Our Beautiful Blessings!: The Rest Of The Story!

Even though the kids were home we still had a lot of work to do in order to finish the bathroom. We decided that it would be hard for the kids to come from having free reign of pretty much everything and having to jump right into a schedule so....we let the kids have an extra week of electronics galore. They got to watch and play as much as they wanted too. It kept them busy and gave us the time we needed to work.

On Monday night Michael was able to grout the tile. Again on his knees for at least an hour! He loves me....he really loves me!!!

I picked a gray grout color....I love it! There was no way I wanted white...come on I have 4 kids! It did dry a little lighter than this and that was just fine!

On Monday while Michael was at work I went ahead and fixed my mistake of painting the entryway the wrong color. I also painted the pink on Ella's wall and then went to paint the brown. I opened the paint can that Michael had put in her room and the color looked a bit lighter. I figured it would dry darker, but then about halfway through painting I realized that no....no it was not the right color at all. I decided to just keep paint since the primer was white and we were going to a darker brown so this light brown would be a good primer as well.

I took this picture and then jokingly sent Michael a text that said.....I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that's not the right color!!!

On Tuesday I got a fire under me to rearrange our master bedroom. Because of the door that went into Ella's room it made it impossible to have our room any other way. After almost 11 years living in our house I was so excited to try a new layout!

Here are the before pictures for our room. Our room is huge, but the only way we could position our big King size bed was on that wall so it was right there when you walked in the door.

The bed really does take up a bunch of space.

Here was the window side of the room. There was about 5 ft of space from Michael's side of the bed to the dresser, but that space was really just lost because it was on the other side and you couldn't see it.

Now when you come in our room you walk right into open space! The chair is right inside the door, but it's so small it really doesn't feel like it's blocking anything.

Here is the view of our bed from our bathroom....look at all that floor space! The white area on the right by the nightstand is where the door to Ella's room used to be.

I moved the dresser to be under the shelves with all our wedding memorabilia. The white area on the wall in this picture is where the laundry hatch used to be. Now I just need to save for a new bedding set and then we can figure out what we are going to paint the walls!

I wasn't sure at first if I would like the bed in front of the window, but because I was able to center it I really do love it!

Since we've been working so hard on the inside of the house we had totally neglected the outside. The lawn hadn't been mowed in over a month. I knew that this wasn't going to be anything Michael would have energy to do for a long time. So it was time for me to get busy. I had to call Michael to find out how to use the weed eater and then I was good to go. First I had to put gas in it and get it to start. Then I had to weed eat, then I had to put gas in the mower and then mow. I ended up having to mow without the bag on because the lawn was so long it was choking it out. After mowing I had to rake the lawn clippings into piles and then put them in the mower bag and dump them in the compost area. After doing that I ended up having to weed eat again and then mow again this time with the bag on. I had to do that for both the backyard and the front yard. It was 2 hours of hard hard work!

Since we'd been inside so much I was so surprised to see how our garden had really taken off. Thankfully the weather had been a little on the wet side so I hadn't had to worry about watering the garden. Since I chopped into our Yucca plant to make more Yucca plants this year I was sure it wasn't going to bloom.....I was so surprised when I saw these stalks growing a few weeks ago and then when I was working in the yard they were just starting to bloom. I love Yucca blooms!

Our Hostas had really taken off as well. This year we had SO many more blooms than we've ever had!

I also planted a couple sunflower seeds around the yard and it's just shocking to me how well they do. This one over by the tree stump I kept forgetting about and it just kept right on growing!

These two are actually in my garden and one of them got damaged, but it's still just reaching for the sky trying it's hardest to grow!

The lawn looked so nice being mowed! I'm sure the neighbors were happy as well!

By Wednesday I needed to do some laundry! We hadn't been able to get the washer and dryer hooked up because the tile was taking longer than expected. We had read that you have to wait 72 hours after grouting in order to seal the tile and we couldn't move anything in the bathroom until the tile was properly sealed. Ugh!!! So it was off to Ga-Ga & Pa's to do laundry!

I picked up the boys from Summer Learning and we went straight to Ga-Ga's. I figured we would be there until around 6:30, but we ended up being there until after 8:30!

The day before when I was mowing the lawn I hurt my eye really bad. I was bending over picking up grass clippings and putting them in the mower bag. I was right next to my Yucca plant and I was focused on the clippings. When I bent over one of the palms from the plant went under my glasses and right up into my eye. It hurt, but I was able to finish the lawn. Later that night my vision was off, but I figured it was because I was tired. The next day it hurt really bad and looked awful!

Here was my attempt at a selfie showing you how red it was. When I picked up the boys at school earlier that day it was fun showing the kids and having them freak out! The next night when I took Zeke to the ER....that story is coming in a separate blog post....the ER nurse wanted to look at my eye and she gave me the all clear. I was pretty sure I was fine since my vision hadn't been impacted since that first night and it was getting better. It was still nice to have an opinion from a professional!

Since we were at Ga-Ga & Pa's on Wednesday night I told Michael to take the night off...he needed a break. Thursday was his birthday so of course he wasn't going to work that night. We don't really make a big deal out of our birthday's....it's just another day. I did make him a homemade chocolate cake. The funny thing is we both thought he was the wrong age. For some reason I thought he was turning 35 and he thought he was turning 37....he's turned 36! I guess our brains are showing their age!

We sang Happy Birthday, but Michael vetoed the candles!

In order to have some actual family time Michael has taken off a few Friday's. It's nice to have a long weekend here and there. On Friday we took the kids to The Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium....yay for taking advantage of that annual pass. I was trying to think if we've ever gone to the zoo together as a family. I've been lots with friends, but I think the only time we've gone as a family was when Jack was a baby and we went to Zoolights. So this was our first official time at the zoo as a family....separate post coming for that as well!

Sometime during the week I did go to Lowe's and I returned the sealer that Michael had gotten because it wasn't the right kind. I ended up finding this spray on kind that get this.....can be applied as earlier as 2 hours after you grout! Ugh!!! All that waiting to grout for no reason! I ended up sealing the grout on Thursday so we were ready to get things moved in once that was done!

On Saturday morning we went to Lowe's and bought a new toilet! Since Michel broke ours on Wednesday night while he was checking it out!

Oops!

I honestly wasn't mad at all...in fact when he texted me I started laughing. Stuff happens and it's not the end of the world. I figured we'd end up spending around $200 on a new one, but we ended up spending only $88! We got the cheapest toilet that Lowe's had. Not because I was being cheap, but because it fit all the criteria I had for a toilet. First off I hate elongated toilets...I want a round one. Secondly I don't like chair height toilets either. I want it to be standard height. Only two toilets met this criteria. One was $149 and the other was $88. The more expensive one was only 14.22 inches high and the cheaper one was 15.25 inches. I decided I'd rather have a little more height. Who knew you could think that much about a toilet!

And here is said toilet! I think it's so nice and sleek! I also love how Michael tiled the top of the pony wall! The nice cabinet above the toilet was something I picked up for free. I was helping my friend Kara unload her car for our MOPS rummage sale and I knew this would be perfect for over the toilet and she told me to just take it. I took it right over to my van! So yes I made it so MOPS didn't make a little bit of money, but then when I bought something later on at the sale I paid $5 more since I felt bad about it!

We also got the sink and the mirror in. The funny thing about the sink was we realized that after 11 years we've had the pedestal for our sink on upside down! It never really fit in there, but it didn't really bother us we figured the mold form for the sink and pedestal were off or something. Now when you sit on the loveseat in the living room you can see right into the bathroom and you could see how awful the underside of the sink looked. We were trying to figure out what we were doing wrong and then it dawned on us to flip it over. Ta Da! Seriously....you learn something new everyday!

Saturday was also the day to put the tile up for the back splash....aside from getting the color on the wall this is something I was SO excited for. I love that tile! The night before I spent forever laying out the tile and trimming it trying to get it just right. We figured we would measure and then take the tiles up to Lowe's to have them cut, but I when I woke up that morning I looked up a few things online and found out since they were glass mosaic tiles we could actually cut them with glass tile nippers. So you guessed it....off Lowe's I went!

Michael handled the tile for the floor, but this was something I really wanted to do myself. He did apply the tile adhesive to the wall and he also cut some of the tiles for me, but for the most part it was all me.

I absolutely love how it turned out!

On Sunday after church Michael started the grouting process...he said this mosaic tiles was such a pain to grout because there were SO many lines that went all different ways. Thankfully it was just a small section. We both have said that when we remodel our kitchen we are not doing a mosaic tiles for our back splash....we will probably go with something more classic like a subway tile. Straight lines please!!!

The little area to the left of the sink is the utility section of the bathroom. The cabinet is for the ironing board, broom and mop. Then there is the steam mop and vacuum garage. I will eventually be sewing a little curtain to hide them and there will also be two shelves above them to hold all the vacuum and mop attachments.

Sunday night the bathroom became an official bathroom with the installation of the door! This felt like such a huge step!

Michael also installed the hooks in the cubbies and the trim around. Other than a coat of paint on the trim this area is finished!!!

Now you might thing that we really had everything all together.....check out our garage!

It looked like a hardware store vomited everywhere!!!

Paint, tools, tile, tools, plastic, tools, doors, tools...did I mention tools?

See that door laying down...that was the door we took out that led to Ella's room. I ended up taking the door knob off that door and putting it on the bathroom door. I did that all by myself. I did think I almost locked myself in the bathroom at one point, but still I did it by myself! :)