Clean up!

Every year we set aside an entire Saturday to do our "fall clean up and get ready for winter" chores.  Good times.  For real.  We love this day.  It's a great day of working together for the purpose of removing all evidence of summer and fall living.  We clean out our flowerbeds, throw out the pumpkins and mums, cut the grass one last time and then pack the shed full to the rafters with all our patio furniture, planters, bikes, fishing rods (always a little sad to pack those away), scooters etc...making sure the snow shovels and sleds are within easy reach for the coming winter.  Then, if you're me you take a moment to think about how amazingly awesome it will be to open those shed doors in a mere 6 months and unpack all that goodness again :)  I do enjoy the winter months and all of its own coziness, but spring really gets me going and I always look forward to UNpacking that shed more than I do packing it.

This years clean up day was a beauty.  Sunny blue skies, warm but cool enough temps to give a rosy glow to those kids' charming faces :)  Quite sure those kids fell into bed that night.

Yup.  That giant mess is(was) the back yard.  We took the trampoline down and it went to be enjoyed by some of our friends.  The topper on our playfort (which is now on the ground, on the right) had a nice canvas top on it that blew apart this year.  Considering we bought it in 2003, we couldn't complain.  It's been in direct weather for 10 years and has had a lot of children playing under it.  Now that our own kids are older and my daycare summers are numbered, we've decided to do away with the playfort and replace it with a ...... pool!  Perhaps next summer, although more likely the summer after.  Fun, fun!

 

 And see those curling shingles on that roof?  Yup, those need to be replaced next spring.  Our spring list is growing quickly!

 

Tanner decided to get comfy while trimming down the grasses :)  Henry laid some bricks for a pad of sorts under the water tap in an effort to keep it from turning into the muddy mess it was the past few summers.

 

Cuties :)  They worked hard, collected their well deserved hot chocolate at the end of the day and chatted about when we would be needing our sleds and snow shovels.  Turns out they didn't have long to wait.  3 short weeks later, and we're under at least 30" of snow!!

Done at last!! (mostly)

Big day, folks.  Our master bedroom is done.  It still might need a few tweaks, but those will come as they come.  I feel like it's done enough to share, and I'm excited.  My apologies for not so great photos.  I hit something on my camera, and I can't figure out how to fix it...and so they are a little fuzzy.

What did we do in this little master bedroom?  We gutted the existing room, waterproofed it, updated and ran new electrical, knocked out a concrete wall, built a walk in closet, insulated, drywalled, taped and mudded, sanded, primed, painted, installed a plank wall, installed a bigger window, hung new doors, and had brand new carpet laid.  Then we installed a custom made blind, found a bed we loved, bought night tables, put together bedding and carved out a little desk space.  PHEW.

Anyways - more photos, less chatting....here we go!

Waterproofing.

 This is the wall that we ended up removing to make room for the closet.  This picture is taken from the middle of the family room.  We did end up losing some room in the family room, but it's hardly noticeable.

The wall was not load bearing, and it came down very quickly.  You can also see in this picture how off centered that bedroom window was.

Again...the window being removed to make way for the larger one.  This made the space on either side of the window in the room, the same.  Very pleasing to this symmetrical loving gal.

On the right, the beginnings of the closet which we later changed to have two doors in the center as opposed to one door at the end of the wall.  On the left, Dad working on wiring in the bedside light switches (note:  if you ever have the opportunity to install a switch that will turn off your main light without having to get of bed...DO IT.  It's awesome.).

And this is how our bedroom stayed for a.long.time.  We used our wrapping paper storage box and our Christmas storage totes as night tables :)  Our sheets were often damp and gross because of all the exposed concrete in the basement. 

Then it went to this....insulation and the mattress off the ground.

And then to this.

And after a WHOLE LOT of sweat and tears....to this.

Somebody send me to my room.  Please.

 

 

We worked hard to make it "us" and we are SO happy with the results.  It is a relaxing and cozy space :)  We are still working on the closet in terms of organizing and making it as functional as possible, so I'll update with that another day.  For now....we are happy to call one room "DONE".

Packed away the pumpkins...

...and broke out a little Christmas decor :)  While it may still be a while before we set up our Christmas tree and string up our outdoor lights, I spotted my berry wreath while packing away all things pumpkin, and couldn't resist hanging it up :)  I may just have to look up my front door wreath....

Happy.