Christmas Fireplace

Here is this years fireplace all decorated for Christmas!

Here are some of the ones from years past:

2012

2013

 2014

2015

Basement Kitchen

There is a strong possibility that we will have family coming to stay with us for maybe 3 months next summer.  So what do you do when you have 5 more people living in your house with your family of six?  Plus we have 3 dogs.  Well you add a small kitchen and half bath. We had plans to do this "eventually" for our boys.  Sometimes your kids move out then move back in or if they have families and come to stay with us for a visit.  It would be nice to have an area for them that would feel like their own space.

So the cleaning, donating and organizing has begun.  It was a DISASTER down there.  To much stuff!

Here's the before-

What I kept I moved to this corner near the whole house air cleaner-

This corner was piled almost to the ceiling with hubby's work stuff.  We took that out to the shop & barn.

This corner still needs to be worked on -

Here's where the kitchen and half bath will go -

 Here's the before again-

And now-

Dozer thought he was helping me.  Loves his shadows!!

This little guy fell on my head while I was taking stuff outside.  Then the next day I spotted him on the door but he stayed put!

Mantel Restained

This past week I restained our mantel.  It went from a dark walnut to the java that I love so much!

This was how it used to look with the walnut stain:

Now it's stained with the java gel.

Gates Are Up

We've had our old baby gates since our 12 year old, almost 13 years old, was born.  They've taken a beating.  We started using them again on the stairs once we got Dozer.  We would just lean them across the openings when we either wanted to keep him upstairs or downstairs.  He never bothered them but the boys would just knock them down and step on them.

I found some just like them online and ordered 2 more.  The nice thing is they are now taller than our old ones.  Once they arrived I stained   & poly'd  them to match our trim.

I cut some small pieces of wood to use as blocking since box newel posts and baseboards made things uneven.  I painted & stained them to match where they were going.

Here's the bottom of the stairs:

 Here's the top of the stairs:

 Here's where I used the blocking:

And speaking of gates, this is what keeps Dozer out of the kitchen.  He will NOT step over it no matter how good the food smells on the other side!

Art Above The TV

The area above the tv in the family room was a big blank space.  I came across several chevron art ideas on Pinterest and especially liked the chevron growth charts.  I already made a wooden growth chart  but I liked the chevron idea so I used a scrap board to make some art.

I took an old left over piece of oak.  It was already stained on one side so I flipped it over and used Minwax walnut stain on it.  The same color as our mantle.

Once the board was stained & dry I used some scrap scrapbooking paper cut into strips.  The strips are 2.5" wide.  I used spray adhesive to adhere them to the board.

I used some left over white paint to paint the areas between the strips of paper.

After I was done painting I pulled the strips off.  There was some bleed through with the paint but I didn't care. I then used sand paper to clean p the lines and distress it.

 I attached some picture hangers to the back of it.  Then marked where I wanted to hang it on the wall and put wall anchors in to help hold it.  Then hung it on the wall.

I know it looks crooked but it's very much level.  The floor isn't level so the tv stand & tv aren't level.

Picture Gallery Wall

I've added more pictures and still have a few more to add to finish filling in the wall.   I really like how it is turning out.

Here is the in progress picture.  I still have a little space left to add a few more frames.

This is how it started out.  These are pictures of before hubby built & put the new staircase in and during and then the red paint........I loved that red paint at the time but then quickly got tired of it!

 Pictures 3 & 5 are of the stairs before we tore them out.  Picture 4 was before we finished staining all the parts of the stairs.  Picture 6 was the red paint after we finished the stair case and dry walled the basement.  7 & 8 are in progress to what I we have going on now.

The gallery wall is coming along.  I like all the mismatched frames.  I also like gallery walls with matching frames! 

Christmas Mantle ~ 2013

I decorated the mantle this weekend for Christmas.

I had debated on painting the hat & scarf of the the glass snowman black but then decided today to keep it all red.

I made the stockings and the little pinecone elves.  The vases came from Lowes.  I spotted those babies the minute they were putting them on the shelf!  I grabbed 2!  The tall glass snowman came from Target several years ago as did the spiral trees.  The vintage little red Santa was my grandmothers.

Christmas Mantle From Years Past:

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Pieced Pastimes