Summer of projects

This has been the summer for projects. A break from homeschool means I have more time to get some "stuff" done around the house. We've been busy both indoors and out. Here are the projects we have taken off our to-do list.
1) Painting exterior of our house - most of it is done in the front at least. Once the heat hit full steam, I chose to work on indoor projects. We painted our front door a dark brown color and we have been pleased with how that turned out.

2.) Scraping popcorn ceiling in family room - We spent Memorial Day weekend on a project that has been at the top of our list for quite a while. We scraped the ugly "popcorn" texture off the ceiling in our high-ceiling family room. We then painted and learned an important lesson that caulking before painting is not necessary, nor should it be rushed. At least we were done by Memorial Day, so we could go swimming with the kids.

3.) Glazing kitchen walls- I have never really liked the color of the walls in the kitchen. They were a little too yellowy for the texture of the walls. I had this perfect glaze left over from the countertops/hutch, so I thought I would try it in the kitchen. I was very pleased with how it turned out and it cost me nothing and only took a couple hours.

4.) Laundry room - Our old laundry room was boring. I have to walk through it all the time to go between kitchen/school room (computer) not counting the hours of laundry. It was plain white with dinged molding, very yucky and sterile. I wanted a laundry room with personality, something that inspired me to be better about laundry (hopefully :-)). I serarched the internet and found some inspiration - with inspiration.
These are "sheets" with verses hanging on a clothesline. My painted version is no where as professional as my inspiration room, but at least it gets the same idea across. I also painted a message center on the main wall. It is a magnetic chalkboard which will hopefully help keep us organized. I took down the old paper measuring "sticks" and put up real wood ones. Lots of paint was involved in this little room, but I am pleased with the outcome.

5.) Garage shelves- Not a smart time to take on a garage project, but we took it on anyways and now have an organized garage. It's nice to have organization greeting us when we come home. This was also a fun wood-working project for Ozzie and I. Which encouraged us to take on the next, prettier one.

6.) Ketchup's loft bed - We wanted to have an extra bed in Kailee's room and she picked a loft bed from my new favorite website www.knock-offwood.com
It took a week and it is really sturdy. Not bad for only $115 on supplies (not including mattress). The hard part was having to rearrange the whole room after the ladder was too close to the ceiling fan. Here is the pretty new loft bed with a reading area below. When it was finished, Kailee made sure that Benjamin knew that when she was at her desk that she was having her "quiet time" and he should leave her alone.

So why all the rush to finish projects......you'll have to find out in the next post.