My kiddies

I love my kids so much.  I am pretty sure that I couldn't have picked out better suited kids for myself.  Even though 90% of the time, Emery is showing all sorts of attitude (don't know where she got that one from....) and has to make sure everyone knows she is the one calling ALL the shots and I have to clean a vomit up once a day for the last 3.5 years (Sterling pukes so much that Emery knows his puking signs and will run and get his puke bucket for him, if that isn't sisterly love...) and deal with even more attitude from my little man.  They both seem to have inherited my feisty and attitude filled demeanours.  Going to be some fun teenage years ahead of us.  Yup pretty lucky!

Don't you just love the converse shoes on the little one?  Our whole family has a couple pairs each...I swear one day I will get a photo of us all in our 'chucks'.

She looks so peaceful while sleeping.  This photo is oh so deceiving of the chaos that follows this little girl everywhere.  Who knew one little being could cause so much trouble in such a short amount of time!  Yes, I love every little fat roll on her little chubby legs...So adorable!

This is what happens when a certain little boy phone naps your Iphone...

I get little gems like these on a constant basis.  Love that my 3-year-old is proficient in using technology, almost better than me!

 

I got tired of trying to find the exact right ottoman that would fit properly in our space at the right price.  So I decided that I was finally (after 6 months) going to take it into my own hands.  I am sure glad that I did.  This project only took about 6 hours and I love, love, love it!

Got these buttons that you cover yourself so that they match the ottoman fabric that I purchased.  Super easy and only took 5 minutes for 9 buttons.

Built a frame with some 2x6's and some screws.

I put the frame down to make sure that it was indeed the proportional look I was going for.  This started the kids love for the ottoman.  They  played on the frame while I cut the board for the bottom and lid of the ottoman.

I then covered the frame and the bottom piece of wood in some extra fabric I had laying around so it wasn't raw wood when you opened the storage in the ottoman. I also started stapling on the batting and fabric onto the ottoman base.

Added some legs and some fabric (leftover from my glider chair) onto the bottom of the base.  You can't see the raw board on the bottom when it is turned over but I wanted to make sure that the roaming little hands didn't get slivers while playing.

Flipped it over and the base was now completed.  I dry fitted the lid to make sure it was cut properly before upholstering it and also drilled holes in it where I was going to put the buttons for the tufting.

Stapled batting and fabric onto the lid with my little helper.  She loves to help Mama with all her projects.  I see a little DIY baby in the making (YES, it's working!  I can always use an extra pair of hands while doing my projects.  I won't mention the fact that she usually ends up making me have to work twice as hard to get anything done).

Added some nailhead trim to the corners to help tack down the seams I had to make due to the cheapness of my buying just enough fabric to cover my ottoman.  And who doesn't love some nailhead trim?

Tufted the heck outta the top and then added some hinges to the lid for storage and DONE!  Yay!

I must say that I do love all 2.5x2.5 feet of her.  And so do the kiddies.  I can't get them off of it and they are always fighting for that space to sit.  Plus you can't beat $40:

I found the legs at Ikea for 2 for .99 cents on clearance.

The Fabric came in at $10 for 2 metres

Wood cost $18

Foam $10 (I still have half of it left)

I had the nailhead trim leftover from another project and the inside fabric was also leftover.  Love easy projects, they seriously float my boat.  I have been so giddy all day looking at my big beauty.  Plus my swollen pregnant feet (swollen because doing things like DIY'ing makes them horribly swollen) are loving this extra place to put them.  Ahhhhhh, going to go relax some more on my couch and ottoman if you need me... 

Da Chair...

Here is the chair that I got for free from my sister.  I actually traded for some babysitting because I needed a glider for the little one and she needed some time out.  Well, some of the chair I got from her....I took the photo after I took off the bottom cushion and added some foam to the curves of the arms, but you get the idea!

This is my attempt at my first slipcovering project.  I just played around and pinned and sewed and pinned and sewed some more until it fit relatively nice.  The fabric only cost me $6, so this is now my $6 glider.  Can't beat that price even if I am not the best at sewing and it does look a little weird.

Don't mind my mess in the background.  Emery's room has turned into the storage for some stuff until I finish off a couple of projects.  She is sleeping in the same room as Sterling right now because he is scared of the dark and she doesn't like to be alone.  It seems to be working out fairly well for now.

And yup, the before photo shows my ugly stained carpet and the after shows the new flooring.  Such an improvement!

Pantry Love

I gave my pantry some much needed attention a few weeks ago and I must say I am loving the new look. It used to be a jumble death mess that you had to dig through in order to find the one obscure item you were looking for (I don't have any before shots but trust me it wasn't pretty). I waited a few weeks to post to see if it would look just as good as when it organized it and it does!!! Yay, for little organizing miracles to make life just a little easier.

New Floors!!!

On Friday we started on our next project on our 'To get done before the little thing is here' list. Any guesses from our not so subtle title? Yup, flooring is next on the list. This HAD to be done for several reasons:

1) Sterling's hands and legs get torn up on carpet. If his pants come off while he is crawling, he can tear up his legs in minutes and seriously injure them. Yup, not so good to crawl on carpet when you can't feel your legs!

2) Previous owners had a huge dog in this house before we moved in AND said dog was in every single room in this house. This = so nasty and disgusting it makes my skin crawl every time Sterling crawls across the carpet. Dogs pretty much repulse me in homes because it just seems so insanitary. Point proven in photo below. Several pee stains on all our sub-floors. I had to scrub down all the subfloors and prime them with kilz to get rid of the horrible odor released by taking out the carpet. Yes, I am a super freak about my house being clean. Tidy not such a big deal but clean is a must. Plus, think about it: Sterling crawls on his hands ALL day. So I have to be extra diligent about keeping my floors swept and mopped on a daily basis. Happy we live in Canada where it is offensive to wear shoes in someone's house as I can't I
Imagine the nightmare of Sterling crawling on that.

3) Trevor has pretty bad pet allergies and they did and do act up on a regular basis due to retained dog hairs in the carpet. Nice to get rid of the allergy retaining carpet.

4) Ten-year-old cheap carpet does not hold up well.

Trevor and I spent a couple hours taking off baseboards, pulling up carpet and removing staples. Then i scrubbed and primed the subfloor to get rid of odor. The next day we laid the foam subfloor and then the laminate. Super love it...Well, as much as I can love laminate. I am not a laminate fan but since they had already laid it on the main floor we thought it might be odd to have hardwood upstairs. I do admit this is a ten-fold improvement over dirty stinky old carpet.

Now for three more bedrooms...