Dining Room

This room was originally used as a dining room but it is actually no where near the kitchen. Our tentative plans for now are to use it more of an office type space. I have also thought about putting my piano in here too. There was a thick brown carpet in here that continued into the living room. It was in decent condition but had a bit of an orange hue to it and still was really old. I was willing to leave this carpet in for the time being but when we were able to get a good deal on the laminate we decided to go ahead and replace it. When we removed the carpet, which included 2 thick pads underneath it, we found original hardwood floor. It is actually in pretty good condition. We have decided to leave the hardwood floor and refinish it eventually.

This picture is looking into the dining room from the living room. You can see the carpet I was talking about. It even went right in front of the front door which you can see on the left. It continued into a coat closet by the front door that you can see. I decided to paint the walls grey and to paint the wood paneling white. I think I would have preferred to remove the paneling and do something different like wainscoting but this seemed like a quicker easier fix for the time being. I also thought the trim around the entry to the room added a lot of character but I didn't really like the dark wood color so I decided to paint it white as well. By the way, notice the sweet hanging lamp by the front door. :)

This shows the living room but I wanted to show what it looked like when we started pulling up the carpet.

  A close up of the paneling and the trim I wanted to paint white.

Starting to paint the walls grey. I'm working hard supervising in this picture. :)

We decided to go ahead and paint the little bit of wall surrounding the wood trim white instead of grey so it would be easier. The trim was still tricky to paint but definitely so much easier not having to worry about taping or trying to get grey in all the small spots. The paneling definitely looks better painted white. I think the look on my face in this picture says, yes I can do work other than supervising. :)

We still need to replace the light fixture, put in the baseboards, crown molding and trim around the window and do a few touch ups around the wood trim. But I definitely like how it is turning out.

Nook Area

We have called this area the Nook, but honestly I am not really sure how this area will be used yet. It's right off the kitchen and the door to the garage. This is what it looked like originally. Giant black iron wood burning stove, lovely brick floor and blue carpet.

I told Chris that the stove and brick floor had to go for sure. It just was something I would never use and seemed like such a hazard with kids. Not to mention that it took up a ton of space in that room. 

Taking out the brick floor proved to be a little more challenging than expected and they ended up using a jack hammer. We had originally planned on just replacing the blue carpet that was there and then the old linoleum in the kitchen but we found a really good deal on some pretty nice laminate at Sams Club so we decided to do everything but the bedrooms which just got new carpet a year ago.

This picture shows the finishing pieces Chris was working on putting on. The door on the left goes to the garage and the door that the wood pieces are bracing against goes outside. The kitchen is to the right and the nook area is facing the outside door.

Chris installed all the flooring and ended up needing to replace the sub flooring where the brick floor had been and a lot of the area around it.

I decided to paint my kitchen yellow but ended up not liking the yellow I picked out once we started painting it on the walls. It just was way too bright. We added a little white to tone it down a little and it looks better. It's still not really the yellow I would have picked but I think it will work just fine. I also had seen on Pinterest that you could whitewash brick so I decided to try it on the wall that was leftover from the stove. There is actually another brick wall on the opposite side of the room but it is the old original brick that it is used on the outside of the house. You don't really see that wall very much so I decided to just leave that one alone.

You can see how depending on the light it looks a little more of a mustard yellow. I think whitewashing the brick helped lighten the tone of the yellow too. It was super messy and I was a little nervous how it would turn out but I like it. I only had to do one coat.

 We patched the hole in the bottom and I finished this on Saturday. We still need to add baseboards, window trim, and crown molding besides switching out the lights and adding some sort of window cover.

House Remodel

Well, it has officially been 2 years since I have updated this blog. Sad sad. I haven't quite decided if I should just let it all go and start over or at least try to put a few pictures of the past few years up. But for now I wanted to document the project we have been working on for the past couple of months.

The beginning of this year we decided to rent Chris's grandparents home from his mom and dad who currently own it. It's an old farmhouse home in West Layton. There were a few things that both Chris and I felt needed to be fixed before we moved in. We started working on those with an idea that we could move in   to the home in March. Well, slowly but surely our list of a few things has grown and the few projects has turned more into a full remodel. And although everything has taken a lot longer, the finished product is going to be so nice.

I really don't know what is the best way to go about documenting all of this, especially since I am just starting now and have a lot of catching up to do. I think for now, I'll just list things we have done and then do separate posts for the different rooms of the home. If I had realized what I was getting into when we first started, I would have made more of an effort to take pictures that could be used for good before and after comparisons. Oh well.

I also wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone who has been helping us with this project. We have had so many people help us and we are so grateful. An extra huge THANK YOU needs to go to my sis-in-law Stephanie who has been very involved in this remodel. In fact, most of it wouldn't have happened without her.

Here is a list of things we have done so far in no particular order:
-removed big black wood burning stove from kitchen area and the brick floor beneath it
-brand new fridge, oven, microwave, and dishwasher
-painted brown kitchen cabinets white
-removed all the flooring except the bathroom and bedrooms. This includes yucky old industrial type blue carpet, really old linoleum and and orangish brown carpet
-replaced flooring with nice laminate and also discovered real hardwood flooring in the front rooms that was in pretty good condition
-tore out the cabinets in the laundry space (can't really call it a room) so that there will be room for a stackable washer and dryer
-white washed the brick wall in the kitchen
-figured out a way to get water over to the fridge which involved Chris spending lots of time in the creepy crawl space beneath the house
-brand new marble countertops and tiled backsplash
-brand new kitchen sink, faucet and disposal
-brand new toilet
-deadbolts added to doors leading outside
-tons and tons of painting: kitchen yellow, everywhere else but the bedrooms gray, the wood panneling and trim in the dining room white, the built in bookshelves and fireplace in the living room white

Someday I'll get caught up, but for now........

Eleanor at 9 months

a catch up of Eleanor

I finally got a couple of posts done and on my blog that I had started but never finished. They are a little out of order, but I have decided not to worry about that for now. And I found a bunch of pictures that I wanted to put on here and didn't so I figured I would just stick them here.

A little update on Eleanor. That girl is getting so big. She is 3 1/2 months now. She is so smiley. She loves to watch Grant which I think is so adorable. She is still a pretty happy easy going baby. She is becoming more interested in toys and especially likes to kick things with her feet. She seems to just be beginning to notice when I leave the room and isn't always too sure how she feels about it. She has found her thumb and thinks its pretty great. She also loves to just have her fists in her mouth. She is not consistently sleeping through the night but if she does get it up it's only once. Hopefully, we will get her to sleep through the night every night sometime soon.

I sure love this girl!

Redrock Relay 2010

Chris got to run the Redrock Relay with my family this year. I was so jealous but not quite up to running it myself. Next year though, I am committed to be ready. And so excited to run it!

Grant, Eleanor and I went down to cheer them on. We stayed at my Grandma and Grandpa Thorley's house and had a good time visiting with them and being around for different parts of the race.

The Redrock is 186 miles that a team of 12 runners completes. It started in Brian Head and finished just outside of Zion National Park. Typically, each person runs 3 different legs of it. My dad, sister Emily, Aunt Lynne, Uncle Paul, Uncle Rod, Uncle Steve, Uncle Mark, Cousin Dave, Cousin Scott, Cousin Brittany, Cousin Dane and Chris all ran it. Uncle Matt and Cousin Kate helped with the driving and pacing. It was awesome to see how united they were and how much they helped cheer and encourage each other along. I loved being able to be involved even just a little and like I said before, can't wait to be on the team next year!

One of the race vehicles

Eleanor waiting at the park where the finish line was.

Chris finishing his last leg of the race. It was really, really hot but he did awesome!

Grant and my dad waiting for Chris to come around the corner.

Another of the race vehicles. Good thing we have these big vans in the family.

And here is a video of Grant dancing. We were at the finish line waiting for the last team member to come in so the whole team could run in and cross the finish line together. Grant was dancing to the music that was playing. He will hardly pass up the chance to dance to a little music.

The Birthday Boy

Grant turned 3 last month and we had so much fun celebrating it. We headed down to Orem and it worked out great to have both my family and Chris's there to celebrate it. That morning we went up to Sundance to see if they were still doing ski lift rides and to see the leaves. The lift was already closed for the season but Grant had a blast running around with his cousins and using his little camera to take pictures. We went to BYU and ate at the Cougareat for lunch and then walked around the Bookstore. Later that evening we had everyone over for an "Orange" birthday party. Every time I would ask Grant what he wanted for his birthday he would say, "orange cake, orange balloons, and orange presents." So that's what we did. Thanks to everyone that helped him have such a great birthday!

We sure love you Grant and are glad you are a part of our family!

Halloween

Grant wanted to be Mario for Halloween this year. The mustache was huge and glued his mouth shut. It was pretty funny to hear him try to talk with it on.

Chris made his Mario costume the Halloween he and I were engaged. I was Princess Peach but unfortunately that costume didn't fit me for this Halloween. He had thought about converting his into Luigi but ran out of time. I think they look pretty good as Big and Little Mario.

Eleanor was a leopard.

She also was this darling skeleton. So cute!

The Super Marios!

Eleanor Eva Barlow

We blessed Eleanor over Labor Day weekend. My brother Matt went into the MTC that following week and we wanted to have him there for the blessing. Sam and Michelle blessed Lily that weekend as well and it was wonderful to share this special time with them and all of our family.



This is the dress that I and my two sisters wore when we were blessed. My Grandma Bunker made it right before my baby blessing. It is simple and beautiful and I loved having the opportunity to use it for Eleanor.



Lily and Eleanor in their blessing dresses.



The Dads.



The Moms.



Sunday dinner group babies: John, Eleanor, Lily, Elle.



Sam & Michelle blessed Lily in Jeff and Suz's home later Sunday night. This was the first Sunday that we had all of the new babies together. We put them on the couch for a picture and it was so funny to see the big crowd gather to admire them. Though I can't blame them. All the babies are pretty darn cute.