Carving Pumpkins

Matt and I decided that since we weren't dressing up or anything for halloween that we should at least carve some pumpkins to get us in the spirit.  Matt cheated a little and used the jig saw to carve his.  I used a kitchen knife... which made it difficult to do anything but straight cuts... hence my square eyes.  Enjoy our funny pics!

Painting and Antiquing Bathroom Cabinets

Since my lovely husband finally decided to tile our downstairs bathroom, we also decided together it was time to just finish the project altogether.
 My job:  The cabinets and decor
 His Job: the plumbing and fixtures.

My mother in law recently redid all of her kitchen cabinets in this awesome antiqued white look and it really was a beautiful makeover.... so I am going to take some inspiration from her and do the bathroom vanity and mirror in an white antiqued look.

Here are some before pictures of the vanity before jumping in.

I washed them down, roughly sanded them, and took all of the doors/ drawers and hardware off.  I had picked out an off-whitesh color as the base and I got it in High Gloss paint specifically designed for Trim and Cabinets (High Gloss paint is easier to clean than other finish).  After one coat of paint the Vanity looked like this.  (Sorry for the bad photos... there is bad lighting in my basement)

And After the 2nd coat of paint...

After letting everything dry it was time to start adding the Stain to get that nice antique look.  My mother in law had mentioned to me that when she had added the stain that it absorbed very quickly and almost made it too antiqued for her liking (she even repainted a couple of cabinet doors because she added too much)  so.. I decided to practice a little on the back of the door.  

Now for the scary part... the front of the door and the drawers... and the actual vanity.  

I think they turned out rather nice.  I got a little nervous for a minute there and had definitely OVER antiqued a little... but had the idea to get my paint brush only "lightly" wet and kind of dry brush some paint over the really stained areas to get a look that I desired.  It turned out great!  I still have to apply a finish to the cabinets so the paint doesn't chip with wear and add some nice new hardware.  

Matt is going to finish this thing off by tiling a marble countertop for it and we have this nice Brushed Nickel basin sink we are going to put on top.  Stay tuned for more updates!  

Been a little preoccupied Lately...

So... I haven't posted on this blog in a Long Long time... mainly because I've started a new blog talking all about mine and Matt's little squish on the way... and secondly because we haven't done too much to our house since I got super sick with morning sickness and the last thing I wanted to do was do physical labor. But now that I'm more than half way through this pregnancy I've been having that nesting feeling urge in me.

Matt says I've gotten a little antsy and I'm constantly thinking of things I want/need done to the house. I've recently started making a list of things that need to get done before winter comes along with itching to completely tear down my kitchen and start all over (though I've come up with some more budget friendly ideas for that mess).

This last weekend I wanted to somehow tackle the mess of storage we had down in our basement pantry/laundry room and had recruited Matt to help.  Matt had his own idea of what he wanted to get done down there though.  Months ago he had ripped out all of the flooring, shower, vanity, and toilet from our small 3/4 bath downstairs.  I think he realized when we got down there to "organize" things that most of the stuff that needed to be put away were items related to that belated remodeling.

I started shuffling through the items in our pantry and Matt started laying tile in the bathroom.  What a relief!  I have been trying to get him to work on that project... especially since I think we need to get a spare bathroom/ guest bedroom worked out before our baby comes around.  It would be really nice to have a place for people to sleep if they... perhaps came to help out for a week or two.

Here are just a few pictures of the tile that Matt put down in the bathroom.  Its the same tile that we used in our upstairs bathroom... we had bought a little bit too much for that project so instead of bringing it back we decided to use it in the basement as well.  This almost used all of it up.

Now I think I am going to do what my lovely mother in law did to her bathroom and kitchen cabinets to the bathroom cabinet and vanity and paint it an off-white color and antique it.  Matt wants to create a marble tile countertop and then put one of those awesome basin sinks in.  I'm getting excited to see how nice this bathroom turns out to be.

Cedar Mountain and Gordon Creek Falls

This last weekend for our date night Matt and I jumped into our truck and took off to go camping.  Destination: Cedar Mountain.  Cedar Mountain is just that, a mountain that has lots and lots of juniper trees.  We climbed to the top and found a perfect campsite right next to the edge of the mountain with a beautiful over look of the San Rafael Swell and Buckhorn Flats.  Matt took this picture with his camera phone.

We had planned on hiking to Gordon Creek Falls on Monday, but the poor weather had a down and we decided to post pone it till later this week.  Yesterday we set out for this adventure.  Gordon Creek falls is a fun little hike up Consumers near Helper, Utah.  It can be any length from 2 miles round trip to 6 miles round trip.  It consists of 3 waterfalls and an old log cabin.  Each at increments along the way.  We started out thinking we were only going to hike to the first waterfall, but after realizing how quick it was we ended up doing the entire 6 miles yesterday.  It was beautiful and isolated.  Check out our pictures.

Please stop praying for Moisture.... seriously!

I know that we have all grown up in this wonderful state called "Utah" and have learned from a very young age that we live in a desert with very little precip, but I would like to turn everyone's attention to the year 1983.  1983 may not seem like a "real" year to many of us... I mean... I wouldn't be born for another 5 years, however 1983 is a very important water year for Utah.  During that year we turned downtown State street into a temporary river, the town of Thistle Flooded, and the BOR was trying to get rid of so much water out of Lake Powell that the water was literally blowing pieces of reinforced concrete out of its spillway.  It was a record water year.

Recently at work I've received the yearly water outlook report from a man that everyone should know.  Randy Julander.  Randy works for NRCS as the head in the snow survey department.  He also teaches snow hydrology at the University of Utah.  In his report he showed that current snowpack levels are ABOVE the record levels of 1983.

Now call me a crazy morbid engineer... but a part of me is seriously excited to see what happens.  What are we going to do with all that water?!  Stream banks are already flowing at or above bankfull levels all over the state, most the reservoirs are more than 70% full already, and it is predicted that bear lake is going to reach capacity.

I am so ready to pitch in my helping hand to sandbag state street once again!

Here is a link to ksl news report on this same topic.  Featuring Mr. Randy Julander.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=960&sid=15302726

And to remind all you "old folks" out there... a couple pictures of 1983

Most current Project

Today is the first day of spring!  Too bad it doesn't feel like it.  With spring here Matt and I have started working on our most recent project.  Our yard... When we were buying this house we noticed that there was no grass on our 56 year old house, but there was a sprinkler system.  Upon our home inspection we found out that the sprinkler system was non functioning... which explained the fact that the front yard was just a big pile of weeds.  Yesterday we began digging the trenches for a new sprinkler system and tilling up the yard so we can plant grass seed.  This project is going to be continual through out the years but first things first is the lawn.  Here are some of the pictures of our yard before we put some elbow grease in.  Hopefully sometime soon you will start seeing some transformations.

New Couches and a Lovely Gift

So.. this was definitely a splurge.  But since we bought our new house we've got lots of rooms to fill and we wanted to have a nicer set of couches for the upstairs living room and use our old worn out couches downstairs in our family room.  We bought the couch the week before presidents day and it just barely arrived (took almost a month).  Below are some pictures of our new couch in our living room.

Matt's grandparents surprised us one day during both of our lunches.  They had driven all the way down from Benjamin to drop off this lovely antique rocking chair.  It sure is a beautiful addition to our home.