The flooring continues...

Well part of our living room is put back together, flooring is in up to the end of our 1/2 wall that borders the stairway. The couch is back where it goes, as is one of the bookshelves. I even got the books & accessory items back on the bookshelf, YEAH!!! Below you'll see a little bit of our progress, we even got a few more pictures & things hung this week so the walls aren't sooo bare!

This is our couch on the new flooring, I love the way this floor is turning out!

Here is our bookshelf, complete with books! It sits next to our fireplace (the bricks).


Our couch & beautiful flooring!

One of the wall hangings Hubby put up this week


Our little helper playing with the flooring spacers.

Testing out the new floors

Making sure these floors get broken in well!

We aren't sure what she is saying/asking, everytime she keeps saying exactly the same thing & using this hand gesture! LOL

Our little cougar in her First BYU T-shirt

Hubby getting a well-deserbed break after floor installation & cleanup talking with his parents with our twins waiting to talk to Grandma & Grandpa while they enjoy the living room put back together!

Treg willing to get in on the photo act, especially so grandparents can see him, he has grown a ton this year! LOL

Well we now have the first 12 feet installed, next we start on the hallway tomorrow evening which requires some creative cutting on hubby's part, after that maybe the kitchen eating area. Hopefully we will get the upstairs flooring complete this week, get the pantry framed in, & get out for a bit of Christmas shopping early Saturday, at least that is the plan as of right now. Anyone else working on your holiday shopping & planning? I am getting out my Thanksgiving planner since we are hosting all of dh's family that can come to our home this year, I'm excited, this is one of my favorite holidays, I love all the cooking & baking that goes with this time of year!

Little girl ON our pantry boxes which are sitting on the pantry wall where it will all be framed in shortly!

I think my bed is calling me, even if my little one doesn't think she needs to sleep! Of course she takes naps so she isn't in such a hurry to sleep at the end of the day. More photos tomorrow!

Our flooring project has begun! YEAH!!!!!

This is a photo of our new house from the front at night, this is without any lights on outside, thought I'd see how good of a picture we got without a flash, not bad!

This is an interior photo of the front door, yes that is our very 1970's looking light fixture! LOL There are a lot of funny looking light fixtures around our house, it is very much a project house which we look forward to updating & making it look the way we want it.

Last night we started our flooring project, this will go from the living room (pictures below) down our upstairs hallway, into the eating area (currently carpeted, with 7 children eating there! YIKES!), and finally into the kitchen. We may be doing the same flooring in the downstairs hallway & possibly using it on the stairs as well, not sure about that one yet though, maybe we'll do tile... decisions, decisions! This is a do it ourselves project, luckily hubby has done a laminate floor before and I worked with my parents on their wood floor about 5 years ago, I'm very good at varying the wood grain & color! :-D

Hubby cleaning up the floor, if I'd taken a picture of the dirt under the carpet pad you would never want your family to wear shoes in the house ever again! That or you'd opt for all hard floors throughout your home! ICK!



Our 17 year old son hard at work removing the carpet tack strips so nobody steps on them, I told him I was taking pictures so we could document him helping out!

Our little girl checking out the beginning of our Pergo floor project this should be fun!
"What are you guys doing now?"

"Whatever it is I'm having fun!"

(This would be that ongoing question of hers everytime she sees the camera: "C'I see, C'I see?")

Hubby hard at work starting the floor installation, the first 4 rows or so are a challenge, after that it's pretty smooth sailing.

It's starting to look good!

Here is where we got to by the end of the evening, the end of the first layer of soundproofing, exactly 48" out from the livingroom wall we started on, it goes the entire width of the room! YEAH!!!!!!

Little girl supervising her daddy, he had to make a cut in the wood for the heating vent (yes that heat that was just installed over the past week! YEAH!!!!

Checking out how well she can slide into the splits on the new flooring, pretty well apparently!

Tonight we will be working on finishing the livingroom, including adding new baseboard trim so we can put the furniture back, starting the hallway, and see how long that takes us, maybe by the end of the week we can have the carpeted kitchen area finished & the kitchen, here's hoping!

Scrapbooking, well if I can't do it I can at least write about it..... ;-D

Yes I love to scrapbook, good thing since we have 7 lovely children who most of the time like to have their picture taken, especially little miss number 7, the "C'I see, C'I see?" translation: Can I see the picture?. So as you can see I have great material to work with, and my fair share of scrapbooking paper, somewhere around 1,000 pages of colored 12x12 stock including all my themed print pages, with 7 kids though that is a fairly decent amount of paper to have on hand since I am working on getting everybody's individual albums completed from May of 2005 up to Dec of 2007!

I'll show you what I was doing for a workspace just prior to our move & explain how I was doing 150 pages in a 2 week period of time (while showing our home to sell it & packing to make it look more spacious, removing the "clutter look". Prior to that, the first time I tried this method I did 69 pages in about a 10 day period of time, while getting 7 kids ready for back to school no less! Yes dinner did still get on the table at 6pm, dishes were done, laundry was done (including all the new back to school clothes), and the house was very clean so no every moment was not spent scrapbooking! LOL First here is my scrapbooking workspace (which I cleared each day when I was finished scrapbooking for the day):

My Tools

My Scraps

Great Journaling blocks

Squares to mat & journal

Rectangles to mat & journal

Ovals & other specialty scraps

12" long scraps not 12x12

Punches from small scraps

Blocks in craft keeper

Color blocks in colorwheel order

Large Blocks for fast formulas.

My color wheel I use this tons!

My colored paper sorters they are sorted by the color wheel!

The colored paper sorters I found at Walmart for just under $5 each, I have black for my neutrals (white, cream, tans, browns, gray, and black), green for my 2 green sections, blue for my blue & purple pages, red for my reds and pinks, cranberrys too, and I had a clear sorter from way back when (I don't remember where I got it for sure) that houses my yellows and golds. One day (when I was out of the color I needed & funds to go buy more) I pulled out my color wheel that I had for years and decided to figure out how to use it, finally! LOL WOW! What a cool tool! I have put together color combinations that I would have never come up with otherwise & I LOVE them! I also have started using up colors that sat for a long time in my files (colors I didn't specifially pick out, they came in a basic set of 2-5 pages of each color packages). After awhile I decided to set up my colors exactly as my color wheel is set up, then I started filing my scraps by size & color, what a difference, I'm using up lots of scraps now when I make my journaling boxes & when I mat photos because I know exactly which color combinations I can use & am able to decide on my page colors much quicker now!

My cutting workspace

Cutting Space in Detail

Paper cutter, oval & circle cutters with mat & tray for misc odd scraps

Paper "return box"

My storage cabinet

Interior of cabinet
Yes it does all fit in there!

Now you can see the storage cabinet for all my goodies, although some will change to my desk shelves with the new desk my dh is building for me, YEAH!!! Essentially the items I use less often will go in my cabinet such as each childs box of photos, my sticker album, punches, etc. My scraps and paper cutters will defenitely be moving to my desk shelves as I use them often. Now the thing I love is doing an "Album in a month" a technique I learned on ScrappersChallenge which is a wonderful Yahoo group! I have tweaked a few things to work even better for me since I do individual albums for each child many things repeat for me from one album to the next, if you do annual albums the same things I have incorporated will work for you as well.

Here is the basic technique; First find a 2" or 3" binder (as in look around your house first, maybe recycle one you no longer use, or buy one if you need to), then dig out 31 plastic page protectors, or a number you are comfortable working with and number all but the last one with a permanent marker or whatever works well for you, lables maybe? The last page that is not numbered I wrote "Work in Progress Scraps" (WIP for short), this is where I put scraps as I'm working, especially if I am not scraping at my desk (if I'm there 90% or more go straight into the scrap trays you see above which makes cleanup a breeze & I'm way more productive this way). Now if you go to the ScrappersChallenge site you will find a great form in the files under Album in a Month, here is a link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ScrappersChallenge/files/ this is especially great for people who are big on making notes ahead of time, sketching out your pages, etc.

Next you get out your photos that you want to work with, for my first venture it was my 23 month old photos from May of 2007 to Dec of 2007, my 2nd project was DD8's photos from about May 2005 to Dec 2007 (150 pages in 2 weeks!). I found it easiest for me to put all like themed photos together so all of say turning 1yr old b-day photos, all of dd halloween photos, all of Christmas was broken down into church party, school program, Christmas Eve, Christmas morning (still in our PJ's), Christmas afternoon (dressed & with Grandparents), etc. So one page protector for each theme, if I have pictures from say the school Halloween party & also for our home party, & then some from trick-or-treat time then I would use 3 pages.

After getting all photos seperated into 1, 2, 4, etc. page layouts I would go back & select all the paper I want to use, background paper, printed pages (themed especially), matting pages (scraps if I have them easily accessible), paper to accent with (blocks, stripes, scrap pack pieces, etc.), for me these go in another paper sorter exactly like the ones that I use to seperate my colors. I just lay them in order with the background page behind my scraps & matting pages.

Next you add stickers & any other embellishments you feel you would like to use (any printed wording that may fit the occasion, etc.), any diecuts, etc. This is where I added my own twist to things. Instead of putting holiday accents into the same page protector as my photos & then putting my extras away each time before I pull my next album I pull a seperate page protector out & labled it for the occasion (i.e. Halloween, Christmas, Easter, Birthday, Baby, etc.) this way when I finish doing Christmas I place it behind the following Christmas photos I have pulled when working on multiple years, otherwise they go in another empty binder I have in my cabinet for when I pull my next photos (sometimes I pull photos before I finish an album because I have to go somewhere & sit like at the hairdressers, this way I can just take a binder with numbered pages in it and a photo box, easy to take with & work on & my time isn't wasted!). This saved me so much time when I went from my 2nd album to pulling the 3rd album! I might add a few things I used up in the last album or something specific to this childs photos, most of the embellishments are the same or similar because the events are often the same for each child.

Yes we moved, now for construction....

We have moved in to our new home & unpacked at least 1/2 of our things. Why only half after over 2 weeks? Well we have all of this construction that we decided needed to be done & I don't like getting drywall dust off of every little thing I own, I'd rather wait & just have to clean off boxes. Realize I am writing this while the 5 guys or more are running around my house cutting holes in the ceiling & floors for our central heating (Yes we bought a house that had all electric baseboard heating with the plan of putting in central heat first thing, in the plan it was before we moved in, HA HA!). So about 90% of the ceiling is stripped off in my downstairs hallway, bedrooms, bathroom, & family room, I am sitting under one of the few areas that is not being touched, 1/2 of the family room which will become the pantry & my desk area (on the now non-existent wall of the pantry) or so is the plan which I am hoping comes through very soon!

Maybe I should go back & intro myself so that you have an idea why my dear husband & I would choose to pick a home that is full of so much to do! LOL Well we have 7 children, the classic yours mine & ours situation. He had 4 before we met, I had 2 which gave us 3 boys & 3 girls, instead of getting Alice like the Brady Bunch we added one more to the fun we call our family! So now we have 7, the oldest 3 are boys, ages; 17, 14, 12, the next 4 are all girls, ages; 12 (yes a twin), 10, 8, & 23 months (2 years in November, although Daddy just made a deal with her to stay 1 and he'll still buy her presents, she said "otay"). All 7 do live with us, 3 visit another home for 3 days/2 nights per week, the rest are all full time at home with us so it's a busy group every day!

After we married the 2 girls & I moved into the home hubby already had & finished the basement there including the family/play area, office stuff included there, finishing a bathroom, adding to an existing pantry (shelving mostly), & finishing a laundry hall area. After adding number 7 we could no longer ignore that we had outgrown our house (about the time we got married to be truthful!). So we finally started looking for a new house, we bid on three houses prior to this one & lost every bid, I kid you not! We were outbid on 2 apparently (last I saw the sales never did go through on either one of those homes), the 3rd chose to go into default & lose the home because they wanted more than they owed the bank & it wouldn't appraise for that much so we scrambled to find this home because ours was already sold when we found house number 3, YIKES!

So we found a home with about 400 square feet more than the last one, one more bedroom, one more bathroom (a master bath, no more sharing with the kids, YIPEEEE!!!!!), a way better floorplan that uses space better, overall. The kitchen has a nice open plan with a snackbar, great for all my baking projects. There are also 2 beautiful fireplaces, one upstairs in the livingroom which is all brick, another downstairs in the familyroom that is backed with rock all the way up the wall. The location is fantastic! It is a block from the high school (we have 2 students there & dh is a coach for girls basketball which starts sometime next month!). We are just over 2 blocks from the middle school (we have 2 students there, the twins, and another that will go there next year), we have 2 elementary school kids which we drive since their walking route goes by the high school & all the crazy teenage drivers! We are also just 2 blocks from the baseball concession stand that we run in the spring/summer so I am really looking forward to concessions next year & the convenience of being so close! When the pantry & my desk are finished I will have a fabulous space to scrapbook at which I have a lot of photos to work with 7 kids gives you lots of material to get creative with! We also gained great closet/storage space & a nice deck off the kitchen which will be nice when we BBQ which hubby loves to do ALL YEAR LONG! YEAH! Yes even in the snow he has been known to BBQ!

Now obviously our new house had it's challenges, a roof that could not be guaranteed for another 3 years, the need for central heat (no $600 a month electric bills because of heating did not sound fun!LOL), the need for a pantry lets face it with 7 kids we need food storage just to feed our kids & take advantage of the caselot sales when they happen! To add to the fun the flooring is a mess, the house has been a rental for the past 10 years with pets & major abuse on the home for some time. There is carpet in the main eating area! LOL With 7 kids, not going to work for us so we will be doing the floooring as soon as the heater is completed and the drywall that has to go back up, plus the drywall that will be going up to make our pantry, YEAH!!! I have one bedroom with new carpet from the previous renter, she wouldn't move in until her husband put in carpet. That leaves us with 5 bedrooms to carpet, we are putting Pergo flooring in the livingroom, kitchen, eating area, hallway, & downstairs hallway. Then we have to tile the stairs and landing/entry way (it's a split level home). Eventually we will recarpet the family room, but you can't measure for that when the wall does not yet exist! LOL Ontop of that we have some new flooring to put in at least one of the bathrooms upstairs, it's pretty beatup from all the abuse over the years.

The move itself was chaotic, we couldn't get the people to close on the house so the 10 days after our old home closed expired & we had to be out, imagine 4 ATV type trailers loaded with stuff, parked around town (one had my very full freezer on it, plugged in), then we had a 2nd storage unit filled to the brim (we filled the first one to make our house saleable, aka not look like 9 peoples worth of stuff resided there ;-) ). We put our family of 9 into 2 rooms at the hotel hubby manages, thank goodness they provide a full breakfast! We finally closed the house on a Tuesday around 6pm before it was all said & done, got the keys at 6:30pm & started moving in with the help of the young men (12-17yr olds) that go to our church. What took hubby 3 days to load into the 4 trailers took only 1&1/2 hours to have unloaded all into the appropriate rooms, YIPEEE!!!!

So here we are in our house, with at least 1/2 of it unpacked, still hanging shelves so we can continue unpacking the rest of our boxes, putting off the family room/office unpacking until that room is completed. We found many repairs to do that we had not planned on, new shower head because the inside of the shower head was missing, the water shot straight out in one stream! The same tub had to have the tub spout replaced because I turned it on to run a bath for the 1yr old & the spout literally shot across the tub! The pin went who knows where & who knows when it disappeared so off to the hardwared store for a new part. We tried to replace the flow control for the bathroom sink faucet, apparently it is the old welded on style & that faucet will have to be replaced also. The first week we also replaced the kitchen sink faucet which was leaking & loose on top of the sink, it was completely worn out, made of PVC inside, SHEEESH!!!! At that point dh said "Okay house, Bring it on, What's next?!!!!!" LOL

The outside is shaping up, the roof has been replaced this week, the overgrown pine tree has been removed, the front door & framing has been painted, it was so dry & the door that looks wood but is not had been stained at one time, wonder how long it took for that to dry! LOL Well I'll have to post some after pictures, if I get really brave maybe some before pictures! HA HA! Or during! That could be interesting, like my little 23 month old sticking her head in the freshly cut hole in the floor of her room & dropping baby dolls & stuffed animals into her 14 year old football playing big brothers bedroom! What a picture that made!

I better run, this has been one crazy day & since the weekend is coming I have no finished heating until Monday evening, back to laundry & baking to heat the house & a couple of small electric space heaters, get out the thermals & pile on the quilts!

More to follow, stay tuned... if you dare! ;-)