The last seven days few months have been extremely busy for us. We have been working hard on house projects, preparing for the upcoming crop cycle, taking care of cattle, and added restoring our office space to the list.
The office renovation started before I could get a before shot. The change is pretty dramatic. Of course it had to include my favorite color, purple. :) Redbeard insisted on having grey walls, which worked well to brighten up the space and would work with purple trim!. This is quite a difference from the dark wood paneling walls and dark colored carpet. In order to get the paint to stick to the paneling, we used Zinnser 123 primer. Two coats of primer and two coats of paint later, we have a beautiful, new office space!
On the floor we painted on an epoxy "garage floor." This gave us a fast, easy floor covering.
We can't wait to get our bookshelf and desks situated! What do you think of our office space?
The room is cleared and the floors are washed! It is time to refinish the wood floors in my Purple Palace! Here is a peek of what the room looks like today. I am anxious to get to work, but cleaning up after Christmas comes first! I will settle for sharing the before pictures!
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| Floors vacuumed and supplies out and ready! |
I am excited for all the scratches and imperfections to be history! Hopefully we know what we are doing!
My mom found grey curtains that work perfectly with the purple walls! Redbeard put them up for me and I love them!
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| My new curtains are finally up! Woohoo! |
Next up I will share the products we are using to make my dream room complete!
For a look at the process, check out
My Purple Palace.
So I am falling behind on the 30 Day challenge! Ugh, I am determined to not fail. I will catch up!
I have been busy making barn quilt blocks! I made a couple for Christmas presents that I can't post yet. I will share them after I give them out!
This one will be purple, lavender, grey, and black. I am so excited to share the final product with everyone! I am going to keep it for myself, so as soon as it is finished I will write about it!
For twenty years I enjoyed my own version of crocheting. When I was young I would crochet a whole skein of yarn into a mile long chain. After I finished I would take it out, roll it up into a ball, and start over again. On January 6, 2012, I decided it was time to "grow up" and make something more than a chain. What came next was a huge surprise! I was actually good at crocheting!
I started with making Redbeard a blanket for his bed that was brown, black, green, cream, and hunter orange. Yeah, I was trying to be a good girlfriend and earn some future housewife points. To be nice I decided to make him something manly.
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| My first project! |
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| I even put a fancy hunter orange trim on it! |
After I finished this blanket, I decided to make a pretty pink blanket. I really liked a crocheting style that my grandma used to make prayer shawls. I really like how mine turned out, also! It was a mystery how she made her prayer shawls like this, so I had to ask how she made them. It is a triple then single crochet alternated with a long chain woven through the stitches. It was nice to go back to my old style of crocheting and make an actual project!
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| I love how this blanket turned out! |
The next project I tackled were some scarves for Christmas. I made five scarves, but two of them were very special. My cousin was looking for a way to tell the family she was going to have a baby, so I made them matching scarves! It turned out better than I expected! They were so cute!
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| Mary and I with her matching, Mommy and Baby scarves. |
After Thanksgiving I told my mom that I would make her a queen size blanket for Christmas. It ended up being a birthday present since I didn't get it done until June. She picked a new stitch, called Larksfoot, for me to learn.
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| The finished product |
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| Up close view of the Larksfoot stitch |
When I finished her blanket, I decided I needed to make one for myself. So I bought purple, gray, silver, and black yarn and got started. After my mom's blanket, I completely fell in love with this crocheting stitch.
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| The first crocheting project that is just for me! |
As you can see, I am addicted to crocheting. When I am stressed, bored, or relaxed I reach for my crocheting bag. I am so glad I decided to grow up and learn how to crochet!
So by now everyone should know I have an unhealthy obsession with purple. I have always wanted a K-State purple colored room. When I was a kid, my mom wouldn't let me because she thought I would grow out of crazy ideas. Well, the only thing she accomplished is not having the room in her house.
A few months ago, Jake and I transformed one of the bedrooms into my childhood dream. It now serves as my workout/crocheting room.
Here are some pictures of the progress. There are still a couple things left to do, but they will wait for cooler weather.
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| Before picture of carpet and wallpaper |
First, we had to take the blue carpeting out of the room. Underneath the carpet we found a very pleasant surprise. The floor underneath was a beautiful, almost perfect wood floor. We were hoping it would be nice, but were shocked that it was so nice.
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| Our first look at the wood floor underneath |
We were surprised to find only a few issues with the floor. There were staples everywhere and the finish was not looking so good. I pulled out the staples and decided the rest of the floor work should happen in cooler weather. I will post about this process later on when I actually get to the work.
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| After everything was off the floor |
When all of the staples were out of the floor, I moved on to the wallpaper removal. This was the longest section of the transformation so far. I tried using DIF (a wallpaper removal product) and finally landed on plain water in a spray bottle. It seemed to work the best. My routine was spray the wall down, rub the water into the paper, and wait a few minutes to remove. It took awhile, but it was well worth the wait.
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| Blue and white walls underneath the wallpaper |
As I said before, I have wanted K-State purple walls in a room for many years. When I was younger, I wanted my bedroom to be painted dark purple and my mom told me I would not like purple by the time I was in middle school. When I was in middle school, I still wanted a purple room! She finally gave in when I was in Europe the summer before my junior year of high school. Now that I have my own home to improve, the first thing I did was paint three rooms purple. I feel like I really showed her!
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| All finished! The beautiful purple walls I have dreamed of for years! |
Here is a peek at my exercise equipment next to the BEAUTIFUL purple walls! :) I remember hearing that Google did a study and found that employees working in purple rooms were most productive out of all the colors. Let's hope this is a little more true in the future! I haven't been using my workout equipment as much as I should. In my defense, I have been using the great outdoors for my exercise! This winter, the equipment will get used frequently!
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| My treadmill |
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| My elliptical and crocheting chair |
Now if I could just get Jake to get my gray curtains put up! Look forward to the next post in the home improvement series, Wood Floors Renewed!
About a year ago, I first learned about barn quilts. I hadn't heard of them until the Ag Heritage Park put two up on their barn. My grandparents founded Ag Heritage Park in 1999. My grandpa had a vision to honor where American agriculture has come from and show the future generation what the past was like.
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| My grandparents inside Ag Heritage Park |
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| View of Ag Heritage Park from the parking lot |
My aunt, Connie Larson helped get the Kansas Flint Hills Quilt Trail started. They have been putting on workshops in the Manhattan area to get others interested in making quilt blocks. If you are interested in attending a workshop or would like to keep up to date on the latest quilt block news visit Kansas Flint Hills Quilt Trail's facebook page.
Last month my grandma asked if I would help with the barn quilt block workshop being held at the Ag Heritage Park. I said I would help not knowing what I was getting myself into. I started a block that day and now I am addicted!
I chose to do a pattern that used four colors. I wanted to incorporate my favorite colors, purple, pink, orange, and green. I drew out the pattern on the 2' x 2' board and then used Frogtape to tape all the lines around the first color. I decided to paint the biggest portion of the board first.
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| Quilt block after first paint color with tape still on the board |
The paint has to dry in between applications. Some colors, like red and orange, can take up to six coats. When the paint is dry and thick enough, the tape can be peeled off and a new color can be taped. I took some pictures in between the first coat and being finished and they disappeared from my phone. You will have to use your imagination to see how it looked right before it was completed.
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| This is my quilt block after I finished it....the first time |
After looking at the block that I painted for awhile, I wasn't completely satisfied. My mom helped me redesign in so I wouldn't have to completely repaint. We decided to extend the purple lines to meet and add green and purple triangles. I think the after is much better! Let me know what you think! I plan to do a step by step post in the future and I will make sure the pictures are saved on the computer!
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| The after picture |
I decided I would make my mom a quilt block for Christmas. I made it last weekend and I think it turned out really nice. She added some final touches to it since she is more artistic than me. It turned out great. The block I made is on the left and Mom's first quilt block is on the right.
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Quilt block made by me on the left and
Mom's first one on the right |
My Grandma Zimmerman has made two blocks so far and is working on her third. My aunt has made too many to count. Her skill is much better than mine!
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Grandma Zimmerman even made a couple.
Here is her "Farmer's Daughter" block. |
If you would like to see our quilt blocks and many other ones, come to the Ag Heritage Park (103 S. Main Alta Vista, KS) on September 28, 2013. There will be a quilt block show from 9 am - 4 pm in Alta Vista.
Like Ag Heritage Park and Kansas Flint Hills Quilt Trail on Facebook for more information!
I remember seeing our house for the first time. It seemed perfect for us. There were definitely changes that needed to be made and the bathrooms were on the top of the list.
We needed to turn two back-to-back bathrooms into one bathroom. This was our first experience with home design and decor. I was nervous about picking out the best bathroom components. We split the decisions up between us and hoped that we would end up with a nice result.
We were very surprised by the result. We actually put together a nice bathroom. I wish we would have taken a better before picture, but we didn't imagine the result would make us so happy. Both bathrooms were 4.5 feet by 9 feet. One of the bathrooms had a beautiful blue bathtub and toilet and were replaced with nice, new, WHITE ones.
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| Bathroom number 1 before complete with a blue bathtub and toilet |
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| Bathroom number 2 before with a shower and blue sink |
I remember coming to visit Jake and seeing what the bathroom looked like when it was gutted. There was a lot of space. The wheels started turning and we began to plan.
We chose a grayish porcelain tile that would go with both the brown cabinets and purple decorations that I wanted. I was very happy with how it looked when we laid it out on the floor. We decided on a diagonal laying pattern. I was shocked to see how much pattern affects the look of the floor.
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| The floor after it was finished |
When we went to pick out cabinets, there was one design that stuck out to me. We chose to get kitchen cabinets in the design I wanted from the beginning. The kitchen style allowed us to have taller cabinets and design the layout we wanted. The result was exactly what we had envisioned.
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| I fell in love with the detail on these cabinets! |
We finished up the design process with choosing the counter top, bathtub, and wall color. The wall color is the only place that mistakes were made. I wanted a smoky purple colored wall and picked out the wrong color. We had to repaint the walls, but it looks so much better. It turned out perfect!
Decorating was the last item on the list. I couldn't find curtains that I liked so my mom offered to sew them for me. She did a great job! I registered for the purple and gray floral pictures and they look great! I just have figure out on which wall they will hang.
Here is the final result! I think it turned out better than I dreamed of and expected! Tell us what you think!
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| The after result |
Stay tuned for the next post about the house.... My purple palace
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