Updated Fireplace

Our dark brick fireplace was something that Scott had wanted to replace for awhile; I was indifferent to it, however, moving the TV over the fireplace was a priority of mine.

Eventually, the kids won’t share a room and Ella will move into the guest room. I wanted to put shelving in the corner of the family room so we could move items out of the guest bedroom for Ella’s eventual migration. Although I don’t see this happening for at least a year, I want to be able to move Ella into her own room without much delay.

Before

After

We had a wonderful craftsman, Gabriel, who did everything. Scott added quarter round molding to the base of the fireplace and also did some drywall repair and painting. And I’m typing this update from our new desk!

Demolition and framing the fireplace

Gabriel made the mantel himself.

Helping paint the wall where we tore out a speaker

New baseboards

Ringing in the new year with new furniture, with the exception of a desk chair.

Updated Kitchen Cabinets

In August of 2018, we started the process of sanding down our old, grimy kitchen cabinets. In December 2020, we finished! Haha! Apparently having kids slows the pace of projects.

The fresher cabinets!

In addition to Scott sanding down ALL the cabinets, we added new hinges, two metal sheets around the sink, an updated light fixture, and some fresh molding! For not much cost, I enjoy the fresher looking cabinets much more!

Starting the second half of the kitchen!

Scott, hard at work!

Sealing off the kitchen while Scott sanded down the cabinet frames.

Adding the metal and molding

"What have we done?" Playground

Oh my gosh! Look at this monstrosity of a playground?!? What’s the story behind this super cool equipment that now takes up a quarter of our backyard?

Scott has been looking for some simple play equipment for Ella to climb on. We’ve learned that it is crazy expensive! Fortunately for us, a local indoor playground was closing its doors and the owner had posted her equipment on OfferUp for a ridiculously cheap price! Scott went to check it. I went to check it out. We knew we could use all of it, but it was so inexpensive that we had to get it…so we did! With the help of some fabulous friends, we took the equipment apart, moved it into a box truck, brought it to the backyard and put some of it together! We left off a tube tunnel (we weren’t going to crawl through that every time), a tube slide and a twisty slide (to save space). Ella thinks what we have is pretty cool and hopefully Miles will get to climb on it by himself soon…we’ll let him figure out how to walk first.

Look at what we bought! So much!

Bud helping take it allllll down.

Pat helped us move it all in his box truck!

A Sandbox

I’ve been wanting to give Ella a sandbox for awhile, but we weren’t sure how to do it. In two afternoons, we put this fun sand space together. We’ve since moved this 150 pound chunk of fun to the side yard where the kids can spill sand freely without Mom and Dad saying, “Keep the sand in the sandbox.” Ella is thrilled about it and Miles doesn’t want to touch it!

Any excuse to use a blowtorch.

Clearly, Miles doesn't like sand.

Ella loves it!

Fig Jammin' Time with Grandma L

July and August means ripe figs! Ripe figs mean fig jammin’ time! Grandma L came to visit just in time. With branches full of sweet, purple goodness and figs waiting to be used in the freezer, we got right to work!

Helping pick up figs that fell from the tree.

Washing the figs with Grandma L!

Counting out seven cups of sugar.

An Alphabet Rock Garden for Ella

I’m pretty certain that most toddlers have an interest in rocks and the alphabet. Ever since Scott had on a UNLV sweatshirt and one year old Ella pointed to letters curious as to what they were, her interest in letters has exploded. She loves to point out ‘Moms’ ‘Dads’ and ‘Bros’ (Ms, Ds, and Bs) on our shirts or on signs. And ever since she started walking along side of me (instead of being carried) when we’d take Topo out for walks in the desert, she would find rocks to carry around in her little hands. (Except the one time she and I both mistook horse poop for a really cool rock).

Scott bought a bunch of river rock from Star Nursery and we started revamping a small area of the yard. We spray painted some of the smaller rocks and then painted letters and a few other fun designs on them. And of course, just as expected, she carries around the M, D, and B rocks.

A Small Leak Turned into Tile Project

So, for a long enough time, our master bathtub faucet had been leaking. Unfortunately, we let the leak go too long and we acquired ourselves some water damage behind the tub. Fortunately, with the hot, dry air, we didn’t ruin too much. The downside: what should’ve been fixed long ago with a $20 cartridge turned into a $600 project. The upside: Scott learned a lot about plumbing, we both learned how to tile and we got a pop of color added to the tub area!

After a few valiant efforts, we had a plumber come solder some new piping.

Scott was out of town, so I grouted by myself one night!

Tada!

Reclaimed Las Cruces Wood

My Dad tore down an old shed on their property in Las Cruces, NM. Like all good packrats, he saved the wood. Of course, when he offered us the wood at Thanksgiving, we loaded up the bed of the truck to bring a little Las Cruces to Las Vegas. We used some of the less splintery pieces as an accent underneath our bench seat in the kitchen.

Ella's Play Space

Since before Ella was born we were thinking about what her space would look like. Afterall, we got rid of the pool table for this space, so it better be good. We had a hard time finding the storage bins we were imagining.

In the meantime, Scott took an old Jim Beam barrel, that our neighbor generously gave us from her garage sale, and turned that into Ella's library. He also chopped off the bottom of an old cooler we had stored in the shed and creatively turned it into Ella's Toy Box. 

Finally, the best part. After a couple of IKEA visits and lots of time searching the World Wide Web for "Kid's Storage," the answer for our storage conundrum was with Scott's Mom. She had cubes that her Dad, Howard, had built in 1971 for her when she went to college. The cubes lasted through Scott's childhood, Tyler's childhood and are now going to be part of Ella's. All we did was give them a fresh coat of paint and add a plywood desk!

Ella overseeing the process

Fig Jammin' Again!

As summer peaks, so do the figs on our fig tree! Before the birds snag all of the deliciously ripe ones, we picked our share and made our fig jam. 

House Prepping for Baby

In preparation for the arrival of Baby L, we've done (or had done for us) a few projects around the house: a new roof, a new doggie door for Patches and Topo, and Scott's favorite: a new high quality carbon steel, will-outlive-the-house fence! 

With a roof that was losing shingles after every strong wind storm we had, Scott was busy patching new shingles pretty regularly. We decided that if we're going to stay in this house for awhile, now was a great time to get a new roof. Brothers Roofing Company took off our old shingles and roofing paper. They replaced a few boards that were a little water damaged, added rain guards, new roofing paper, and put on new Sandstone colored shingles. The brothers did such a great job, we have had multiple neighbors come ask us about getting their roofs replaced. 

A priority of ours was a gate around the pool. We know that little ones can crawl out of doggie doors undetected and a gate was a 'must have'. Neither of us were fans of the prefabricated fences commonly seen around pools, so we went to a wholesale steel company to look at their materials and how much it would cost. Before the new fence could be installed, however, we had to move our sprinkler lines over about a foot.  With Scott's design skills and the welding skills of Javier, we have a brand new steel fence that Scott stares at more adoringly than me :) Furthermore, the area under the fence needed a little landscaping so our neighbor Ross did some beautiful paving work for us. 

Lastly, with a new fence, the dogs needed a new route to the backyard. Prior, Patches and Topo would go though a doggie door from the garage, but our new ridiculously sturdy fence blocked their access to the grass. What better place for a doggie door than from the family room where they have quick access to the grass and the birds! After Scott installed their new doorway to the outside world, they quickly caught on and are loving it! 

We are super excited to safely enjoy the backyard with our little one in a few short months!

Pavers and Planter

We had three gorgeous rose bushes in a small space in our front yard. The problem was the crab grass loved the space too. In an attempt to clean up the area (and keep out the crab grass) we pulled out the rose bushes and put down pavers. After searching for the perfect pots, we settled on a great big trough at Cal Ranch. With a little salt water and hydrogen peroxide, we rusted the trough and put in some plants that should survive our mild (so far) winter. 

A Little Something More is Brewing

There is always a reason to brew something new: a recipe for a Fat Tire clone was the perfect excuse. After a week of the yeast munching on all the delicious sugars, the beer is transferred to a secondary container (before it's put into a keg and carbonated). 

It's That (Chili Sauce-Making) Time Again

Thanksgiving in the New Mexico gives us the opportunity to buy authentic chilis directly from the field. With a new recipe in hand, that involved roasting the chilis first, we were excited to make our homemade chili sauce again. 

Painting

We decided to spruce things up by painting...a lot! We started with the hallway, painted one color and repainted another color. Then we moved to the living room, dining room, and kitchen. We ended with our bedroom and are hoping to eventually get to our bathroom. Whew!

The Final Closet

We wrapped up our closet renovations with the Murphy bedroom closet. We wanted to make the space more usable...a larger shelf on top for storage and space to hang clothes for longterm guests. 

Steps for Patches

Although Patches firmly believes that she is still a puppy, her age is catching up with her. Scott and Don built steps out of some scrap wood so Patches can easily get up and down the bed. Coincidentally, one of the pieces of wood had a "P" on it!

From Washing Machine Drum to Firepit

In this house a broken washing machine doesn't go to waste. The washing drum gets converted into a high-heat emanating fire pit just in time for winter. 

Closet Renovations

After determining that we were going to get new carpet in the bedrooms, we had to decide whether or not we wanted the closets carpeted too. We chose against new carpet in the closets and embarked on our closet renovation project.

Starting with the 'beer' closet, we removed the doors, added new 'wood' floors, removed a divider in the middle, and painted. Feeling confident, we moved on to our closet, but this time we demolished all the shelving and hanging rods. Starting from complete scratch, we put in new floors, painted and added industrial piping with new wood shelves. I have to say that I'm pretty proud of us, especially Scott; and embarrassed with the amount of clothes have...Goodwill here we come! With two closets down and one more to go, we look forward to adding more pictures of our 'safe' closet. 

'Beer' room closet that gave us a little confidence

Where we started...

Where we finished!

Laboring on Labor Day...a Pallet Wall!

On our way to Big Dog's Brewing Company, we came across a stack of pallets in the road that someone had dumped. We had talked about putting up a pallet accent wall, but had yet to get the materials. Without a single trip to Lowe's, which we are quite proud of, we added the pallet wall behind our murphy bed. When you come stay with us we hope you enjoy the look! 

Before...we are also getting new carpet next weekend so the floor is torn up. 

Preparing boards

Removing nails 

Replacing the shelf