Major Renovation Project #1: the play/craft/mud room

The BEFORE:

One "locker" with various shelves. We built this 7 years ago when we moved in. It's taken quite a beating and looks quite awful. 

The awful of which I speak. Rotted wood.

The shelves; and Marley's butt. She's always got herself up in what we're tryin' to do. 

A view looking out toward the door. On the far right is the "exercise area" where the treadmill lives. Note TV hanging on wall near ceiling. This will go away and I'll miss it dearly. Oh well. 

Again, Marley's backside

Did I mention some things were in need of repair? 

Here is the "DURING". All of the shelves were ripped out, and Mark is framing in actual walls for the new "mud room".  

Mark. He's a stud (the stud finder says so). 

The walls! 

Now with cubbies and a bench! 

Someone wandering into a picture. 

From the outside doorway. 

Now a whole new room. 

Better view of "room" concept

And the painting begins. It took may 25 coats to make this look nice. Luckily my man is handy with the spray gun. 

The back wall with it's lovely row of pegs! 

Bench and cubbies below the pegs.

The new light that was installed in this area; apparently not installed well as I found it in this position just the other day. Not good. I tried to fire the contractor, but I'm married to him. 

Yikes. 

Woo hoo. Done. 

Love the wainscoting painted white. It was so dingy and written on with markers before. Kids! 

A place for everyone. 

A new rug under my desk area. All the cabinets got cleaned/scrubbed. You cannot even believe how grungy they were. 

Mark's workbench and safe. 

The exercise area. 

We (Mark) added base molding all around the room.  

So glad to be finally done. It took waaaay longer than we thought, but I love it. 

Fresh from the Garden

We got our first batch of lettuce and some broccoli last week.

Night Lights - my favorite accessory

These little chandeliers will serve as night lights, hopefully, if they are not too bright.

Happiest Girls in the Whole World

The Bunk Beds are Done!

It literally took 2 whole days to get their room put back together with the new bunk bed, bedding, curtains and accessories. There are still a few things left to do, but I was anxious to get the pictures posted.

Madison is on the bottom and Matilda is up top.

Here they are posing on the bottom with Madison's baby area.

This is Matilda's area on top. I have one more picture to post of their chandeliers, but it'll have to go in another entry.

Best Daddy

Mark has been painting the bunk bed (in the background) and so he put the girls to work helping. He has these small wood flowers that are supposed to hide some bolts (?) when it's all finished. How sweet is that?

Bunk Bed Progress

Coming Soon: Bunk Beds

In my new "Made by Mark" Series, you will see the construction of girlie bunk beds. Matilda is getting a little too big for her crib-converted-into-a-toddler-bed and so she and Madison decided to ask for bunk beds. Of course, Mark was happy to oblige his girls, and get a project in the process.

I'm including thisphoto to show the trailer in use. See "Made by Mark" post of
July 23.

Work in progress. . .