Christmas At The Old Church House

Our first snow....that only lasted a few hours........

A peek at our new fence.......

Our front door wreath.....

Instead of dead plants, pine branches!.......

The front entrance.......

The Christmas tree put up on an old preschool table and covered with a dropcloth tree skirt.......

Our 3rd annual Christmas Concert.  We packed the house more than ever this year....over 130?..........

Some of our great performers......The Pinder Family.......

Solitrix (High School performing group)........

Alex Thompson.......

Mudroom & Bathroom!

This blog entry tells the interesting story of our mudroom/bathroom area from the week before we even moved in.....to the present.

The funny part of the story was our family using a miniature preschool sink DAILY for two years before we did this remodel!   We were so good at just "making do" and getting by with what we had until we could change things....because we had to!

A few days before we moved in Dustin put some scrap wood on the floor to at least raise the sink up to our level.   Notice that this is before the back wall was taken out for an entry to our kitchen........

This is the raised up cabinet, sinks and mirror (with no lighting).......

Newly framed hallway and entry to the kitchen......

With sinks gone, Dustin contemplates how to use the same plumbing for a sink on the other side of the wall.....

With plumbing now on the other side of the wall for our new bathroom sink, Dustin puts up MUCH needed cabinets for our new mudroom....

Here's what it looks like now.....the AFTER!......

Taking a peek into the much needed shelving in our new cabinets....but this is real life, I didn't bother making it all Martha Stewart-like.  ha ha.  The other two cabinets are the kids messy "lockers" and that's where I drew the line in showing off.....

Around the corner in this open doorway is the entrance from our side yard.   This is the BEFORE......

Did you notice the two doors?   Those were two toilets with a wall in between....one mini toilet (that I wish I had taken a picture of) and one normal size toilet.

Here's the AFTER.....

This is what we went through.....took off old molding, opened up the dividing wall between the two toilets, took out the mini toilet, painted over the red, and installed new (well, new to us) flooring.......

The AFTER.......

Here's a closer look at where we took the dividing wall out.......

Putting in a pocket door to make more room........

Here's the AFTER........

The other side of this wall was where the "mini" sinks were and we switched the plumbing to this side.  This is also where the mini toilet was but we just covered over that hole in the floor......

Mason jar light cover.   

Nothing original but more original than the goofy globe that was on there before  :-).......

We love our new mudroom/bathroom area.  It feels organized, homey, and bright!

Now, as I write, Dustin has another fire under his bum and you won't believe what he is working on next.....

Our New Family Room!

What started out as an idea to simply re-texture the uneven, cracking, chipping walls in our former office, ended up turning into a full-blown remodel.  Our newest, long awaited room remodel is finally complete!  We are so comfy and cozy in our new family room and find ourselves gravitating to this space all day long. 

Here's a picture of the room taken before we moved in a couple of years ago.....

This is how we lived for way too long.....we just had nowhere to put our junk!  

Notice the boxes along the left wall.....well, we had those for over a year.......

After a big garage sale recently (Oh wait, we don't HAVE a garage....that's why our room looks like this....I mean a yard sale!!) and selling a lot of things on craigslist, 

we simplified our lives and got started on the remodel.  

Here's Dustin using the last piece of furniture left in the room (which also got sold on craigslist)......

We pulled off the old window casings and got two bids on re-texturing the walls....both over $1,000!  This is when we got the idea to put 1x6 mdf boards on the walls instead. 

 Cute, cottage look for more than 1/2 the price!!  

Here's the start of putting up the siding......with every single little nail hole covered with spackle.......

Not sure when or how it was decided but I think we were just so sick of the gross carpet, that it ended up getting ripped up too......literally RIPPED up from the GLUE that was holding it down.......

I know most normal people would look at this hard, caked-on glue and think about what they could cover it with.  I'm not normal and I enjoy a good challenge!  Plus, I thought it would be worth a shot to salvage the  old, original, historic floors.  So, our first attempt was using a heat gun and scraping up all the glue.

Just for the record, I took this picture of Dustin, but it was me who was crazy enough to spend hours and hours doing it too....... 

Yes, even after the heat gun, more glue had to be scraped up.  We used paint stripper to get up most of the remaining glue until it got to where we could sand the rest.

 I should be embarrassed to admit how long I spent doing this but.....after so many hours you just can't quit....because then all the hours that you already put into it would just be wasted and in vain.  But, there was definitely many moments of thinking.....this was a stupid mistake, what was I thinking?  Fake, engineered wood floors would be a welcomed site....who cares about preserving the original floors!!!!

In the end, I'm glad we did though.  One more look at the BEFORE.....

And now the AFTER:

Just have to show a close-up of our new sectional couch.  We have already enjoyed this SO much!  It represents a little more than just a couch.  Not only have we wanted one for so long (I've dreamed about putting my feet up on this chaise lounge), there's just something about going through all we did to make this room what it is and then laying back on this comfy couch, appreciating how hard we worked and the clean, beautiful space around us.   

We will have some good family time on this couch.......  

Another BEFORE .....

And AFTER......

I wasn't sure I'd like the look of all these storage bins.  I thought I would take a lot of them out and put some cute decor and books in various squares, but it has been amazing to be so organized....having a place for everything!  Many of the things that were in the old desk have been organized nicely in these bins.....we just need to label them all now so we can find them!!

I noticed you can't really see the siding in my photography!  Here's some close-ups of the siding on the walls that's showing up a little bit better.........

Next, these doors we found on Craigslist actually came from the 

Boise Capitol Building during it's remodel.  

Dustin got a good deal on them awhile back and thought 

this would be a great place for them........

We'd like to get some great, profound saying or scripture in vinyl lettering to put on the window(s).   

Any suggestions?

This is just an interesting side note. 

While vacuuming the dust out of the vent, all these toys, clips, etc. kept getting caught.  

ALL this in one vent!  The adventures of living in a former preschool.  

We have a couple more things we'd like to finish up before we show what we did with the OTHER half of the room.  Come back soon and check it out.

Kitchen Update And This Old Church House Does A Wedding Reception!!

The reason this blog entry is only a "kitchen update" is because we had some issues with getting an island counter top. The following pictures do not include our island or the backsplash behind the stove. But here it is anyway.....

(And feel free to click on pictures in order to enlarge them)

The floors!

Remember the old, ugly vinyl tiles I took up one by one?

We replaced them with old 2" oak flooring reclaimed from a 1940's home in downtown Boise. Where did we find? Craigslist of course.

After laying the floor (I laid about half of it all by myself as Dustin was out of town) we stained the whole floor the lighter color. Then, one evening Dustin and I taped and stained the darker diamond shapes on the kitchen part of floor only. Wow, what a fun 6 hour grueling job that was!

To get Dustin's cooperation, I simply asked him if he wanted to "spend an evening" on the kitchen floor with me...not really what he had in mind, but he contributed nonetheless. :-)

Here's the kitchen without the island or backsplash behind the stove.........

Next up, pictures of our niece's wedding reception! We were so honored when we were asked if we would consider having it our place. This was the fire under our tushes to finish what we started!!

Here are some pictures of the beautiful event. Like I've said before, and maybe it's the ignorance with my camera, but these pictures just don't do it justice.

Here is the sign they put on the front porch......

Getting the food ready on our island (with a temporary countertop). Notice the punched tin backsplash now. We might end up painting that too....

Cute doilies hung from the ceiling.....(Pay no attention to the tired, glazed over man who couldn't move for the picture. ha ha)

People start to arrive.....

Pictures hung in our entrance.....

The darling bride and groom......

Setting up the reception line on the stage.....

Lots of people coming and going but never felt too crowded.....

A table close-up. Burlap, lace, and Baby's Breath....my favorites too......

Yep, Happily Ever After.....