Homework

I just need to publicly vent. I absolutely hate homework.

Completely. No question about it.

I see no point in it. My kids are in that school 7 hours a day.

It is ridiculous to expect them to then do 5 hours of homework at home.

I know people who would argue with me on this. I am not arguing about it.

This is not open for debate and my feeling on this are valid, so don't invalidate me by trying to argue with me.

As an adult, I do not bring MY work home with me. If I choose to do a project at home after hours I will, but usually that is because I enjoy what I am doing and it does not interrupt my family time.

As adults we are told to NOT bring our work home with us. We are told that when we are done we are done. Leave that stuff at the door and spend quality family time.

Why are our children being trained to bring their work home with them?

My boy are not learning anything from the homework they bring home.

They are stressed from it. I am stressed from it.

I want my family time! I want to spend time with my kids LIVING LIFE.

Ok, that is it. That is all. Just had to put it out there. Thanks.

The Dining Room

Summer Projects 2015

consisted of many projects. One was the Dining Room.

The Dining Room had this wallpaper border of pine needles and pine cones along the top.

On the bottom the former owners had used plaster and paint to make little pine trees and bears.

Sadly (or is it?), I did not get a photo of that part because I was so excited to work on the

Dining Room that I forgot to take photos!

Here you can also see see my friend Heather working on tearing the border down.

When we bought the house one wall had mirrors with gold veins running through them on it. EW!

The house had been vandalized, so many mirror were smashed and there was a hole in the wall.

It was the first wall my Man (Gus) had fixed so it did not come out the best.

Unfortunately, when we started working on the house I did not think to get a photo of that wall before we started taking the mirrors down. Because of all the broken glass and for the safety of our children it was the second thing to go (after the horrible carpets).

These are photos of the all after the hole had been fixed.

(You can see the "first timer" patch job. But we got it all taken care of, you'll see!)

This is a photo of the 14 year old boy child being his usual, morbidly goofy self.

The Wall with Mirrors had a special makeover.

First, I painted the top 2/3 of it a gorgeous dark blue.

After one coat I then used the Venetian Plaster product from Lowe's (who does not pay me to tell you this, though I spend so much money there they probably should start thinking about it).

I chose a slightly off-white color for the plaster.

 Heather is posing with my NEW TOY, a finishing nail gun. I let Gus use it for this project.

(I get to use it next time, whenever that is.)

This is after the first coat of plaster.

 This is after the second coat.

The pictures do not do it justice. You can see blue through little "holes" in the plaster. 

After 2 coats of plaster I put a glaze on the wall to protect the plaster from dirt and grime.

(I have always wanted to say "dirt and grime"! I am so glad that I was able to fit it in here!)

The other three walls had the top 2/3rd painted the gorgeous dark blue color.

I call this the Window Wall.

 Then we have the Pocket Door Wall.

And the last wall I call the No Outlet Wall.

(I call it this because, guess what? It has no outlets on it! Bet that was hard to figure out!)

 For the bottom 1/3 I decided to do beadboard, but...it was so expensive!

So I found this paintable wallpaper at Lowe's (I told you I spent a lot of money there).

I know, I know, the plaster wall still looks a little wonky, but it will get better, truly, it will.

The final part of this room was adding chair rail. This is where I let Gus us my new toy.

 I think the gorgeous dark blue and the beadboard wallpaper with chair rail looks very striking.

Here is the final product:

2 other projects are done and will be posted in the next few weeks. The fourth and final project will hopefully be done by this weekend and the

Summer Projects 2015

will finally be done.

Master Bath

The Master Bathroom was the biggest project so far. There were little surprises that showed up along the way.

 The paint was peeling in areas. As I peeled it off chunks of plaster started coming off. I found that there was THREE layers of plaster. the first was the lath and plaster of the walls. Then there was this plaster made to look like bricks. they even painted it so it looked like bricks. A lot of work went into that layer of plaster! Then someone plastered over that. See the cracks I found as well?

I added tape and mud and smoothed those walls down.

There was a tear in the linoleum flooring so of course I just HAD to pull it out. As I pulled I noticed that right near the tear some quick-crete like substance was stuck to the linoleum. I found that the floor was done in these little hexagon tiles...except by the tub where that quick-crete like substance had been. There I found a patched hole. It had two types of square tiles.some were standing on edge! As I touched them and tried to move the loose ones out a hole became apparent. Oh nice. This is just what I needed.

The hole became bigger than that. I chose not to take a photo so I would not have a reminder of the awful patch job I found under that linoleum. *wink*

About a week or two after I started this project I got a new job (which I LOVE, by the way). While at the job I fell on some ice and broke my shoulder. The project was put on hold for a few months while I healed. Gus ended up patching the floor for me as I could not. that was awesome of him.

 There is a window in the shower, right by the shower head. The blinds were nasty and dirty, and I just could not get them clean. Ew. We removed the blinds, sanded and painted the window sills with exterior paint (so it could get wet...it rains outside so exterior paint is the way to go!). Then I put this cute privacy film over the window. No one can see in now but we get good natural light during the day.

 This is my shower curtain. I chose two colors from this, a teal and a rich brown. I accented these with the exterior paint from the window. I did the ceiling with that as well. Gus helped do the floor due to my broken shoulder. He laid the tile and together we did the grouting. The door is a beautiful dark wood, but it had been painted in areas before. I painted over those areas and I think it made a nice contrast.