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I Heart Faces ~ Family Fun

Posted by Andrea on Jan 18, 2012 in I Heart Faces Entry | 3 comments

This photo should be titled “Jealousy”. As soon as Ella’s grandpa picked up her baby brother, Ella decided she was having none of it. I love all the expressions going on in this photo.

The Attic Remodel – Before & After

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

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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 it, 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.

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!

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

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

We first had foam insulation put in.

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

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!)

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.

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

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. :)

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

Photo with the Mosers (our cousins).

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. We kept the knee walls short to maximize space. Anyway, we’re really happy with how it turned out and were surprised how much space there really was to work with.

Our house – the beginning

Posted by Andrea on Jan 11, 2012 in Family Posts | 4 comments

Just for fun…this is the video my mother-in-law took right after we found out that our offer was accepted on our house. Enjoy seeing lime green walls, tons of wallpaper, a psychedelic flowered bathroom, gold and green carpets, a pink tiled bathroom and so much more.