Project Loft

We have a HUGE (17' x 24') family room that I'm turning into a playroom for the kids. Here it is-the ugly closet thing is gone.

I wanted to add something fun to the room. I had a first grade teacher that had a reading loft in her room that was a lot of fun.. I thought this was a great idea, but decided to add the practicality of using it as a platform bed for kids if we had visitors (this room is also doubling as the guest room). Because winters have a tendency to be very wet here, I'm adding a slide to it.

We painted the walls blue because they weren't really a uniform colour, and I also think the owners had used an eggshell paint that wouldn't hold up to kids very well. We started with a frame of 4x4s raised up 48" on 6' posts (yes we used pressure treated porch lumber-I know it has arsenic, but hopefully the kids aren't going to chew on it). Then we surround the whole frame with 2x4s for extra support. The next step was to add some joists that would support the platform.

So far we've gotten the plywood down, put 2x4s on the upper edge rail, and cut the 2x2s for the railing. I have to sand, screw the rails on, paint, and move it into the corner (it is HEAVY). The next step will be to build a smaller platform next to it for the ladder and slide to attach to. Then I'll throw a full size mattress on the platform, add some curtains to the lower part, and put some bookshelves underneath and then I'll a cute reading nook/jungle gym/guest bed.

The sad part is that it's too big to move out of the room, so either we'll ask the owners if they want it when we move, or break it apart. We maybe able to take it apart so that we'll be able to salvage it. I'll worry about that in a few years.

Project nook

There's an eating area in our kitchen. I wanted to maximize the amount of seating as well has creating a comfy morning room. I also wanted to get some more counter space as there was very little existing in the kitchen. I decided to make a counter height table but balked at the prices of them. They were usually at least $800 for a tiny table and four chairs. I liked this banquette from Ikea Hackers that someone made out of kitchen cabinets. The cabinets would add some extra storage as well. I decided to forgo the backing and just to use pillows. When it's done, it could seat anywhere from six to eight people if they're small.

Before we got started.

Painted the walls white. It was this awful dark beige colour that's in the rest of the house. I'll tackle that later.

Because we used 15" cabinets, and the cushion is 6", and I wanted the seating to be at least 24" to match the 36" high table, we had to stack the cabinets up on 2x4s. This also ensures that the doors of the cabinets will open without scraping along the floor. Here's the layout of it. 

Plywood laid over the top for seating.

That's how far we've gotten. I need to glue the cushions together (I have two different firmnesses) and cover them. After which I'll nail moulding around the plywood to keep the cushions from sliding off. Add some pillows and voila.

The table is about halfway done. I forgot to take pictures of the lumber. It's made out of cedar because that's the only wood I could find that had all the dimensions that I needed and also wasn't going to break the bank. We cut the legs to 33" and cut two dado joints perpendicular for the cross braces. The cross braces are 2x4s glue and screwed into the legs. Then some decorative crosspieces were added. Then the table support that we're going screw the tabletop to sits on the top of the legs. Here it is with one coat of paint and upside down:

Pictures of my kids, mostly asleep

Liam was pretending to be asleep. I can back five minutes later and he was really asleep.

Alana was confused by Christmas ribbons.

Alana kept escaping from her room and refusing to take a nap. Eventually she curled up in our bed and crashed.

Liam is obessed with Mariokart lately. You can see the wheel under his arm.

She's sleeping on the Elmo sofa that's bent backwards. She's also got her foot propped up on the wall.

Found her like this one morning.

Random nap.

And of course, she keeps sleeping in the closet.

We're alive!

Sorry about the silence for the past while. We've been trying to settle in. The house we renting is great, but it needed a lot of painting and tlc since it hasn't been lived for a year. The fun part has been rooting out all the spiders that have taken up residence (Seattle spiders-yikes, they're huge).

The trip was not so fun. The truck had a power problem on day two, Alana got sick and threw up all over me in a Chinese restaurant in Baker City, the same restaurant that caused Justin and I and also poor Mike and Risa to have food poisoning, I stopped taking all my meds and went off the deep end, and the kids have stopped having a regular sleep schedule.

When we got to the house, Alana walked into the house, looked around, wandered back to the garage and buckled herself back into her car seat. It took a few weeks to convince her that we're staying here.

Since we're been here though, things have calmed down a little and been enjoying the wonderful weather. It's rained a little bit for the past month, but it only rains on average 5 days in July. I take this as more proof that Stephenie Meyer did absolutely no research as it's actually quite sunny June through September and on the summer solstice has nearly 17 hours of sunlight. It's been a nice 65 degrees most of the time, the highest we've gotten so far is about 78.

We've done a few fun things. Justin and I took the kids down to the Ballard locks to watch the water being pumped into and out of Lake Union and the salmon ladders. The fish didn't want to co-operate and we didn't see any of them jump. We also have been a few of the million parks around here (seriously, there's a ton). There's also a local YMCA that we've joined that has a fun pool. I have plans to do more in the next few months especially we live 5 miles from the zoo.

I expected things to be way more expensive here. On average, some things will be a little more expensive, but there are actually several things that are a lot less like seafood and chicken. Also since so many stores set their prices nationally, many things that we've bought cost the same here as Utah. I also figured out that since we've moved to a state that has no income tax and there's no tax on food in King County, we're actually paying less in taxes than we did in Utah (which has a @$#% flat tax and rescinded the lower tax on food). I drive a lot less here since everything I need is within a three mile radius. I also can do a lot more comparison shopping since I have two grocery stores within walking distance and four more I can drive to in less than five minutes.

All in all, I like it a lot better here than Utah. I haven't missed it at all and every so often here's some crap that happens like this that makes me thankful everyday that I don't live there anymore.

On the other hand....No, there is no other hand

50 points if you know where the title of this post came from

So last week I posted about some of the things I'm excited about in our upcoming move to Seattle (this Saturday, YAY!). Here's a post on the flip side: Things That I'm NOT Going To Miss About Utah. What? That's not the flip side? Eh, I don't really care.

UDOT. Enough said.

Snow. While I like white Christmases, I don't like snow starting in October and ending.....well, I'll let you know when it finally ends this year.

Hot summers. This is made worse by the fact I don't sweat, I RASH like crazy.

Annual winter/spring smog. I have to keep a bag in the car because I *literally* get sick sometimes when I leave the house.

The city that I live in. Let's face it, it sucks.

The school district. One of the reasons I pushed for the move so much was because Liam will be entering school soon. The Alpine school district bites, especially for special need kids.

Mountains. They make me feel very claustrophobic. Weird I know.

Mormon culture. Utah people are odd and xenophobic.

The Right Wingers that run this state. While I know there will be Republicans in Washington but Utah ranked third most conservative state in US (the first two were tied). The ones that especially piss me off are the ones that ASSume that since I don't agree with them, I must be stupid/uninformed/emotional. And then (since most of them are Mormon) when I get mad about THEIR rudeness, they'll quote a 2006 conference talk by Elder Bednar about choosing not to be offended and that "I the Lord will forgive whom I will forgive...." This does nothing to piss me off less. Apparently I'm not allowed to get offended when YOU say something rude and offensive. Rant over.

Xeroscaping. I hate looking at brown and gray. It's depressing.

Aridness. It's too @#$$%^@# dry here.

This is not a comprehensive list of the things I will not miss about Utah; it's just the least offensive ones. I've turned off the comments because I'm sure I've pissed off someone (see paragraph re: Elder Bednar's talk) and I don't really care what you think. If you're someone to bitch about this list, chances are you are among the reasons I will not be missing Utah.

Things I look forward to in Seattle

Rain. I'll probably get sick of it, but I like rain.

Fresh seafood. The only thing you can get around here is mutant trout from Utah Lake.

The kids being in separate rooms. Then hopefully they will sleep a little better and not tear their room to bits every morning.

A fenced backyard. With no deer running around to strafe the ground.

Furniture buying. I'm excited to have my OWN furniture that is not whatever we could scrounge up while we were in college.

No having to drive forever to get to anything. The closest decent grocery store is 10 minutes through some very nasty construction; Target, Costco, and frankly anything else is 15 minutes plus. The freeway currently takes 30 minutes to get to.

Asians. The area we're moving to is 22% Asian.

I knew I wasn't that creative

Today Google informed me that if he was still alive, Roger Hargreaves would be celebrating his 76th birthday today. Hargreaves is the author of the Mr. Men and Little Miss books. I LOVED these books when I was in Singapore, but when I moved here, no one knew what I was talking about so I started to believe that I had imagined the whole thing. Nice to know that I wasn't crazy.

Hargreaves also inspired me to write my own story about the Heart Family and two siblings named "Sweet" Heart and "Black" Heart. Sweet Heart was a little goody-two-shoes and Black Heart was a criminal (not so) mastermind who often got into trouble leading to cardiac arrest from their uncle "Brave" Heart. Give me a break, I was 10.