My son pooped on the floor so I painted the bathroom.

True story.  OK so there were a few Rube Goldberg steps in between those two things but that's the essence of what happened in my house today!

The story goes like this:

It was a rainy day in the Potratz house, the kids had already deemed it "Lazy Sunday" and it definitely started out that way.  Kids playing Transformers and being so sweet to each other.  I was getting some things done on my scrap table, chatting with friends and even read a few chapters in my book.

Look look! Almost halfway to my goal of 100 pages

#42 - Now "present"ing

FANCY PANTS - TO THE MOON COLLECTION

The last layout for the 7th birthday!

Then I hung up the phone and noticed that the shower was on...a sure fire signal that someone had either puked, peed or pooped - the unholy trinity.  Unfortunately it was the third option.  Poor Joseph has had a tummy ache and got sick at school on Friday - apparently it wasn't all out of his system because the infection was leaving from the other end today (trying not to be too graphic here.)

So I got him cleaned up - and started the process I had been putting off for the last two weeks - scrubbing down the urine scented - moldy caulked bathroom.  It was time...I rolled up my sleeves, peeled up the grossness.  bleached out the toilet and the surrounding area (eeeew) Somehow I ended up at the WalMart for supplies - and somehow I ended up with a quart of paint in my cart (the color of which the boys picked out) and a tube of caulk.  Two hours later - my tub had new caulk and the walls had new paint.  Observe - I kind of love it.

                    Before                                                                          After

Basement Family Room Reboot

Wow - I had totally forgotten how disgusting this room was when we first saw it last year.  My nose can still smell the cigarette smoke smell that permeated everything in this place.  The carpet was tragically stained, the brick and ceiling were yellow and the vents were all clogged with dust and insect parts.  Gross....

 So we took out the smelly carpet, James and Josh put Killz up on the walls and floor and we had a serviceable family room...not stylish but functional.

My next step was to get some warm nice color on the walls.  We went with Hotel St Francis Fawn for the beige and Valspar French Quarter for the brick.  Here are a couple of photos of the new paint and the vinyl laminate floor put down! 

We finished it off by moving our sofas back over to the family room, added a TV stand that we got from my little brother, got a coffee table and end table and a new lampshade from Target and this AWESOME afro-shag rug from the Habitat for Humanity Re-store and VOILA - FAMILY ROOM!!!

Basement Bathroom Reboot

FINALLY! The basement bathroom saga is ending.  We have had the supplies since January, and the deconstruction has been in progress since before then and we now have a weekend off, James home from college for Spring Break and my father in law to come help so progress is finally being made!

Here is how it was when we moved in:

This is how it was after I tried to clean out the caulk and the surround fell in on me.

First we had to get rid of all of the moldy, disgusting drywall that was up wrong in the first place.  So I called on my handy helpers with their hammers...

 

They used all of their "man muscles" and got all of that nastiness taken out so we could put up the new cement board after redoing all of the pipes and valves for our new hardware.  At the end of the first day we had a great foundation for the tile to come!!!

Day two: Chad and James were spreading mortar and setting tiles on the inside while Grandpa Potratz and the tile saw got the cuts done out in the garage.  Me? I split my time between running tile up and down the stairs (talk about buns of steel) and cleaning and organizing the garage and taking care of the boys! The results speak for themselves!  The end of Day Two left us with all of the tile in place and drying and waiting for grout! The new faucets were put in too but I didn't get a photo of that ;)

 

24 hours later the grout was in!  My husband is an awesome grouter!

And for the final act I came home today to find the flooring completely put in, the messes completely cleaned up (including my paint brush cleaning sink) and even a new sprayer installed on the sink.  Whoa am I ever a happy girl!  The group effort paid off! No more grossness, grime and mold, hello elegant bathroom fit for company and kids!

Been There Made That

I've been bored.  Yeah I know what you are thinking - four kids, dog, job, house to decorate how on earth can you be BORED?  It's not the "lack of things to do around the house" kind of bored, its the "want to be creative within the time frame/space I have" kind of bored.  So I have been wasting time playing around with some of the stuff that I have been pinning over the last couple of years and actually **gasp** doing some of the projects I have found.  Here are a couple that actually turned out respectably.

You can see my pin boards here: http://pinterest.com/aremid411/

I learned to knit (needed something creative I could do in the car between appointments while I am listening to an audiobook in the parking lot of a Walmart) and I'm learning crochet much more slowly than I picked up the knitting.

Project #1 Tea/Coffee Cozy
Original Pin
http://pinterest.com/pin/249316529343424537/

I saw these cute little tea/coffee cozies and thought that would make a perfect beginner type project to test out my knitting ability.  I haven't gotten as fancy with the edges (yet) and it didn't take long to complete one I have some design ideas to improve the next ones but I think it turned out pretty OK.

$0 used leftover yarn and a button from my stash!

Project #2 Tea Dyed coffee filters/wreath

Original Pin(s)

http://pinterest.com/pin/249316529343355727/

http://pinterest.com/pin/249316529343623519/

 

I fell in Loooove with the look of the tea dyed coffee filters they just looked so sweet and romantic.  And I loved too the idea of using the leftover yarn I had from Christmas stockings so I got to play one night, I brewed a cup of tea and poured some reinker dye into a small dish and started messing around with the coffee filters, my favorites were dipped and then sprayed with Shimmer Mist.  Then I hot glued the yarn balls and attached to a dollar store stick wreath and here is how it turned out.

Project #3 - Canvas/Subway Art

Original Post: 

http://pinterest.com/pin/249316529343413749/

So we have this bathroom...it's orange...I mean - it's seriously tangerine orange. It was orange when we bought the house and my husband has decided that he likes the orange bathroom.  The one that every visitor to our house uses - is orange.  When my mother in law came into town from Colorado, she encouraged hubby's delusion that an orange bathroom is acceptable if we blew up some pictures from our honeymoon and did a tropical theme.  At this point I still don't agree but no amount of pouting, begging and cajoling would melt the orange from the walls :(  So I surrender, put a basket of shells in a basket, blow up some sunset in Key West photos and made this to go on the big blank, tangerine/coral/peach wall.

I have two more drying to put up in the basement and the letters on that one turned out better, but this one is on the wall already :)

More "Pinny" projects to come :)

Bathroom Reboot

It's taken me awhile to get back into the swing of the remodeling projects that I had going in the basement but I got back on it this weekend and have more results.  As long as you don't peek behind the curtain at the unfinished shower project, my downstairs bathroom is looking pretty awesome!

Here are the before pictures.  Note the blue smear paint on the walls, the yellowed vanity top and - well the blue...There used to be a flat huge mirror on the wall just to the right of this picture.

And now a coat of paint covers the blue, I refinished the vanity top and got some new bathmats/shower curtains. TA DA!

New mirror on the wall, and refinished vanity top.

Yay for having a nice bathroom!

Tons of work - totally worth it!

Remember the basement?  Yeah we had pretty much forgotten about it too...since Josh left for San Antonio and James started school at Iowa State we were rarely even down there.  So it seemed odd that Chad and I decided to take on the basement project this fall of course I jumped in with both feet.  

The first two rooms that we started working on were literally blocked off last summer.  When we took up the disgusting carpet there was even more disgusting tile stuck down with thick black tarry adhesive.  The walls were crumbling and well - everything was smurf blue...

So...a ton of drywall, two gallons of paint (Valspar St Francis Hotel), hundreds of square feet of carpet tiles, a lot of elbow grease (including Jackson and Joey who helped me hammer out tiles) and we now have two functional bedrooms in our basement!!

 And then there was the kitchen.  Thank goodness it was a quick project without as many hems and haws over what I was going to do. All of the beautiful **sarcasm** green plaid wallpaper was taken down wall holes were patched and a new coat of paint (English Rosewood - Dutch Boy) and some new decor was put up and...its now a pretty kitchen!  YAY!

**nevermind the mess

Last but not least the dining room area.  The first picture was taken during our second tour of the house before we put in our offer.  The ceiling tiles were yellowed from cigarette smoke, the carpet was stained and gross. The second photo shows what we found under that carpeting...not much better (you can kind of see the gross tiles in the front bedroom back there too.

So I did some more drywall repair, a nice coat of the same paint I used in the bedrooms put down more carpet tile and polished the woodwork.  Right now its a cozy sitting room because its convenient storage for the furniture while I tackle the other side of the basement and bathroom but eventually we will have a pub table and chairs in that area.

The next chapter is to come.  My bathroom is pulled apart down there at the moment its mostly painted but the shower surround fell apart when I was cleaning the grout so there are some major issues down there.  Just wait there is more to come!

Decoranging

One of the funnest things about this move has been getting to find new homes for all of my old stuff. And also getting new stuff to add to it. There is no doubt that there is a lot of stuff to put up but wow what a difference it makes toward making the place our own. Office dining room and entry way are done except for paint in the entry. Upstairs is next!!

Office windows: Potratz Sign I made from open stock photography.  Some of the little collectibles I have collected over the years, the digital photo frame my husband got me for my birthday and the Office sign that has been collecting dust for years as well.

Dining Room: I got all of the coffee themed pictures that I have collected over the years up on the walls.  It feels nice that everything has a place and it works so well in this room and I got the china cabinet all stocked and put together and looking elegant.

Entryway.  The bookshelf has a wedding picture and bouquet on top, a picture from our honeymoon in a driftwood frame we bought in Key West as well as a bowl of sand and coral from snorkeling in Belize.