Somes Home

Garage Stairs

2011-08-08T11:30:00.001-07:00

Here are some before and after shots of our garage stairs!
Before...

After...

Before...

After...

Yard Work...

2011-06-01T12:08:00.000-07:00

Well we don't have much of a yard for the kids to play in so that is our Summer project this year!! Putting in a yard on the side of the house.... here is what it looked like before....

After...so far!!

Here are a bunch of pictures of our progress....Lets start from the beginning! More before pictures...

From the road... You can see the side of our house and back deck....

Let the digging begin! A giant tree stump, gone!!

Making Progress...

Lots and lots and lots of dirt!

Making room for a retaining wall...(yes that is our cable line on the ground, no worries it is now fixed)

Wall going in...Tyler and his brother Ian managed to build this on Memorial day...

Along the road/turnaround...

Our little parking spot is now a little round-about!! I am proud to say that was my idea!!

This is the retaining wall Tyler built last summer, and grass he planted, in the distance you can see the new round about and retaining wall going in...

From the road...

We are going to keep the height of the grassy hill and put a fence on top of that all along the house and where the retaining wall is. The new side yard will be enclosed and give us a lot more privacy from the road!!

Our current driveway is to the left of the big tree in the very left side of this picture... this is the added roundabout area... from the road...

Decorative Shelf!

2011-05-17T07:37:00.001-07:00

This is our first mantle that we mounted as a shelf because it didn't go well on our fireplace. I finally decorated it and actually like it!! Got all the decor from Hobby Lobby, all for 1/2 off. Love how it turned out, just need to get a photo for the frame!

P.S. Thanks K for helping me pick all these things out, you're the best!

Front Room Makeover!

2011-05-17T07:16:00.000-07:00

This is our front room before we moved in....no blinds, white walls, no furniture...
I started painting a couple weeks ago... the walls are an "almond bark" color and then we wanted an accent wall...this blue was all wrong...

So we got a new blue and this is how it turned out!! Love it:)

Other end of the room...

Room-by-Room

2011-01-19T09:42:00.000-08:00

This new year, Tyler and I have set out to organize and/or decorate each room in our home (may take more than a year!) We are assigning each room a whole month to organize and finish. For the month of January we are starting with the Craft Room and the Garage. I have taken on the craft room because it is where I do all my crafting and I want to have it organized so it is easier to decorate the other rooms we get to! Tyler is working on the garage where he does all his creating! So on our list.....

Craft Room- Organize Fabric (almost done), rearrange shelves, hang peg board, go through/get rid of junk. Things are coming along well in this room, a little messy still but I will update with pics when it is complete!!

Garage- Finish painting, finish organizing shelves/label bins, build work bench.

We are excited to start the new year with goals that will help our home stay cleaner and more organized. Next month we will be working on "Media" our computers are a mess and we have a box of old tapes that need to be put onto dvds! Hope your new year is full of lots of fun projects and goals:) We look forward to sharing our progress with you as the months go by!

Front Yard coming soon!!

2010-09-22T19:39:00.000-07:00

Tyler built me a front yard!! Hopefully next summer the kids will be enjoying this little play area outside! He built the retaining wall and filled in the area with top soil. Then we seeded!
The grass is coming in now!!

Oh and the county took down that huge dead tree that was on the side of our house! It use to be to the left of the 2 trees in the above picture.

Rain Gutter Bookshelves...

2010-06-30T16:53:00.001-07:00

Tyler put up some rain gutter bookshelves in the kids play room....(yes those are rain gutters that you find at the home improvement store!)

Here is where I first saw these....she has a tutorial!

Front Porch Railing....Finally done!

2010-06-22T10:48:00.000-07:00

A year ago we bought our home....You can see the before at the top of my blog....We are still working on the other parts of the front yard...Lots more to be done!

The deck railing didn't take too long, but the weather kinda lengthened the process of touch up painting. It turned out so well. Tyler simply amazes me with his talents. I tell him I want a railing out front and this is what he creates....without drawing it out or anything....I am the opposite I have to write everything down and think about it forever before I even begin. But when I told him what I wanted he created it even better then I had imagined it!!

Tyler built the pole that is out in front and I painted it to match the other poles on the deck. He built every part of the railing. It took lots of cutting, painting, screws and nails. We have been busy. He also made the hand railing along the side so it is easier to get up the stairs now. I absolutely love it!

Headboard (how to added, see bottom)

2010-06-02T18:47:00.000-07:00

Before.... So we decided our room needed a little makeover. We got new bedding and new end tables, we also etched the small glass windows above the bed. Last week I painted the whole room and this week we made a headboard...here are the results!!

After....

I know...It's awesome!!

Here is a link to where I saw the headboard.....brassy apple headboard

How we did it....We used a piece of plywood and cut to width of our bed (ours is a Cal King). Bought the fabric (fake leather stuff) from JoAnns in the home decorating fabric section, half off of course. Also bought the batting (we did not use foam just 2 layers of the thickest batting) with a coupon. The fabric cover buttons can also be found at JoAnn's but our fabric was too big to actually push in the button so I just sewed the fabric and tightened it around the button (first I added our tough, thick string to the button) that is the part you will put through the hole in the board and staple to the back. You can also just buy buttons that match your material. Here are the step by step instructions...

1. Cut plywood to size and drill holes where you want your buttons.

2. Cover wood with 2 layers of batting (or foam and then batting) and staple.

3. Cover batting with Fabric, pull tight and staple all the way around.

4. From the back you can locate the holes you drilled for the buttons, just push a nail through to the front, you can make a big needle by twisting up a piece of wire to pull the string on your button through the hole (see pic)

5. Pull button string through and staple well to back of board (we then hammered down the staples to make sure they were tight)

6. Finally drill 2x4's or we used 1x2's to the back of the board (the height you want the board to stand behind your bed. (see pic) Then just prop it up behind your bed:)

2010-05-12T20:44:00.000-07:00

You can see the true before above in my blog title. Well the plants that the house came with were pretty random so we went to work trying to make the front look better. First we spent a couple days digging this area out and then Tyler built the awesome lattice for under the deck! I helped by painting it and helping put it together. Here it is all put in...

And then the planting began...Ty put the Rhododendrons in before we went to Vegas and when we got back we bought the rest of our plants and put them in. Then we put down weed barrier and bark...looks so much better!

And the kids just loved playing outside so much and playing in the dirt. The hanging baskets were from Ty for Mother's day.

Next on the to do list is....The other parts of the front yard and putting in a deck railing on the porch.

Peg Board Storage in Garage

2010-02-04T09:29:00.000-08:00

So we needed more shelf space so we decided to put up some peg board in the Garage to hang some larger items on the wall to help get organized. Tyler decided he wanted to go all the way to the ceiling...

Here's a peak of what it looks like mostly filled up...

P.S. If you are interested in putting these up keep in mind spacers can get spendy...we decided to make our own by buying a long plastic tubing marking it at the thickness we wanted and cutting with the saw. Very easy and a lot cheaper!

I loved this peg board so much for organizing that I decided to buy a smaller piece, paint it with some extra paint from Sam's room to use it in my craft room....Here is a sneak peak....I will update once we hang it:)

Frosted windows...

2010-02-04T09:18:00.000-08:00

So we have these little miniature windows above our bed in our bedroom. We weren't sure how to cover them, curtains someday but for now we thought the best thing to do would be to frost them with that frosting spray (not like the Christmas frost) it is more like etching but less permanent. You could scrape it off with some goo-be-gone. Here is the before...

And After...

Before up close...

After...

Kiddie Table Redo

2010-02-04T09:13:00.000-08:00

So we bought this table with 2 chairs at ikea...Unfinished with lots of coloring on it and stains...

So I decided to redo it...and this is what I came up with...

I sanded the top then stained it with leftover stain from the shelves, then painted the legs white. Lots of top finishing coats to keep it from wearing on top. I love how it turned out. I am planning on making little seat cushions for the chairs to add some color should be cute.

Toy Room Bins

2010-02-04T09:07:00.000-08:00

Toy Bins Finally!! So we bought this big storage unit last year at ikea. Had to wait to buy the bins once they came in, long time!! Then we filled them with different toys. I thought of labeling each so the kids could put their own toys away. So this is what I came up with. I took picts of all their toys (their actual toys that are in the bins) added text and printed them on transfer paper. Ironed onto white fabric and fused that to the bins! Love it!!

The New Couch...

2010-02-04T09:03:00.000-08:00

We really wanted a sectional for the family room. We found this beauty at a scratch and dent store. It comes apart in lots of places so we can arrange it however we want. This is what we came up with. Note: Those are the shelves in the background that we have been working on for months now...still need to stain the trim and put it up. We also plan on eventually refinishing the roll top desk!

Living Room Makeover

2009-10-15T09:37:00.000-07:00

This is our living/dining room before(from standing in the kitchen)

After....(cream walls, red fireplace, recovered dining chairs, Vinyl on the wall (yes the only thing on the wall so far), oh and a ceiling fan

The vinyl, love my silhouette, this is the first time I cut vinyl with it and it went great!

The red fire place...took forever, and lots of coats(especially the trim) glad that's over!

Craft Room Built-In Shelves!

2009-08-31T08:45:00.000-07:00

My wonderful wonderful hubby just finished my craft shelves this weekend!! I love love love them:) Here is a picture of the empty space before...

My new shelves...

This gives you an idea of how big they are with Sammy standing by them!

A little while later.....lots of craft stuff loaded up:) I will probably be making a curtain to cover them up when I am not busy crafting, but for now I love them just like this:)

Chair Makeover!

2009-08-20T15:45:00.000-07:00

Here is our Chair re-cover project we are currently working on. I thought I would give you a little hint of what the set will look like. The before chair, as you can see, is the dirty creamy velvet covered one. The red/cream fabric on our new chair comes from our curtains that will be put in the same room. I am also in the process of picking colors for the walls in this family/dining room. Cream walls with an accent red fireplace wall. I'll keep you posted...

One Chair down, 5 more to go! I will post step by step pictures of the way we went about covering our chairs once I get another one done!

Blinds

2009-08-19T23:04:00.000-07:00

One of the first things we had to do was buy and hang our blinds. This took a little longer for us because we wanted nice blinds, a good deal, and we hung them ourselves. We eventually went with blinds from different places and all the windows seen from the front of the house are white, and the back are brown. Here are the blinds in the family/dining room after we hung the blinds...

Here is before...

The formal living and dining before (Yes the small windows are missing blinds, we had to special order them because they were so small, they are up now)

This was the room before..

Welcome to Our Home...

2009-08-12T10:17:00.001-07:00

My husband Tyler and I found and bought our beautiful home in May 2009. And in June we were happy to call this place home. Being that this is our first home and a new home at that, we are sure to have many adventures cleaning, painting, organizing, decorating, and finishing different areas of our house. So we thought we would share our journey with you! We work on the house on a regular basis, we have so many projects on our to-do list, and we have lots of new ideas floating around in our heads. We have big plans for this place and we look forward to sharing them with you:)