2013 Family Holiday Photos

Let me start this post by saying that I have super talented friends: see this, this,this and many more. Another amazing example is Katie Mauer of Katie Mauer Photography. Recently we had a large family photo session with all of the local family members and these are SOME of the awesome results. We are holding a few back for holiday cards.


I can't say enough how wonderful it is to work with Katie. This is the third time Katie has officially taken photos for me and every time I'm very impressed with her work.

Thank you Katie! You take great photos. (No, this post isn't sponsored - to be honest, she doesn't know I'm doing this- I just love our photos.)

Oh, and one extra for good measure:

My Pottery Barn Dining Table Knockoff.

I've always wanted a huge dining room table. Over the past few years I've stalked many blogs that made farmhouse tables (more specifically the Pottery Barn Benchwright). (See: Ana-White and here, Perfectly Imperfect, Contemporary Harbor and many many more.) I took in as much knowledge as I could and started forming a plan. (This plan included getting my dad on-board to help, but lucky for me he is always on-board for a building project.) All of the tables I read about were too small and they all faked the 4x4 through parts, I had to figure out how to make it nearly 9 feet long (ended up 8 feet 8 inches) and how to make the legs more legit. (Oh and for less than 300 bucks!)

I am super lucky to have such wonderful friends and family. It truly took a village to build this thing. <3

It all started in my friend Alan's cabinet shop where we (they: Alan, Dad and Chris) cut all the boards and used Alan's awesome skills to give this table an upgrade.
The upgrade started with Alan building a template.
After the template was built, Alan, Dad and Chris used a plunge router to create holes in the 4x4 legs to allow the cross piece in the legs to really go through, unlike many of the knockoffs we found. Chris gets a few bonus points for dedication to our project. He showed up in his dress clothes after a hard night of partying. :)
Then we took the boards back to our house where I began laying out the tabletop. Dad and I decided which boards worked best where. Once it was all set, I got to use my favorite building tool (the kreg jig) to drill a ton of pocket holes to join the boards together. Once the holes were all drilled, dad and I started joining boards with lots of glue and the pocket holes.

Then it looked like this! We were starting to get excited! Then I sanded. And sanded. And sanded.
And sanded a little more.

Next I started the finishing process on the bottom first:
2 coats of wood conditioner
2 coats of weathered oak
2 coats of special walnut
4 coats of poly

Then I got to do it all over again to the top.

Then to the legs...

Hey look, my turnbuckle came in the mail!!

Once the table was finished dad and Chris put the legs on. After that, they drilled holes and put the rods and turnbuckle on the bottom (that I had spray painted with a brown paint.) I got to supervise this part because Miles wanted nothing but his mommy at the time.
Holy crap it is done. We did it. We built a table.
And in time for Thanksgiving. Success!!! (14 people around that baby!)

All I can say is THANK YOU! THANK YOU! To Dad, Alan, Chris and Paul.

Paul is always a stanch supporter of my insane ideas and enables me to have the free-time to do these crazy things. Love you!

Did you get the demo memo?

Last week we started the process of getting two of our wall mounted toilets converted to normal ones. As with anything plumbing, there are ALWAYS surprises.

Someone in this house's past life did a pretty crappy job with everything plumbing. The wall mounted toilets were installed crookedly and would have never gotten a good seal, hence the conversion. Our awesome plumber started the process to unearth the pipes.

Bathroom 1 went fairly smoothly except that we discovered the tile wasn't waterproofed so the water from the shower was just leaking through the tile. FUN.

Bathroom 2... oh bathroom 2. The past-life plumber (or DIYer?) decided encasing the pipes in concrete sounded like a stellar idea. This makes our current plumber's life a little more difficult and the hole in our floor much larger. Oh and that tub next to the toilet, they did a crappy repair there causing leakage too... So that pretty wood floor in the bedroom next to the bathroom, oh yes, some of that is gone. Oh and there was 2 inches of layered sub-floor from years of half-assed bathroom renovations.

Luckily for us we have kick-ass friends. This weekend Chris (the friend, not the brother) removed all the tile and sub-floor in bathroom 2 in a half an hour.

Next Chris started on the tile nightmare that is bathroom 1 and then went to go help another friend with a honey do!

And in a matter of minutes Dad built an awesome wagon to assist in the effort!

When Chris returned, Paul and dad both jumped into help. 6 or so hours later (and a lot of beer and sweat) we have a clean slate. I can't seem to find a way to accurately express how much work they put into this. Removing the tile from the walls was NOT easy. They rock.

Man's best friend

No Tile!

Oh and a little bonus for you... bathroom 1 had 1 small section of insulation?

Oh and somehow Paul managed to squeeze in replacing a motion sensor light and fixing a sprinkler too. Plus we had people over for football watching and went to a Halloween festival in town. We need a weekend from our weekend but instead we're both back at work feeling like zombies. (Thanks especially to our adorable children for the lack of sleep last night!)

Pumpkin Patch 2013!

This weekend we went to the Pinery Pumpkin Patch with the Vargas, Petersens and the amazing Becca. She took some wonderful photos.

A little Throwback Thursday, 2012 Pinery Pumpkin Patch: