Another Basement

Our basement in this house we're renting would make a great BEFORE.

I hope you like orange and brown!

Or That 70s Show!

Yup. Orange carpet and trim, brown paneling. Straight out of the 70s.

I had fun using old things for this mantel.

We moved our old couch downstairs, I rolled out a rug to try to break up all the orange carpet, and we're using a trunk as a coffee table.

There is a crate of kid books beside the couch--forgot to take a picture of it--and I think this will be a cozy spot to curl up during the winter.

Our guest room is in the basement and grandmas are taking turns helping us out when the baby's born. Next door to this room is the boys' playroom, and Gary's office is in a section of this large living room.

There's also a gym! Gary uses this area a lot and I might use the treadmill to gently get back into walking after having a baby.

One thing missing in this basement? A bathroom! That's definitely something we'd add if this was our house. Before even changing the carpet! Painting the paneling though? That would be high on the list!

Hey, we're just thankful for the extra space! Even if it is stuck in the 70s!

Kitchen Makeover on the Cheap

I hesitate to do this, but I went down a rabbit hole.

We rent. Sometimes I get tired of it. Sometimes I'd like to knock down a wall, remodel the kitchen, or at least paint.

Sometimes I like looking a real estate listings in random towns. Towns where I know no one and have no plans of ever living. Yesterday I was looking at a tiny little town in Kansas. Please don't ask why. I'll sound like an idiot trying to give you a reason when I don't really have one.

But I found a cute little place. Something my family could actually afford and it would hold us and our stuff nicely. It's a regular 1960s ranch, the type I gravitate toward.

I was looking through the pictures (there were over 40! Good job, listing agent!) and fell hard for this kitchen.

Again, I hesitate to say that, because compared to some of the amazing kitchens we've all drooled over on other blogs and in Better Homes and Gardens and on Pinterest, normal kitchens are so dark and dated and small... At least in houses I live in, and in those I can afford.

But there was this!

Not high end, not white, not granite or anything fancy. Just.... normal. But better. The wood is pretty, not orangey-oak. And so much work space!

I started daydreaming of what I would do with that kitchen. I though immediately of Thrifty Decor Chick's wood cabinets with a white beadboard backsplash.

Adding beadboard or beadboard wallpaper would help brighten up the kitchen, as would painting all of those brown walls a pretty gray, like Benjamin Moore's Wickham Gray.

Next I would address the one big blank wall where there is now some art. I'd love to add some shelves and a rolling cart that could double as an island. I would keep baking supplies here, then roll my cart over to where I wanted to work on making bread or cookies. I could leave it in the middle of the kitchen as an island, or tuck it out of the way under the shelves. I think only one would fit in this particular kitchen, though I love what they did at Cozy Cottage Cute! The carts and the shelves are from IKEA.

I might prefer the look of wood and white shelves like this cute display at Rooms For Rent. I would use two instead of three so the cart could fit underneath.

It's hard to tell from the picture how wide the eat-in kitchen space is. I would love to have a farm style table built for me, and I like the idea of benches that tuck under it. I would like to have two contrasting chairs at the ends, either tolix metal chairs, or something upholstered. This beautiful table is from Hometalk but based off of Ana White's plans.

To give the dining area more interest, I'd like to continue the beadboard around behind the table, capped with a shelf like this one. (I found this image on Pinterest which linked it to this post at The Frugal Homemaker from 2011! But it's a link to the House of Smiths where Shelly linked it to something Layla from The Lettered Cottage was working on, but I don't think it was in Keven & Layla's home, so I didn't chase that rabbit any longer.) I would put my chalkboard menu, artwork by the kids, seasonal banners and things on the shelf and enjoy the white with gray above instead of the dark brown wall. Can you picture it?

To add more color to my kitchen, I would use my blue Ball jars. I have a set I use for drinking glasses, and I'd keep an eye out for more ways to add some turquoise, like these adorable cafe curtains!

Or a soap dispenser!

I also like the look of this rug to add more color, either a small one in front of the sink, or a large on under the table, though with little kids I like to be able to sweep.

So no, it's not the perfect kitchen, but I think I could be perfectly happy with it. What about you? What do you look for in a normal kitchen? How would you add color and personality to this space?

Landscape Garden

We don't have a designated "garden" this year. We're renting and didn't want to tear up the lawn, plus we knew we didn't have time and energy for a real garden. We did, however have empty landscape beds around the house, so we spent a few dollars at Lowe's on Mother's Day and put in a couple of our favorite things.

Since we didn't plant from seed, some things like basil have been producing for us all summer, but other things are just starting to come to fruition! Today was what seemed like the first harvest--finding four cucumbers big enough to pick!

So for our records I busted out the ever-ready cell phone and snapped some pictures of our little landscape garden, as of the third week in July.

We planted these cherry tomatoes for the kids. They've been asked to wait until they turn red, but after than they can pick and eat when they want.

Here's another angle of the cherry tomatoes, which have been the right size for a couple weeks. When will they ever ripen?

I adore eggplant. I know some people don't like the texture, but I've never had issues with that. For some reason they've never done well in the garden for me, so I'm excited about this little guy that's about the size of an apple.

Something is obviously enjoying the leaves of this sweet bell pepper plant, but since the tiny peppers are still doing fine, we're leaving it.

The largest peppers about the size of the cherry tomatoes, but growing fast!

Beefsteak tomatoes are the epitome of summer to me. I can't wait to have a big slice on a piece of gluten-free bread with lots of mayo! And maybe some of the basil you'll see in a big. Mmmm!

I think these tomatoes (above) are supposed to turn yellow. I like those. Somehow they're more mellow than red tomatoes. Yum.

Then of course there are roma tomatoes! Romas mean bruschetta to me. Another summer staple.

This cucumber looks a little funky, but oh well! I'm so tired of spending money on cucumbers and I'm thrilled we got to pick four today! I love cucumber sandwiches and lots of cucumbers in Greek salads too. Hopefully we won't have to buy any more this summer.

Sadly our parsley disappeared (rabbits? squirrels? the wood chip mulch?) and our cilantro bolted so fast I couldn't make it stop, but our basil is big and healthy!

These (below) are jalepeno peppers, our oldest son's request. He and his daddy have shared about three, but they've decided to wait a couple weeks to see if they get spicier. Looks like we have most of the ingredients for salsa!

The one thing missing from our garden is zucchini. We planted several hills but they got rained out and I haven't replaced them yet. I still can, right?

Do you have a garden? Do you throw a few things into your landscaping? I think it's the best way to garden and I'd like to do it on a bigger scale when we have our own property again.

Ok, I'm off to figure out some way to enjoy cucumbers and basil with our supper. We were going to have tacos... Hmm.

Triple Boy Bedroom

You know, I think this post was what caused my unintended blogging vacation in June. Not that it's a big deal--it's not! The pictures just didn't turn out great and I'm too annoyed to go back and retake them, and editing them was so intimidating... I don't really have chunks of time to spend editing bad pictures. So I took 20 minutes today and just did a few things. No watermark, no painstaking editing, just super-easy short cuts.

And you know what? It's just for the record anyway. I'm not trying to make a bunch of beautiful, pin-worthy pictures. That's not my intention. I just want to look back in a few years and be able to see the cute, triple bedroom we created for our boys. So that's what I'm putting here!

You know, now that I waited a good 6 weeks since I took these pictures, things have changed a little. I'll do some updates soon. Hang on to your seats!

It works best right now for us to have all three boys together in one room. I'm usually a divide-and-conquer kind of person, but instead of dividing the boys, we divided the purpose of the rooms.

This is Josiah's bed. He's in the middle because he's most apt to to to sleep! I know it would have been more practical to have my youngest (he just turned three) against the wall, but he's doing really well and it helps the older boys to have him in the middle. Josiah still uses the original transportation quilt my mom got when Jonathan was just transitioning out of a crib. *Grandma just gave Josiah his jean quilt that she made for him, so in the updates you can see that.

This is Jonathan's bed. This room is long and narrow, and I liked the idea of having two of the beds under windows and the third in the middle with two nightstands in between. The dressers are on the opposite wall. You'll see that in a minute.

Jared is on the right. Each boy's quilt has a different color back. Jonathan's is blue, Jared's is red, Josiah's is green. The color of the blanket is the same as that boys' sheets. Just how we made it work for us!

This room is in the basement, right across the hall from the room Gary and I use. That means the windows are up high, but there are four of them and they're a little larger than most basement windows because we're in a raised ranch. I think this is a bonus room, or family room or something. It doesn't have a real door, but the three boys don't care!

Each boy has a special bear from build-a-bear. They don't have many stuffed animals, but they do like their bears!

At each end of the room, I hung a set of hooks and strung twine between them. The boys keep more artwork here, hung with clothes pins.

Towels on a propeller hook, a bin for laundry, church shoes in a row. The boys have bins of out of season clothes and clothes that are in-between sizes under the stairs. There's also a rod in there for hanging church outfits. Other than that, all their clothes are in the dressers and shoes live upstairs in a closet.

You can tell we once had an airplane theme! We have quite a few pieces left, but some have been given away in our downsizing over the last two years. The red dresser and yellow dressers belonged to Gary and his brother when they were little!

So there you go, a quick little tour of our simple solution for our three boys! What do we do with the upstairs bedrooms? Funny, but they're kinda extra! We're just all cozy downstairs! One is our classroom and one is a guest room where the daycare kids nap and where I keep art supplies. Now you know!

Anyway, hope you have a great day!