Looooong To Do List

I sat down the other day while Norah was napping and started to make a 'to do' list of projects I would like to get to. Lets just say I started to get overwhelmed and it didn't help my lack of motivation lately. I thought maybe if I share my to do list with everyone I will be more inclined to get up off my butt and finish some of them!

Here goes:

1) Make my brother and sister in law pillow covers

My brother and sister in law bought some pillows that they plan on using for floor cushions for extra seating in their apartment. They asked me to maked removeable covers for them. This is a super easy project I just have to find the time to make them.

2) Photo Project in Hallway

Now that Norah is around I have decided I need to update some of the pictures in the house. I would love to create a 'Family and Friends' photo wall and the perfect wall is in our hallway. It currently has 5 measily picture frames hanging in it and after starring at it for awhile I can't believe I left that wall like that for so long!!!!! Now I don't want to overdo it and make it look cluttered since it is a small wall. BUT I do plan on spicing it up a bit! This will take some planning but sooner or later I'll get around to updating it!

3) Spring Cleaning
This is a little harder with a 9 week old around... BUT seeing as it is supposed to rain tomorrow I would like to lift up the carpets and vaccuum everything and mop floors etc etc. Its that time of the year when the house needs to be aired out and cleaned thoroughly!!!


4) Paint behind the toilet in the upstairs bathroom
Remember this post about installing our new toilet way back in August. The old toilet was huge and covered the wall... the new toilet being a LOT smaller shows the unpainted wood panelling and ripped wallpaper behind the toilet. Now I STILL haven't bothered to paint it but its about time I did something about it... thats a task that can be easily completed during Norah's afternoon nap!!


5) Clean Basement
Now that the dust has settled from the basement bathroom renos its time to actually get to work cleaning the basement! On the weekend we worked on decluttering it and got rid of a TONNE of stuff!! But now I need to clean it top to bottom... that is a HUGE job and I'm not excited about it. One of these rainy days I'll get around to it!!


6) Install carpet in the basement
We need to finally install the carpeting in the basement. We got the carpet from my parents as they were getting new carpeting and this one was perfectly fine. We may just get around to installing it this weekend depending on the weather (don't want to be stuck indoors if its nice outside!!)


7) Make curtains for the kitchen
I STILL haven't finished making the curtains for the kitchen!! The material has been bought for SOOO long I just need to sew them... the material is already cut to the right size I'm just being lazy!!! Next time I pull out my sewing machine I'll have to do all of my sewing projects!!


8)Fix Kitchen Cabinet Chips
One of our cabinet doors has chipped in a few spots. I just need to sand it down and reprime and paint the bottom edge of it. Easy task... but its just actually getting the motivation to do it!


9)Clean up Closets
Our closets (we only have 3) are a disaster! I need to go through them and purge a bunch of stuff! I started with my closet and managed to get rid of a few garbage bags worth of stuff but I have lots more to go through!!! I have to do this when Ryan is not around because he ALWAYS wants to keep his crappy hole ridden painted up shirts... shhh he'll never know they are gone!!! Just an update on this one... I purged 10 pairs of shoes today!!!


10) Organize Kitchen Cupboards
For those who know Ryan you know his organization is non existant!!! Needless to say I have plates where the cups are and cups where the utensils are!!


11)Install flooring
The flooring we bought for the upstairs needs to be installed and I keep starring at it desperately wanting to tackle that job but it is soooo much work!!! Maybe it will be a job my dad and I can tackle over a week while Ryan is at work.

I know there are about a million other things I would like to complete but that is the list at the moment!

Happy Easter!!!

Happy Easter everyone!!!

Last night we went to my parents place for a lovely Easter dinner with the family. Last week I decided I wanted to make Norah another dress but this time have it fit her now so she could wear it for Easter dinner! It turned out even better than the first dress I made (the one with butterflies). How cute does she look in her Easter dress??

Today while Norah took a brief nap Ryan and I went outside to get rid of yet another garden in our backyard. Since we bought our house 3 years ago it seems that every spring we get rid of more gardens! Our backyard had gardens on every edge of the house, along the perimeter of the yard as well as all around the pool! It was just too much for us to handle so the first year we got rid of a few along the one side of the yard. Last year we got rid of more along the house and now there was only this little zoned off section and then the vegetable garden that we use along the other side of our yard. I didn't snap a photo before Ryan started but this small garden was sectioned off with large 4 by 4's and was so overgrown with weeds, vines and this bush thing that we decided it was time to go. Plus since it is right next to where our patio set goes and our gazebo we knew it would give us more space! In the summer we put our mini bar fridge right next to this so we plan on making an outdoor bar here possibly or a bench! Anyway, the big task was getting the root of the bush out! Here it is!

Ryan worked for about 45 minutes attempting to get this stubborn root out!! I was on Norah duty because what we thought was her napping was just her having a mini 20 minute siesta!

When I came back outside Ryan has successfully pulled out the bush and I found this huge and VERY heavy stump in our driveway!

We spread some grass seed and hopefully this zone will become an area where Norah can play in the grass while we are relaxing outside by the pool!!!

The plans for the rest of the weekend are to potentially work on cleaning up and purging stuff from the basement!!! We'll see how that goes!

Basement Bathroom Progress

WE HAVE PROGRESS!! Not only do we have progress but we're almost finished this LONG project!! To think that over a year ago we knocked out the concrete on the floor of the bathroom and dug down... this has been a long project!!! As previously mentioned my dad worked on hanging the door a few weeks ago. Because the opening for the doorway is so short the door we had on hand had to be cut down to size. As you can tell in the picture below. It doesn't bug me though... its a door isn't it!!!! Since it was a rainy weekend Ryan installed the door handle and him and Dave worked on the painted and finished the rest up! Other than just needing to finish the entry way and put silicon in the shower this project is DONE!!! Here is our beautiful bathroom!! This is the view from the shower, as you can see we still need to finish off the entryway and clean up the rest of our basement, BUT it looks great!

The mirror and vanity lights!

The pot lights.

Now its time to shop for accessories for the bathroom! We have an amazing picture that we want to hang on the wall across from the sink and toilet but I just have to get it framed first.

Ryan and I did some math on this project and even though we haven't completely kept track of how much everything cost we figure this bathroom ran us about $5,000 at the most. Considering some people renovate bathrooms for much more than that we are very pleased that we were able to create a bathroom from nothing for that price! We LOVE how it turned out!!!!

Stay tuned for more updates on this.

Sunny Little Sun Dress

I LOVE this dress!!! I finally managed to make it to Fabricland and pick up the supplies I needed to finish Norah's summer dress. And while I was there I also picked up a bunch of material that was on sale which I will use to make MORE DRESSES!!! haahaa! I'm completely hooked! I LOVE how this dress turned out!!! (Reminder: You can find the pattern over at www.made-by-rae.com or click here)

I had originally wanted to do orange or yellow piping and bias tape... BUT alas Fabricland only had blah colours of piping... I was super disappointed! But upon second check they had red piping so I caved and bought it. I am SO happy that I did, I love how it turned out with the red! And with all that blabber here is the finished front of the dress!

And the back of the dress... mind you it really doesn't make too much of a difference which side is the front and which is the back!

Did you see the cute bloomers I made???? They were SOOOOO easy! I originally wanted to make the bloomers on Martha Stewarts website. But after printing out the pattern I realized it had to be enlarged by 250%.... and not having the equipment to do that I went on a search for a new pattern.

I came across this tutorial at Dana Made It and away I went. In less than a half hour I had these cute bloomers done!!! They were so easy I plan on making many more!!!!

One dress down... I have enough material to make about 30 more!! haahaa!!! I will be making the straps of the dress longer though so that I can tie the bows bigger and easier. But I am still super happy with how this dress turned out!!! Stay tuned for more cute dresses!!!

Dress Progress

Yesterday I said I wanted to make this dress from www.made-by-rae.com. WELL today while Norah napped I almost finished the dress. Actually it only took me about an hour and a half to get this far. This dress is SUPER easy to make!!! I plan on making MANY MORE!!!! This is my progress so far! As you can see I have the top finished and the bottom finished... I would have finished the entire dress but I still don't have piping or bias tape to finish it off. I know you can easily make those yourself BUT I want them in either yellow or orange (I'm leaning towards yellow) and I don't have any yellow or orange fabric lying around. Tomorrow we are headed to Fabricland to pick up the piping and bias tape so this dress will be finished tomorrow. I am SUPER happy with it so far. The only thing that I am not sure about is how to tie the straps. I followed the pattern properly but its VERY hard to tie bows with the short amount of fabric. Next time I make this dress I plan on making MUCH longer straps so it can easily be tied in big bows! If the straps on this dress are too short I will just attach some snaps or buttons on the top to keep it on, no big deal.

Since I have enough extra fabric left I plan on making a pair of bloomers to go with the dress. I found a free pattern at Martha Stewarts website here that I plan on testing out! That post later this week possibly!

Super Cute Dress Plans

I have been incredibly unmotivated to do ANY house projects right now. It is probably because the weather has been fantastic lately and during Norah's naps the last thing I want to do is to hang out in the dark basement and paint!! With the warm weather I have been dreaming of summer and with that dreaming of Norah's summer outfits up at the cottage! I came across this SUPER CUTE dress over at Made By Rae and now plan to make it!!

Isn't it super adorable! I went searching for my box of fabric (which I know is overflowing) and alas remembered that it is under the bed in the spare bedroom behind all of the flooring that we have yet to install! ahhhhh there was no way I was lugging all of that out and putting it back just to find fabric!! BUT I did remember I had previously pulled out some fabric for Norah's room that I never ended up using and it will be PERFECT!! This butterfly fabric is going to look super cute on her this summer!

Now all I have to do is make the dress. The patterns on the website are for a newborn or a 3 year old so I had to adjust the pattern for a 9 month old. Since Norah is already almost grown out of her 3-6 month clothes (at 7 weeks) I guessed she would be in 9 month old clothes by the summer and adjusted the pattern based on a 9 month onesie I have. Tomorrows plan is to cut and start working on this dress tomorrow during her nap. Maybe if I feel up to it I'll start tonight!! :-) I plan on using just the butterfly fabric for this dress, I do have to pick up piping and bias tape still but I can do that tomorrow morning. If I have enough extra material I may even try to make a matching hat or bloomers!

Swim Swim Swim!

Over the weekend we took Norah to my brother and sister in law's apartment for her very first swim!! Now Ryan and I LOVE to swim and really want her to love the water as well so we decided it was best to start super early! So at 5.5 weeks Norah had her first swim. SHE LOVED every minute of it!!!! She didn't cry until it was time to get out of the water and then she wasn't very happy to do that! We couldn't be prouder of her!!!!! My brother and sister in law bought her an amazing life jacket specifically for infants to keep them floating face up and it worked amazingly! Norah was so comfy in it at one point she almost fell asleep floating around because she was comfy! Here is Ryan swimming with Norah. I was soooo happy taking her around the pool!

Can you tell how proud I was!!!!

Ryan teaching Norah to float.

This video just makes me smile sooo much! Norah was such a trooper! She didn't even cry when we put her under the water!! She was just so amazing!

That is what we have been up to lately! We take Norah for walks down by the lake and just have a blast hanging out with her. I do have a plan sometime this week (or next) when she is napping to paint the basement bathroom walls! Hopefully I'll have some progress to report on that front soon!!