Bathroom shots

The before shot

This is the shower curtain-cats of course!

This shows the new light fixture and the wall with the picture of the girls at the beach

Yeah! Karl easily fixed the towel bar, but was impressed. Emily apparently was really hanging on it as the screw in the wall was completely bent! Wow she is a sturdy little thing.

So here it is! Introducing a much tamer milder baby blue bathroom with cats & dogs. So much nicer than the alarming bright green before shot. I haven't painted the cabinet or put in the drawers in there, but that will happen soon. Maybe next week. But at least it doesn't blind you when you enter the room!

Projects are getting finshed-and new ones begun

So I was about to take a really cute picture of the girls bathroom to show recent updates in there since I painted it a few weeks ago and had not posted anything yet. But right as I went to get my camera, Emily pulled on the towel bar climbing out of the tub, and crash, the bar broke out of the wall! Oh well! Hopefully we can get it fixed.

We got the cabinets on the all above the desk in the kitchen. We haven't put up the crown moulding, but we are getting there. Doors & shelves are the next step. We also bought more cabinets this weekend for the other wall. We had talked about just a base unit or 84" units. We got two tall units, so I have lots of painting to do!! Yikes. They will allow us to get all our stuff put away that is sitting in the bookcase in the kitchen (the bookcase goes upstairs for my little bookworms. They have outgrown the one they have), and get the food storage out of the garage so the humidity does not ruin it before we get to it. Karl has already lost a sealed package of Oreos due to extreme humidity :)

And the best news of all, the painting in the living room is finally finished. Karl & I painted the trim edges yesterday. I did as much as I could before I turned it over to Karl. It was just too high up for me! Even Karl was nervous about falling.

We are excited to finish the rest of our projects here and just enjoy the house and living here.

More pictures

garden two weeks ago

Garden this week



So check out Flickr for even more, but as promised, garden, and princess shots.

August Update

Recent shot of Virgina Cousins

Hostile takeover by cucumbers


Garden shot from 1 month ago-it is totally different now.
I can't believe it has been over a month since I posted anything! Yikes.

Anyhow, here is the latest and greatest with us. I finally got rolling on a few more painting projects today. I did the front door, and primed the new kitchen wall cabinets. I also started working on painting the master bathroom cabinet too. I tried doing some creative spackling, so we will see how well that goes. Did I mention we got the desk installed in the other side of the kitchen? That is working great! The cabinets I am working on will go right above it, and I hope to get another standing unit for the other wall and then we should be done! Yahoo!

The garden is growing like gang busters. I have flowers galore which is so fun. My sunflowers are lovely, will post pictures soon. The veggies are doing well too. The cucumbers have attempted a slightly hostile takeover of the area, but the pruning job went fairly well there to stall its progress. The watermelons are also slowly growing. Oh and I actually have baby corn growing. I can't believe it worked and the things grew. The are adorable right now. We put some bird seed out in the hopes that the birds will take care of the undesirable bugs in the garden.

Emily & Sydney are doing well. They have discovered dress up and I got them each princess costumes which they love.(but Emily wears tights and a shirt so it doesn't touch her skin even though it was the softest dress I could find.

A friend gave them her old Barbies and they are enjoying playing with those too. I dusted off some patterns to make some clothes for the dolls as well, call me crazy but it sounds like fun:)

Emily seems to actually be mastering riding a bike. She got the thing rolling today, and didn't crash into anything or hit me whith faulty steering. She rode all the way down the street and came back. Sadly the camera was in the house at the time, but we will try and capture that again soon. Sydney can't reach the pedals on her bikes comfortably, and get really easily frustrated. I think I will have to break down and get a tricycle for her. Drat that lady who stole the one out from under her at the garage sale last month!

We are looking forward to school and have had fvun shopping for school supplies and meeting with the school to arrange things. Orientation (for kindergarten:) ) is the last day of the month. I think that is more for me, but I hope it helps get her acclimated to the new routine/environment.

And wonder of wonders, she actually tried on a pair of shoes that had been sent to her for her birthday and wore them without complaining and fussing. And on Sundays she wants me to put things in her hair and she leaves them there for 3 hours! Shocker. I even bought some ribbon and made some cute little hair things to match their dresses.

However, Mom, the dress you got for her birthday is not soft enough and she had to wear a shirt underneath it.

I will try and get more pics up on Flickr and the blog.

New Home Pics

Most of these are at my flickr account , but here are some of the finished kitchen cabinets. Sorry these are so blurry.

Car troubles

Did we mention that we were having car troubles with the Rodeo? I have only ever seen radiators boil over in the movies, but I can now say I now what an overheated engine looks like. One morning, after coming back from my daily YMCA visit, we got all the way home before I noticed the rather awful smell, the hissing and the boiling noises. I pulled into the driveway, ran in the house & called Karl. Oh no problem he said, just lift the lid, and add more water if you want to go anywhere. Needless to say we stayed home for the rest of that day. Did we also mention it is on the Consumer Reports Used Cars to Avoid list? We only recently found that out though.

Today, we hope the car will come back from the rather inexpensive (hopefully very talented) mechanics. Karl sweetly took my car and left the red car with me. We almost bought a minivan but held back at the last minute for the more practical fix it first option!

Emily's Artwork

I personally believe my daughter is an incredible talent artist :) However, she is only 5, so not everyone believes that she is as incredible as I do, but this is one of my recent favorites. She made it just for me! You can tell because my name is in the corner. The big stripy cat in the center is my personal favorite, but you can pick your own favorite cat. I love that the cats are all wearing hair bows, amde even mroe ironic because she adamantly refuses bows herself.

Sydney's quip

So I came into the room crunching on the last little bit of a chip-yes I was making dinner, and I had turned down their request to eat chips.

She was snuggled on the couch with Karl and asked "What are you eating mom?" I quickly swallowed and said "Nothing" She responded with the sweetest smile possible, "Can I have some nothing!" I laughed and ended up giving her 2 chips.

Sydney Turns 3

We had a wonderful little family birthday party Sunday evening, and we will have a few friends over this Saturday. She is very excited to be "big and three" Karl and I get a kick out of the big part, but hey, what can you do. Emily was almost more excited about Sydney's upcoming birthday than Sydney herself, so it was sweet to see her helping her sister with presents, and trying to stay calm about the whole thing.

As always we are slowly making progress on the house. We have the most recent progress up on Flickr, along with some fun shots of April & Caleb from our recent trip to DC.

We hope to finish the kitchen project before the party, so Karl has taken 2 days off work to try and get all the work done. More pictures to follow!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/70208657@N00/

Bathroom & Closet are painted

This is the garden after we got a little help from a local landscaper who can and knocked on our door.

The playroom after is/was cleaned.

The bedroom not quite as tidy, but better than most days. We tried blackout shades, but I don't think it does anything useful.

See the new crown moulding Karl put in!-Notice the lovely green paint too!

This was a weed growning right next to the little plastic shed. In Karls' other hand is a baby weed of the same variety. Crazy huh!

Hip Hip Hoorray!
It only took 3 false starts in the bathroom to get the right color. Both false starts had perfectly edged in areas around the tub & closet door I should add. But now it is painted, and the orange & bright blue are going to be a distant memory.

They are green now-pictures are coming. The kitchen was going to be green, and after painting one wall, we decided the kitchen really wants to be a lovely yellow color. We hope to install the new cabinets this week-more painting. We need to demo some tile, and smooth the walls. We don't plan to replace the tile at this point, but feel free to cast a ballet in favor of tile if you think it is a selling point.

More & More progress

Family shot after going to see Riverdance.

White cabinets w/silver knobs should look great.
Wall color tbd.

Here is our first pass at organizing the office. We had to clear the floor before Katrina got here so she would have a place to sleep.

Well, it has been a fun few week here since I got back from my trip. I could not resist the lure of another kitchen project, so I had to start painting the cabinets to resurface them. I am happy to report it looks great but it will take a while to finish.

Katrina, Karl's sister, came with her 3 kids on Saturday night and spent the past few days with us. We had a blast, and so did the kids. Together Katrina and I were able to get a lot done on the kitchen, and she painted the half bath downstairs. We have curtains up now in the fishbowl downstairs. We also got a blackout shade in the misguided hope it would get the girls to sleep in a little longer. So far no real success, well who knows maybe it has been successful and we just don't know it.

We finally got the carpet in stairs replaced yesterday and it is so clean a fresh and lovely. Katrina and I were thrilled to stop cringing when the kids played on the carpet, and we don't have to wear shoes! And the eau de Dog is finally out of the house.

Lawn Project

This is the pond & piggy litter box area.

This is the back yard play area.
This is the back view of the house. I'd like to put a patio here and possibly a deck. But the stairs need work the most.

This is the front yard area.

This is the side yard. There are some trees on the side of the fence.

For a better look at the exciting wilderness that is my lawn, check out these pictures on yahoo photos. http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/kwpilz/album?.dir=14bcre2&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

Birthday Weekend Road Trip

The girls & I just got back from a long weekend trip to New York. We visited Heidi & Kenneth Larcher in Syracuse, then went to Ithaca NY and saw a good portion of the Rumseys for a wonderful 81st birthday party for Gram. Then we headed to Rochester for a quick visit with Dave, Lydelle, Greg, & Chris, before heading back on Monday for Virginia. We are all a little tired, but we had a wonderful time!

The girls loved all the animals at Hugh's house, but only on the other side of the fence. The rest of the time Emily kept saying, "Wow! That's a lot of poopy!"

Day 3-6

Master bedroom-I really hated that orange!

Loft Area (Also known as Heather's new office)


Playroom

Girls Bedroom-blue curtains are temporary

Well, I got the girls rooms almost finished. Closet doors in both & the playroom closet need painting, but otherwise, they are good to go. (the bedroom pictures are a little dark, but the bedroom looks like light pink frosting or a pink starburst & the playroom is a lovely lavendar. I'll take more shots as I get things moved in.)

The master bedroom has the first roller coat & edges done. It needs a second coat of both. The bathroom & closet there have not been started yet. The loft/office has a first coat as does the adjacent hall area upstairs. The staiway has also gotten a first coat.

We mowed our lawn, met our neighbors, had some fun with new friends, and spent lots of time cleaning & painting. Tomorrow is another day of painting after a quick trip to Home Depot for a few more cans of paint to cover closet doors, kitchen cabinets, and to tint a reserved can for the bedroom & loft color.

Our things arrive on Wednesday, so we hope to get the essentials bulk of the work done by then. Happy Mothers Day everyone!

Lizard sighting

So after lunch Emily cries out, "Mom we have a lizard in the house." Naturally I thought she was nuts. Then I noticed the cat was very interested in the cushion on the floor. So I picked it up and there it was a poor little lizard missing his tail and a really excited cat. I finally was able to get it scooped up and tossed it outside. Eeew! The cat is extrememly unhappy with me.
Course, now the kids won't go outside and play because they are scared of the lizard.

This house has too many critters!!!!!

Day 4

So this image is a shot Karl took the last day at the beach. There was a large storm-mostly wind, minimal rain, and the sand from the ebach went everywhere! This was originally a cleared path to the beach. Not anymore!

Now for the house update. The girls bedroom is 99% finished-I have to cut in the edges around the closet, and the playroom is drying-it also needs to have the closet done, but before I can do that I have to remove all the shelves so I can actually get it there.

We got the girls new bunkbeds delivered yesterday, which was fun for them. We also had a new friend come over to help us paint. He is a professional painter and he helped us tackle the tall hallway which was one of the most daunting jobs to us!

So after that was done, Karl put in an order with Lowes to get an estimate on the carpet so we could get that awful smelly thing out of the house. I can't wait for that to happen! We also got some garage sealant to help us clean & cut the odors still lingering in the house.

Today I am going to prime my bedroom and put down the first coat of color. Or at least I hope to get that much done.

Moving Day

We are finally in our new home. We have a lot of work to do. I am going to post a few pictures of the house here, but the rest will be with my yahoo photo account. The house still smeels funny, and not even the lovely vanilla candle & potpourii have been able to mask that funk yet. Some things aren't in quite as good shape as we had hoped, but with a lot of work, this place will be wonderful.

Here are some before shots of the house. You can see that we have every color in the rainbow in the house. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, pink, mauve, and a series of greens. Truly a colorful place. (other colors not shown) Nothing a 5 gallow bucket of primer can't fix! Did I mention the orange room is my bedroom??


Well, it's back to work for me! Our household goods will arrive all too soon, and I need to get back to my painting!

The last shot is the girls bedroom near the end of the 1st day.