Y'all know that every so often I get the urge to paint something. I have been eyeballing the mudroom table for a while now. I think this type of table is called a telephone table. Here it is before.
And here it is after. I had some red paint (not sure why it appears pink in this shot) that matches my red Albemarle sign in the mudroom. I am so pleased with it I am now eyeballing an antique TV table that I have in the living room that I use as an end table. I am thinking yellow this time. What do you think? Do you like it old school or new school?
I got a new Wii game for the kids that the boy has been talking about. Here we have our normal set up in the play room.
Here is the space needed for four people to play the new game. Any guesses? 
I did something different in this room, that I have never done before. I only used tape on the bottom piece of trim, the one that has never been painted. 
I did the very top, decorative part of the trim, the wall color. Then I free handed the rest. No tape. No heartaches about bleeding paint. It was amazing. I also free handed the top trim, windows and doors. 
You can see that without the new, white paint on the trim, the walls look pink. The former color was a more yellow-white. This is a problem with beige paint, but it looks great after you finish all of the trim. Stay tuned.
Many of you know that I was looking for a sign to put above the chicken coop/shoe storage area of the mudroom. A few weeks ago I found my treasure. It was in a pile of signs at Clines. Only took me an hour of digging, but it was well worth it. And, the best part...it is from a local company. There are only two. The other one is in Yadkin Valley Steakhouse in Albemarle.
Porcelain, double sided and not even scratched. Looks awesome! Levi was with me. I am not sure who was more excited, me or him. I think picking is in his blood too. ;)
I was so excited a few weeks ago, when the first daffodils started coming up. 
Aunt Patsy gave all of us girls bulbs, from Grandaddy's home place, last year before she died. I planted them separate from all of my other ones, around a tree, that I can see from every window in front of the house. Every time I see them, I think about her and how thoughtful this gift was. 
The others are along the side of the yard where the fence used to be. They were planted by Landon's grandmother and have spread quite well. 
I love it when they bloom, because they signify a new season. The only color in a sea of leafless trees. 
And the most favorite part? Having them inside. Heavenly.
If you know me on Facebook, you already know that I painted the brown in one day and started the trim. Then the snow/sleet started falling and school was cancelled for two days and the trim took me forever. You simply can NOT paint with kids at home. Every time I climbed up the ladder World War 3 would ensue and it was just completely pointless. 
Landon said he wanted it "dark" and "cavelike", so here we are. This paint was leftover from the stairs last year, and the trim color is leftover from the mudroom. I planned on painting one wall to prove a point (it is too dark) and fell in love with it. Thinking of doing it in the playroom also. 
These shelves are the only new thing in the room right now. I have some more organizers, but am waiting to see where I want to hang pictures and such first. I like to hang out in a room for a few weeks, before I start putting holes in the walls. The plastic has been on those french doors since I was pregnant with the buddies! Can't believe I waited that long to poly them. Feels great in here. We even do homework in this room now. So cozy, and the kids don't have to move their stuff off of the kitchen table for supper time. I have some antique radios upstairs. Do you think they would look good on top of the shelves?
All of the crap pushed into the playroom. Amazingly, I stayed pretty calm during this one. I didn't have my usual meltdown halfway through the project. Being able to close the door on the mess helped. 
Landon said he felt like he was living on an episode of "Hoarders". Everything was pushed into the middle of the floor with tiny paths around the perimeter for my ladder. The best part? I already had all of the paint from previous projects. I only had to buy tape and a brush.
Okay, here we have the room that was formerly called the dining room when Landon's grandparents lived here. We turned it into Landon's office. As you can see, when it was painted in 1971, hospital green was hot. So they painted it on the trim as well.
Here, you can see that the color before that was dark blue. This was was covered in fuzzy wallpaper that Landon and his father removed, before we moved in 9 years ago, and it stayed like this. That is also his grandparents "parlor" couch, don't even get me started on that one. 
Here is the bulletin board, aka my attempt to organize this room somewhat. Yeah, this wasn't fooling anyone. I mean, sometimes it is hard to even get INTO this room. I know, hard to imagine, but this is Landon's domain. My friend, Angie, said I was "asking for it" if I tackled this sacred, stomping man ground. 
Messy desk, enough said. Don't move ANYTHING, there is a method to this madness. 
The filing cabinets with things stacked precariously on top. The table was my grandmothers table that she gave me, which in turn was OUR first table. Landon built a new top on it. You may think it is looking familiar. The bench (the one from the laundry room incident) goes with it. He built that too. Yes, he can be quite the handy man when he wants to be. 
My sister in law is re-doing her kids closets and wanted some ideas. This first one, is my recycling cabinet in the old kitchen. I purchased see-through bins, labeled them with my label maker (a must), then copied the page from our trash collectors web site and put it on the door. It simply lists the things we can put into the blue box outside. The shelves are from some left over wood we already had, the brackets are from Lowe's.
This is the kids craft cabinet. These bins are from Hobby Lobby (when they were on sale for 1.99 a piece). We have different categories of markers, crayons, play doh, gift wrap, and paper. The top shelf is for school projects and extra school supplies. Always have clay, popsicle sticks, paint, glue, new crayons, sequins, beads, yarn, foam shapes, and poster board on hand. As for new stuff, I personally keep crayons, colored pencils, markers, glue sticks, and Expo markers. I get these when school supplies are on sale in August. (for example, Crayola crayons were 25 cents, so I got three dollars worth)
These bins are great for big things. We have many of these. I got these at Bed, Bath and Beyond when they were on clearance at the end of the summer. I bought every blue and green one they had. We use them for Legos, Hot Wheels city, Thomas the Train buildings, play clothes, CARS buildings, etc. This was previously a computer armoire, that I have removed the pull out keyboard shelf from, and made into storage.
The same cabinet has cork board in it (on the inside of the doors) that I purchased from Lowe's and applied with Command adhesive strips. I saw this in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog and knew I could recreate it cheaper. The buddies can put up art work and change it out as they please. They like to get behind the doors and play store. They will make posters and pin them on of what they are "selling".
Self explanatory. Shoe storage behind their door. All the boys have one. The big boys keep other things in theirs like Nerf guns, DS stuff, batteries, chargers, etc. If they are high enough, little hands can't reach them.
Stuffed animal storage. The buddies are only allowed three animals at a time on their beds. Because more often than not, the animals are on the floor. They can change out selections here. When all is full and something new comes along, something must be donated.
The buddies closet. The large bins are labeled by spring summer, and fall winter. The other bins are from Big Lots. I think I paid around one dollar for each of them. They were on clearance. I recycled the lids. Kids don't use lids. Don't ask me why. If the lid is on, they just pile the crap on top of it. I put pictures on the boxes so they could clean up on their own, before they could read. Only one has changed in the past four years. Dinos is now Transformers, but we decided to keep the same label. They like to play inside their closet, they call it their "office". So I found this car rug at Big Lots, again on sale. It was around four dollars. You must dig around in that store people. Allot of times the good deals are buried.
Lastly, is my chalkboard in the old kitchen. As you can see it is simply chalkboard paint, then an old frame stuck over it with Command adhesive strips. I can put up notes to the boys for their day at school, as they walk right past here going to the mudroom. 
So, for those of you who have never been to the house, this was previously open to the living room. Every time someone opened the back door, we lost heat or air conditioning in the TV area. This wall is insulated, making both rooms very comfortable, and quieter. This is a laying area for chickens from the chicken house across the street. It works well for shoes, and the best part, it was free. 
The plan is for each child to come in, remove their shoes, and hang up their stuff before entering the house. G was home sick when I took these, that is why there is only one coat and one backpack pictured above. 
If you go back to the previous posts of the before shots, you can see that we split the row of windows in the living room. The mud room is extremely bright and cheery with this window and the side window. I want to know if y'all would put up some valances or leave the windows plain?
Saturday, I had planned to quickly remove all of the tape, and get cracking on the poly. The tape had other plans. It wouldn't come down. (it is perfectly normal to own ones personal drop cloth, admit it, you have one too)
It took two hours to remove all of the slivers of tape, using the hubs pocket knife and some super sharp tweezers. Oh yeah, it was fun.
Okay, as you can see we have copied the hallway, that we did in 2008, and continued the bead board theme into the mudroom. 
I would like to point out the darkly stained trim, that took one coat of Kilz and THREE coats of paint to cover. I would also like to point out the electrical box that was faux finished way before that was even a hobby. They also did the pole in the above shot. That is a WORLD OF NO, people. Please, for future generations, no one is being fooled into thinking that wasn't an electrical box. 
I took this one right before "the accident". See the green hat? That was the culprit. The bench stopped me and then I fell onto everything in the middle of the floor. The only thing missing is my dryer, or if you want to be exact....new appliances. My brother-in-law asked me where they were. "In Lowe's" was my reply, lol.
