Snowflakes, Rugs, and Just a Few More Tiles

No more catch up blogs. I am here now in real time.

I woke up this morning and I was thinking about painting those snowflakes that I made with the grandkids... (See yesterday's blog for instructions)

But then I got a better idea.  Instead --- I GLAMMED them up with GEMS!

I got out my little glue gun and a container of silvery multi-size gems that I had bought a long time ago. Glad I had saved them. I'd considered tossing them when I was purging, during packing to move. Sometimes it's good to have a stash of supplies waiting around, even if you don't know quite what you are saving them for.

I put little dabs of glue at various intervals and added different assorted sized gems. I had to do both sides of each of the snowflakes because these will rotate. It was a soothing fun project to do. Then I got a wisp of nostalgia rolling in. I wished my mom was sitting there next to me, gluing them on with me. This is just the type of project she would enjoy doing. But, she is far away in Florida. I'm going to have to think up some other projects to work on with her, the next time we see each other.  We chat back and forth on the internet every day. But sometimes it's nice to be sitting here in person. Mom and my sister Linda and I were ALWAYS working on craft projects of one kind or another. Sigh.


Once the snowflakes were done I brought them outside and hung them back up on the porch. Our neighbors all up and down the street had begun decorating with lights. It was strangely warm enough outside, over 40 degrees.  I guess it was a good idea to get it done before the cold sets in.  So I broke my own rule about waiting until after Thanksgiving...

Out came some garland and lights. I had to move the red bows over into new positions for this house. They had all been pre-wired onto the scallops to be perfectly spaced out for the last house.  Now they will be prewired for this house. Easier to put them up next year. 

There was just enough garland to go across the front railings on each side.

My 2 little handsome snowmen wanted to come out to play. Even though the little bit of snow we got last week has melted. I nestled them in among the dried flowers in the front flower bed and plugged them in.

I also found this cute little red tinsel tree at the ReStore last week. For $3 that silly thing had to come home with me. I set that up in the corner between the two levels of front porch.

My three pretty snowflakes don't really show up at night time. I do have some extra lights and garland and I think I will do a row around the top of the porch. Maybe then the lights will shine down on my snowflakes?

Steve is still under the weather, I will wait a day or two until he can help me dig around and find the correct Xmas tote with that extra garland and lights in it.  He put them all up really high after he reorganized the garage storage area.  I can't even reach unless I haul out a ladder, to even get up there to read the tags on the totes. 

While he is still down and out with this sinus thing, I decided to finish weaving up this 10 ft runner and get this batch of rugs off of the loom.  

Some of the grandkids had helped me weave these rugs, and they asked if they could watch them get unrolled. They are at school today so I decided to make a little YouTube video of how I unrolled the rugs. Now they could watch the video and maybe next time they can be here for the big rug unrolling after the next batch is done.

Here are the rugs that I finished: 2 four foot ones and a 10-foot one. I still have to complete the hems by folding over the the beginning and ending header sections. I use my Grandmother's old Singer machine to stitch them down securely for a nice flat hem and add my personalized tags.

Steve has been moping around most of the day feeling totally miserable. Moaning and groaning and feeling like crap. We have a doctor appointment on Friday for a general check-up so if it hasn't cleared up by then we will see what they can do. I told him to stay in bed. I've been dosing him with homemade chicken soup, juice, and other comfort foods--- like chocolate chip mint ice cream sandwich bars!

It's hard to keep him down. He did disobey me for a little while and finished laying these last six squares of ceramic tile. (on the far right). The only thing left is to take two of them somewhere to have them cut in half so he can put the last four half pieces into place.

I told him he is not leaving the house!  He wants to go rent the tile cutter at the hardware store, bring it out in the parking lot, cut the two tiles, and bring it back in again.  I said tomorrow is another day.

Once he is finished with the last four half pieces, then I can do the grouting in all of the cracks. He said that is my job. Kinda like painting, he hates grouting. When that is dry, then we will be able to finish up the wooden trim around the window and the baseboard.

The final project will be building a triangular closet in that corner. We got a couple ideas. Nothing for sure yet. But it's in the works.


Honestly, this has been about 4 months of a lot of work to complete this room, but it's also been a lot of fun. I did a lot of envisioning and thinking and trying hard to create what was in my head.  Steve was able to make these things come about with hard work and ingenuity.

Often I find that I am needing to pinch myself 

just to make sure I am not dreaming!

I put on the soft music,

I work on my projects,

and having Steve nearby in the room
 as I work on things
 makes me really content and happy.

I am glad we are sharing this space.

(as I type this, I am up on my laptop in the livingroom to add the pics from my files, and he is down in the She Shed watching Hogan's Heros on tv, huddled in the chair in front of the fireplace.  He would rather be in the She Shed than up in the livingroom! More comfy, he says!)

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Stairway To Heaven

We are almost to the end of the blog posts on the transformation from the attached garage and mud room into my she shed.

This post has to do with the stairs. The original stairs were quite rugged and worn. They were not spaced correctly for the the riser height or for tread length to correctly fill the span. The top step and the bottom step had huge unexpected drops (and were dangerous).

Steve re-measured, recalculated and made new stringers and built new stairs. The stairs have been in place for a couple weeks but we knew we needed to get railings up to comply with code, as well as to be safe when the little ones were over.

After scribbling a few ideas on paper, we decided we would put not only one railing along the outside of the staircase, but we would also add another railing along the white wall side. Not only is it a bit safer, but it may encourage the grubby handprints of children to stay on the railing instead of being dragged up and down on the white plaster wall! Lol...

We bought some nice heavy duty silver railing mounts and a 12 ft length of unfinished handrail.

I gave the railing a couple good coats of grey oil enamel paint, to match the stair treads. We cut it in half so we would have two 6 foot long pieces. Steve mounted the one on the wall first.  It came out perfect.  Then he worked with mounting the big 4x4 end post, securely attaching it to the stairs.

Then he made up side slats that could make a good sturdily constructed railing.  Getting the angles cut to meet with the walls was a bit tricky, but we figured it out together.

He added a middle slat for little kids hands to grab onto. We informed Whitney and Claire that that middle railing was made "just for them" by Grandpa.

Underneath the stairs is the cutest little Cubby Hole. 

I mentioned in yesterday's blog that when I was a child growing up, we had a cubby hole under our stairs. It was a great place to hide and play. My mom also stored her sewing machine in there. Plus we hung up our snowmobile suits and had a big box of mittens and hats near the entrance. It was larger than this cubby hole, I still have fond memories of crawling in there to hide behind all of the things. Like a secret getaway hideout.

While we were working on the stairs, the dogs thought the Cubby Hole was a cool spot to hang out.

I put an extra doggy bed to put under there and thought it would become their own cute little hangout spot.

But once we moved the comfy porch furniture into the she shed, they gave up the cubby hole and decided that they would prefer to spend their time in comfort on the cushions.

The grandkids, 

on the other hand, 

think it's just the greatest place ever!

We put down an old southwestern saddle blanket and a couple big hunks of comfy sheepskins. Toss in a few pillows and they are all set. We gave the grandkids a couple of flashlights and let them go in there and read books, giggle and play!

Who? Us? 

We need cookies PLEASE! 

Reading Stories 

Even some time on Grandma's Tablets

So the stairs are complete, and they are truly my Stairway To Heaven each time I walk down them into my wonderful She Shed!

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One of the other projects we did this last month that really wasn't in the she shed, but it did involve the ReStore. So I thought I'd write about it here:


Early in the summer I bought a cute little light fixture for the front porch while we were shopping at the ReStore. I gave it a fresh coat of red paint so it matched the shutters. Grandson Jameson helped to mount it up on the front porch. It was so cute and adorable and I just loved it.

Fast forward 2 months later and we go walking into the ReStore. We've gotten friendly with the lady who is usually there and she said "Look what I have for you!"  There were THREE more light fixtures that matched that original one we bought for the one on the front porch!! These three were larger in size, but they matched the exact same style and make as the first one we bought 2 months before.

Someone donated them at two different times, and we were fortunate to be there both times on the very day they came into the store!

Wow, they were absolutely perfect! We had just been talking about wanting to add some exterior lights to the garage. The garage was newly built last year by the sellers, but they never got around to installing any exterior lights.

We snatched up all three lights and took them home. I gave them all a fresh coat of paint because they were a funny dusty rose mauve color.

TicTacToe  3 in a row! 

Steve wired up the lights so the two front ones would go on simultaneously with a 180 ° motion detector if anyone comes in the front or from either side.

Aww those are just so stinkin cute! 

At the same time, the ReStore also had this decorative vent piece to go up on the gable of the garage. That was faded out hunter green. So again, with my handy little red paint brush, I made that match too.

The third light fixture was put on the side of the garage by the passageway door. In that one we put a screw in motion detector light bulb that would go on any time we opened either door. The detector is built right into the bulb!  So when coming from the garage or from the she shed, it turns on to  automatically illuminate the walkway between the two buildings.

Now the garage has a little more stylish pizzaz that matches the house, and new usable lights that make our yard safer to maneuver after dark.

This is just about it for the She Shed posts...

We are just laying the ceramic tiles in the entryway and are about 2/3 of the way done.  Steve is suffering from a sinus thing today, and I am not quite up to snuff either. So we laid low, watched football and I did some weaving and made some cool snowflakes from dollar store hangers.  Will post more about those tomorrow. Stay tuned! 

More Finishing Touches - Car siding (we are not siding our car!)

We are almost caught up with the posts about our She Shed construction over October and into November now.

The next project we tackled was finishing the ceiling in the entryway which is a 4 foot by 12 foot area. I was trying to recreate the feeling of the front porch that we had at our home in Chilton. That enclosed porch actually had a painted white beadboard ceiling.  We decided to go a little bit wider and more substantial than beadboard and use a different product.

Car siding is a tongue and groove board that is already sanded to a nice smooth finish.  It has notches and tongues on the edges so it can fit together nicely. The smooth exposed surface of the board also has a long center notch all of the way along the length to give it the effect of being two boards notched together. Even though it's one big board 7 inches wide.

We purchased enough car siding to do the entire ceiling in the entryway, and to wrap the large beam and also the two side vertical supports.

I put two coats of paint on every board in advance on the saw horses set out in front of the garage. Then they were ready to be cut and nailed into place.  All of these boards are 12 ft long and a little easier to handle with one of us on each end.

Working overhead is never easy, but at least this was only 8 feet high instead of 11 feet high at the other end of the room. The entryway ceiling space is already insulated and stapled over with a layer of tyvek house wrap.

We put board by board up on the ceiling with careful measuring to get a tight fit at the edges. Then we didn't need to finish the edges where the ends met the walls. Steve nailed them on with the air nail gun. I was holding them at one end and he was working his way across to tack them into place.  Some of the boards were slightly warped and we had to really pull them into place.

It was very pleasing and satisfying 

to see each board go up and cover the rafters.

The entryway was feeling BIGGER and BIGGER
as we worked our way across it.

That went really quick and we got it done in about a hour.  It was instant gratification to see it all smooth and pretty and finished!

~~~~~~~~

If you look way back in my blog in June, we added this big thick beam to the ceiling to help support the slight sag in the roof. Steve made a temporary wall to hold up the roof during the process. (remember this was back in June, not recently, so you can see just what we had to start with --- four yucky walls and ceiling and floor!)

Our son-in-law Waylen's father Gaylen was here visiting from Oklahoma. He just happened to stop by at the exact time that Steve needed help pounding this huge beam into place on top of both of the side supports.  This beam just barely fit in after getting pounded over and over multiple times with those big hammers.  He was able to take down the temporary wall and the beam now held the roof straight and level again, no more sag!

The beam might have been a little overkill for the specs needed to comply to code. (Grin Grin) When the building inspector was here, he said it was a fine job. He wanted to know if Steve could be hired to come and do projects at his own house!

Although we could have maybe just sanded out all the hammer marks and painted the beam white, we preferred to give it a more finished look. We decided to wrap the beam around with these tongue and groove car siding boards too.

The beam was actually three pieces of 2 x 12's screwed tightly together to create the proper thickness. Then in the photo you can see the pieces of tongue and groove on each side of that!

Just putting up the first board made a difference along the beam. We were able to snug it nice and tight to the plaster ceiling without any gaps. It's kind of hard to figure out how to trim it out if there had been gaps. I am glad that the beam was nice and straight and even, which made it easier to attach these car siding boards.

Once we had the entire beam wrapped around on all three sides, now we could cover the up-and-down support boards too. Everything was looking neater and cleaner. Not so much like a construction zone anymore.

A very handy little tool we found to use on projects is called an oscillating tool. You can get a variety of different sized and shaped blades that can help out in almost any situation. Here one board was a little longer than the rest after we already had it nailed into place. Probably my mistake of measuring and not remembering the number when it came time to go out to the garage to the cut off saw. Probably my mixing up 3/8 and 5/8. It looks to be off by 1/4 of an inch. The board was already nailed up so we could use this little oscillating tool to cut off the excess. Easy peasy!

Steve carefully ran a bead of caulk along the up-and-down cracks between the boards. Then as they are nailed into place you don't see the little crack or gap on the corner pieces of wood where they lap over each other. Once it is smoothed out and painted over, everything looks well finished and put together.

I like how the top beam boards lap over the up and down boards. Kind of makes a big picture frame around the entryway.  We added a little strip of wood along the side of wall to complete the look.  I had to paint that one board while up on the wall, because it was a last minute addition and not pre-painted like I had done to all of the other boards.  I really like painting the boards in advance, much easier than painting once they are nailed up on the walls.

Steve finished off the trim around the entry door too, and soon we were ready for my final touch-up painting.  Once all of those nails were in place, I put tiny dabs of spackling in each hole before giving a final coat of paint. The paint was needed to kind of cover-up the spackling, and all of our finger marks and hand hold marks from putting the boards up into place.

The room is looking more and more finished.

The only things we have left to complete at this point of the story, were the railings on the stairs and the ceramic tile by the 4 foot by 12 foot entryway.  The railings are now complete as I type this, and the 2/3 of the ceramic tiles were laid today.  So tomorrow I will be able to blog about both of those.

Then my blog will be all caught up and I can get back to regular posting of our day-to-day activities, as well as some pictures of the entire finished room.


P.S. Thank you for all your kind thoughts and prayers for my nephew.  He is still in the ICU, but off the ventilator and out of the medically induced coma.  He is now able to breathe on his own. He had some kind of anaphylactic reaction and they don't know what caused it. He is so far away in Illinois, but his parents are by his side. We are waiting for updates.