of the base cabinet . Here are a couple of crude drawings of how I did it , it worked.

 I have had a few readers ask how I was doing my baseboard trim. They spied I had more than just one or two pieces of molding, that is right. When we installed the wood we left gaps for expansion, some gaps were big, so I just doubled up the trim with a shoe mould and a quarter round, you can easily see it here.

 Here is our little garage , its been great , there is a lot of room for storage and my workshop items. I look forward to being able to get all of our ourdoor items out of the garage to really organize it . The garage doors were finally painted by the builder last week , well by a very nice painter from Pennsylvania actually , I knew he wasn't Canadian when I saw his Cowboy bumper stickers, lol. He was a great painter in fact. I did not at all like the preselected colour that came with our exterior package , it was an army green , how does army green go with grey siding and navy shutters. So I quickly went out and decided white was the best choice , fresh and clean.
We just need to get two new lanters for over the garage doors.

 We are still living with this dreadful mess , all of this is going to be removed and new sod will be laid , when that is we don't know , but hopefully very soon , this is part of the house purchase so it is no extra cost to us, just a big water bill to come I'm sure. Most evenings we have usually a couple of bunnies that quite enjoy our dreadful yard , they don't seem to mind all the dirt and weeds , they clearly love it . They are cute. We put out apples .
 All the exterior trim around the doors and the headers above the windows as well as the posts were painted crisp white also. Looks so fresh and clean now. I wonder what it will look like with grass. I do believe they started the construction on our house around a year ago .

 My hubby and kids got me these two coach lights for mother's day , I love them , but I wonder if they are too small , should we have gone with the bigger ones? any thoughts , should I move these to over the garage doors and get the larger version for here? 

Oh my seeing these pictures together make me think I might be right , bigger for the entry , what do you think?

 I really need to buckle down and get this upstairs hall sanded , and stained and those spindles need finishing , can you hear my feet dragging?

 After searching and searching I found this sweet petite simple black fan , it is a Monte Carlo fan. It packs quite a punch for such a small fan , I did not want a big beast of a fan so this is perfect.

 I haven't been able to move ahead in the master bath at all , well I did make and hang some cute curtains. I really need to paint . I don't want to start anything until the marble tub deck is installed. I plan to add trim details to the apron of the tub. Which reminds me I need to send someone an email.

 How annoying is this ...the suction caddy keeps on falling off the tile, I clean , I use rubbing alcohol and still it keeps falling , what am I to do ? Maybe I will have to silicone a ceramic shelf in there because this is ridiculous.

 I also need to sand and smooth the awful edges of all this MDF and paint it all again , but I love the simplicity of these panels.

 I have been working on this closet a little bit adding a hook for the step stool and tweaking a little bit , like adding another shelf above the pop cans, yes we call them pop's here...I also added a basket to the bottom cubby and I figured adding swivel wheels would make it so useful and easy to access. I also added a wheel trolley bit for the dog food , much easier to wheel it then drag it out.

 Ah organization happiness. I am thinking of painting the inside of the closet with a punchy colour, maybe orange.

Here is my wheely basket. I attached the wheels to a piece of hardboard with 4 small screws , one of the screws I added was about an inch long so that it would poke into the basket keeping it in place , it worked perfectly , sometimes I have have a good idea.

That's what's going on around these parts. Next week is grade 8 grad time , high school is right around the corner , it all happens so soon.