The MILE TILE update!!!

Hey everyone!!! It's almost time to get REALLY excited!!! Dave has been working on our guest bathroom since Winter and he is almost done!!! This is very exciting because it is the bathroom everyone uses on the main floor. It is a full bathroom and we are seriously decking it out! WE are most definitely into the Victorian look, we love the antique look and old stone. We have a special surprise for those who haven't heard anything about our bathroom yet, so keep your eyes open for an update on the bathroom here soon! WE use real travertine tile, not porcelain... the walls are being tiled too, Dave likes to do all the intricate work that makes you say "WOW"! I am so excited!!!!

The baby's room is done!!!!

Okay this project took FOR-EV-ER! We started the baby's room before Ashton was born, but we decided to do our own bead board with Dave's router. With work, three children and other obligations Dave took 6 months to get the board up...then the fact that I had to paint every little crevice was overwhelming as it was! I started off with just rollers and a paint brush, it took me three hours alone to do 6-8 boards! Finally, we bought a paint gun, that was awesome except whenever the gun ended up clogged with paint I lost more time. Then finally when Dave was in Boston for one of his business trips, I finally got the desire to surprise him and finish the project up while he was gone. He was thrilled that I finally did it!

See how crazy we are? Dave really did make our own bead board!

Here comes the paint!

It looks tons better!!!!! YAY!

Here it is in the the middle of the process.

The middle bathroom

So it takes a little time and money to get the remodeling done! I hate oak cabinets I can NOT stand looking at them. The house came to us pretty dirty. The walls needed and overdue paint job. When we moved into our house their was tons of dust caked on the doors, cabinets and walls. So it was a lot of work from the beginning. But some things just can't stay the same, I needed a change! So I decided to paint the cabinets in the middle bathroom (kid's bathroom) and paint the walls. This is temporary for now until brand new cabinets get on our list. We have two other projects in the making but I couldn't stand this bathroom any longer. So this is what I came up with for now...eventually we will get new cabinets, counters, tile, and fixtures...


HOW TO DO IT:

What you need:

eye wear
mask
blue tape
primer
Rich Mahogany behr paint
Smooth paint rollers
Paint brush
Paint trays
60 grit sandpaper
sander

1.)Take cabinet doors off, put screws and in a ziploc bag and put somewhere safe where you will remember.
2.) Do a light sand on the cabinets, enough so the paint can stick.
3.) Wash the sand particles off with a wash cloth.
4.) Prep the work place with the blue tape, taping off anything you do NOT want painted.
5.) Prime the cabinets with a paint roller (the # of coats depends how absorbent the cabinets are, only do a max. of two coats)
6.) Let dry for a few hours
7.) Use the paint brush to get the paint into the cracks
8.) Roll on two coats of Rich Mahogany
9.) Put doors back on after cabinets dry over night

Brazilian Cherry Wood floors

It takes a house to find your hidden talents!!! As I mentioned before our kitchen had terrible white linoleum with little flowers, (PO- nasty!) but now tanish-grey in color because of the years of dirt build up. The linoleum was so bad that we had to get rid of it fast. It was an embarrassment to the Glass House! It was fun tearing it up, we also decided to tear out the tan carpet in the living room so we could have the hardwood floor in their too. We bought the real Brazilian Cherry wood and Dave learned how to put it in...I was a little scared at first, since this was such a big job in a high traffic area and Dave hadn't ever laid hardwood before. But Dave brings out his talents and always and forever amazes me at the work he does! The floor is absolutely gorgeous, but now we need to cover up those mustard oak cabinets! Yuck!

Here is the beginning of installation in the living room. I had already painted the walls!

Dave laying the wood.

Finally! It's done!!

Dave had fun making molding boxes on the walls, it looks great!

The living room!! What do you think?

The first thing to go!

We bought our house in August of 2005. We wanted a house that we could remodel to our own tastes. Light neutral walls, with two-tone paint, carpet, linoleum and oak cabinets through out. The first thing to go was the brick fire place in the family room. Dave spent some time taking the mallet to the fireplace and loud sounds bouncing off our walls made the new neighbors wonder. My brother-in-law helped Dave construct and put in the mantel. Dave did the lovely tile! Now look up above at the before pictures, do you notice the cream walls? That is the color of the walls all through out our house when we bought it!
Here are the results:

After

The Journey to find our HOME!

We started looking for a home in March of 2005, Dave had been working a his new job for about 8 months and our income was raised a bit so we knew it was time to look for our first home. The search was on, it was not easy. We liked the idea of having our house built so we decided to look in American Fork. Dave's work was in that area so it made sense for us to be close. We found the Sheridan that we wanted built and put down $1,500.00 to get it started. We prayed and everything but I wasn't too sure this was the place. Dave seemed to feel good about it, but the house seemed small for the family I imagined it being 2,100 sq feet and all. After we met with the real estate agent a few times and realized the builder was so backed up on building houses, we felt that it would take our house to be finished in a year! They kept giving us excuses of why the ground hadn't been "broke" yet. Dave and I finally decided to back out on the deal, get our money back and look for a house in Sandy.

The Sheridan (the house we were going to have built)

It was hard for us to figure out what our price range was, we knew we were financial okay, but how much financially okay? Could we afford those high mortgages? We sure didn't know! Dave found a really cool real estate agent, Rob Aubrey, to help us on our journey to find our home. Our condo was up for sale and we closed on it at the end of July 2005. We had to move into our parents, figuring we would live there for a few months while we found the right place. I drove with Vanessa and Chandler on a drive one day trying to figure out where we would love to live, I ended up around 114th south in Sandy, I felt this would be a great place and....

After our family of Four stayed in one little room in the scary, spider infested basement of my parent's house, getting eating alive....four spider bites in one night might I add on me alone!!!! ...we decided the next day that we were going to find our house that weekend! After we had been looking at houses for awhile and feeling we might give up we found a house on Canberra street that was pretty cool, but the kitchen wasn't doing much for me, it was pretty small. We walked outside bummed and as we looked across the street from the house we saw this big house for sale. Immediately I said to myself, "ah it's probably going to be way too much!!!"
Dave was thrilled and the agent took us right over and we checked it out!!!

I knew that we probably couldn't afford it so I decided for Dave to go down in the basement and tell me what it looked like. I loved the size of the rooms, it had four bedrooms upstairs, three full baths, a guest room and an office on the main floor, not to mention the Kitchen, living room, family room and laundry room! The basement was partial, but most of the living space was upstairs...it was 1,000 sq feet more than the house we were going to build. I knew that we would have room to grow and have more children. It was also $85,000 more than we were planning on spending! But Dave was a adamant about putting in an offer. I didn't think we could afford it still, and I told him whatever. My attitude was worn out and disbelief. So the offer was accepted and we moved in in the middle of August, and yes we can afford it!!! YAY!

Our home that we love!!!!

Before the Glass House

Before we owned the Glass House we OWNED a Condo in Murray, Utah for two years. Our condo wasn't very big, it consisted of two bedrooms, one bath, a living room, dining room, a Kitchen and a deck (about 900 sq feet of condo). We moved into our Condo when Vanessa was only 9 months old. We were very thrilled to OWN something for our very own. We moved out of our condo when Chandler was about 10 months old.