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Lazy Summer Days…Finally!

Posted by on Jun 8, 2012 in family, Family Posts, Feature | 3 comments

It has been one stressful school year, and I have to say I’ve spent my first week off of school being extremely lazy.  The kids, on the other hand, are approaching the summer like play is some serious business.  My sister, Angie, has a really cool creek down the road from her.  It took two trips in her Pilot to get everyone there, but it was well worth the effort.

It was fun to note that even with the difference in ages from the youngest (4) to the oldest (13), everyone was having fun, even poor Nathan who was savagely attacked by horseflies.  He has to have around 15-20 bites on his back.  Anyone have any suggestions to help ward them off?  From what I’ve read, they love water and bug spray does not work on them.  :(  Nathan appears to have that bug attracting quality.  (Gets that from his mom!)

I’m considering getting a P&S camera.  As much as I love taking photos with my new camera, I was one nervous momma walking across slippery rocks with it!  I think a cheaper camera is in order for excursions like this as well as for our upcoming vacation to Disney, especially with my clumsy propensity for accidents.

The kids have all voted, and this location is on the summer itinerary as a weekly event!

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Our new “baby” – Copper

Posted by on Mar 27, 2012 in Family Posts, Feature, Puppy | 5 comments

For the past 13 years, I have tried every avoidance technique possible to keep Mark from getting a dog.

So, even though Mark agreed that a big dog is not good for city and indoor living, here we are with a dog that will get big, will stay in the house, and will get to roam the little box of our city yard.  Ugh.  How did this happen?  :)

 

 

 I lost, but at least the kiddos and Mark are happy.  :)

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The Attic Remodel – Before & After

Posted by on Jan 17, 2012 in Feature, Our house | 2 comments

Attic remodel:  This post shares how we converted an unused walk-up attic into ample space for a family room, train table, sitting area, playroom, and storage.

Before & After attic renovation remodel finishing remodeling before and after century home family room train table playroom

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Our attic was one of the areas that totally convinced us to buy our house. In the house I grew up in, the attic could be reached through a pull down door in the ceiling. When my parents stored stuff in there, you knew it wasn’t coming out for a LOOOONG time because the access space was over our stairs. Not easy to get to. That’s why I thought it was so incredibly cool that our attic had stairs going up to it.

Mark and I have always thrown around the idea of trying to fix up the attic space, but we knew the cost of fixing it up might be more than it was worth. We started off by painting the area to make it seem cleaner and brighter. Eventually we moved the train table and Geo Trax up there. The kids loved it but could realistically only play up there during fall and spring. Summer…too hot. Winter…too cold. The more we thought about it, though, the more we realized that this area was the perfect hang-out spot for our family.

Mark put so much work into the attic remodel, and we are happy to say that this is now our favorite spot in the house.

The train table used to be the first thing people saw when coming up the stairs.

Before & After attic renovation remodel finishing remodeling before and after century home family room train table playroom

Now, we have a Craigslist (awesome deal) table where we can play cards.  Mark also put in a larger window and HVAC unit.  The big window is what allowed us to get our furniture into the house!

Before & After attic remodel renovation finishing remodeling before and after century home family room train table playroom

Can’t forget a picture of Mark on the lift.  Hard to tell it’s 3 stories up!  Yikes!

Before & After attic renovation remodel finishing remodeling before and after century home family room train table playroom

Turn to the left, and it used to be an open space with a ventilation piece sticking up from the floor.

Before & After attic renovation remodel finishing remodeling before and after century home family room train table playroom

We first had foam insulation put in.

Before & After attic renovation remodel finishing remodeling before and after century home family room train table playroom

Now we have the TV (sitting on a low entertainment center that Mark made) and two queen-sized sleeper sofas.

Before & After attic renovation remodel finishing remodeling before and after century home family room train table playroom

Keep turning left, and there is a small area that I was hoping could be a newborn studio area. Before, it was the dollhouse and GeoTrax area.  (Aw, look how little my guys were!)

Before & After attic renovation remodel finishing remodeling before and after century home family room train table playroom

Before & After attic renovation remodel finishing remodeling before and after century home family room train table playroom

Since we couldn’t do wood floors up in the attic, I’m not so sure the studio idea will work out.  If not, we can have the race cars in this area eventually.

Before & After attic renovation remodel finishing remodeling before and after century home family room train table playroom

Keep turning left, and you’ll find what used to be more junk laying around.

Before & After attic renovation remodel finishing remodeling before and after century home family room train table playroom

Now, the kids have a proper train table.  We have to paint it before we set up the trains.  Fortunately, it works out great for race cars too.  :)

Before & After attic renovation remodel finishing remodeling before and after century home family room train table playroom

Keep turning left, and we’re back where we started.

Before & After attic renovation remodel finishing remodeling before and after century home family room train table playroom

Before & After attic renovation remodel finishing remodeling before and after century home family room train table playroom

Before & After attic renovation remodel finishing remodeling before and after century home family room train table playroom

The little door leading to Jordyn’s playroom was designed to not be immediately noticed.  It is the fourth “secret” hidden playroom in our house.

Photo with the Mosers (our cousins).

Before & After attic renovation remodel finishing remodeling before and after century home family room train table playroom

Before & After attic renovation remodel finishing remodeling before and after century home family room train table playroom

Now, I just need to spice it up with a few decorations.  There are very few options for wall art since we don’t have many straight walls.  In our attic remodel, we kept the knee walls short to maximize space.  Anyway, we’re really happy with how the attic remodel turned out and were surprised how much space there really was to work with.

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Our Quirky Secret Rooms ~ Hidden Playrooms for the Kids

Posted by on Jan 8, 2012 in Family Posts, Feature | 70 comments

We have a….

secret room rooms playroom playrooms bookcase door attic room over porch under stairs

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So why all the secret rooms?  It all started a couple years ago when Mark and I got to thinking about what could be behind these stairs:

secret room rooms playroom playrooms bookcase door attic room over porch under stairs

Mark had heard before that sometimes when people built homes, they would attach a gold coin under the first stair for good luck.  We figured, if nothing else, that there was some unused space under those stairs so we might as well open them up to see.

No coin…but we gained storage space.  That is, until our kids got a little older and we started thinking…

Maybe we could sweep it out a bit.  Maybe a nice coat of paint.  Since we did that, we might as well add carpet.  Now it’s looking kind of cool….rope lights, strobe light, black light, t.v., dvd player….Okay, things got a bit out of hand.  :)

To make it even cooler, we wanted to make sure that the entrance (in the dining room closet) wasn’t instantly obvious. Mark set about designing a door that looked like a regular part of the back of the closet.

secret room rooms playroom playrooms bookcase door attic room over porch under stairs

secret room rooms playroom playrooms bookcase door attic room over porch under stairs

secret room rooms playroom playrooms bookcase door attic room over porch under stairs

Not long after this, Mark’s wheels started turning again.  In one of the bedrooms we had a “little door”.  It looked really out of place and was basically an access to a small space under our attic stairs.  Mark became determined to disguise this door and came up with the “bookcase plan”:

secret room rooms playroom playrooms bookcase door attic room over porch under stairs

secret room rooms playroom playrooms bookcase door attic room over porch under stairs

secret room rooms playroom playrooms bookcase door attic room over porch under stairsWe threw some carpet and a light in there and called it a day.  Soon we’ll fix up the walls.  On some we’ll put chalkboard paint, and the others will have dry erase.  There’s enough space in there for Ben to set up his trains and keep the mess out of his bedroom.

So, that was it, UNTIL….

the-balcony-turned-into-a-bathroom remodeling project.  Mark had to tear out quite a bit of lathe and plaster only to discover an opening that was above our front porch.  We kind of shrugged it off at first figuring the shower would block that space anyway.  After observing how roomy it was, we did a little more assessment of the space and realized that part of the space went up against the back of Nathan’s closet.  Secret room #3 was born:

secret room rooms playroom playrooms bookcase door attic room over porch under stairs

secret room rooms playroom playrooms bookcase door attic room over porch under stairs

 

secret room rooms playroom playrooms bookcase door attic room over porch under stairs

This room will house Nathan’s lego table and will hopefully contain the Lego pieces out of sight.

By this time, we were hooked.  We had already planned a secret room for the attic specially made for Jordyn.  (Because, alas, the poor girl was the only child without a secret room attached to her bedroom.)  We had a space that was cut off from the rest of the attic by the stairs.  Since it was awkward to reach anyway, we came up with plans for secret room #4:

secret room rooms playroom playrooms bookcase door attic room over porch under stairs

secret room rooms playroom playrooms bookcase door attic room over porch under stairs

secret room rooms playroom playrooms bookcase door attic room over porch under stairs

secret room rooms playroom playrooms bookcase door attic room over porch under stairs

So, what do our kids think about these playrooms?  They don’t think much about it at all!  They are so used to them that it doesn’t seem like anything unusual.  In fact, with our first secret room, we forgot to tell our babysitter about it.  She went into the kitchen to fix dinner for the kids.  When she went to call them to eat, she could hear them but couldn’t find them.  Oops!  Need to add that little tidbit to the babysitter notes.  :)

We may be a bit quirky, but I would have thought this was the most AWESOME thing ever if I had something like this as a child.

Update:

I never expected this post to get the kind of attention it has.  In the process of tons of visits, we’ve received comments regarding  parenting, grammar, safety, and other less wholesome topics.

Some of these comments I’ve chosen to send to the trash bin but to avoid repeats, here goes:

1.  Our kids are very aware of our fire plan, and they do not sleep in the rooms.

2.  Our house is equipped with hardwired and interconnected smoke detectors that also have battery backup in all bedrooms, all hallways, and on every floor.

3.  Our fire department will be made aware of the rooms.  Thanks to those who made suggestions about that.

4.  My children do enjoy television (as evidenced by the T.V.’s in 2 of the photos), but I do not allow them to watch it until their brains rot.  My children spend exponentially more time outdoors and in creative play than they do in the secret rooms.

5.  One commenter has made some false assumptions about the community in which we live and the amount of money we have.  We are not rich; we did all the work on the rooms ourselves.  We are currently following Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University program, and are close to being debt free.

6.  Some other commenters seem to think this would be a great place to start an “agricultural program”…no thanks.  Not in to that kind of “agriculture”.  :)

We love that so many people are finding inspiration in this post.  We would like to see what other people have done to create cool spots in the house for their own kids so please share!

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Haircuts…

Posted by on Jul 18, 2011 in Family Posts, Feature | 4 comments

I totally forgot about these pics I snapped a few weeks ago.  I love capturing photos of the kids right after they get their hair cut.  Ben was so proud of his temporary mohawk while Jordyn was thrilled with the hair clip the beautician gave her.  Nathan gave me his typical silly “get the camera out of my face” face.

 

Little update:  Ben’s two bottom teeth are loose right now.  At first he was concerned and told me, “I’m going to go brush my teeth so that they won’t fall out.”  Once I explained to him that it was good that his teeth were loose and meant that he was becoming a big boy, he immediately let Nathan know that as soon as his teeth fell out, he would be able to run as fast as him.  I didn’t have the heart to break the bad news to him that he would probably be in competition with his brother the rest of his life.  :)  Nathan was sure to inform Ben all about the tooth fairy.  Later, he whispered to me that he knew the tooth fairy and Santa Claus weren’t real, but he would keep that a secret.  If I know Nathan, that secret won’t last long.

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