tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16070885071472062752024-03-13T05:16:56.739-07:00rustyfarmhousea chronicle of life in the new (old!) farmhouse.Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-88359667029614160322015-06-07T10:00:00.000-07:002015-06-07T19:40:56.228-07:00DIY - Kitchen Backsplash Complete!Hi everyone!! Well, after quite the hiatus (nearly a year!), rustyfarmhouse is back and better than ever! It was sad putting the rustyfarmhouse blog to the side for a bit, but after having Walden I realized that having a very young baby around isn't conducive to starting house projects. Or frankly any kind of house work - and that definitely includes cleaning, ha!<br />
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Walden is a bit older now (he turned 1 on Mother's Day) and now that he's crawling about I really wanted to address our floor situation. Looking at the floors was the poison ivy I needed to get the project itches going again. Clint also took several business trips and I found that dreaming up new house projects was a really fun way to pass my lonely nights. :)<br />
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The floors, however, were a big project that definitely required discussion with Clint, so before tackling the floors I spent a lot of time thinking about the kitchen. Truth be told, we are lucky to have a really great kitchen with custom cabinetry and amazing appliances. The previous owner of the farmhouse put a pretty penny into renovating the kitchen, and it was definitely one of the things I was most drawn to in the house.<br />
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That being said, however, the kitchen isn't perfect (for me) aesthetically. If you read some of the early <a href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2012/07/kitchen-painted.html">rustyfarmhouse posts</a>, you know that the kitchen used to be a terrible dirty yellow color that made the blue island look hideous with the red oak cabinets. This prompted me to paint the kitchen blue, and that definitely helped the island settle into the space. After that we threw some stuff up on the walls and called it a day. Here it was:<br />
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Recently, however, after looking at the inspiration photos for other kitchen renovations, I decided it was time to take our kitchen to the next level. All the bones are there, it just needs a bit of sprucing up. The first thing I decided to do was to add a backsplash.<br />
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Originally I'd be dreaming of doing a whitewashed brick backsplash around the stove and vent hood, because I just love love loooooooove the way brick looks. I've been obsessed with brick ever since I put this brick backsplash up in my Baltimore condo:<br />
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Seriously - how cool is that brick?? But when I thought about it, I decided that whitewashed brick is probably NOT easy to clean and splatter marks would show up very easily. It wasn't a problem on the dark brick as much because I figured if you couldn't clean it perfectly, you probably weren't going to see it anyways. (Is that terrible??) So in the end I decided to go with a white subway tile, which I think still fits the farmhouse motif but is much cheaper, much easier to clean and MUCH MUCH easier to install than brick. :)<br />
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I spent a good couple of weeks just debating *where* to put the backsplash. Originally I just planned to put something up over the stove and around the vent hood, but eventually decided to tile the entire area above the countertops. Why settle for less work when you can do more?!? So the first thing we did was pull everything off the walls, including the vent hood because I didn't really want to bother cutting tile around it. This also gave me a good opportunity to clean it thoroughly, which it desperately needed.<br />
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This was actually my very first tiling project, and I was fortunate to get some guidance and help from my father-in-law Tom. He showed me how to put the tile up and helped with the grouting. Fortunately the subway tiles are self spacing, so that saved a lot of time once I got my initial row in and level.</div>
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You never really realize JUST how crooked and curvy your walls are until you put tile up. You can see in the corner that the wall on the right actually curves into the room as it goes up, What is up with that? Ah well, just one of the joys of living in a 104 year old house.</div>
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But when all's said and done, I think the kitchen looks fabulous - crooked, curvy walls and all. I went with "Platinum" grout, which looked to be a very light almost metallic grey, but it's actually so close to the color of the walls that it matches the blue perfectly.</div>
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And here is the final product in natural light! (Please pardon the mess).</div>
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The white tile really brightens up the space, making it feel fresh and clean. Although it may not make a huge difference in the pictures, it looked even better after we got the electrical face plates and caulk in as well.</div>
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I'm really happy with the way the backsplash turned out, and I think it sets the stage for the rest of the completed and upcoming kitchen changes. So far I've added open cabinets on both sides of the vent hood, and plan to add some floating shelves on the walls around the windows. Lastly, I plan to paint the cabinets (except for the island) white, because I just think a farmhouse kitchen should be white. I'm hoping that the white cabinetry will really make the kitchen feel even brighter and larger, and will compliment our beautiful new (antique pine) flooring better than the oak. I'm very excited to post about all of these kitchen changes and the new floors in the near future!</div>
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Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-57271341563189932602014-07-01T18:44:00.000-07:002015-06-07T19:41:03.985-07:00DIY - Bathroom Completed! <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Ahhh! Our bathroom is finally complete! Okay, mostly complete... we still need to add the vent/exhaust fan + light and paint the ceiling, but really for all intents and purposes, the bathroom is done! It's actually been done for quite some time - just over 2 months as we finished a couple weeks before Walden was born. But, adjusting to life with a baby has sucked up nearly all of my blog-posting time. :)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> I am really happy with how the bathroom turned out. It's so different I can barely remember what it looked like before without the pictures! We lost a linen closet in the renovation but gained the refinished double-sized vanity (with one really large sink), a beautiful clawfoot tub, tile instead of linoleum, a new toilet, amazing fixtures and a really nice black, white and purple color scheme. Here's a quick look at the before and after! </span>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Here's the finished vanity complete with the anthropologie mercury glass candles that were the inspiration for the mercury glass sconces. We put a three-pronged antique style cast-iron hook on the wall for hand towels.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> I also found this cute toilet paper holder. It's not an antique, but it's a nice reproduction.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Our built-in shelf turned out wonderfully. We added two more of the cast iron hooks by the back of the tub for easy towel access post-shower. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> I really love the hardware and shower conversion kit that we chose for the clawfoot tub. The tub faucet matches the sink faucet perfectly and adding a shower to the tub was a must. I'd heard that showering in a clawfoot tub was really inconvenient, but I was actually pleasantly surprised by how not-bad it was! The hardest part is getting <i>into</i> the tub because it's quite a bit taller than a conventional bathtub. Other than that, I barely notice a difference. I did have to buy 3 shower curtains to fit around the full length of the tub, but I used my sewing machine to shorten them lengthwise and convert them into 2 extra wide curtains. For the back curtain, I sewed in an overlapped opening so we would have easy access to the toiletry shelf without flooding the back wall with shower water.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Lastly, even though we got the tub standing on its feet and it seemed very secure, Clint didn't want to risk the tub falling and busting the pipes/tile/etc. It would pretty much ruin the bathroom if anything went awry, so we built little wooden support stands to go under the tub. They sit about 1/8th of an inch below the height of the tub so that if the tub were to fall, it would be just barely. I was really concerned about adding something that would look terrible, but they're nearly invisible if you're not looking for them and gave us some peace of mind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> That's it! It was a lot of hard work and it took forever (from November until April, working mainly on weekends), but it was definitely worth it. And although I spent way way way too much time picking out every little detail for the bathroom, I really enjoyed my little venture into the world of interior design! That being said, I wouldn't recommend anyone take on a bathroom renovation project at ~3 months pregnant... :)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>Baby Belly</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> At about the 31 week mark, I decided to change practices for my maternity care and went from a hospital based midwivery unit (Signature OBGYN) to a birth-center based midwivery group (Special Beginnings). I was really interested in the option of a waterbirth, and hoping for an environment that would be as conducive as possible to a natural and drug free experience. One thing that happened with the switch was that Special Beginnings reassessed my due date and pushed it back from May 11 to May 16. Kind of sad, hehe. While I'm not a *completely* miserable pregnant lady yet, I am excited to meet Walden and super curious about what he will look like!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> As I was just uploading photos for this post, I *did* find one previously unpublished belly photo from between the Feb 17 post and now, and interestingly I wore the exact same outfit as yesterday. The growth comparison is clear. :) The left was taken at ~33 weeks on March 26, and the right was taken at 38.5 weeks yesterday (May 5). Clearly, my belly has gotten GIANT. I'm not sure why Walden would want to stay in those cramped quarters any longer! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>Nursery Updates</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> The bathroom is basically complete with just a couple of really minor touches left (post coming soon!), so with that done we have recently had a lot of time to dedicate toward finishing up the nursery and getting the house ready for Walden's (hopefully imminent) arrival. Perhaps I've been nesting because the last couple of weeks I've been on a huge push to get things done, but I'm feeling relieved that things are starting to come together!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Neither Clint nor myself wanted a very fancily decorated or uber-themed nursery for Walden. We originally painted the nursery very early (before we knew Walden was going to be a boy), so we picked the gender neutral tan/brown palette and figured we'd just try to make the room look nice. At long last, after finding out Walden was a boy and naming him (dually inspired by the book Walden and my love for Wall-E), we decided we'd do a very very slight Wall-E/space theme for the room. This was also fitting with Clint's love of astronomy. Here's how it turned out: </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vQbh6ey7kwQ/U2lYj_L3HfI/AAAAAAAADMI/d-nph8LsTZ4/s1600/DSC02913.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vQbh6ey7kwQ/U2lYj_L3HfI/AAAAAAAADMI/d-nph8LsTZ4/s1600/DSC02913.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I think that Bear Bear thinks the changing pad is for him...</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> On the whole, the room is pretty simple but it does have some cute space and Wall-E elements, many of which were gifts to Walden from Clint's mom! For Christmas she gifted us the beautiful quilt hanging on the crib, and for our baby shower she got us this super cute Wall-E piggy bank and light switch holder.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xefkGE5zhQA/U2lZlGlDLJI/AAAAAAAADMY/aKFbL6WNf_I/s1600/DSC02909.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xefkGE5zhQA/U2lZlGlDLJI/AAAAAAAADMY/aKFbL6WNf_I/s1600/DSC02909.JPG" height="200" width="300" /></a> <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c7SCv3bKZ40/U2lYhlzTuxI/AAAAAAAADLg/Jdmqe16uVYg/s1600/DSC02910.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c7SCv3bKZ40/U2lYhlzTuxI/AAAAAAAADLg/Jdmqe16uVYg/s1600/DSC02910.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> She also got us this awesome planets mobile and some matching fabric that I used to make my very first fitted crib sheet with my sewing machine.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vtQL8liuepM/U2lYkEl0NTI/AAAAAAAADMM/ZN0poF1Fn6E/s1600/DSC02915.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vtQL8liuepM/U2lYkEl0NTI/AAAAAAAADMM/ZN0poF1Fn6E/s1600/DSC02915.JPG" height="175" width="263" /></a> <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hsiNO8CxPkg/U2lYkDeR6JI/AAAAAAAADMQ/LQaV1LyBjSk/s1600/DSC02914.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hsiNO8CxPkg/U2lYkDeR6JI/AAAAAAAADMQ/LQaV1LyBjSk/s1600/DSC02914.JPG" height="175" width="263" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> We also found these nifty minimalist Wall-E art posters on Etsy. They were the perfect color scheme for a brown toned Wall-E nursery.</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nj-bgopYOM8/U2lYiGZEGSI/AAAAAAAADL0/c2dM5yrcY3Y/s1600/DSC02908.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nj-bgopYOM8/U2lYiGZEGSI/AAAAAAAADL0/c2dM5yrcY3Y/s1600/DSC02908.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> And lastly, we are borrowing this amazing antique armoire that has been in Donna's family. It's gorgeous, and is the perfect spot to keep all of my childhood stuffed animals that will soon belong to baby Walden. :)</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h__9pfJCW_Y/U2lYibWCpjI/AAAAAAAADL4/x07Ld2ZEhPQ/s1600/DSC02911.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h__9pfJCW_Y/U2lYibWCpjI/AAAAAAAADL4/x07Ld2ZEhPQ/s1600/DSC02911.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Though it's nothing fancy, we are happy with the way it turned out and hope that Walden will love it too!</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/12233241/?claim=nbxav79cbzp">Follow my blog with Bloglovin!</a>Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-49148619389427156412014-04-18T13:38:00.000-07:002014-11-07T05:10:12.833-08:00Wedding Highlights - 1 year later :)<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I can't believe that Clint and I </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">are </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">already celebrating </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">our 1 year wedding anniversary!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">((happy anniversary nugget! i love you!))</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Since I never got around to the original wedding post I was</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">going to do, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">what better way to reminisce about our wedding than with a </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">'wedding highlights' post - a small compilation of</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">details and photos</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> of the big day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><i>The resort:</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">We had a destination wedding at Couples, Tower Isle</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. It's an all-inclusive resort for</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">couples (adults only) and we basically chose it solely because they have</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> private island you can rent for your reception. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">All I can say is that it was <u>amazing</u>!</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_wLN8EKTX6s/UwDJm9esc9I/AAAAAAAAC-o/fYkpwv1HAqw/s1600/DSC00771.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_wLN8EKTX6s/UwDJm9esc9I/AAAAAAAAC-o/fYkpwv1HAqw/s1600/DSC00771.JPG" height="212" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">the island (nude beach by day, wedding venue by night)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><i>The dress:</i></span></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When my friend <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/107747074063003151218" target="_blank">+Mira Lynn</a> got engaged and started looking</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">for dresses, she asked me what kind of dress I wanted. I thought</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">about it a bit, and drew her a picture of what I wanted -</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">even though I'd never seen a dress like that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Then I found it online when looking at dresses for Mira.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">A near exact match. The Alix & Kelly 'Kate' Dress... I found my dream dress only to learn that the designers had left the dressmaking business about a year prior.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">After months of futile searching on pretty much every </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">used-dress website known to man </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(I found tons of people looking to BUY the dress, but no one was selling it), I was </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">lucky enough to find one on </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">ebay - new, never worn </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and possibly </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">my size! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">(Who really knows with wedding dress sizing??)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">So I bought an expensive and unreturnable dress on ebay,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">sight unseen, having no idea </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">if it would fit OR look good,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and basically hoped for the best.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Oh wait, did I mention this all occurred before Clint and</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">even got engaged? </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Hehe... Clint (my lovely boyfriend at the time) assured me </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">that if I didn't like it I could always try to sell it, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">but at least <i>someday</i> I wouldn't be haunted by a</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">phantom dream dress that no real-life dress</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">could ever live up to. (So wise!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">And that was how I ended up with the Alix & Kelly Kate Dress. :)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<tr><td><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dh06AoVKyGI/UwDNQ21T5OI/AAAAAAAADB8/f653W7L0QvU/s1600/I21A3397.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dh06AoVKyGI/UwDNQ21T5OI/AAAAAAAADB8/f653W7L0QvU/s1600/I21A3397.jpg" height="320" width="205" /></a>
</td><td><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UucUSpWzHoA/UwDJpu03lZI/AAAAAAAAC_E/F6OgIcaPKIA/s1600/I21A2470.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UucUSpWzHoA/UwDJpu03lZI/AAAAAAAAC_E/F6OgIcaPKIA/s1600/I21A2470.jpg" height="320" width="205" /></a>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">And while some may think that weddings are all about</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">the bride, Clint was not to be outdone in his super sharp, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">super slim Hugo Boss suit. So sexy... and look at that tie.<br />He looked so handsome!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DONjiUdPP6o/UwDJu8_v8SI/AAAAAAAAC_0/z7V78UwpR_s/s1600/I21A3262.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DONjiUdPP6o/UwDJu8_v8SI/AAAAAAAAC_0/z7V78UwpR_s/s1600/I21A3262.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">is he a model??</span></td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>The photos:</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">For our photography, we went with Justin Lee - </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">a phenomenal photographer from San Diego. He shot the</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">photos of the resort that sold the resort for me, so I figured</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">we couldn't go wrong with him! His photography has a distinctive character</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> - slightly vintage, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">slightly Americana</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and slightly edgy. W</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">e LOVE our photos! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://justinleephotography.com/">http://justinleephotography.com/</a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">One of the best things about the resort was </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">that </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">there </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">were <u>so many</u> unique areas to shoot - we </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">got a really wide </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">array of backgrounds for our photos. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Choosing just a few to highlight from ~700 photos is no easy feat, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">but here's</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">some of </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">our </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">absolute favorite shots from the day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Overall, our wedding day (and wedding week), was </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">everything </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">we could have asked for and more. If we could do</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">it again, we wouldn't change a thing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We're so thankful for the friends and family that were </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">able to celebrate with us!</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> We hope that everyone enjoyed </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">the wedding - but who </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">wouldn't </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">love a wedding pool party??</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(Did I mention the private island had a pool & pool bar?)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">p.s. big thank you to </span><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/107747074063003151218" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;" target="_blank">+Mira Lynn</a> <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">for leaving the </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">party to bring Clint and I some swimwear. :) <3</span></div>
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Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-64198369042551578652014-03-28T09:32:00.000-07:002014-03-28T09:34:57.527-07:00Bathroom Updates - Tile, Toilet, Mirror, Lights and Vanity!<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Thanks to a lovely mid-March snow-day induced 3-day weekend, the bathroom has come a long way since the <a href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2014/03/bathroom-renovation-updates.html" target="_blank">March 1</a> update! I mean, ITS PRACTICALLY ALMOST DONE! It's not really done - there's no bathtub - but seriously, it's practically like a real bathroom now! And most importantly - it has a toilet! Which means I don't have to run downstairs at 2, 3, 4 or 5 in the morning to pee. :) Yay! It was a lot of hard work, but totally worth it!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> After getting the wonderboard in and priming the walls for paint, it was time to start tiling the floor. We weren't really looking forward to this because we chose admittedly difficult tile to work with - the tiles are a mosaic lantern pattern, and each tile is approx 2"x3". We started by laying our initial straight line (which is hard when there isn't a straight line in your bathroom, period, haha), and then worked out from there. Clint dedicatedly laid thinset, and I laid the tile behind him. Though seemingly harmless, this was a little tiring at this stage of my pregnancy. And then I was (stupidly) laying tile while moving in a backwards direction and I managed to squarely step into the open vent hole on the bathroom floor. My leg fell in and got scraped from my foot to my knee... and I tweaked my preggo back... and I'm lucky that there's a drop ceiling in the kitchen below the bathroom and I didn't poke my foot or the vent shaft through the kitchen ceiling! :) Other than that the process went pretty well. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> The next step on the checklist was getting paint on those walls. Unfortunately it's been tough to get a good picture that really captures the colors well between the never ending gray weather and the unnatural lighting - but I tried. The lighter wall is called 'lavender heather' and the darker wall is dark purple with the faux brushed pearl effect. I was afraid that the faux effect would be really difficult and time consuming, but it wasn't that bad!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-W5xGGADxMAk/UzWVQ4DpJAI/AAAAAAAADJw/6cfqmZa9dNI/s1600/DSC02831.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-W5xGGADxMAk/UzWVQ4DpJAI/AAAAAAAADJw/6cfqmZa9dNI/s1600/DSC02831.JPG" height="132" width="200" /></a> <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bVm084ZHbYw/UzWTeUirACI/AAAAAAAADJI/ckl1moyBX2s/s1600/DSC02840.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bVm084ZHbYw/UzWTeUirACI/AAAAAAAADJI/ckl1moyBX2s/s1600/DSC02840.JPG" height="133" width="200" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> The following day </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">we finally grouted the tile. And by we, I mean Clint and his brother Erin. So I'm not really sure how tough the grouting process was, but I'm sure it was arduous. It was also really messy since we decided to use a black grout to really accentuate the shape of the tile. A bit after the initial grouting was done, Clint and I had to go up and buff the tiles and clean them up. !!THAT WAS HELL!! I think we waited a touch too long and the grout wasn't coming off very easily. We had to hard-scrub every curvy grout-line, for hundreds of tiles. We literally spent hours doing this. So the moral of the story is - if you want to make your bathroom tiling experience way more time consuming and difficult than it can be, choose a curvy white mosaic tile and pair it with black grout. :) But at the end of the day, I love the way the tile looks, so again, totally worth it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> After the paint and tile went in, we could actually begin to install some of the bathroom elements! This was the part I was most excited for because I spent days and days looking at thousands of sinks, faucets, lights, dressers, tiles, mirrors, etc. trying to find elements that would match my vision for the bathroom. (If you know me, you probably know that I'm very particular...) So while I was excited, I was also nervous because it's hard to imagine what things will look like before they're actually installed. Would I love it or would I hate it?!?! </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Fortunately, I'm super excited and really pleased with the way things are shaping up so far!</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> With the help of Clint's Dad, the first elements to go in were the wall faucet and the light fixtures. I absolutely love the antique look of the chrome elephant nose faucet - and the cross-bar handles are nearly a perfect match to the set on the tub. I debated heavily about if we should use these Pottery Barn sconces because they weren't chrome (and pretty much all of our other fixtures are chrome), but I figured at least the bases are black, which should match our vanity top, and the shiny metallic mercury glass had a bit of a chrome feel to it as well.</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nmNXDy6l32c/UzWTfDW7wFI/AAAAAAAADI8/rsTQqX9jnf4/s1600/DSC02841.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nmNXDy6l32c/UzWTfDW7wFI/AAAAAAAADI8/rsTQqX9jnf4/s1600/DSC02841.jpg" height="200" width="133" /></a> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2tDLK3jQyO4/UzWThcCDQ0I/AAAAAAAADJg/eDJBz_rFb4M/s1600/DSC02891.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2tDLK3jQyO4/UzWThcCDQ0I/AAAAAAAADJg/eDJBz_rFb4M/s1600/DSC02891.jpg" height="200" width="133" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Next up was the toilet, mirror and vanity. For as much as I tried to save money in this reno, there were certain elements I couldn't find "cheap" and didn't want to compromise on. So, our toilet is a really pretty and slightly antique-y looking Kohler, and the mirror also came from Pottery Barn. I actually had a hard time finding a large mirror that was wide enough, but narrow enough to fit between the vanity and our short ceiling. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> I wasn't savvy enough to take any photos of the toilet with the seat down - but if you could see the tank, you'd see that it has a nice rectangular shape, and the front bows out - which matches the shape of the vanity and also draws in the curves of the tile. (I'll make sure the seat is down for the completion post!) So here's everything that we have currently installed!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> You may remember that the sink was a vessel sink, and I was contemplating dropping it into the vanity. As you can see, we did just that. We found that there wasn't a ton of space between the faucet and the sink, so the extra 1-2 inches gained made a big difference in the usability of the faucet. :) I also think that dropping the sink into the vanity gave it a more seamless look. The size and shape of the sink ended up fitting the vanity perfectly!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> And here is one last picture of the space in 'natural' morning lighting. I really love the way the light lavender draws out the brushed pearl element on the darker purple wall, and I'm really pleased with the way the purples coordinate with our 'black and white' elements.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Hopefully the next bathroom post will actually be our completion post! </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">We still need to grout the tile in the over-tub toiletry bump-in, and then we need to frame that up to match the window/door trim and add the baseboard. Then we just need to install the tub and the shower enclosure. And then we'll actually be done! I hope it turns out well. Stay tuned!</span><br />
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<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2014/03/bathroom-updates-tile-toilet-mirror.html" data-layout="standard" data-action="like" data-show-faces="false" data-share="true"></div>Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-49351012656505637132014-03-01T09:48:00.001-08:002014-03-01T16:16:56.030-08:00Bathroom Renovation Updates<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> It feels like we started the bathroom renovation FOREVER ago - and to be honest it kind of was forever ago. The <a href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/11/demolition-day.html" target="_blank">Bathroom Demolition Day</a> post was from November 11 and now it's almost St. Patty's Day! Progress has been a little slow - but that's what happens when you don't feel like working on the bathroom at night after work and when 1 half of the working couple is preggo. :)[FWIW, Clint claims that it's very difficult to work on the bathroom after work when it's dark outside because of the poor lighting in the bathroom...]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Nonetheless, I'm excited about the progress that <i>has</i> been made, and I think that the stuff left to be done may be easier, or go faster, or at least make us feel like we're making more progress than the stuff we've accomplished so far. Which begs the question, what have we done so far??</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Well the first thing we had to do was finish the demo - which included stripping the last part of the floor to reach the subfloor and tearing down the built in bump out for the old shower. We also had to pull up some of the subfloor around the plumbing for the old shower and the toilet, since the plumbing needed to be moved. Here's a photo of what the bathroom looked like in this state. We used a big paper template of the clawfoot tub to get an idea of where the plumbing would need to be moved.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Once all the plumbing was moved appropriately - we had to address the subfloor. Apparently our 1911 house has settled considerably since being built, and there was a good 3-4 inch slope from the back of the bathroom to the front. There was also some sloping from the outside wall to the inside wall. Normally with small issues in leveling you can just use self-leveling cement, but these differences were a little too big for cement, so we needed to build a new and level subfloor. After some debate we decided to build on top of the old subfloor instead of ripping it out and building up or down from the joists. We lose a bit of height that way (which is unfortunate since our ceilings are so low), but it was a much simpler way to do things.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Building the subfloor was a little bit time consuming, but fortunately not too difficult. We employed many of the same techniques that we used to build level garden boxes on the sloped ground outside. We started by laying a small (4x7) board of the new subfloor down at the highest point of the subfloor (the back wall seen in the photo), and jacking up the other side with shims until the new subfloor was level from the back to the front. Then when it was level, we measured that against a 2x4 that would become one of the "new" joists. Then we cut the joists to replace the shims as the new leveler. We did that across the length of the bathroom, putting new joists down on top of where all of the old joists were, and a few going the opposite direction for extra support. Once we had all of the new joists in, we just had to secure the new subfloor onto the joists.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Then, just when we thought we were done, Clint and his dad realized that the back wall was a bit of a false wall, and decided to tear it down to gain us some more space in the bathroom. There was also some drain vent pipe that went through the exterior wall (which we've moved to go up and out through the attic now), but it left a hole in the wall of our bathroom, hehe. So this was our new (old) wall, and the new and exciting view from the bathroom. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Once the floor work was done, we also had to move the plumbing and electrical around in the walls to account for the changes we were making. We did just about all of the plumbing work ourselves, but Clint's dad was a great source of help for the electrical work. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> For the remaining plumbing, we needed to move the drain pipes for the new vanity and bring the water pipes up through the wall since we're using a wall-mount faucet instead of a vanity-mounted faucet over the sink. For the electrical, w</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">e added wiring for an exhaust fan since our bathroom didn't have one before, and split the electrical for the old vanity lights since we're going to use a pair of sconces in the new bathroom. We added a GFI outlet and moved the previously installed one to fit with the new vanity. We mounted everything in place where we would need them, and added some studs so that we could mount the mirror on studs instead of drywall. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Then the men added insulation to all the walls, and we built a recessed area in the back wall (the one with the hole) where we will hopefully be able to put our shower toiletries. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> Finally we got to the point where all of the behind the scenes work was done </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">(I thought I took some pictures of the bathroom at this stage - but I couldn't find any on the camera so you'll just have to imagine how great the bathroom looked when all of the plumbing, electrical and stud work was complete).</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> Clint's brother Erin came over to clean up some of the work in the bathroom and prepare the walls for drywall installation. That was a huge help. We decided to hire the drywall job out because when we did even that small amount of drywall work in the nursery it took weeks and weeks to get the mudding right (and we had to have Clint's brother come over and fix it)... These guys can complete the job in 2 days. :) I think it's worth it to speed up completion of this bathroom. I really need this bathroom to be done so we can finish the nursery before Walden arrives!!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> It's crazy the difference that just adding drywall makes to a space! Suddenly, it almost looks like a real room instead of a disaster zone. :)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> The mudding still needs to be sanded - but once that's done we'll be ready to prime and paint! This weekend we're going to start tackling the floor - putting down wonder-board in preparation for tile. Then once the tile is in and the walls are painted, we can actually start installing the important stuff like the TOILET, tub and vanity/sink! YAY!! I'm so excited and can't wait to see how all of the elements will look together when the bathroom is complete.</span>
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Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-52989614483383554082014-02-17T10:29:00.000-08:002014-02-28T13:15:48.867-08:0028 Week Baby Post!<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Today is officially the third trimester and 28 weeks - woo!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Just ~12 weeks to go!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">While we're still not great about taking </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">routine</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">baby belly photos, I did manage to get some at </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the 27 & 28 </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">week marks. Look at that belly grow! I feel like it's </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">giant now</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and I <u>know</u> I still have a long ways to go...</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">27 weeks</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">28 weeks</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">One exciting development that has emerged in the last 4</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">weeks was that we finally agreed on a name for baby Davis!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">YAY! Drumroll please...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We'll be excited to be welcoming:</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">made with love using the Babylock Sofia2<br />sewing/embroidery machine</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(I temporarily owned a sewing/embroidery machine</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">and went to town on some onesies adding baby Walden's</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">name and Seahawks logos, hehe. I've since traded that </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">machine</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">in for a sewing/quilting machine, so sadly no more </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">machine</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">embroidery for me. I am, however, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">really interested</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">in developing my free-hand </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">embroidery skills.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Lastly, around the 24 week mark I went in for</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">what was probably my last ultrasound, (hopefully) barring</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">any 3rd trimester complications.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So, we got some 3d/4d pictures of baby Walden.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Generally I've heard these photos don't look great before</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">30 </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">weeks </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">or so because the babies don't start fattening up until around the 26 week mark. </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Nonetheless - here's a small glimpse</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">of what skinny baby Walden</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">looks like... it'll be</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">exciting </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">to </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">see how he looks</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> when he's born!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">So for those of you creeped out by 3d/4d ultrasounds...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-large;"><b>WARNING! GRAPHIC 3D/4D</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-large;"><b>ULTRASOUND PHOTOS BELOW!</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-large;"><b>DO NOT SCROLL DOWN!</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(I know </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">they're pretty creepy!)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Hehe, for those of you who AREN'T creeped out </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">by 3d/4d photos, or can't contain your curiosity - </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">here he is!</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HPhQWzJFAEw/UwEcfiBu-MI/AAAAAAAADD8/osH_ciT4tms/s1600/DSC02784.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HPhQWzJFAEw/UwEcfiBu-MI/AAAAAAAADD8/osH_ciT4tms/s1600/DSC02784.JPG" height="290" width="290" /></a> <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-41b9mrSz4Vg/UwEcf-T870I/AAAAAAAADEA/m62v_2fGjF4/s1600/DSC02790.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-41b9mrSz4Vg/UwEcf-T870I/AAAAAAAADEA/m62v_2fGjF4/s1600/DSC02790.jpg" height="290" width="290" /></a> <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OxpgxTdPAaI/UwEcf3ww2SI/AAAAAAAADEE/6XR1BCwNo18/s1600/DSC02792.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OxpgxTdPAaI/UwEcf3ww2SI/AAAAAAAADEE/6XR1BCwNo18/s1600/DSC02792.jpg" height="290" width="290" /></a> <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3bGt8x5btDk/UwEcg8eDlHI/AAAAAAAADEM/JNp_ljpyWRE/s1600/DSC02794.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3bGt8x5btDk/UwEcg8eDlHI/AAAAAAAADEM/JNp_ljpyWRE/s1600/DSC02794.JPG" height="290" width="290" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I dunno if he looks much like me or Clint yet - </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">but I <i>do</i> see a very noticeable resemblance to my Dad!!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I guess Walden does have some Fontaine blood in him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">:)</span></div>
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Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-58760513093208694832014-02-04T11:54:00.000-08:002015-06-07T19:41:20.713-07:00DIY - Repurposing a Buffet or Dresser as a Bathroom Vanity: Part 2<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">At long last I've finally finished </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">the buffet to </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">bathroom vanity conversion! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Well, the painting part at least... </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I actually finished several </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">weeks ago, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">but I've been tired and lazy and am just now</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">getting around to posting it. :) But what better time</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">to get back to blogging than when you're home sick</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">...on your birthday...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(birthday fail!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm pretty sure the last time we saw this buffet</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/11/diy-repurposing-buffet-or-dresser-as.html" target="_blank">(Part 1)</a> it looked like this:</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6P8LXa3nP4U/Uo66jdh_FpI/AAAAAAAACw8/mkijMFLrQNg/s1600/DSC02620.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6P8LXa3nP4U/Uo66jdh_FpI/AAAAAAAACw8/mkijMFLrQNg/s1600/DSC02620.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">My initial plan was to go with a strong black top,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">to counter the white and separate the white base from the</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">large white sink. I got the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BZX2KO/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000BZX2KO&linkCode=as2&tag=rustyfarmhous-20" target="_blank">Rustoleum Satin Black oil-based</a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BZX2KO/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000BZX2KO&linkCode=as2&tag=rustyfarmhous-20" target="_blank">enamel paint</a>. Why? Mostly because it was one of the only</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">non-spray black paints that wasn't giant at my</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">local hardware store.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I started by painting the dresser hardware with this shiny</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">black paint. You can see it really shines!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Then I moved on to painting the dresser.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">At this point winter was really starting to kick in so</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I had to move the painting project inside (the outside temps</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">were too cold for the paint to dry effectively).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Moving the project indoors was a huge pain - not only because</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">we don't have a TON of space to work with (you can see</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">that I'm in this narrow area of the mudroom) - but because</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">there are cats indoors. 3 of them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">3 hopelessly curious cats.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">3 curious cats that decided to jump all over the top of my buffet post-painting, regardless of the barriers I tried to put up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You can see the paw prints below.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Those pesky kittens...</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fkQ5sSVYEEY/UvE6OdT088I/AAAAAAAAC9U/U4d7CFyZtsY/s1600/DSC02651.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fkQ5sSVYEEY/UvE6OdT088I/AAAAAAAAC9U/U4d7CFyZtsY/s1600/DSC02651.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So I redid it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">And redid it again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">And redid it like, 17 times.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Sanding and painting, sanding and painting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You can see in the shiny glare that the finish </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">wasn't even - I'm not sure if </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">it was user error or the oil based paint or what, but for </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">THE LIFE of me, I could <u>not</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">get that topcoat to look good.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It was streaky, uneven and terrible. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Stuff got stuck in the topcoat from pretty much everything I used to apply the paint - and I tried a lot of different things! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I used a foam roller, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">a regular roller, a hand bristle brush and a foam brush (all several times) </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and not once did I </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">get something </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">with which I was even remotely satisfied.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Perhaps the problem was me, but I'll never </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">buy that paint again!!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The longer drying time of the enamel also gave the buffet</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ample opportunity to collect as much dust and cat hair</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">as possible. TERRIBLE.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So after days (weeks?) of frustration, I finally decided</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">to screw the oil-based paint, and grabbed some of the </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">leftover <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00106C9CK" target="_blank">Rustoleum Hammered spray paint</a> from</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">the <a href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/11/refinishing-clawfoot-tub-part-1.html" target="_blank">tub remodel</a> and decided to use that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">BEST. DECISION. EVER.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(after marrying Clint, of course)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This made the project 100 million billion times easier.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We moved the buffet into the bathroom that's getting renovated</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">so I could spray paint to my heart's desire without</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">worrying about the walls or the carpet or furniture,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">and we could close the door to keep the kitties out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm not sure why we didn't think of that earlier.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I also went over the hardware with the hammered paint to make sure it would match, since the hammered black isn't as</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">strong or shiny as the enamel oil paint.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I finished the painting in just a matter of hours.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Then Clint and I spent a few days going over white areas with about 3 coats of polyacrylic (since it doesn't yellow the way polyurethane does), and also went over the black </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">top with about 4-5 coats of polyurethane.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Here's some shots of the nearly finished product.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I apologize about the color - it was a little dark without</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">lights and not much better with the lights. :/</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~tada~</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sFfDwwBx-wA/UvE6Oo-ObcI/AAAAAAAAC9c/XeGs5u379Qk/s1600/DSC02757.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sFfDwwBx-wA/UvE6Oo-ObcI/AAAAAAAAC9c/XeGs5u379Qk/s1600/DSC02757.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">And here's just a couple shots with the huge sink.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I love how well the curve of the sink fits the buffet's shape</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Part of me wants to inset the sink </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">since its a bit high and there's a convenient lip </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">that we could drop into the top, but we haven't made </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">a final decision on that yet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out - I think</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">it'll look great in our black and white bathroom.</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What do you think?</span></center>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pjNiXfvWseg/U7QcYUcaB7I/AAAAAAAAFZk/Pvgo6gOWh6w/s1600/vanity+baf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pjNiXfvWseg/U7QcYUcaB7I/AAAAAAAAFZk/Pvgo6gOWh6w/s1600/vanity+baf.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-82850573899098230412014-01-12T06:28:00.000-08:002014-01-12T14:51:00.425-08:0023 Week Baby Post!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Tomorrow is officially 23 weeks for my pregnancy, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">so I figured it was time for an update!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We haven't progressed at all with the nursery as we're still working on the bathroom (more on that soon!), but we have started collecting the first few baby items we'll need and we have learned the gender of baby nugget!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">While I haven't been good about taking baby bump pictures with any level of consistency... I do have 3. :) </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Apparently I mostly like to do it on holidays as the </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">first 2 were taken on halloween and Christmas, respectively. Then I took one this morning since I think the change from Christmas is far more noticeable than halloween to Christmas! What a difference 2 and half weeks makes! Today's picture includes a lovely cameo appearance from my current baby, Puff, who demanded attention, haha.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zIf_SfRxVck/UtKcZBUIggI/AAAAAAAAC6s/S6rgv_Bpyp8/s1600/DSC02614.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zIf_SfRxVck/UtKcZBUIggI/AAAAAAAAC6s/S6rgv_Bpyp8/s1600/DSC02614.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Oct 31, 2013 - 12 wks 3 days</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U7V-Ii4q89c/UtKcYzYmcYI/AAAAAAAAC6w/I45lgRQtbGY/s1600/DSC02744.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U7V-Ii4q89c/UtKcYzYmcYI/AAAAAAAAC6w/I45lgRQtbGY/s1600/DSC02744.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Dec 25, 2013 - 20 wks 2 days</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Jan 12, 2014 - 22 wks 6 days</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When I look at the photos <i>now</i> I can't even tell why I </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">felt that I needed maternity clothes at 12 weeks - but at the time I did feel the need to start modifying my wardrobe. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I do remember feeling really bloated, so maybe that made my normal go-to jeans uncomfortable. </span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This was my first attempt at 'non-maternity' maternity clothing - back when I didn't really have a bump and I still felt cute, haha. I started by just buying loose clothing - like this 16 dollar sweater from TJ Maxx in 2 sizes larger than normal, and really stretchy yoga pants. The sweater was a great investment </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">though - I can still wear it 11 weeks later, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I just have more of a bump underneath!</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">But really, who cares about me??? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Most importantly - here's a couple key sonograms of baby nugget. I haven't gotten a 3d/4d one or anything (which is okay by me because I think they're a little creepy looking tbh), but hopefully these normal ones will do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>baby nugget waves!</i></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ItWHdNF2_tw/UtKcbNM40RI/AAAAAAAAC7M/LyLuIFDo-QE/s1600/DSC02764.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ItWHdNF2_tw/UtKcbNM40RI/AAAAAAAAC7M/LyLuIFDo-QE/s1600/DSC02764.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby nugget's face @ 14 weeks</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>it's a ...</i></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l4P5YDUTHyw/UtKca52NjvI/AAAAAAAAC7I/VnrqjaAQhNw/s1600/DSC02762.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l4P5YDUTHyw/UtKca52NjvI/AAAAAAAAC7I/VnrqjaAQhNw/s1600/DSC02762.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby nugget's bottom @ 19 weeks</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-large;">BOY!!!!! </span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Now that we know baby nugget is a boy, we've been </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">hard at work trying to think of names that we like - but </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">are getting nowhere fast. We had a list of girl names </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">we both thought were dandy, but these boy names are a bit </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">tougher. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Not even born yet and mr. baby nugget is already </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">causing strife in the marriage!!</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">But, whatever mr. baby nugget ends up being named, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">he will be dressed for success with this </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">awesome Christmas present from Clint's parents! Yay!</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ZOMG I'M GOING TO GET SO MUCH SEAHAWKS GEAR FOR MR. BABY NUGGET!</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Till the next update I'll just keep brainstorming names... </span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>Russell Wilson Davis, Marshawn Lynch Davis, Richard Sherman Davis...</i></span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">:)</span></center>
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Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-8780491309002817662013-12-04T15:49:00.000-08:002013-12-04T15:51:39.678-08:00DIY - Leveled Garden Boxes<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Well, now that summer is officially over... (and fall is too) I figured it was just about time to write up my belated garden box post! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Our garden boxes are amazing - all 6 of them. Each box is 6x3 which gave us a lot of gardening real estate, but we managed to use all of it and are contemplating eventually adding 2 more boxes. We could have made larger boxes but Clint read that if you get much larger than 6x3 you have to start adding support in the middle of the box because of the weight of the dirt, and that was extra work we didn't feel like worrying about.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Here's a sneak peak at the finished boxes:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Don't they look great?!? I've really gotta hand it to Clint - he did all of the research on making good garden boxes and did a majority of the work with help from me and his dad. He found this great blog tutorial on making garden boxes on sloped ground: <a href="http://eartheasy.com/blog/2010/04/how-to-build-a-raised-garden-bed-on-sloping-uneven-ground/" target="_blank">http://eartheasy.com/blog/2010/04/how-to-build-a-raised-garden-bed-on-sloping-uneven-ground/</a> But if you don't feel like going there, feel free to read on about how to make them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> I can't tell how evident it is in the picture - but our yard slopes downward and toward the neighbor's house, so we had a lot of slope to work with. I didn't even really realize how *much* the yard sloped until we were putting in these garden boxes and wanted to level them. Fortunately it worked out really well and now we have these cute tiered garden boxes!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b><u>How to make the boxes:</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>1.</b> <i>Have the right tools:</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Make sure you have a circular saw to cut the wood - there is a lot of cutting involved and you would not want to do it by hand. You'll also need 4 L-shaped brackets per box, a ton of 2.5" screws and a power drill.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>2. </b><i>Choosing the wood:</i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Clint read that cedar was the best because it repels bugs and lasts a long time outdoors even without treatment, but we couldn't find any cedar wood. Or maybe it was absurdly expensive. So after some debate, we decided to go with pressure treated wood, but lined the boxes with plastic cover to prevent the chemicals in the pressure treated wood from seeping into our soil. (Apparently the chemicals they put in it aren't supposed to be that bad for you anymore, but we figured better safe than sorry.) You'll need a LOT of wood. For each 6x3 box you'll need at least 18' for the frame, and up to 18' for the side boards, and ~3-6 more for the level supports depending on the slope of your ground. Plan on purchasing ~40-42 feet of lumber per box. The more boxes you make, the more likely you are able to reuse some of the cut wood for the sideboards, so the amount of wood per box gets reduced.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>3. </b><i>Framing the boxes:</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">For the initial box frame, we opted for 2x6s and used 6ft planks. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">W</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">e used 3 6ft boards per box - cutting one in half for the short sides. To make the frame, use a single L shaped bracket at each corner to shape the boxes into long rectangles and place them on the ground where you want them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> One thing to note - since our ground isn't level, most of our boxes are well deeper than 6" post-leveling, but each box does have one corner/side that is only about 6" deep. If you want your shortest corner/side to be deeper than 6" you could go with 2x8s or 2x10s for your frame. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>4.</b> <i>Leveling the boxes:</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> After making the frame of each box, the next step is to level. In order to level the boxes, work on one box at a time and level it specific to the ground below it. This does mean that you can't move the box after you level it (unless the spot you're moving it to is exactly the same pitch/slope).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Level the boxes by adjusting the 3 low corners of the box to the tallest corner. Prop each low corner up with varying heights of scrap wood/items until all 4 sides of the box are level.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> When level is achieved, make 'leveling' support stands at each corner of the box and the middles of the long sides. To do that, place one of the extra 2x6s into the ground vertically and against the inside of the box. Kind of shove it into the ground so that it's perpendicular to the box top and leaves an imprint in the ground. Then draw a line on this 2x6 along the top of the box frame, as a guide for cutting. After cutting that stand to size, return to the frame and screw the stand into the inside of the frame, using your imprint for placement. Start in the middle (where you don't have external supports you can knock out of place) and then work on the 4 corners. On the corners, screw both sides of your box into the corner stands. Even though one corner is sitting on the ground, make a stand for it anyways as it provides extra strength and support for the box.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ne76mJi7T3Q/Up-gttMczsI/AAAAAAAACzQ/AxMg63-hmPE/s1600/DSC00748.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ne76mJi7T3Q/Up-gttMczsI/AAAAAAAACzQ/AxMg63-hmPE/s1600/DSC00748.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>5. </b> <i>Making the sides of the boxes:</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> After the boxes are all leveled with your support stands, you have to make sides for the boxes. For four of our boxes the 2x6's we had were tall enough to fill the gap between the box frame and the ground. However 2 of our boxes were on such a slope that we bought 2x8s (maybe 2x10s?) so that we could make the side out of a single layer of wood instead of two.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> To make the sides, you'll place your side board on the ground along the length of the side you want to fill, right up next to the frame of the box. (I should have taken a picture of this, because that was a <i>terrible </i>explanation). Then you can trace the bottom of the box frame (from the inside) to draw a line against your side board for cutting. You will have to skip the spaces where your support stands are in the way, but you can fill them in with a straight edge afterward.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> After making your cut, your wood should fit pretty perfectly between the leveled frame and the ground. We put the cut side on the ground for aesthetic reasons. Then you can screw the sideboard to your support stands. Voila!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> Not only do the boxes look great, but the tiers are so cute. Clint did a great job making sure all of the boxes were straight!</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>6.</b> <i>Line the boxes:</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> If you went with pressure treated wood, your last construction step would be to line the boxes with plastic if you're concerned about the chemicals. Our plastic started to rip by the end of the summer, so I'd recommend a thick plastic as opposed to a thin one. I think we used about 3mil plastic. Unfortunately I can't make a recommendation on thickness as ours tore, but if we make more boxes I'll update the post to reflect what we chose.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>The finished product:</b></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0Gz-acOajRk/Up-uGhEiKuI/AAAAAAAAC0I/Xy_L8alUqRA/s1600/DSC01152.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0Gz-acOajRk/Up-uGhEiKuI/AAAAAAAAC0I/Xy_L8alUqRA/s1600/DSC01152.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We added little stakes to use for bird netting,<br />in case small animals were a problem.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> And a cute picture of our helper Bizzy. Can't forget her!</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tOK7kvaJE-8/Up-uHNNRZEI/AAAAAAAAC0M/UMUtipaT3JM/s1600/DSC00754.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tOK7kvaJE-8/Up-uHNNRZEI/AAAAAAAAC0M/UMUtipaT3JM/s1600/DSC00754.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
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Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-10409084370542665622013-11-21T19:34:00.000-08:002015-06-07T19:41:29.736-07:00DIY - Repurposing a Buffet or Dresser as a Bathroom Vanity: Part 1 <div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We decided to repurpose an older buffet </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">for use as a </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">vanity in the bathroom remodel. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">We chose this route for a few reasons - we like 'handmade' </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">stuff, we wanted to save money,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and we </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">thought the style would match the farmhouse well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">After weeks (months?) of craigslist browsing,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">we finally found the perfect buffet. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Sadly it wasn't as </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">cheap as a lot of craigslist </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">finds (350, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">+25 for them to deliver), but I thought </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">it was worth the investment</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">.</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I really wanted a piece with center </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">doors to maximize the storage we could get since we ripped a closet out of the bathroom to fit a double vanity. </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Converting dressers with drawers in the middle requires cutting </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">through several drawers to accommodate the sink drain </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">piping and that </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">kills </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">a lot of your potential storage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">This is the buffet we chose:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I really loved the buffet feet (which remind me of the</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">clawfoot tub feet) and the woodwork along the base. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Because of the bowed front of the buffet, we've opted </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">to use a single extra large (27" wide) oval sink, which mirrors </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the curve well. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Originally it would have been nice to have his and her </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">sinks - but it just wasn't right for this buffet. And let's </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">be honest, I doubt anyone had double sinks in 1911, right? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">At the end of the day, a single extra large sink is more </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">era-appropriate and farmhouse-appropriate. :) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> Though </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I'm not sure exactly what era this buffet is from </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">(I highly doubt it's from the early 1900's), </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I am confident that it will </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">match our bathroom perfectly!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">* * * * *</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The Refinishing Work</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">We knew we wanted to paint the buffet and stick</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">with our black and white theme, but we weren't sure how</span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">much black and how much white to do. After looking at several (dozens!) of b&w painted dressers on pinterest, Clint decided</span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">that he preferred the 'less is more' look.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">
</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
We decided to paint the entire buffet white except for the top and the hardware. We thought it might be weird to have a white sink on top of a white vanity (and the whites might not match perfectly), so a black top seemed like the perfect solution.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The first step in prepping the buffet was sanding</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
it and repairing the wood where needed. We sanded with 100</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
grit sandpaper. We probably *should* have gone over it again with finer grit sandpaper to make sure it was really smooth... but we're lazy... and uh, this would make the buffet</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
look more 'antiqued' or 'rustic'... maybe? :) </div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2rwsUmzF5Qg/Uo66f1Q2P4I/AAAAAAAACwY/IaG8xoK1PoE/s1600/DSC02599.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2rwsUmzF5Qg/Uo66f1Q2P4I/AAAAAAAACwY/IaG8xoK1PoE/s1600/DSC02599.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></span></div>
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</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">There were some chips in the top that needed filling,<br />
and one part of the woodwork on the base needed repair.<br />We used <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000LNR4XC/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000LNR4XC&linkCode=as2&tag=rustyfarmhous-20" target="_blank">Elmer's Carpenter Wood Filler</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XQgYSm2ndXA/Uo66idD0-wI/AAAAAAAACw0/9oareP0FvsA/s1600/DSC02603.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XQgYSm2ndXA/Uo66idD0-wI/AAAAAAAACw0/9oareP0FvsA/s1600/DSC02603.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<table><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TcNoQYL4png/Uo66fuxk1bI/AAAAAAAACwc/qE1RoB7GKmA/s1600/DSC02600.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="193" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TcNoQYL4png/Uo66fuxk1bI/AAAAAAAACwc/qE1RoB7GKmA/s1600/DSC02600.JPG" width="290" /></a>
</td><td><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-suCbpOqzP30/Uo66iK7XRkI/AAAAAAAACws/eJaIkH_i07k/s1600/DSC02601.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="193" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-suCbpOqzP30/Uo66iK7XRkI/AAAAAAAACws/eJaIkH_i07k/s1600/DSC02601.JPG" width="290" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">
After the filler dried, we sanded it flat and began</span></center>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">
</span>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">
priming. For the priming we used</span></span></center>
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</span>
<center>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0086ANCPQ/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0086ANCPQ&linkCode=as2&tag=rustyfarmhous-20" target="_blank">Zinnser Cover Stain Oil-based Primer Spray</a>.</span></span></center>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">
</span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pn_zRn1kWcw/Uo66iSUv5RI/AAAAAAAACww/--S_MLFEa4s/s1600/DSC02606.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pn_zRn1kWcw/Uo66iSUv5RI/AAAAAAAACww/--S_MLFEa4s/s1600/DSC02606.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">After letting the primer fully dry, we applied</span></div>
<div class="p2" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">the actual white paint to the dresser. For the exterior</span></div>
<div class="p3" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">coat, we used <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000Z8FGII/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000Z8FGII&linkCode=as2&tag=rustyfarmhous-20"><span class="s2">Rustoleum Stops Rust Satin White Spray Paint</span></a>.</span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We did several light coats. I think we used about 4 cans</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">for full coverage of the dresser and drawers.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">
</span>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6P8LXa3nP4U/Uo66jdh_FpI/AAAAAAAACw8/mkijMFLrQNg/s1600/DSC02620.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="393" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6P8LXa3nP4U/Uo66jdh_FpI/AAAAAAAACw8/mkijMFLrQNg/s1600/DSC02620.JPG" width="590" /></a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">After the white dried, I began painting</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the buffet top - but I haven't finished yet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I've been having some difficulties with the black</span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">
</span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">paint we chose for the top, and its been</span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
nothing short of a huge pain! :(</div>
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<br /></div>
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Once I get that last coat finished, I'll seal the whole</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
piece using polyurethane on the top, and polyacrylic on the</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
body of buffet. I've read that polyurethane is a better seal</div>
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against water (which is important for the top where the</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
sink will be), but yellows over time - which is why</div>
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we'll seal the white areas with polyacrylic</div>
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which isn't supposed to yellow.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I can't wait till it's finished - and to post an update</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
of the completed buffet vanity!</div>
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Stay tuned :)</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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Check out the final product in <a href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2014/02/diy-repurposing-buffet-or-dresser-as.html" target="_blank">Part 2 here</a>!</div>
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</span>Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-2282612190763913842013-11-17T10:43:00.001-08:002013-11-17T15:14:03.958-08:00Making a Nursery - Demo, Reno & Painting<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">With a little one on the way (eta 5.11.14!),</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">we decided </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">to turn our smallest bedroom</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> into a nursery.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Previously we had used it as a room for the kitties,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">but sadly they got displaced to the mudroom, hehe.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The room is pretty small - about 12 x 7. This included</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">a long closet that spanned the entirety </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">of </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the back wall. A</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">closet that</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> was not particularly </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">useful as storage </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and really</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">diminished the amount </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">of usable space in the room.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jeTFCpUMH6U/UobFew4G_vI/AAAAAAAACuI/xmc2vzkMfcA/s1600/DSC02491.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jeTFCpUMH6U/UobFew4G_vI/AAAAAAAACuI/xmc2vzkMfcA/s400/DSC02491.JPG" height="265" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Before we started painting any potential baby colors </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">(wee!), </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I really wanted to nix the useless closet. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Sure, </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">without a closet it's not *technically* a bedroom,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">but it's a lot more <i>usable. </i>And if push comes </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">to shove </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">we can always build in a small closet </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">later on down </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the road for resale or something.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">So after consulting Clint's brother - who</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">confirmed that ripping the closet out would be a </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">piece of cake - Clint and I went to town on the demolition.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Erin said it would take like 20 minutes. Ha. Ha.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Maybe it would have taken Erin 20 minutes,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">but it took us 2 or 3 hours, hehe.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What Erin didn't mention was how hard fixing the room</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">would be <i>after</i> we ripped the closet out... </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The house is old </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">and settled. When we </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">replaced the drywall, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the walls/seams were NOT flat and the ceiling was NOT level. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">After copious amounts of mudding - probably </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">about 5 rounds worth (and about 5 rounds less than was</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> really needed) - we called it good enough. :)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ON1HaH7fS0M/UobLjD2gHTI/AAAAAAAACvg/lbXPQzgaFS0/s1600/DSC02535.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ON1HaH7fS0M/UobLjD2gHTI/AAAAAAAACvg/lbXPQzgaFS0/s400/DSC02535.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Post mudding, pre-painting.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Finally after we finished the mudding (thanks to a </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">lot of help from Erin!!), we painted </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the room. Yay!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">And when we painted the walls and the ceiling a lot of</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the unperfect </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and uneven elements nearly disappeared.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">We went with a brown/taupe color </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">palette. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">We won't know the gender for another </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">month or so,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">but we decided to just get started on the </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">painting early </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and go fairly gender neutral.</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> I think either baby </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">blue or</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> pink will look great with brown!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Here's the room after the painting:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qT8wVmo9gss/UobFg9y34OI/AAAAAAAACuw/KwhqNIRiZLI/s1600/DSC02637.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qT8wVmo9gss/UobFg9y34OI/AAAAAAAACuw/KwhqNIRiZLI/s400/DSC02637.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Of course we did reveal more ugly flooring </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">after</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">we ripped out the closet</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> (as noted in a previous </span><a href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/11/carpeting-upstairs-in-bedrooms.html" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">post</a><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">).</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We didn't make the flooring look any better with</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">the </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">mud we </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">spilled all over. :)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ACeG-xKYVXo/UobFisDXznI/AAAAAAAACvI/1ctu4LifcnE/s1600/DSC02639.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ACeG-xKYVXo/UobFisDXznI/AAAAAAAACvI/1ctu4LifcnE/s320/DSC02639.JPG" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Fortunately we made sure </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">to do all the demo/reno </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">work before the was carpeting </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">installed so these kinds </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">of </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">messes wouldn't matter! Once we got the carpet in,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the room looked so much better!</span><br />
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<table><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-06AFl59OzM4/UobFiniXqyI/AAAAAAAACvA/SgdNjpeI3uI/s1600/DSC02652.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-06AFl59OzM4/UobFiniXqyI/AAAAAAAACvA/SgdNjpeI3uI/s400/DSC02652.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a>
</td><td><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CkGt9CPRMro/UobFiwZzo2I/AAAAAAAACvE/jW0HjEt0Enc/s1600/DSC02653.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CkGt9CPRMro/UobFiwZzo2I/AAAAAAAACvE/jW0HjEt0Enc/s400/DSC02653.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We still have to replace the floor boards</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">which should give the room a much cleaner look overall.</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">All of the accent painting/decor still needs to</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">be completed too, but that will have to wait until after we</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">learn the gender of baby nugget... and until</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">we clear all the bathroom stuff out of the nursery!</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Hopefully we can get the bathroom reno</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">rolling so we can finish the nursery soon too :)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Updates to come!</span></div>
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<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/11/making-nursery-demo-reno-painting.html" data-layout="standard" data-action="like" data-show-faces="false" data-share="true"></div>Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-91177551241372995702013-11-12T14:25:00.002-08:002013-11-17T14:49:37.186-08:00Hearty Chicken and Rice Soup with Asian Veggies (Naturally Gluten Free)<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Since I've been feeling a little sick lately,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I thought that I should make myself some soup to feel better.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It was super easy to make - perfect if you don't feel great!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Originally I wanted to make chicken noodle soup </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">but I </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">wasn't sure how the gluten free noodles </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">would hold up as </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">leftovers, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">so I went with rice </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">which was a lot simpler.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I started by adding chicken broth and water to a pot.</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> (I bet it would be even better with homemade chicken broth!!) Then I coarsely </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">chopped an onion, and threw in 2 frozen chicken breasts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I added a couple of tosses of herbs/seasonings to add </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">some flavor to the broth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I brought the broth to a boil and left it to simmer </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">for about an </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">hour and a half while I did other things. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I occasionally came around to stir the broth and shred the chicken.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">About 30 mins before I wanted to eat dinner,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I gathered up the veggies I had on hand. I didn't have many 'traditional' veggies so I used carrots, enoki </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">mushrooms, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">garlic, baby bok choy and savoy cabbage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I chopped the carrots and enoki mushrooms into bite-sized</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">chunks and threw them in a frying pan with a healthy dose of</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">powdered ginger, minced garlic and olive oil.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">After sautéing the mixture for a few minutes, I threw</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">it all in the pot. Then I chopped up my bok choy and cabbage,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">and added it to the mix. Then I added some jasmine rice.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Aac197bK6R4/UoFpuhg7PqI/AAAAAAAACtc/zW-8Xbo1s4Q/s1600/DSC02709.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Aac197bK6R4/UoFpuhg7PqI/AAAAAAAACtc/zW-8Xbo1s4Q/s400/DSC02709.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">After letting that cook for about 20 mins,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">it was ready to eat!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It was really tasty! But then as I was happily eating </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">my soup and I thought maybe</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> I should add a bit more flair to</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">clear out the sinuses and </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">threw in some sriracha.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">That was *extra* yummy!</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sOgwuAH3HAA/UoFpvbPpyvI/AAAAAAAACtg/RiXEW1YRpLY/s1600/DSC02718.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sOgwuAH3HAA/UoFpvbPpyvI/AAAAAAAACtg/RiXEW1YRpLY/s400/DSC02718.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>The Recipe</b></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Broth</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 4 cups chicken broth (I used Wegman's Organic Low-Sodium Broth)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 4-5 cups water</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 2 large chicken breasts</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 1 onion coarsely chopped</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 1/2 tsp crushed rosemary</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 1/4 tsp celery seed</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>Veggies</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 3 large carrots, chopped</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 2 packages of enoki mushrooms, chopped</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 1.5 cups chopped savoy cabbage (about 3-4 leaves)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 2 small bundles of bok choy, chopped</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">- 2 tbsp minced garlic</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>Other</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 1 tsp ginger powder</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 2 tbsp olive oil</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 1.5 cups jasmine rice</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- salt & pepper to taste</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>Putting it together:</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>1. </b> Put all broth ingredients (chicken broth, water, chicken breasts, onion, poultry seasoning, rosemary & celery seed) into a large pot and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, and leave for 30 mins to an hour (or more).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>2. </b>Saute the carrots, mushrooms, garlic and ginger powder in the olive oil for approximately 3 minutes, then pour into the broth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>3. </b>Add the cabbage, bok choy and rice to the broth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>4. </b>Add salt and pepper to the broth to taste.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>5. </b>Let the soup cook for an additional 20-30 minutes on low heat, until the rice is soft.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">**I wanted a really thick and hearty soup.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">If you prefer a soup with more broth, you could</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">either add more broth, or reduce the rice to 1 cup.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Because of the nature of rice, this soup will continue </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">to thicken as </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">it sits out, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and by the time you're eating it as leftovers it's </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">almost a porridge. If you'd like to preserve</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the 'soupiness,' </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">collect some broth to store separately and add back in when reheating (or add new broth when reheating).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">*Find a printer friendly version of this recipe</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">on my Google Docs <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/145qi37sX_f2ZewnoQZ6sGCW0xiqThXHSVl2R2966y1o/edit?usp=sharing">here</a>!</span></div>
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<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/11/hearty-chicken-and-rice-soup-with-asian.html" data-layout="standard" data-action="like" data-show-faces="true" data-share="true"></div>Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-71905797505693280592013-11-11T12:07:00.000-08:002013-11-17T14:48:59.364-08:00Bathroom Demolition Day!<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">As planned, we began demolition on our upstairs bathroom </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">this last weekend. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">(I'm sure it will take months to complete, haha)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We're fortunate in that our bathroom gets a lot of</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">light, and it wasn't extremely small despite the age of </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the farmhouse. We had good bones to work with, but </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">we're hoping to give the bath a more 'farmhouse' style </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and upgrade to a larger vanity by removing the closet. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I was also excited to get a new tub, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">as </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the tub we had was a little stained and dingy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Here's some before photos:</span></div>
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</td><td><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N2SGPI7lMtE/UoEnAf9FxRI/AAAAAAAACqM/tnSWoKZFJtw/s1600/DSC02684.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N2SGPI7lMtE/UoEnAf9FxRI/AAAAAAAACqM/tnSWoKZFJtw/s320/DSC02684.jpg" width="200" /></a>
</td><td><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7-KVlpfn3nU/UoEnAAK6R3I/AAAAAAAACqE/IgBMLCAIn6k/s1600/DSC02685.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7-KVlpfn3nU/UoEnAAK6R3I/AAAAAAAACqE/IgBMLCAIn6k/s320/DSC02685.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h3W7h0WQbnk/UoEnAeh7_EI/AAAAAAAACqI/6ZZfaPzliq8/s1600/DSC02687.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h3W7h0WQbnk/UoEnAeh7_EI/AAAAAAAACqI/6ZZfaPzliq8/s400/DSC02687.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I clearly made no effort to beautify the bathroom before taking<br />these before photos...</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">My only <i>real</i> involvement in the demo was emptying the </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">vanity and the closet and moving the contents to another room for storage during the renovation. I also helped Clint take down </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">the mirror, lights, and door - and of course took </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">pictures of the process throughout.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">But apparently when you're pregnant and under the </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">weather, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">you don't get to be involved in the REAL demo work.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(I won't lie, I didn't mind laying about </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">while </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the men did their thing...)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">That said, I'd like to give a <b><u>HUGE</u></b> shout out to Clint's </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">brother </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Erin and his dad Tom for coming to help with the demolition. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">When Clint and I recently demolished just 1 small closet, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">it took us hours... I have no idea how long the full</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">bathroom demo would have taken without their help!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Everything got taken out from the back to the front - starting with removing the tiled wall and tub. Then the toilet, vanity, and closet came out next. Lastly the crew worked on removing approximately 18 layers </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">of flooring.</span></div>
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</td><td><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aS-oiOgOX2Q/UoEvh7hVUKI/AAAAAAAACr8/4EbmfvAh10Y/s1600/DSC02691.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aS-oiOgOX2Q/UoEvh7hVUKI/AAAAAAAACr8/4EbmfvAh10Y/s320/DSC02691.jpg" width="200" /></a>
</td><td><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-C64ZbtEmCRI/UoEviNURDPI/AAAAAAAACsA/u_sATKWGYl0/s1600/DSC02692.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-C64ZbtEmCRI/UoEviNURDPI/AAAAAAAACsA/u_sATKWGYl0/s320/DSC02692.jpg" width="200" /></a>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You can see that we had several layers of flooring. There's the subfloor hardwoods in the back where the tub was, and the substrate layers on top of it, which apparently included concrete. The flooring was definitely </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the toughest part of the demo for the men.</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">After a majority of the flooring was out, the guys</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">called it a day. The closet was completely knocked out,</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">and the walls were opened up as we'll have to move</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">some of the plumbing around.</span></center>
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</td><td><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qSBtcRNGK94/UoEqpzZE9QI/AAAAAAAACrY/chhE7iwHVKk/s1600/DSC02702.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qSBtcRNGK94/UoEqpzZE9QI/AAAAAAAACrY/chhE7iwHVKk/s400/DSC02702.jpg" width="266" /></a>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Sadly, there is still a bit of demo work left to be done.</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The shower bump-out still needs to be taken down, and all of that plumbing and piping will have to be moved/reorganized </span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">to work with </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the clawfoot tub set up.</span></center>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pSJYJP5vnXg/UoEqriK3jlI/AAAAAAAACrs/yNWaYwIpKo8/s1600/DSC02703.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pSJYJP5vnXg/UoEqriK3jlI/AAAAAAAACrs/yNWaYwIpKo8/s400/DSC02703.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Additionally, there is still some substrate above the </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">subfloor that needs to be removed. Once that's done, all of the subfloor will be </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">coming out as well. There is a slope in the bathroom </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">now that we've pulled out all those layers of flooring, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">so we'll need to rectify that before we </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">put our new flooring down.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">After we pull out the subfloor, we'll have to determine if its</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">better to shave down a joist, build up a joist, or a combination of both to get a level floor, while preserving as much floor to </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">ceiling space as possible. You can see in the first set of demo photos how low our ceilings were in the bathroom. Erin </span><i style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">is </i><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">tall (</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">about 6'3 or so) but the ceilings are pretty low.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">One cool thing about pulling out the walls was getting </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">to see </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">some of the original wood framing of the house. In between </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">the insulation are *actual* 2x4's. I'm not sure </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">when 2x4's actually stopped being 2 inches by 4 inches and more like 1.5x3.5, but it was a long time ago. :)</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E-mZJOi6CLg/UoEqr7ApYLI/AAAAAAAACrw/HgZiWmz98ow/s1600/DSC02704.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E-mZJOi6CLg/UoEqr7ApYLI/AAAAAAAACrw/HgZiWmz98ow/s400/DSC02704.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Hopefully it won't take us too long to finish up the last</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">of the demo </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and we can get to rebuilding everything as soon as possible. Right now we can only use the bathroom downstairs,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and that really sucks when you wake up in the middle of</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the night and have to go to the restroom.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Especially when you're waking up as much as I do!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I'm not sure how long this process will take, but I'll </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">definitely make sure to update the blog as we go!</span></div>
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<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/11/demolition-day.html" data-layout="standard" data-action="like" data-show-faces="true" data-share="true"></div>Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-59269122784620496522013-11-06T15:53:00.000-08:002013-11-19T17:14:02.014-08:00Carpeting Upstairs in the Bedrooms<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Much like the hardwoods in our <a href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/10/replacing-grossness-with-lovely-carpet.html">hallway</a>, the flooring in our bedrooms upstairs </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">wasn't </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">in </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the best of shape. We had always envisioned </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">that we'd carpet more than just the hallway, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and the time had finally come to make that vision a reality.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">So we went back to Lowe's and matched the Stainmaster carpet we had previously installed, for a seamless look.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We actually opted not to carpet our master bedroom at this time because carpeting the master bedroom alone was $1300.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Since we're also about to renovate our main bath</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">we figured we'd rather spend that 1300 there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We can always carpet our room later!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">A couple notable problem areas that we did cover:</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DcLfX-oUiuI/UnrKtkgq6pI/AAAAAAAACoE/gJ9F_5Cgzmc/s1600/DSC02639.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DcLfX-oUiuI/UnrKtkgq6pI/AAAAAAAACoE/gJ9F_5Cgzmc/s320/DSC02639.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ramPuBzlRhk/UnrKtcbV0JI/AAAAAAAACoA/J2Sh16T5cNU/s1600/DSC02641.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ramPuBzlRhk/UnrKtcbV0JI/AAAAAAAACoA/J2Sh16T5cNU/s320/DSC02641.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Again, what treasures lie below?</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Unfortunately, the problem with carpeting after you</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">move in (and carpeting rooms filled with <i>stuff</i>), is that</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">you have to move <u>a bunch</u> of stuff. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Our upstairs (and some parts of the downstairs) </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">was a total DISASTER zone!!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">But it was all worth it after the carpet got installed!</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Carpeting the bedrooms immediately made them feel</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> warm and comforting, the way a bedroom should feel. :) The kitties love spending time in the other bedrooms now. The carpet</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> also really improved the flow between the hallway and the 2 bedrooms.</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Take a look at the difference in one of the bedrooms!</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Before:</span></center>
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<tr><td><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7otupwsTCQ4/UnrQgxK_EiI/AAAAAAAACpA/KH05ZKlbjSU/s1600/DSC02642.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="193" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7otupwsTCQ4/UnrQgxK_EiI/AAAAAAAACpA/KH05ZKlbjSU/s320/DSC02642.JPG" width="290" /></a>
</td><td><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-C4F3grgsvyY/UnrQgq-4K_I/AAAAAAAACo8/FZeKKecyFZ4/s1600/DSC02640.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="193" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-C4F3grgsvyY/UnrQgq-4K_I/AAAAAAAACo8/FZeKKecyFZ4/s320/DSC02640.JPG" width="290" /></a>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">After:</span></div>
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<tr><td><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X5xCG-pg2Sk/UnrQgmlGD8I/AAAAAAAACpE/fhKBw3yL1Y0/s1600/DSC02654.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="193" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X5xCG-pg2Sk/UnrQgmlGD8I/AAAAAAAACpE/fhKBw3yL1Y0/s320/DSC02654.JPG" width="290" /></a>
</td><td><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U7vauI_0nt0/UnrQh8mIaRI/AAAAAAAACpM/8rTW8Z22cPE/s1600/DSC02656.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="193" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U7vauI_0nt0/UnrQh8mIaRI/AAAAAAAACpM/8rTW8Z22cPE/s320/DSC02656.JPG" width="290" /></a>
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<br /><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">While getting carpeting installed isn't a huge home renovation project by any stretch (and all we really did was move furniture), every little thing that we do to improve the house gives us a sense of satisfaction, and makes us feel that much happier with our home. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Especially when we can cover up bad floors and make our </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">farmhouse more presentable.</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Now that we have the carpeting in place, we're really excited to move onto bigger and better projects, like the bathroom renovation. Demolition starts this weekend! Yay!</span><br />
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<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/11/carpeting-upstairs-in-bedrooms.html" data-layout="standard" data-action="like" data-show-faces="false" data-share="true"></div>Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-55227084921252523702013-11-03T07:54:00.001-08:002013-11-21T20:07:19.894-08:00DIY - Refinishing the Clawfoot Tub, Part 2<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">After refinishing the exterior of the 1914 clawfoot tub</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(<a href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/11/refinishing-clawfoot-tub-part-1.html" target="_blank">Refinishing the Clawfoot Tub, Part 1</a>!), it was time to tackle</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">the interior of the tub - the porcelain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We thought briefly about hiring a professional. I've read </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">that's the only way to get a really great finish that will last - but </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I also read about several cases where professional finishes crapped out after a few months of use too... So you can't win. And</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> it's hundreds of dollars, which is difficult when we're trying to get the bathroom done as frugally as possible. We have expensive taste so we have to make up for it somewhere!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">First we wanted to address major flaws in the porcelain enamel.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9A4qkMbEQb0/Um8bXMyGuLI/AAAAAAAAChc/LF_qwg7f1GA/s1600/DSC02499.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9A4qkMbEQb0/Um8bXMyGuLI/AAAAAAAAChc/LF_qwg7f1GA/s400/DSC02499.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We used a product called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BRQ0TW/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000BRQ0TW&linkCode=as2&tag=rustyfarmhous-20" target="_blank">JB Water Weld Epoxy Putty</a> to</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">patch some small scratches and larger chips, like this one:</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mpvBI17w1jg/Um8bXWASiBI/AAAAAAAAChg/z2Ti6vMU1qA/s1600/DSC02500.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mpvBI17w1jg/Um8bXWASiBI/AAAAAAAAChg/z2Ti6vMU1qA/s400/DSC02500.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">There ended up being a lot of areas that we patched up.</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HUjT-ylVDSQ/Um8bZNqJUeI/AAAAAAAACiI/P2dbtVffnxU/s1600/DSC02548.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HUjT-ylVDSQ/Um8bZNqJUeI/AAAAAAAACiI/P2dbtVffnxU/s320/DSC02548.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">After allowing the epoxy putty to cure, we sanded the entire surface of the tub to make sure it was even and ready to be refinished. This required a combination of power sanding and sanding by hand - the curves of the tub actually made</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">hand-sanding with sandpaper sheets more effective than</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">using the power sander for a lot of areas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We also decided that the drain needed to be removed prior to refinishing to prevent rust from forming under the old drain. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It was <i><u>incredibly</u></i> difficult to get the drain out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Theoretically they're supposed to screw out. We tried pliers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We got nowhere. We tried prying it with a hammer and a flat head. We got nowhere. We eventually went to the hardware store and got a tub wrench similar to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004AHKVUI/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B004AHKVUI&linkCode=as2&tag=rustyfarmhous-20" target="_blank">this</a>. We tried to use it (it barely fit) and we still couldn't get the drain to unscrew from the drain pipe on the underside of the tub. </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We tried WD-40. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Nothing. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Things were starting to seem hopeless...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">We went back to trying to pry it up with a screwdriver and a hammer, and eventually had some success prying up the edges all around the drain. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Then one whole half of the top edge just broke off. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">At this point, we went back to using the wrench which seemed even less able to fit than before (the drain had probably bent in our drain removal antics). Clint resorted to hammering the wrench into the drain just to get it to fit. Wouldn't you know it, Clint hammered hard enough to just push the entire drain out through the bottom of the drain hole! Haha! YES!!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We were left with this - yummy!:</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rwgALVeWM0A/Um8bbH78ErI/AAAAAAAACik/7bqyZZOxPwQ/s1600/DSC02552.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rwgALVeWM0A/Um8bbH78ErI/AAAAAAAACik/7bqyZZOxPwQ/s320/DSC02552.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We were finally ready to start preparing </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the tub for the refinishing kit. After much online research,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I chose the <a href="http://www.bathtubrefinishingkit.net/Product/Tub,Tile-Refinishing-Kit-w-Slip-Guard-(WHITE)" target="_blank">Bathworks Refinishing Kit w/Slip-Guard</a>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">All in all, the refinishing process was a lot easier</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">than I had anticipated based on everything I had read online.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Many reviews said that it would be difficult, smelly, look crappy and peel after a few months. (We took the risk anyways).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">A majority of comments online revolved around the noxious fumes. We did the whole process outside, so that probably helped with the fumes. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I couldn't smell anything because I was using a full scale ventilator, but Clint said it wasn't bad at all. However, if you're planning on doing this indoors, I'd definitely recommend a get up like this:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dQBO8Xx5fY4/Um8ifr-FlZI/AAAAAAAACi0/AM8esURmVbU/s1600/DSC02536.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dQBO8Xx5fY4/Um8ifr-FlZI/AAAAAAAACi0/AM8esURmVbU/s320/DSC02536.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">you can never be too safe!</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The kit came with everything we needed. It included an etching cleaner (which helps prep the surface for the bonding primer), sandpaper (which acts similarly), tack cloth (to wipe the tub free of all dust & debris), bonding primer, 2 part epoxy finish, non-slip additive, foam roller, foam brush, and paint tray.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Everything I read online told me that prepping the tub was the most important step -- sanding it, cleaning it, etching it and priming it. If you failed in these steps, your finish would eventually (or quickly) begin peeling. So we focused on that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We followed the instructions in the kit - paying special attention to the preparatory steps, and put 2 coats of the epoxy paint finish on the tub. I've gotta say, t</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">he tub immediately looked better! The coating completely covered all of the stains that were on the inside of the tub.</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jEmUW7Xw8Ew/Um8bal80djI/AAAAAAAACio/gdw2XxPujpw/s1600/DSC02555.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jEmUW7Xw8Ew/Um8bal80djI/AAAAAAAACio/gdw2XxPujpw/s400/DSC02555.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5CA3DHDF8M4/Um8bbNUjtuI/AAAAAAAACic/3PUubzA868Q/s1600/DSC02556.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5CA3DHDF8M4/Um8bbNUjtuI/AAAAAAAACic/3PUubzA868Q/s400/DSC02556.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">After the two coats, we had to devise a plan to keep a bunch</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">of outdoorsy things (bugs/seeds/dirt/leaves) from landing on the tub and getting stuck in the finish, since it took several hours to dry. (You're also supposed to avoid putting water in the tub for 24-48 hours, which is something to note if you're doing this to your only tub/shower). Fortunately we happened to have a loveseat cover that I never used from a previous move, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and made that work. Nothing landed on it!</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9LB3RnbyiGc/Um8bcAQ4PyI/AAAAAAAACig/3s_dPoyCRPk/s1600/DSC02558.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9LB3RnbyiGc/Um8bcAQ4PyI/AAAAAAAACig/3s_dPoyCRPk/s400/DSC02558.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The finish is really shiny, and feels pretty solid.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Unfortunately - it wasn't perfect. :( Actually more like double sad face. :( :( There were a couple runs in the epoxy, and that really annoys me because we were pretty darn vigilant about inspecting the tub while coating it (and I'm a perfectionist).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It's not terribly visible, and I don't know how many</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">people would notice if I didn't point it out, but:</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fwBc0-Vm47I/Um8n3ryQ40I/AAAAAAAACjE/_EiIbqYe8Vk/s1600/DSC02608.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fwBc0-Vm47I/Um8n3ryQ40I/AAAAAAAACjE/_EiIbqYe8Vk/s400/DSC02608.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I pumped up the definition to make the run more visible.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">In retrospect, we should have gone back to check on the tub 20 or 30 minutes after we 'finished' to make sure there still weren't any runs. That probably would have ensured something</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">closer to a 'perfect' finish.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Nonetheless, overall I'm happy with the Bathworks product and happy with our decision to refinish the tub ourselves. Even as a perfectionist, I can honestly say that the tub looks pretty great, and it was a </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">heck of a lot cheaper than hiring a company to do it. And it was exciting that it was one more thing we did outselves. Nothing like a personal touch!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">With any luck, we did a good job doing the prep work on the tub and the finish will stay strong for many years to come (I'll update you guys in a year or so!). And e</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">ventually, when the finish <i>does</i> start to falter, we'll do the whole thing again - and next time we'll eradicate those pesky runs. :)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Stay tuned for a short post on fixing up the tub feet!</span></div>
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<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/11/refinishing-clawfoot-tub-part-2.html" data-layout="standard" data-action="like" data-show-faces="false" data-share="true"></div>
Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-65851169540478481682013-11-01T13:46:00.000-07:002013-11-21T20:06:55.988-08:00DIY - Refinishing the Clawfoot Tub, Part 1<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">One of our biggest goals for updating the farmhouse</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">was fixing up the main bathroom upstairs. We wanted to </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">stay </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">era appropriate, so we were thinking of a clawfoot tub. But the bathroom</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> isn't large enough for a </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">shower AND a tub and </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I've heard that clawfoot tubs are inconvenient to </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">shower in. Conundrum.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">In the end, we decided that maintaining the farmhouse</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">aesthetic and the charm of this 1911 home was worth the possible</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">shower inconvenience. And it would look great.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(And isn't that what's most important??)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Looking online to buy a new clawfoot tub, I saw that</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">they are ridiculously expensive. Somewhere in the ballpark of 1500-3000 (or more!), after you get all the hardware you need such </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">as the shower conversion kit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So naturally, I started looking on craigslist and</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">found an AWESOME American Standard clawfoot tub from 1914!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">More specifically, August 17, 1914! How cool was that??</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">And it was only 125 dollars. Score!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pl730qlMzNY/Um7yYr1oZPI/AAAAAAAACe0/h7jXIPR0NEs/s1600/DSC02499+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pl730qlMzNY/Um7yYr1oZPI/AAAAAAAACe0/h7jXIPR0NEs/s320/DSC02499+2.JPG" height="192" width="290" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">the interior had some rust stains</span><br />
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</td><td><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fzW-kJad5r8/Um723f8u2iI/AAAAAAAACfE/Lj7joCHRk8Q/s1600/DSC02508.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fzW-kJad5r8/Um723f8u2iI/AAAAAAAACfE/Lj7joCHRk8Q/s320/DSC02508.JPG" height="192" width="290" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">t<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">he exterior really has some rust, <br />and the paint was chipping off</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Although it wasn't in bad shape considering the age,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">it was clearly going to need to be refinished before it would</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">go into the bathroom. We started with the exterior.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We began by stripping the paint. After extensive online research, we got a really eco/human friendly paint stripper called '<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001F0KO2S/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B001F0KO2S&linkCode=as2&tag=rustyfarmhous-20" target="_blank">SmartStrip</a>'. You paint it on, leave it for a long time, and then remove it. After we stripped the paint off, Clint took the power-sander to the tub to smooth it out.</span></div>
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<tr><td><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Tx9jZbCEYPs/Um724e0GdAI/AAAAAAAACfg/pXOjJpUw3jk/s1600/DSC02512.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Tx9jZbCEYPs/Um724e0GdAI/AAAAAAAACfg/pXOjJpUw3jk/s320/DSC02512.JPG" height="192" width="290" /></a>
</td><td><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qloGeUmERDE/Um725KWNy6I/AAAAAAAACfk/p6tpBrTHft0/s1600/DSC02528.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qloGeUmERDE/Um725KWNy6I/AAAAAAAACfk/p6tpBrTHft0/s320/DSC02528.JPG" height="192" width="290" /></a>
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<center>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> It was a bit of work (have I mentioned how much I love Clint, the best husband in all the land??), but finally the tub was prepped and ready for priming!</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></center>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qa8p2xmTtWk/Um74zgN8VSI/AAAAAAAACfs/GjE-pqYWeME/s1600/DSC02529+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qa8p2xmTtWk/Um74zgN8VSI/AAAAAAAACfs/GjE-pqYWeME/s400/DSC02529+2.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">the tub, in all of it's natural cast iron beauty</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<center>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">For priming, we went with the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001CETTZU/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B001CETTZU&linkCode=as2&tag=rustyfarmhous-20" target="_blank">RustOleum Professional Rusty Metal Primer</a> and I slapped 2 coats on - just to make sure we didn't miss any spots that could potentially rust out at some point. I kind of really liked the color of the primer.</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></center>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-foGjEEq5j0o/Um76idgblII/AAAAAAAACf4/WTwgfLEjv9o/s1600/DSC02530.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-foGjEEq5j0o/Um76idgblII/AAAAAAAACf4/WTwgfLEjv9o/s400/DSC02530.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The next day, it was finally time to actually paint the exterior!</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We had debated if we wanted to go all white or do some color, </span></center>
<center>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">and we decided that we actually really liked the black and white look and stuck with that. It has actually inspired our renovation ideas for the whole bathroom.</span></center>
<center>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We chose the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00106C9CK/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00106C9CK&linkCode=as2&tag=rustyfarmhous-20" target="_blank">RustOleum Stops Rust Hammered Spray</a>.</span></center>
<center>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Needless to say, I was really looking for rust prevention!</span></center>
<center>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I really liked the way it turned out - it has a cool finish that</span></center>
<center>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">isn't too flat, isn't too shiny, and is perfect for covering</span></center>
<center>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">not perfectly flat surfaces such as cast iron clawfoot tubs.</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></center>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mUctAxmAjn4/Um79-e9IQCI/AAAAAAAACgQ/nqi5kUwUUJE/s400/DSC02541+2.JPG" height="265" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">For some reason the picture quality really sucks<br />on this interface. See a better copy <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29954504@N02/10546352224/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mUctAxmAjn4/Um79-e9IQCI/AAAAAAAACgQ/nqi5kUwUUJE/s1600/DSC02541+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Even though it's the bottom of the tub (and thus will</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">not be visible once the tub is installed in the bathroom),</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Clint thought it would be cool to highlight the brand</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">stamp, so I used some metallic chrome spray paint</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">left over from painting the tub feet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G4OZzupgSzQ/Um7_65KQn0I/AAAAAAAACgo/bulJ1uLoZhc/s1600/DSC02542.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G4OZzupgSzQ/Um7_65KQn0I/AAAAAAAACgo/bulJ1uLoZhc/s400/DSC02542.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I am really happy with the way the exterior turned out,</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I cannot wait to get the tub in the bathroom.</span></center>
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</center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">That's it for now - </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">stay tuned for posts on refinishing the inside of the tub, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and fixing up the claw-feet!</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span id="goog_596543133"></span><span id="goog_596543134"></span><br /></span></center>
<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/11/refinishing-clawfoot-tub-part-1.html" data-layout="standard" data-action="like" data-show-faces="false" data-share="true"></div>Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-22786166060090864452013-10-29T14:55:00.000-07:002013-11-19T17:16:20.649-08:00Painting the Hallway and Hanging Wedding Photos<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Next up on the painting to-do list was the</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">upstairs stairwell / hallway.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I couldn't find any good 'before' pictures for the hallway painting, so they must have been included in the pics</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I lost when my computer died. :(</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">However, the lack of 'before' pictures isn't </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">really </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">a </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">major loss since the hallway area was pretty lame</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(seen here in my <a href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/10/replacing-grossness-with-lovely-carpet.html" target="_blank">Replacing Grossness with Lovely Carpet!</a> post)</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It was pretty dirty and painted some routine (boring) version of off white, which you can see in this picture of this ugly pine dresser adorned by </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the lovely Bear Bear!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QL0buIiIX74/Um22sqOcD9I/AAAAAAAACdk/ZdqrKs6j0IA/s1600/IMG_1783.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QL0buIiIX74/Um22sqOcD9I/AAAAAAAACdk/ZdqrKs6j0IA/s400/IMG_1783.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We painted this dresser - I will be posting on that soon too, but you can see a sneak peak of the finished product below!</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">While painting is no amazing feat, I am consistently</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">impressed with how much, and how quickly, it changes an area. And of all the painting we have done in the house, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I think I like the hallway color we chose the best. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It's a soft and creamy taupe... </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and makes me feel like our hallway is a serene coffee shop. :) </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I really like the way it coordinates with the carpet too!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I9gKYt_IphM/Um3I1zYawkI/AAAAAAAACeQ/OW5XoXqKyN4/s1600/DSC02574.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="290" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I9gKYt_IphM/Um3I1zYawkI/AAAAAAAACeQ/OW5XoXqKyN4/s320/DSC02574.jpg" width="193" /></a></div>
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<center>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">After painting, we were finally inspired to hang</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">this super cute set of picture frames that we got at</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Pier 1. We purchased these frames with a gift card we received from our friends Jamie and Michelle at our engagement party.</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">W</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">e absolutely love the antiqued window pane style, </span></center>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">they are </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">perfect for an old farmhouse!</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(I have to admit that the frames sat hung on the wall empty for several months, but we finally got some wedding pics in them!)</span></center>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></center>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VoaYQOrtUkA/Um3I0LO-1wI/AAAAAAAACeI/jtD1eUeXSp8/s1600/DSC02571.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="319" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VoaYQOrtUkA/Um3I0LO-1wI/AAAAAAAACeI/jtD1eUeXSp8/s640/DSC02571.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
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<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/10/painting-hallway-and-hanging-wedding.html" data-layout="standard" data-action="like" data-show-faces="false" data-share="true"></div>Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-64157843587196914692013-10-27T17:24:00.000-07:002013-11-21T20:05:24.281-08:00Gluten Free Chicken Pot Pie (...and regular Chicken Pot Pie, too!)<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Nothing says fall like comfort food...</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">and my favorite comfort food of all is probably chicken pot pie.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(Followed closely by chicken & dumplings!)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It was easier to make pot pie a couple years ago before</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">we figured out that Clint has a gluten intolerance,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">but that shouldn't stand in the way of good pot pie!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HGBiDVf7O_U/UmyNhPhkLLI/AAAAAAAACcY/dXozF0gOIJk/s1600/DSC02596.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HGBiDVf7O_U/UmyNhPhkLLI/AAAAAAAACcY/dXozF0gOIJk/s400/DSC02596.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">L - Pamela's Baking Mix, R - Pillsbury GF Dough</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">In our continuing quest to eat the best tasting</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">gluten free foods possible, I actually made 2 pot pies, each with</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">different GF crusts - so Clint could do a taste test comparison. (Actually, we had company, so </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I made 4 pot pies </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">total - 2 GF and 2 regular).</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>The GF Crust Options:</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kTSfUDGJP2g/UmyNdLpwjSI/AAAAAAAACbw/s215hpGVNW0/s1600/DSC02584.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kTSfUDGJP2g/UmyNdLpwjSI/AAAAAAAACbw/s215hpGVNW0/s400/DSC02584.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Up at bat were <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004SI9J34/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B004SI9J34&linkCode=as2&tag=rustyfarmhous-20" target="_blank">Pamela's Bread Mix & Flour Blend</a> and a (new?) premixed Pillsbury Gluten Free dough.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(Next time I might try <a href="http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/gluten-free-pie-crust-recipe" target="_blank">this King Arthur Flour</a> recipe.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Previously we have tried the '<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CFCHJTQ/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00CFCHJTQ&linkCode=as2&tag=rustyfarmhous-20" target="_blank">Gluten-Free Pantry Perfect Pie Crust</a>' </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">and I don't remember how it tasted, but it was </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">definitely more complicated to make. We'll have to try it again.)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<table border="”1″" cellspacing="”″" style="text-align: center;" table="">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th colspan="3"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The Dough Comparison</span></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Pros</span></td>
<td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Cons</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Pillsbury</span></td>
<td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">No mixing required, very easy to roll out, very quick to use</span></td>
<td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Thinner dough is slightly difficult to work with - the dough stuck to the parchment paper a lot when trying to put the crust into the pie dish and when covering the pot pie</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Pamela's</span></td>
<td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Rolled dough is easy to work with, comes off parchment paper without difficulty</span></td>
<td><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Time consuming to make, difficult to get dough into the right consistency</span></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">In terms of taste, Clint said that the main difference he noticed was that the Pillsbury crust was thinner. (</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">There was more Pamela's dough than Pillsbury, so they did roll out a little thicker.) </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">He didn't seem to have a preference between the two, and claims he </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">would eat either happily.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The Pamela's crust is a little thicker and crispier, and the Pillsbury was a little softer, and possibly flakier.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This did make the Pillsbury crust more susceptible to</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">getting soggy from the filling.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>The (GF) Recipe</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This recipe is my adaptation of a recipe originally</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">found on allrecipes.com, available <a href="http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chicken-Pot-Pie-IX/Detail.aspx" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This recipe will make 2 <u>deep</u> pies - I like to load 'em up! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Crust</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 2 pairs of your favorite 9" GF pie crusts</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 1 egg white</span></div>
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<i style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Filling</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken; cubed (I prefer thighs)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 6 large carrots, sliced (~4 cups)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 4 stalks of celery, sliced (~2 cups)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 2 or 3 small <u>waxy</u> potatoes, cubed (~2.5 cups)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 1 can of corn</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 2 cups frozen peas</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 5 or 6 cups chicken broth</span></div>
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<i style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Gravy</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 2 or 3 small onions, diced (~2 cups)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 3/4 cup butter</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 1/3 cup sorghum flour</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 1/3 cup potato starch</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 1 tsp salt</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 1/2 tsp black pepper</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 1/2 tsp celery seed</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 1 tsp poultry seasoning</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 1/2 tsp garlic salt</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 2 tsp fresh rosemary, minced</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- 1 & 1/3 cup milk</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>Putting it together:</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>1. </b>Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>2.</b> Place bottom pie crusts. Beat egg white and brush pie crusts with egg white Bake bottom crusts at 375 for 5-8 mins. Save egg whites for later use on upper crust.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>3.</b> Combine filling ingredients (chicken, carrots, celery, potatoes, corn, peas, & chicken broth) into a large pot and boil for 10 mins. Strain filling while saving the chicken broth for us in the gravy. Set filling aside.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>4.</b> In a large saucepan, cook onions in butter until soft. Stir in salt, black pepper, celery seed, poultry seasoning, and garlic salt. Stir in sorghum flour and potato starch. Slowly stir in milk & chicken broth. Simmer over low heat until gravy is thick.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>5.</b> Fill bottom pie crusts with filling mixture. Pour gravy mixture over filling. Sometimes if the gravy is really thick (and doesn't seem like it will naturally fill the spaces well), I use a large spoon to manually mix the gravy and filling. This also allows me to add more gravy. More gravy = more yummy!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>6.</b> Cover pies with top crust, seal pie edges cutting away excess dough. Cut small slits into the crust for escaping steam. Brush top crusts with remaining eggwhites.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>7.</b> Bake pies in preheated oven for 30-35 minutes. Allow pies to cool prior to serving.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">**If you prefer to make a non-GF pot pie, simply</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">replace the GF pie crusts with your favorite regular pie crusts,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">and substitute the (1/3 cup sorghum + 1/3 cup potato starch)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">mixture with 2/3 cup flour.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">*Find a printer friendly version of this recipe </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">on my Google Docs <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WqhN4R4eMxO8SPX_w-BmVhG9CjEmL-wsOS0yiHkOeFQ/edit?usp=sharing">here</a>!</span></div>
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<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/10/gluten-free-chicken-pot-pie-and-regular.html" data-layout="standard" data-action="like" data-show-faces="false" data-share="true"></div>Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-31933150547838847342013-10-26T08:51:00.000-07:002013-11-19T17:17:51.073-08:00DIY Handmade Brooch Bouquet with Real Preserved Roses<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Since I just posted about our invitation</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">making adventure, I figured I'll stick with the wedding theme</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">and cover the DIY brooch bouquet I made for our local reception.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I had seen some brooch bouquets in wedding photography and determined that this was something that would fit our </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">overall wedding style, and would be a fun project.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">While it was fun, it was also a lot of work, haha.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">After looking around on the internet (and a lot of Etsy),</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I eventually decided that I didn't want a bouquet made primarily of brooches, but instead a traditional rose bouquet </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">highlighted by brooches.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">My MIL Donna jumped on board and gave the project a head start</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">by purchasing the brooches on Ebay. The set came with about 13-14 brooches, and I think she paid around 50 dollars.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The brooches were PERFECT for the style I was envisioning!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The first step was wiring the brooches in preparation for use.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Donna did several of these before I picked the brooches up from her, based on online tutorials. It's not super *hard* work,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">but it *can* be tricky to find the right spot on the</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">brooch to attach the wire,</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> and it can be tiresome on the fingers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">While you can certainly find a more</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> detailed how-to guide</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">on the internet...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>How to Wire the Brooches</b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>1.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Take a long strip of 18-22 gauge wire, and form it into a 'V'. The wire should be twice as long as your desired stem length.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">(Many people use green florist wire for this step. I didn't want any fake green stems in the bouquet, so we used silver, which blended with the brooches better.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><i>2.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Find 1 or 2 (depending on the weight of the brooch) inconspicuous areas to place the wiring. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>3.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Starting from the top (visible) side of the brooch,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">slide both ends of the wire </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">through the brooch but </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">over a background element of the brooch. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><i>4.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Pull the both ends of the wire all the way through as </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">tight as you can. The point of the 'V', that secures the brooch, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">should nearly disappear into the brooch</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">This is why its important to choose the spot wisely! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><i>5.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Wind both ends </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">of the wire together as close together and tightly to the brooch as possible - without going so tight that it just curls up. I</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">f you have several wires, wind them together in the middle to create one stem.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Prepping the Roses</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Once all the brooches were finished, I had to prepare the </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">preserved roses for the project by 'stemming' them as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">They came in boxes of 6, which really only contained</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the rose heads. I bought </span><a href="http://www.save-on-crafts.com/whiterose1.html" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;" target="_blank">these roses</a><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> online from </span><a href="http://www.save-on-crafts.com/" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;" target="_blank">saveoncrafts</a><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I also bought <a href="http://www.save-on-crafts.com/rosestems.html" target="_blank">these stems</a> for preserved roses.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uMyTHUzqOUo/Umvc8vxQiWI/AAAAAAAACZ0/5uB-U_NwGAM/s1600/DSC01155.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uMyTHUzqOUo/Umvc8vxQiWI/AAAAAAAACZ0/5uB-U_NwGAM/s400/DSC01155.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I absolutely loved the color of these antiqued white roses.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I used a hot glue gun to attach the tiny preserved rose stem to the wired stem. The preserved rose stems were supposed to</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">conveniently fit into the purchased stems, but I think</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">because I bought the extra large roses, sometimes they didn't</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">fit very well at all. That was rather frustrating.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I also thought it would be a lot more convenient if the purchasable stems for preserved roses were quite long - like an actual stem, but they were only about 4" long.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So I bought some paper wrapped stem wire, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">similar to <a href="http://www.joann.com/panacea-products-paper-wrapped-stem-wire-18-gauge/3989712.html" target="_blank">these</a> sold at <a href="http://www.joann.com/" target="_blank">Jo-Ann</a>, and used white </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">florist tape to tape the mini stems to the stem wire.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>Shaping the Bouquet</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The next step was to put the brooches and the roses together.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I had 24 roses and 14 brooches.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">There isn't really a good way to describe *how* to put the roses and brooches together into a bouquet. Some people that use</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">artificial flowers use those foam balls to stick </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the flowers/brooches into, and I could see that working fairly well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I started with 2 roses and 1 extra pretty brooch in the</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">middle, and I worked out from there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Donna came over, and she helped hold the bouquet. I </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">would add a rose or brooch and then bend the stem so that the rose/brooch was placed just how I wanted it. Then Donna would hold </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the bouquet and I'd quickly use the florist tape or wire (or regular tape) to tape the stems together.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">You don't have to go crazy here because this isn't a permanent solution - it just has to hold the stems where you want them until you're done shaping the bouquet and you're ready to wrap the stems to create the base/handle. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Then t</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">rim the wire stems to the size that you want.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><b>Turning the Stems into a Handle</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I've never made a bouquet before, so I wasn't sure</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">exactly how to wrap the handle to make it pretty.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I ended up making a sort of 'scalloped' edge along the base</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">of the flowers by cutting small strips of wired florist ribbon, folding them in half, and gluing them onto the stems in an overlapping pattern. (In retrospect I probably could have just folded the ribbon in a continuing 'W' shape and saved</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">myself a LOT of cutting!). Gluing each piece down did guarantee the stability of that ribbon.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Q6PDYu6RRFM/Umvf1Hl6mpI/AAAAAAAACao/mcCJDCWhkT4/s1600/DSC02582.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Q6PDYu6RRFM/Umvf1Hl6mpI/AAAAAAAACao/mcCJDCWhkT4/s320/DSC02582.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Make sure to fold over exposed edges of ribbon.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Then I wrapped a base layer of ribbon diagonally around the stems. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">On top of that layer, I did an interlocking ribbon pattern by wrapping the ribbon around the handle base, and then twisting it when I got to the front. Then I would turn the bouquet around (you sort of have to dedicate a front/back), and do it</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">again on the other side.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">By the time I got to the bottom, I wasn't quite sure how to finish it off, so I just tied a bow. :)</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2wtBK7QngjQ/Umvgqn6jC9I/AAAAAAAACaw/a_JSgaM_lwE/s1600/DSC01174.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2wtBK7QngjQ/Umvgqn6jC9I/AAAAAAAACaw/a_JSgaM_lwE/s400/DSC01174.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Donna is my Vanna White!</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Since I was using this at our local reception</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">(and there was no ceremony), I wasn't planning to hold the</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">bouquet at all. So for display, I bought a cheap</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">decanter at <a href="http://www.homegoods.com/" target="_blank">HomeGoods</a>, and some decorative</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">sand/rocks at a hobby shop.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KYFEcTOk-TM/Umvf0JcORQI/AAAAAAAACag/ghsrk_lRhoE/s1600/DSC02580.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KYFEcTOk-TM/Umvf0JcORQI/AAAAAAAACag/ghsrk_lRhoE/s400/DSC02580.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I thought the rock and sand mix matched perfectly!</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Hw1r-r9yZTk/UmvfzmqB07I/AAAAAAAACaU/Grb5z8OpHIA/s1600/DSC02578.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Hw1r-r9yZTk/UmvfzmqB07I/AAAAAAAACaU/Grb5z8OpHIA/s400/DSC02578.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">A close-up of the flower.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">All in all, I was really happy with the way</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the bouquet turned out, and (maybe because of the hard</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">work put into it) I ended up liking it a lot more</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">than most of the inspiration bouquets I'd scouted online.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The real roses had a such a delicate and sophisticated</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">look to them, I loved the way they looked with the brooches.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Overall, this bouquet cost about 200 dollars to make.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So it wasn't exactly cheap, but then again buying brooch bouquets isn't necessarily cheap either. And I got exactly what I wanted.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">If you're interested in making your own, I'd recommend:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- taking it slowly (the processes are rough on the fingers)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- listening to good music</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">:)</span></div>
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<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/10/diy-handmade-brooch-bouquet-with-real.html" data-layout="standard" data-action="like" data-show-faces="false" data-share="true"></div>Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-74175352627336767972013-10-25T20:56:00.001-07:002013-11-19T17:18:34.223-08:00DIY Handmade Wedding Invitations<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The selection and assortment of wedding invitations out there is overwhelming! We decided it might just be easier</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(and cheaper) to make our own.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Fortunately I had a lot of the supplies I needed since I had previously purchased them for my</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><a href="https://www.etsy.com/shop/sunmidesigns" target="_blank">Etsy store</a> (which desperately needs my attention),</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">including a mini-hole-punch, paper cutter, and yarn. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Our invitations had 2 main parts - the actual invitation with the wedding date(s)</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and our names and blah blah, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and a secondary info sheet </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">that had details about the resort/travel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">For the actual invitations, we bought a book of 12" x 12" differently patterned 'thick papers' - its not quite as sturdy as cardstock, but it's hardier than construction paper. You can usually find it in the scrapbooking section. (Hobby Lobby classifies it as '<a href="http://shop.hobbylobby.com/scrapbooking-and-paper-crafts/scrapbook-paper-cardstock/" target="_blank">cardstock and themed papers</a>' on their website.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We used a mini paper cutter to get them to an appropriate size. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We bought a translucent velum paper for the invitation text, and I wrote something up after looking around on the internet for appropriate invite verbage. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">After a few tries, I finally got the formatting right </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">in MS Word to print 2 copies of text on 1 sheet of velum, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">which I could then conveniently cut in half to size.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I went the easy route by crafting a lot of stuff straight out of MS Word, but if you have great handwriting/calligraphy skills, you could make really beautiful invitations by handwriting the text and then scanning it to print in mass.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">To put the invitations together, I punched 2 mini-holes in </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">both layers of the invitation, and tied them together </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">with a lovely dual-stranded yard - a wispy creme mahair with glittery gold highlights.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;">I actually really loved that there were 15 different background patterns on the invitations.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-g1z0a-hqFkQ/UmsoqaFQ_xI/AAAAAAAACU0/Cgv6Xr-tl-o/s1600/IMG_1725.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-g1z0a-hqFkQ/UmsoqaFQ_xI/AAAAAAAACU0/Cgv6Xr-tl-o/s1600/IMG_1725.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We neatly organized them by pattern on the kitchen island.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">For the secondary information sheet, I bought a set </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">of </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">smaller </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">4.5" x 6.5" </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">cardstock</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">(read: no cutting involved) in patterns that coordinated with the invite patterns. We thought the colors in both sets matched really well</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">, and I'm so glad that we found all of this stuff in one trip!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I had envisioned having a cute little picture somewhere in the invitations, so I drew a little 3 part cartoon - a boy chasing a volleyball to the right, a girl chasing a volleyball to the left, and a boy and girl finding each other (and love!).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">After finally drawing a cartoon I was happy with,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I scanned that sucker up, formatted it in MS Word, and printed</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">4 per page so they could be cut apart easily.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I happened to have some heavy duty creme paper (perhaps for a resume back in the day?) so we printed the drawing on that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">To attach the pictures to the cardstock we took a dual-pronged approach: </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">we cut corner slits in the cardstock (mostly for aesthetics) and then used glue </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">sticks to glue them down. Then I glued the </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">actual information to the back of the cards. </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I thought about printing the info directly onto the cards, but the awkward size and thickness of the cardstock made printing on them seem like more trouble than it </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">was worth. (I tried two, and they jammed in the printer).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8i-tf8qbCZc/UmsorC-i--I/AAAAAAAACU8/T3n5rABniII/s1600/IMG_1726.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8i-tf8qbCZc/UmsorC-i--I/AAAAAAAACU8/T3n5rABniII/s1600/IMG_1726.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">For the RSVPs, we bought some 'natural-colored' blank</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">cardstock that came with matching envelopes, and printed them up. As I was once again too lazy to deal with printing on </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">overly awkward items, we hand wrote our address on all of the return envelopes, hehe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Because the invitations and information cards were filled with different patterns, I'm not sure if any of our recipients actually received the exact same combination.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I loved how each invitation was fairly unique in that way.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The full package:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">A couple more invitation combos:</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DoQ488haZKw/UmsxXGm2CJI/AAAAAAAACV0/o_t7F0zDVMI/s1600/DSC02564.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DoQ488haZKw/UmsxXGm2CJI/AAAAAAAACV0/o_t7F0zDVMI/s1600/DSC02564.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When all was said and done, I think the invitations (we made ~90) cost us around 65 dollars and 10 hours of time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Way cheaper than buying invites, and a</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">lot more personal.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">If you wanted to make similar invites, I'd recommend the following items:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- Large envelopes for full invitations</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- Cardstock</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- Scrapbooking paper</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- Velum Paper</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- Yarn</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- Paper cutter</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- Hole punch</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">- Small blank cards + envelopes</span><br />
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:)</div>
<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/10/handmade-wedding-invitations.html" data-layout="standard" data-action="like" data-show-faces="false" data-share="true"></div>Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-84588550880210058702013-10-25T17:32:00.001-07:002013-11-19T17:19:01.865-08:00Living Room Painting Complete!<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">If there's anything that can make a house feel </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">new(er) almost instantly, it's painting. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">And we've set out to paint nearly the whole house.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, but the previous owner had like a gazillion kids (and by a gazillion </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I mean like 4, all under age 7 or 8) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">and the walls all over the house were pretty dingy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You may remember that I painted an accent wall in the living room (see here: <a href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2012/08/living-room-updates.html" target="_blank">Living Room Updates</a>) but I did actually go ahead and paint the rest of the room as well. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I only rushed to get the accent wall painted first so I could get all the picture frames up on the wall and out of boxes post move-in.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The accent wall was a mauve-ish pink, and so for the rest of the living room, I chose a light peachy color.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">As usual, it was the Behr Ultra Premium Plus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Personally I loved the way the colors went together!</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">First wall down. You can see the contrast from <br />the unpainted left wall behind the TV.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">In this natural-light photo you can see that <br />the color is actually quite light.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The peach is fairly subtle, but I love the way it complements both the pink of the accent wall as well as the brown and</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The color looks more yellow at night in artificial lighting,<br />but it matches the top of our painting perfectly, hehe.<br />It's also the perfect background for that Bear Bear!</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I love the peach color against the white and brown of the stairs so much that I thought about taking the peach color up the stairs beneath the moulding, but I held off for now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We'll see what Clint thinks and maybe we'll </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">do it</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> eventually...</span></div>
<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/10/living-room-painting-complete.html" data-layout="standard" data-action="like" data-show-faces="false" data-share="true"></div>Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-22458781319599859262013-10-23T18:30:00.000-07:002013-11-19T17:19:32.465-08:00Replacing Grossness with Lovely Carpet!<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When we moved into our house, there were definitely some areas that seemed *very* questionable. Things that were so ... unattractively highlighted in the real estate advertisements that we almost didn't look at the house. Seriously. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">One such area was the 2nd floor stairwell landing/hallway. As you can see below, the original wood flooring sustained some serious damage at some point in the farmhouse's history. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">My beloved Poco examines the terrible flooring. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Unfortunately, Poco passed after 16 years with me in Oct 2012. <3</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">A portion of the floor was nearly black - I'm assuming some sort of water damage since the floor is right next to the bathroom, though in all honesty I have no idea what happened. Clearly large portions of the floor had been removed and replaced - with newer hardwoods and straight up plywood. Needless to say, both solutions looked hideous! Hehe. I googled our address and I actually found the realtor pictures from 2008, when the previous owner bought the house from the owners that preceded her. In those photos, the entire upstairs was carpeted (and it looked WAY better), so we figured out that the lady before us must have ripped out the carpet in an effort to get to the original hardwoods below, but found THIS. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">There's a similar makeshift flooring solution in our 2nd bedroom... <br />part of me really wants to take up the floor and see if <br />there's buried treasure under these wacko floorboards!</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It's not terribly terribly obvious in the photos, but there's also a full step - at least 3-4 inches - between our hallway and the bathroom... while we couldn't really address that with carpet, I DO hope to eradicate that with the upcoming main bath renovation! (Woot! Stay tuned for that!) Our hallway also had a huge slope - this 100+ year old house has settled, and the flooring reflected that. It kind of made me seasick. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Naturally, we needed a fix. Since the hall is upstairs where the bedrooms are, we opted to go to with carpeting. We chose a luxurious <a href="http://www.stainmaster.com/" target="_blank">Stainmaster</a> carpet from <a href="http://www.lowes.com/" target="_blank">Lowe's</a>. It was definitely one of their more expensive carpets (at least within the Lowe's selection), but it was so worth it - it feels like heaven underneath the feet! We chose the 'Capri Place Comic Plush' carpeting, and it was lovely!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">As the name says, it's really plush, and the only downside is that footprints are very visible, as you can see!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We didn't overtly address the sloping, but after carpet padding and carpet, the slope virtually disappeared. It still exists, but its barely noticeable now. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">At the time, we only carpeted the hallway and not the bedrooms - only because carpeting is pretty absurdly expensive. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">We did, however, take a runner down the stairs to prevent falls for us and our 4 legged friends. Safety first!</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The carpet looks way browner here. <br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">We're actually about to install carpeting in two of our upstairs bedrooms, but not our master yet, mainly because its an extra 1k just to carpet one room, and the original wood flooring in the master is actually pretty nice. I'm excited to get that done and start making some of the other bedrooms nice, instead of random receptacles of storage. :)</span></div>
<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/10/replacing-grossness-with-lovely-carpet.html" data-layout="standard" data-action="like" data-show-faces="false" data-share="true"></div>Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-3776367415870671442013-10-23T17:31:00.001-07:002013-11-19T17:20:20.553-08:00Ahhhh!!! I must start posting again!<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Oh my gosh, my last post was Oct 7 2012 -- I haven't posted in over 1 year! </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">SO MUCH has happened in just this 1 year that it's really unforgivable that I haven't posted any of it... haha. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">With every new thing we've done, I've been meaning and meaning to catch up on posts but couldn't manage to get it done. It didn't help that at some point in the last year my computer died and I lost a lot of photos... but I'll see what I can do with what remains! Some of the catch-up posts to come include: painting more rooms, carpeting upstairs, painting some furniture, planting trees, building garden boxes, our wedding, and maybe more! We've also started a whole new round of home renovation projects, so I can't wait to catch up on old posts so I can start on some current posts! Yay!</span></div>
<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2013/10/oh-my-gosh-my-last-post-was-oct-7-2012.html" data-layout="standard" data-action="like" data-show-faces="false" data-share="true"></div>Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607088507147206275.post-87305143668113236982012-10-07T17:48:00.000-07:002013-11-19T17:20:55.721-08:00Fixing up the Stairs<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When we first moved into the farmhouse, the stairs were in pretty bad shape. And by bad shape, I mean they were really ugly. There clearly had been a runner on the stairs that was pulled up, and the remaining white paint left something to be desired. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So, painting the stairs was actually the first thing on our to-do list. We got started pretty much the day we closed on the house - we figured it would be better to paint the stairs before tons of critters (namely our 4 cats and 1 dog) were in the place. We started painting despite the fact that we didn't even have power in the house... fortunately it was the beginning of summer. Still not too hot but very bright!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We spent a ton of time sanding down the stairs a bit and then cleaning them up. We discussed filling in the divets and dents and nail holes from the historic runner with wood putty to make the stairs perfect and flat before painting them, but then we said SCREW IT! We didn't buy a 101 year old house so it would look brand new! These dents have charm! (this could also be interpreted as: we were just too lazy).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We meticulously taped all of the stairs. <span style="text-align: center;">Then I just had to slather the brown paint on. Again, we used the Behr Ultra Paint + Primer in 1. No particular reason. I just like it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">After painting the stairs, we took some time to get the bannister and the top rail, to complete the look. We also painted the stair faces and crown molding white, to make them look clean and pop.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SjtfapSgBP0/UHIFpdweWKI/AAAAAAAABGs/ceXU-Iq819Y/s1600/IMG_1686.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SjtfapSgBP0/UHIFpdweWKI/AAAAAAAABGs/ceXU-Iq819Y/s320/IMG_1686.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">the final product</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rsqf1t8cTr0/UHIFqFtpnpI/AAAAAAAABG0/UCOZ-84T-tQ/s1600/IMG_1692.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rsqf1t8cTr0/UHIFqFtpnpI/AAAAAAAABG0/UCOZ-84T-tQ/s320/IMG_1692.JPG" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">from the top of the stairs</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The stairs actually got a little knicked and banged up when we moved in and hiked furniture up this squeaky set of old (and surprisingly narrow) stairs. In that respect, it would have been better to wait until post furniture move-in to paint, but we plan on getting a carpet runner, so we weren't too worried about it!</span></div>
<div class="fb-like" data-href="http://rustyfarmhouse.blogspot.com/2012/10/fixing-up-stairs.html" data-layout="standard" data-action="like" data-show-faces="false" data-share="true"></div>Sun Fontainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243920434943925890noreply@blogger.com0