The Madsen Family Day O' Fun

When we in Kaysville visiting my mom this weekend, Jenna spotted a couple of buses driving through town and ever since then has been asking to go on a bus ride. Once Casey got home we planned a little outing where we rode the bus downtown, rode the carousel, and then took the bus home. Jenna was in heaven. She had the best time, mostly because she was free as a bird. No seatbelt, no car seat...pure heaven. P.S. Can someone explain to me how this is okay/legal?!

 The carousel doesn't open until 11 so we stopped and got ice cream at Thomas Judd's Store Co. It was our first time going to this little gem and I'm so very glad we did! What a nostalgic, darling, shop full of old school candy and soda I've never even heard of. So fun! 

 Then we headed across the street to the carousel only to find out it was broken, apparently has been for weeks and they can't figure out how to fix it. Nice. Our tax dollars not hard at work...now to explain to our two year old that she doesn't get to ride the horsies like we've been telling her she was going to. We told her they were broken, they were sick. She understood that after having just been sick this week. 

 She asked to take a picture with the sick horses. There were lots of good-byes, waves, kisses, and telling Daddy to fix them, just so sure that he could. I love the faith she has in him. 

After nap time, we went to the Washington County Fair. We had so much fun. I think was my very first fair as well, at least I don't remember ever going to a fair before. I think it was much more fun because Jenna was so fun, then it would have been without her. She loved petting the animals...

...except the baby chicks. I find it so interesting that she is much more scared of the small animals then she is of the big ones. No fear of the cows or horses, but a baby chick?! 

Jenna was convinced that she wanted to go down the giant slide. As she has never been a fan of slides, but I kept flashing to the water slide at Crowton's pool and Skyler Langeveld telling me not to Jenna what she can and can't do, from the mouth of babes. So we let her try it, and as was far too predictable, she froze once at the top and would not come down until I went up to the top and lowered her as far down as I could and then let her go...and not once, but twice. So we quickly moved on from the slide. 

Com'on Mom, hurry up. 

 On to the carnival rides! She loved them all. Every one. For being such a cautious girl, she's got the inner daredevil that I love! It was also good to see, because we have a trip to Disneyland planned for the first part of September and it's good to know she's going to be good on the rides. Her never ending legs don't hurt in these circumstances!

She got to ride the horses after all! 

 

Let me take a moment on this picture, Jenna has this great grin she does when she's feeling shy or like too much attention is being directed towards her. It's this half smile usually from her looking up through her eyelashes. It's a very difficult expression to catch. We've considered hiring a nature photographer from National Geographic to try and capture it. This is as close as we've come to capturing it. It's one of our favorite looks! I was thrilled that we got this: 

We headed over to roller coaster. Jenna was cuddling with Casey in the line and the ride attendant didn't want to let her on because she was a "baby" so he made her make sure she was over the height limit, which she of course cleared by like an inch and a half. He was still a little concerned, so the woman behind us had her little girl ride with her (not sure how thrilled the girl was about that). We were a little worried, but one look at her face during the first alleviated all of our fears. She was loving it! Pure cheesy grins all the way. It was fantastic. Love that kid.  

We hit the ferris wheel last on our way out. Jenna was super excited and had a very hard time sitting still which made for a rocky ride and nausea on Mom's part. But Jenna was having the time of her life. Hard to resist that enthusiasm!  

What a great day! We so rarely do this kind of thing when we are home, and it was a great day just enjoying the things in our own back yard. 

Remodel Update - Jenna's playroom

We finally got Jenna's play room pretty close to finished. We decided we wanted it to be a little more fun and cut loose in here vs. the rest of the rooms so we went with stripes on one wall.  

I love how they turned out. We used all the paints that we had used throughout the house. Most all of the paint we used came from Kwal Paints. The lightest blue is from our master bedroom, bathroom, and the craft room and is Everlasting Peace. The dark blue is what we used in the hall bathroom and is the darkest color on the same color spoke as Everlasting Peace. It is called Superstitious. The green is left over from our old house, and I used the last of it painting this room and can't remember what it's called...sorry. The yellow is from Jenna's bedroom and is Kwal's Hypnotic. And lastly, we the turquoise from Jenna's ceiling and the laundry room in Kwal's Poetic. I'm glad we used the same paints because it felt like this room ties all the others together. 

I upcycled the ceiling fan instead of buying a new one. I took it apart and painting the base and blade holders. I then added scrapbook paper to the fan blades using spray adhesive and sealing it a spray lacquer by Rustoleum. 

The fabulous Heather Kearl came over and we framed out each of the stripes. I was really struggling with getting my stripes completely strait and not bleeding. Truth be told, I just got lazy. And this seemed like a easy and cute solution. I love it! I really didn't want the framing to stick out too far from the wall but I was having a very hard time finding wood or mdf that wasn't so thick. Then I stumbled on the perfect solution. We used outdoor decorative vinyl. Not only was it the perfect width, but it was already white so it didn't require any prep time and if it gets dirty, I can just wipe it down. Could not be more pleased with the end result. Nick is going to build me a little awning to go over the window. Pictures to come when that eventually gets done.   

For the flooring, we finally decided on the paper bag technique. I originally saw the idea on Pinterest. I did a ton of research and I would say that one of the most helpful tutorials was a YouTube video from An Oregon Cottage. 

I did change a few things from their technique. First of all, as my paper was going directly onto cement floors vs. wood sub floors we couldn't glue the paper directly to the cement. I found out that if we did a coat of the polyurethane first then we could have used poly to seal the paper down. I chose not to go this route for a couple of reasons. I didn't want the paper to look like paper, I wanted to stain it a really dark brown and by doing poly on poly the stain wouldn't have been able to get through to the paper. Also, the floor would have been lower than both the carpet in the craft room and the wood floors in the living room. So we laid a plywood sub floor down instead {see photo above}. 

So as to allow for easy removal in the future, we just kind of tacked down the plywood with glue in the corners. If I had to do it over again, I think I would have gone directly onto the cement or at least attached the sub floor to the cement better. When you walk on it the floor almost bounces. Plus, even though I filled the seems between the pieces of plywood with wood filler and you can still definitely see each of the seems and the pieces of plywood aren't all the same height so the flooring is uneven. It drives the perfectionist in me crazy! 

I read another tutorial on a blog {and of course now I can't find said blog in order to give proper credit...so, so sorry} that said she ironed each piece of paper before she started gluing them down. I am so grateful I did take that piece of advice. It made gluing them down so much easier. One thing the An Oregon Cottage peeps didn't have a clear answer for was what the the Elmer's Glue to water dilution ratio. I used a 2:1 glue to water ratio and it worked really well. I also used a squeegee to get all the excess glue off the pieces of paper when I was laying them. I loved that tip. Another thing learned is that the more glue left on the less the glaze absorbed into the paper.  

Prepped and ready to glaze. I used VanDyke Brown glaze because that is what I had. If I had to do it over, I would have bought stain and used that instead. I didn't feel like the glaze went on very evenly and their are huge seems where the glaze stripes overlapped as I was putting it on. 

I did five coats of Varathane High Traffic Indoor Flooring in Satin. Truth be told, I was completely intimidated by this step. I was really worried about going to all this work only to end up with bubbles in my poly. Because let me tell you, nobody likes bubbles in your poly. But it's all about the tools, as we all know. I found this Water Wiz Applicator specially for applying water based polyurethane and it was the best. It was so easy and this step became the easiest and quickest step to complete. You want to make sure not to shake your polyurethane. Pour it into your tray, dip your applicator, and sweep the floor. Fantastic. I waited two hours between coats and let it cure for 24 hours before we walked on it. I think you can see what I mean about the excess glue causing the glaze to not absorb as those are the lighter areas of the paper. And toward the back of the room you can sort of see the seem where my two rows of glaze overlapped. 

Update: I learned a lot during the process and would totally do it again. I love the concept and have not had any problems with wear and tear yet. I've vacuumed and mopped just like I do with our hardwood laminate and haven't had any problems at all. 

Remodel Update

Not a whole lot of progress has been made lately. I think we just got so burnt out from the almost non-stop 3 weeks that we have been taking a much needed rest. That being said, I did get the new wall in Jenna's play room spray textured, the rest of walls patched and prepped and the whole room primed. 

Nick also got the shelving units in our master closet installed. The shelves on the left are going to be my shoe shelves. Straight ahead are my shelves on top and the drawers on the bottom are for my jewelry organization. So excited!!!

Remodel Day Nineteen and Twenty

One of our biggest concerns about this house was just how low the wall in the back yard is. It was crucial for both Casey and I that we made increasing the wall a priority. Budget wise, it means that others things are going to have to wait, like base and case, and flooring in the playroom. But when all was said and done, we are so glad we made the choice we did. 

BACKYARD SIDE WALL BEFORE: 

BACKYARD SIDE WALL AFTER:  

BACKYARD BACK WALL BEFORE:

BACKYARD BACK WALL AFTER:

Remodel Day Eighteen

I started changed out all of the switches and outlets. The electrical outlets in this house were so old that when you would plug something in, it would immediately slide right back out. It was so frustrating when you were trying to use a power tool and couldn't ever get any power...

We also started changing out all of the light fixtures. A big thank you to Papa Stuart for all of your help, Mr. I Can Do Anything! 

Now that we actually have flooring, We brought in some of our furnishings. It's starting to feel like a home around here...finally!