before and after, one more time

~Before~

I wanted to show the dramatic

difference in side by side pic's.

(or in this case top to bottom).

pretty big difference, huh?

~After~

You may also note on the roof

of the original picture you can 

see the chairs the boys use  

 from time to time.

And if you look even closer you

will also see a box of Shasta's

resting right next to the chimney.

Empty, of course.

You may ALSO note that after

weeks of no rain and scorching

temperatures, our lawn is slowly

dying.  There is no hope this

summer unless we see some rain.

Soon.

If you give a mouse a cookie....

Or if you give Kyle a project...

So the porch was done and 

his palms were itching...

The paint samples were 

on the house.

Light?

or dark?

If you lived in the 'hood

and walked by, you got a vote.

(Not that it ultimately mattered)

But still, we wanted you to

feel like you were a part

of the process in some small way.

First step?

Fill in the "gable" on the front.

This part of the project was free

thanks to the Mark Nielson

"leftover" store.  Kyle's dad

used shingles on his house last

year (the year before?) and

had a whole pile of leftovers

that Kyle was able to use for 

our project!  Thanks Mark Depot! 

Progress on the gable

Looming question?

Dark or light paint?

Weather proofing the front

Vent for the attic

Filling in shingles

above and 

below

Shingles in and primed.

Paint started.

Dark won...

As it looks today.

The front is finished to the

garage.  It has been 100 degrees

here for over a week.

Kyle is waiting until it dips

below 95 to resume painting

(with a roller in case you're

wondering...tedious and tiring)

What do we think?

Glad you asked!

We LOVE IT!!

It totally updates our home

from 1950 (when it was built)

to 2012.  It looks sleek,

cooler, more modern and clean.

We seriously LOVE IT!

(did i mention that)

For any purists who are against

painting brick--well you can keep

yours how you want it, right?

Until the end...that's my update.

dumpster diving

Once a year in our neighborhood

the city brings in dumpsters so

that residents can dispose of

garbage.  One day while Kyle

was getting rid of OUR garbage

he found THIS metal chair in 

the dumpster...and well, he

"dove" in and retrieved it.

What can we say?

It was awfully retro and cute

and seemed like an easy thing

to fix to fit into our kitchen.

My mother in law (had she seen

this in its original RED color)

would've probably wrestled me

and Kyle to the ground for it--

she's a BIT of a "red fanatic".

(Understatement of the year.)

So we found a cool (ugly) green to

match the kitchen and sanded and painted....

And painted and painted (and swore

a little under our breaths at all

the painting....)

Here we have the finished product.

This is a pretty bad picture

(I blame the photographer...)

but it turned out pretty cute and

it matches all the blues and

greens in my kitchen (which of

course is recycled itself so 

this matches perfectly!)

It sits in a nice spot under

the window and is a fun accent.

crumbling, eroding, falling to pieces, falling apart

My man, he likes a project.  Call him crazy, call him handy, or just

call him my man.  Some men like to bike and run--Kyle he likes

to build and fix.  So when the last piece of railing fell of the

porch of our 61 year old house this spring and the steps

continued eroding into little pieces of garden pebbles, we 

looked into pouring new cement.  Prices we heard were high,

anywhere from $1500 to $2000.  

Sigh, 

we didn't have that to spend on steps, so being

the handy man that he is Kyle looked into tiling over

the bad cement for a 10 year fix.  He had seen it done

and thought it might work.  We made our way to 

our favorite tile store (Tile For Less) where they

now know us on a first name basis and even 

feel comfortable enough with us to let a swear

word out (or two.)  We found some rough surfaced

tile that even looked like cement and the price tag

on THIS was closer to $150. 

Labor: Free

We saved ourselves a cool $1200 (or so) dollars.

I forgot how BAD!!!! these steps looked until

today when I pulled up these pictures!

Crumbling, Eroding, Falling to pieces...

(and you thought this post was going 

to be about ME right? ha ha)

Here is our porch remodel.

SERIOUSLY?? Yikes!!!

Quite literally...falling to pieces

bad, bad and just plain bad!

Temporary wood holding up porch roof, important details!

Hard at work

Rain

OR shine!

Making progress

New tile is kind of like "if you give a mouse a cookie...."

(the book) it leads to other things, right?  The old

metal 1950's post that was holding UP the roof over

the porch ALSO fell off (can't wait to see what

else falls off this old house--it AMAZES me sometimes

to think what we paid for a completely broken

down old house to live a good location ("location,

location, location!") in Salt Lake City.

I digress though....where was I?

Things falling apart, ah yes, the post...it fell off too.

Kinda gotta have a post to hold up the roof so Mr. Handy

thought he would build a lovely new one out of wood.

As follows:

New Post

Leveling and making thing straight

Adding some "bulk", some "beef", some "texture"

Caulking and wood fill

OHHHH pretty!

Time for primer and paint

And there it is!!

New steps!

New post!

Sing Hallelujah! 

Can you see how this is leading to painting the

old trim white that is now old and tan and peeling?

And can you see the samples of gray

paint on the house?

UH-HUH!

If you give a mouse a cookie...

or in my case if you give my man some tile...

Thank goodness he's CHEAP!

Next on the agenda, scraping and painting the all old trim a 

new shiny white.  Kyle plans on hand painting the brick to 

bring orange 1950's brick up to the 2012's.  

No offense to any who love old orange brick--our house

is just ready for a change.  We think we've settled on a 

color, and it will probably take all summer to finish this--but we

have NOTHING but time on our hands~

graduation

He did it!

(Not that it was ever a question)

I thought I would be more sad...but

I think I cried all my "sad tears/it's the last

thing he's doing tears" all year long.

My mom asked how I felt

and I said said, "strangely HAPPY!"

For him.

His future.

His accomplishment.

The hope, the promise

of what can come.

It was a nice night...we

didn't see enough of him--his

friends got all his time.

But, I guess, that's how it should be.

Olympus High Senior Graduation, 2012.

They will be the last graduating

class from the old Olympus building.

Pretty cool.

Ceremonies held at U of U.

May 31, 2012.

My "sons"  Tanner, Josh, Coleman (Jackson) & Brev (Nate)

Grandma Ladanye and Grandparents "Regular"

Gathering the (fake) diploma 

Cole, Mitchell, Tanner, Brady, Coleman & Josh

Proud sister and her brother.

Grandma and Josh

Yup, they (think) are pretty cool.

All gathered together....

Silver caps, girls.

Green caps, boys.

More shots of the homies

Grace with her extra brothers.

SOOOOOO typical, Josh and Gray

Josh and the girls

Just Josh

Josh Tanner Brev

Tanner, Josh, Coleman and Brev

Josh and Chris

Josh and Connor

Congrats Josh we are so proud of you!!

We love you very much!!

Now he's off to Newport Beach, CA

for a week with 30 boys.

And 30 more girls just down the road.

All from Olympus.

Senior Trips.

Heaven help Newport Beach.

I'm off to take a Xanax.