Horse Crazy

It is a known reality that if you have kids, you have toys.

Toys!

Toys!

Toys!

Everywhere you look you will see toys scattered throughout the house.

We have so many toys that we have them in the living room, the family room, the bedrooms, the bathrooms. Toys line the floor from the minute you walk in the door no matter your destination. Big toys, small toys, girl toys, boy toys, baby toys...TOYS!

After folding another load of laundry this weekend, I came into the kitchen to see toys consuming every possible surface. Just as I was about to sweep the place clean of every toy in my path, I stopped dead in my tracks and smiled. 

I smiled because although our kitchen table was covered in toys and we were about to eat breakfast, they were covered with horses. 

My Brown Eyed Girl had gotten into my collection of Breyer horses. (She knows she's not supposed to touch them but I decided to save that lecture for another day) 

 

I had flashbacks of playing with these small model horses for hours when I was a young girl. Hauling them back and forth from the neighbor girl's house in pillow cases. Naming each one. Creating intricate story lines where each model had a significant role. Making blankets out of my mother's wash cloths and bridles out of yarn and dental floss.

Horses!

Hours and hours spent playing with horses.

I tip toed into her room.

There was my beautiful, horse crazy Brown Eyed Girl.

Still in her jammies.

Playing with her horses!

Bathroom Makeover

It seems like every weekend we are engulfed in DIY projects. Slowly but surely, we are on a quest to complete a few home improvement projects in hopes that we will be able to attract a buyer once we put our little house on the prairie up for sale. 

It's a tough market out there. 

We spend our weekends watching HGTV and every home related show from House Hunters to Property Brothers. (I secretly dream about quitting my job and flipping houses. I'm a hell of a painter and I know how to work a saw!) Our weekend line up inspires and educates us. You get a feel for what people say while house shopping - what they can live with, what they can't seem to see past. For instance, one of the CHEAPEST fixes you can make to a new home is paint color. For whatever reason, people can just not look past that. I don't get it...

My new paint mantra - neutral, neutral, neutral!

Our new floors are in, carpets have been stretched, and I finished painting the bulk of the living space. Time for our next project - bathroom updates and facelifts. 

We decided that between our two bathrooms that the master bath needs the most attention and will require us to dump the most money into it. However, the spare bathroom needed a face lift desperately. Most notably, the prefab wall paper drywall and the burgundy bull nose - when we bought this house the kitchen and both bathrooms were covered in burgundy bull nose and wall-to-wall burgundy carpet. Knowing what we were up against in the master bath, I racked my brain to try and figure out the cheapest way to make over the kids' bathroom. 

By golly, I can't believe I am about to say this...

We are going to KEEP the burgundy bull nose and let it "work for us" as an accent color. 

$125 dollars at the big box stores and I had a plan. 

This was what I was up against!

Burgundy bull nose...

Wall paper I can't remove...

Wall paper I can't texture over with out replacing ALL the drywall in this little bathroom...

And the worst offender, terrible orange colored oak cabinets!!!

This poor bathroom was screaming for help. 

Game plan:

• Paint bathroom walls a very light gray color. 
• Let Burgundy bull nose act as an accent color.
• Paint terrible cabinets white.
• New shower curtain.
• New fancy towels (meaning don't wipe your paws on them!)

After calking EVERYTHING, the wall color went on pretty smoothly. They took two coats of paint, but I was very impressed with the smooth finish. You can't tell from the photos, but the wall paper had a slight texture to it, very subtle vertical lines. It actually added some depth to the painted finish.

Next, I removed the cabinet doors and started painting the cabinets.

I used a paint and primer in one. I have used this paint before to paint over cabinet doors. The best part of this paint and primer in one is that it still allows you to see the natural wood grain underneath. It really helps with the over all finish. 

The bones of the cabinets took a total of three coats of paint. White can be a little tricky for coverage - you can see every flaw until you get it just right. 

After each door received a single coat of paint, I painted the second coat on the inside panels only before rehanging the doors for completion. No rhyme or reason to my madness - I just chose to do it that way.

While waiting for the doors to dry so that I could re-hang them, I got antsy. I can't help it. The walls were dry so I ripped off the tape and had to hang that darn shower curtain to see how it was going to look. 

I am an impatient person. 

I get too excited. 

It drives my Handy Man insane.

This is why we will never have a house flipping business together. 

Okay, I admit that I also hung up the decorative - you can look but you can't tough - towels and tested out the new rug.

See... no doors yet.

But now I am getting REALLY excited! 

It's all coming together!

By the way, in case you were wondering where my lovely children are during this whole DIY makeover...

They were happily playing and watching Land Before Time all day. When I say all day, I mean ALL DAY! They watched the dinosaur movie a total of 6 times. 

Handy Man was at work (thank God)...

I am in DIY mode...

I'm not proud to say I let the dinosaur movie babysit my children...

But it's true.

Do you know what happens when you let the dinosaur movie babysit your children while you are off redecorating in the other room???

Exhibit A

But it was all worth it!!!

My favorite Before and After photos!!!

BEFORE

AFTER

HGTV, 

I am available for hire!

Princess Barbie

Ever since our Brown Eyed Girl turned 3, she has wanted us to call her Princess Barbie.

Often in the mornings, I can't get her to lift a finger unless I succumb to calling her Princess Barbie.

I can't help but remember that Adam Saddler movie, Big Daddy, where he let's the little boy choose his own name. Julian decides to change his name and only respond to Frankenstein. Throughout most of the movie, especially in public, he is known as Frankenstein.

This is where we are...

Last week our Brown Eyed Girl had her 3 year old doctor visit. The provider enters the room, greets me, turns to our Brown Eyed Girl and says "And how are you today Hailey?"

She scowls, looks him right in the eye and says, "I'm not Hailey; I'm Princess Barbie!"

After I crawled out from under my chair... I just shrugged my shoulders and said, "Ever since her birthday when she saw her birthday cake, she has been Princess Barbie."

Not much else to say.

He grinned, "Well, she's sure imaginative isn't she?!?"

"Yes! Yes she is!"

Ahhhh Princess Barbie.

It was QUITE the cake!

Quite the Snow Storm

Grandpop and Grandma Joan came out to visit over our Brown Eyed Girls birthday weekend. Just in time for a good old fashion Colorado blizzard. 

There is one thing I have learned about snow accumulation and wind living out here in our Little House on the Prairie - 8 inches is equivalent to about one foot drifts.

So when the weatherman starts tell me to expect two feet of accumulation with 30-40 mph winds, the wheels start spinning in my head. I start pulling off my socks so I can use my toes to calculate approximate snow drift heights. I begin planning for the worst.

Friday morning we woke to a winter wonderland. A beautiful blanket of snow. Large fluffy flakes continued to dance to the ground where a mere 8-10 inches had already accumulated. 

After breakfast, we took advantage of a window of opportunity to go play outside before the winds really picked up and the accumulation confined us inside.

We built snow chairs and a snow road.

Snow roads were needed for short legs to get through drifts.

Brown Eyed Girl ate a lot of snow.

Boji tried to find buried sticks we threw.

Once our cheeks were rosie and cold we trudged back inside for hot drinks and naps. 

It continued to snow.

And snow...

And snow...

By feeding time, I bundled back up and headed outside to asses the horses and barn situation. 

The drifts were growing.

It was apparent we had a bit of a situation on our hands. 

I have 50 foot runs off each of my stalls. At the end of each run there are water tanks for the horses. Unfortunately, there was a growing snow drift that had now swallowed the water supply to the first stall which creatively was sheltering 2 horses - I have a four stall barn. I have 5 horses. When weather becomes challenging, sometimes we have to snuggle.

 

 

 Thank goodness for Daddies! 

My Daddy came out in his snow gear to help me dig out the water tank heater that was trapped below this 5 foot drift! (He's the itty-bitty thing on the drift to the left of the pine tree.)

Plan B consisted of a small muck bucket I use for watering turn out horses and the tank heater. Thank goodness this heater had a cage on it and was safe for plastic tanks. 

I also made a mental note to keep an eye on the drifts accumulating near the stalls. Thank goodness for the 8 foot overhangs off the end of the barn. 

Saturday morning I waited for it to get light to look out my bedroom window. This was the sight.

 

The snow drift over the water tank had surpassed the fence and was now more than 6 feet high!

Handy Man's car was also pretty much under snow.

The horses in the first two stalls had done a pretty good job of packing down the snow at the mouth of the stalls so they could still get outside. 

Unfortunately that third stall on the right looked a little drifted over since Jack was closed inside (unfortunately when it snows like this, the wind tends to circle the snow around the barn and dump it right in that third stall. I have walked in to find a foot of snow inside my barn and a very chilly pony standing there. So it's best to just close Jack in and dig out later.)

And when I say "Dig out." I mean "Dig out!"

 

This picture says it all!

Notice the huge drift over the water tank to the left and my old gray mare to the right. The drift makes her look like a Shetland Pony.

We had a LOT of plowing and shoveling to do!

Happy Birthday Brown Eyed Girl

Happy Birthday to my beautiful Brown Eyed Girl. 

I can not believe how fast the time has gone. It seemed like just yesterday we were holding her in our arms at the hospital. 

In three short years, you have grown and changed so much. 

 

Always smiling, always energetic, always the light of my life!

In the last year, we have been on many adventures.

I love that you love to ride and be around horses

 

You are always silly, playful - our little spark plug.

You have found your independence.

 

Became the best BIG sister. 

And you have grown into the most beautiful little BIG girl I know.

~ I love You ~

DIY Bead-board

 In this chapter of our next do-it-yourself home improvement project I convinced my Handy Man to help me dress up our little counter top peninsula thing. On one side, we had drywall and the other side was painted cabinetry. I was looking for a fashionable solution to tie the two sides together as a complete thought. 

So I decided to dabble in bead-board!

Here is the before:

Side one installed.

I am starting to get excited!

Side two installed.

Really getting excited!

After nailing up both pieces, we competed the rest of the missing base boards. We then added a piece of corner trim to cover the seam from the bead-board. I used a normal latex caulk to seal everything and then taped off the floor to start the painting process. 

 

I am already 100% glad I decided to add this little touch to our kitchen remodel. 

Two coats of trim paint.

I decided to paint the bead-board the same color as the walls in order to tie everything together. The bead-board was primed, but still took two coats of paint. The standard roller I had was a no-go as soon as I tried it. I wanted a smooth finish and it just wasn't doing it for me. So, I brushed the paint using vertical strokes and worked in small sections from top to bottom before moving over. 

After drying, you can't really see any brush marks - unless you are a professional painter and look very close and in that case, I don't want to hear it! I think it turned out beautifully!

 

This was a very simple project and really didn't take a lot of time. Installation only took about 30 minutes.

Waiting for the paint dry took longer but I was able to sneak in some laundry while I waited.  

The whole project probably cost me less that $25. But made such a HUGE improvement don't you think!?!?