Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Decorating Fun

BEDS
My Boys Room Project started clear back in May when I decided to refinish the boy's beds.  They are the beds Rob and Randy used as children so they're pretty old and looked pretty haggard.  We don't have any money to buy new beds and my neighbor refinishes furniture all the time and made it sound like no big deal.  So I thought, what the heck.  Not only was it a big deal...it was a nightmare.  I was trying to do it as cheaply as possible so I decided to just sand them down rather than buy some stripper.  My same neighbor said she always sands rather than strips.  Little did I know at the time that she always paints so she's only sanding to create a smooth surface she can paint on.  I was going to re-stain them so I had to get all the color out and it took FOREVER.  I decided to try the stripper on the second bed and while it definitely helped with the sanding time, I still had to sand a TON and the stripping process was a pain in the butt in and of itself.  2 months later after hours and hours and hours and hours of sanding and stripping and my entire basement covered in sawdust, I was able to refinish them.  I think they look great.  As with any homemade project (especially first-time projects) I can see all my screw-ups.  But they don't bug me, I still think the beds are awesome.

PAINT
While the beds were torn apart downstairs in the middle of this process, we sold the baby crib and changing table.  So their room was pretty much empty.  No better time to paint right?  Randy isn't a fan of paint, he wants the entire house to be one color.  Plus, it seems like such a waste to paint over new paint doesn't it?  So rather than painting the whole room I decided to paint some stripes to give their room a little flavor.  I picked the colors based on the bedding we already had. 


CURTAINS
I was planning on making some curtains to match and was already planning on brown with the blue and orange stripes when I found some awesome brown black-out curtains at Kohls.  With all my Kohls deals I got them cheaper than the fabric would have cost me, plus they look great, they're black-out, and I didn't have to do all that work.  I just sewed the stripes right on the top.


PICTURES
In the last General Conference we were encouraged to have a picture of the temple in our kid's rooms.  I got this idea to take a picture of the boys in front of the temple and blow it up (I just LOVE Costco's $6 16X20s.)  I also thought I might blow up a picture of the boys being sweet together so they can always be reminded that they are best friends.  Then, when looking for extra sand paper in the basement, I found 2 matching 16X20 frames I got a while back for super cheap on Walmart's clearance.  So there we have it.
I don't think I'm very good at decorating.  I don't feel like I have any natural talent.  I recognize great decorating skills when I see them and I'm pretty sure my house looks like a four-year-old decorated it in comparison.  And yet, I love my house.  I love my own decorating because it fits me and makes me feel at home and happy.  And who doesn't feel good after a job well done?


Oh yeah, one more thing...the boys love their room!

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Vacation!!! (Granby, CO)

I'm a go-go-go vacationer.  If we're in Maui I want to make sure I see absolutely everything while I'm there because I don't know if we'll ever be back again.  I have us up with the sun and going until long after sundown.  Randy is not a big fan of this.  While he still has a good time, he would much rather go on vacation to relax, a completely foreign concept to us Red Personalities.  We finally went on a Randy-style vacation and while I still prefer my type of vacation I have to admit that not needing a vacation to recuperate from my vacation was pretty nice. 

We drove for what seemed like FOREVER with two super mini travelers (other than Morgan needing to stop at for the bathroom every 5 minutes).  Teagan either slept, chilled, or was super happy.  It was amazing. Morgan wasn't quite as perfect but pretty dang good considering.



Don't get any ideas, I drove most of the way there and back


We stopped and played at Dinoland (Vernal, UT)






We hung out in the condo, watched Redbox and played games

2 little monkeys jumping on the bed


3 little monkeys jumping on the bed








We played in the pool


We went hiking


Morgan wasn't a huge fan of hiking in general (I'm tired can I ride in the red thing again?)
but he loved climbing up these rocks




 The Big Boys went fishing

 


While the Girls and Little Boys played at the park













We rode the ski lift up and down the mountain



We ate LOTS of food (my favorite hobby)

We looked for animals






We saw a few herds of cow elk

We enjoyed the scenery






All in all, I'm not super impressed with Colorado.  I think Utah is a lot prettier.  Rocky Mountain National Park was probably my least favorite of the National Parks I've been too mostly because 75% of it was dead because of some tree beetle.  It just wasn't that pretty.  Being on the top of the world was pretty cool though.  It was definitely nice to get away from reality and just relax for a while but I don't need to go back again.