Before and After- Girls' Dresser

It's no secret that I am a complete cheapskate when it comes to some things. Furniture is one of those things. A surprising amount of our furniture was acquired free, or very cheaply secondhand. My desk in the "dining" room was a freebie, along with the bookcase that sits next to it. The red dresser in that same room was $25 plus the cost of paint. Our kitchen table is from a consignment store. The girls' beds used to belong to my brother when he was a kid, the sofa-bed upstairs is a cast-off from a friend. The boys desk. The hutch in the kitchen. The upstairs TV cabinet. You get the idea. I don't like spending a lot of money on stuff that I can score for free. Especially when my dear family is still in the "football in the house and sometimes eat pizza on the couch" phase of life. In other words, things in my house need to be functional, but not overly valuable or costly. Because chances are they are going to get milk spilled on them or markers colored on them.

Where was I? Oh, yes. A few months ago, (I am SO far behind on blogging) we picked up a dresser from Goodwill for a mere $30.

It was not in the best of shape...

Harper's potty training meant good-bye to the changing table that got when I was pregnant with Dane. Good bye forever. FOREVER!! So we needed a bit of extra storage in their room for all of her new princess panties.

I sanded a bit. Hemmed and hawed over paint colors. Pinterest-ed a few ideas. Spray painted the hardware, and tried my hand at glazing for the first time.

And the finished product:

I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

I think I can make it work in their room for the next several years anyway. And the best part? For $30 and a little elbow grease, if it gets Sharpie-markered at some point, it's not the end of the world.

Before and Not-Quite After: Boys Room Edition

I feel like we have been trying to finish Dane and Aidan's room FOREVER. By the time we get it just how we want it, the boys will be going off to college, and like my mother before me, I will be redecorating their room before they're even out of the driveway.

Another story for another time.

Back to the Boy Room.

Before: Twin beds from Uncle John's old room when he was a little boy.

Matching dresser with a broken drawer. Underbed drawers which held shoes. An antique chair from my grandfather that was super comfortable, but sat in the boys room because I had no where else to put it.

Stuffed animals everywhere. Posters in various stages of being torn down covering the walls. No toys, because they were taking up the upstairs playroom while the downstairs living room was overrun with little girl/toddler toys.

The plan? Bunk beds. Storage and room for all of their toys, away from the destructive hands of their little sister and away from the non-discriminating mouth of their littlest sister. Get rid of the posters, and find something else for the walls. I wanted them to have plenty of room to actually play with their toys IN THEIR ROOM instead of in the upstairs playroom, so I could transition the upstairs playroom into a girl playroom, moving all of the dress up clothes, dolls, books, Legos, etc. out of the downstairs living room.

The solution? Twin-over-double bunk beds (the boys sleep in the same bed anyway). I was looking for something very specific for the beds, I wanted a rail at the top, a ladder that went all the way to the ground, and I did not want to take up additional floor space with a "loft style" bed. And I wanted someone to come and put it together in the room. Me no likey furniture assembly.

We got rid of the shorter dresser with the broken drawers, and moved a dresser that had been in my closet, into the boys' closet for some of their clothes. We moved one of the short bookshelves into the girls' room to accomodate their ever growing collection of books and stuffed animals. These three pictures occupy the remaining bookshelf:

Brandon with each of the boys as a newborn in the hospital, and a cute shot of the boys sharing a snack after a soccer practice.

This little mat sits at the foot of their bed, Brandon bought it from a villager in Kenya.

I got a bunch of baskets for their growing collection of Legos, toys, Beyblades, etc, that fit nicely under their bed. I'm still not completely satisfied with the toy storage, and I am on the lookout for some sort of bench with storage space underneath. Maybe a space that can be used as a bench, or as a play table if needed.

Remember this desk?

After a little (actually, not enough) sanding, primer, and at least 3 coats of paint, it was finished. Not perfect, but finished.

The boys LOVE having the little cubbies and drawers for their treasures, and they've already found a bunch of pictures to tack to the little cork board. We moved the trophies out of the way of little hands (it's a little embarrassing how many trophies have been broken in our house) and moved the "Rock Bros" picture above the desk.

We still need to get a chair for the desk, and move some of their writing and drawing supplies up here. This room will never be all the way finished. Never.

And for the walls? Well. I wanted to put a couple of their favorite verses on the walls. Brandon and the boys liked that idea, but wanted to somehow incorporate Pokemon characters. Of course. We thought about painting something directly on the walls, but ultimately realized that the boys would want something different in a few years and that a canvas would be easier to switch out.

Brandon and I spent untold hours on the canvases, then shoved them into the garage when they were about 95% done. We just didn't know how to polish them up and make them look better, so Brandon's mom finished them up for us when they came to town a few weekends ago. Be forwarned: If you come visit us for the weekend, we're likely to give you a project to do.

Dane's verse:

Aidan's verse:

The spears and shield are from Brandon's trip to Kenya earlier this year.

I can assure you, their next verses will be much, much shorter than these.

The boys LOVE their new room, and spend hours and hours there, playing with stuffed animals, building Lego towns, and reading. I just hope they don't outgrow Pokemon characters any time soon.

"Before": Desk Edition

Well.

I think we might just survive this school year. Two weeks in, and we are starting to settle into a routine of sorts. The boys are both enjoying school so far. I don't have enough good things to say about Dane's teacher. She lets Dane read as much as he wants to at school, as long as his work gets done. She doesn't own a cell phone. She appears to have a story to tell for everything, and Dane comes home telling fun stories about Mrs. W. She doesn't believe in homework. She is the mother of six children, and she doesn't assign homework because she thinks that family time in the evenings should be spent doing other things instead.

Amen and amen.

Aidan's surviving kindergarten after a somewhat rough first week of rule-learning and boundry-testing. Attitudes were adjusted, a sticker chart was hung on our fridge, and Aidan's getting the hang of this whole "school everyday and I have to listen to the teacher" thing. A prayer for the his darling teacher Mrs. S. would not be wasted.

The girls are LOVING school. LOVING it. Emerson is disappointed on days when she wakes up to learn that she is not going to school. Based on a sticker chart of her own that I found in the princess backpack, Harper's teachers have tentatively engaged in the futility of trying to potty train her. Good luck with that. Here's how potty training at home has gone so far:

Step 1: Harper pees in diaper.

Step 2: Harper immediately takes diaper off, leaving it where ever she may be.

Step 3: Naked Harper runs to Mommy, declaring that she needs to go potty.

Step 4: Hopeful Mommy plops Naked Harper onto potty, then watches as Harper does. nothing.

Step 5: Proud Harper claps her hands, proclaiming "Yay Harper! Harper go potty and get candy!"

Step 6: Proud Harper denied candy. Nothing in the potty=No candy.

Step 7: Proud Harper becomes Angry Naked Harper, throws her naked body on the ground and screams for a bit, refusing to have diaper reapplied.

Step 8: Naked Harper relents, diaper reapplied.

Step 9: See Step 1

Needless to say, neither one of us is completely on board with the whole potty training thing at the moment. I think I expected her to be easy to train, since she is a girl, but I think we'll just let her go at her own leasurely pace for a bit longer.

We've had a few ongoing projects around the Outnumbered House (besides potty training), and my the state of my garage is about to drive me crazy. The dirty floor. The paint splatters. The piles of junk making the tool bench inaccessable. I've decided that Mother Nature and I are in a bit of a standoff, and I refuse to have a Garage Cleaning Day until the weather dips below 95. And I am standing firm.

One of those projects?

Some friends of ours passed on to us their (now grown) son's desk. We have been looking for something for the boys' room, and I'm always psyched to score free furniture. She warned us that he had written on the desk in a few places:

Bring it on.

I've got a team of helpers that are not intimidated by stickers and graffiti.

And a can of red paint, leftover from another piece of bargain furniture.

The "after" picture will come later. As soon as I dig myself out from under the disaster that is my garage.

Before and After- Backyard Edition

I'm pretty sure she has shown up in several pictures throughout the years.

My children have spent countless hours with her.

She has allowed me to empty the dishwasher in peace, fold laundry at the kitchen table, and make dinner on occasion.

Death-trap swing set has been good to us over the years. Several years ago we were gifted this lovely second-hand swing set for our backyard and ever-growing family to enjoy, and enjoy we have.

But lately? Lately she has been sporting some extra diagonal support beams down below, a bit of duct tape on her broken railing, and most recently, a couple of "Harper, don't fall out" boards up top. My kids love to play outside, and they have loved this swing set.

This will probably not be the last Before and After on Outnumbered over the next couple of months. Thanks from a little help in the form of a tax return and a plethora of ER shifts lately, Brandon and I have decided to make a few improvements here at Casa de Bursting-at-the-Seams to make our lovely home a little more user friendly.

First on the agenda: A new swing set for the backyard. Brandon and I spent several weeks picking something out that would suite our family. Our criteria: 1. Reasonably priced. It need not cost more than Brandon's car. 2. High enough quality that it will withstand 5 years of very frequent use. In five years, our children will be 12,10, 8, and 7, and the bulk of their swing set years will be behind them. They'll still use it, but probably not an hour or so a day like they do now. 3. Fun for 2 year old Harper, and fun for 7 year old Dane. I wanted little Harper to have something safe to play on, but also something "big" enough for the boys.

Introducing...

I'd love to tell you how painless the switch-out was. I'd love to tell you that there is not a heap of rotted wood and nails in the back of my driveway, waiting for their mommy to figure out what to do with them since their daddy had eye surgery and can't lift and haul any time soon.

I'd love to tell you how the new play set came fully assembled, delivered promptly to our backyard. It certainly did not take approximately 30 man hours (and 10 chic hours) to put this puppy together. I'd love to tell you that my big strong husband was able to help put it together, instead of sporting an eye patch one day post corneal transplant, forced inside the house and not allowed participate.

I'd love to tell you that it did not come in approximately 9000 different pieces, and that every piece was clearly labeled and had a clear purpose. I'd love to tell you that the ground beneath is perfectly level and there is not an ever-so-slight tilt to the whole thing.

I'd love to tell you that my beloved babysitter, Miss Kylie, did not herself drill 72 screws into that rock-climbing wall. (Um, new swing set was a team effort, to say the least.)

I'd love to tell you that I most certainly was not driving Brandon around to post-op eye appointments while my family and friends stayed at the house and worked diligently until it was dark and raining to get the swing set put together.

So, new swing set, I hope the next 5 years or so will be full of laughter, squeals of joy, and lots of imagination.

Because you, new swing set, will hopefully be the last swing set to ever grace our back yard.

Before and After, a Garage Sale Makeover

A couple of weeks ago, a spur-of-the-moment swing by a neighborhood garage sale yielded this $25 steal:

Solid oak. Good drawers. Boogered up on the top by small hands with markers.

I've been looking for a piece of furniture to go here, in what a Realtor would call our "formal dining area". No formal dining set has ever lived in this room, it has and always will be a computer area and extension of our living room.

The shelving unit that currently resides on this wall has definitely seen better days, especially since some of her shelves became dislodged and never re-lodged. Sometimes Harper likes to sit in these narrow little spaces created by vacant shelves. And sometimes she likes to dig through my baskets, unorganized and filled with pictures, cards, and other things that don't have a true "home".

After an unexpected, unscheduled Saturday afternoon appeared on our calender, I decided it was the perfect time to spruce up the garage-sale find a bit and headed out on a quick trip to Lowe's.

A few hours later:

Behold. The red chest of drawers. (I know, I need to lower that picture on the wall just a little bit now.)

I had big plans of picking up new hardware at Lowe's, but apparently this particular size of drawer pulls on the top three drawers is a "hard-to-find" size. Awesome. The Lowe's man suggested I check online for new pulls. Unfortunately, there appears to be a different and unique drawer pull for every man, woman, and child in the world, and I didn't possess the time or the patience to look at all of them and make any kind of decision.

So back on went the old drawer pulls, and I'm hoping they grow on me. They may get a coat of black spray paint in the near future. Or they may still get replaced all together. I briefly thought about sanding the edges of the chest up just a bit, for a little "antiquing", but when we chipped an edge while we were putting the drawers back in, I decided that in a matter of weeks Little Red Dresser would find herself a bit "naturally antiqued by various children", and left well enough alone.

Fortunately for my (now a little red-splattered) garage, I have very few empty Saturday mornings for garage-saleing over these next few weeks.

Before and After aka "I've Reached New Levels of Boring"

Before I bore you with baby pictures next week (next week!!), I thought I would do a few "before and after" pictures of our house since Hurricane Ike and the Giant Tree smashed into it 6 months ago.

Here is our master bathroom September 14, 2008:

Here is our master bathroom now:

The cabinets, countertops, carpet, and of course, shower have been replaced. Hot Brandon finished the shower last night, and it is awesome. It's 9 feet long, and 4 feet wide with an open walk-in doorway to the left of the above picture. (And that towel hanging there is more of a mossy green, not the weird lime color it appears here.) We're going to put some hooks in that back wall to hang towels on.

Here is the inside of the shower, taken from the back corner near the doorway. The floor is the small-tile slate. I'm so proud of my handy hubby and how hard he worked to finish this giant project. It took a lot more time than I think either of us anticipated. He has been working on it every spare minute for the last 3 weeks.

By the way, I feel like the lamest person on the planet for posting random pictures of the interior of our house. So boring. But it's so nice to be back in our house. And some of these pictures are weird angles so that I wouldn't have to clean too much before I took the pictures. :)

In addition to a major bathroom remodel, our kitchen also got a pretty good facelift. New cabinets, countertops, sink, and table. This is a random shot of our kitchen countertops after the storm. You can kind of see the cabinets there in the corner:

Here's our new cabinets (LOVE them) and countertops now. The wall color is the same as it was before, as is most of the paint color in our house. I didn't want to have to make a lot of paint decisions, and I was pretty happy with a lot of the colors that were on the wall before.

No "before" pictures exist of the nasty living room carpet we used to have. Let me paint you a mental image: Picture a tire-and-lube garage. Now, imagine that they had white carpet inside of the work area that had been there for several years, and several hundred cars had their oil changed over this carpet. Then someone decided to rip this carpet out of the garage and put it in someone's house. This is what was in our living room and downstairs office area.

Now, we have this pretty fake-wood floor, and I absolutely love it. The boys have learned not to run in their socks, and have bitten the dust more than a few times. Again, sorry about the weird angle of this picture. Please note Aidan's new toothbrush there on the red rug.

I don't have a "before" picture of the baby's room, either. Picture walls that were supposed to be tan, but were in reality more of an olive-green color (I should never be allowed to select paint color). Picture a college intern living in the room for the summer, and lots of computer equipment, music stuff, and a guitar.

I don't have a picture of the entire room, I've still got some organizing to do. My mother-in-law made the crib bedding (bumper coming soon), and I absolutely love it. The walls are post-it yellow, and there's a lot of green accents in the room, like this super-fuzzy rug on the floor by the crib. The crib sheet is brown with tiny little polka-dots, and the curtain is the same as the dust ruffle.

Here's the diaper hanger, which shows the prints a bit better:

Most of our other rooms that were repaired look pretty much the same as before. And some other things have not changed in our house at all.

Like this:

Quite possibly my favorite picture of my house.