CSN Discovery

There are so many things I need for this house.  I can't stop thinking about redoing the backyard, it's going to be so awesome.  I got a quote from a concrete guy to pour a 1,000 sq ft slab and broom finish would be about $4,000 total.  Is that a good deal?  I have no idea, but I know I can't do it myself. Definitely not a DIY project for me.  But oh how I dream about how cool it will be to hang out out there.

I found these great barstools at a CSN shop, http://www.allbarstools.com/

I can just see myself sitting back with my ice mocha watching my kids play.   And for $98.99 and FREE Shipping, you can't really beat it.

Online shopping gets me every time.  I always get caught up putting everything my little heart wants into my basket.  Like we NEED a chandelier over our bed, isn't this one pretty?

Then I decide I need this fireplace for our living room

Paint the wood  white? Sand up the corners a bit. So cute, yes?
Then I found Beadboard wall paper.

This I MUST HAVE, and apparently everyone else thinks so too. So of course I click "Email me when available" But you can paint it and everything.
Eh, I hate having to have priorities. Can't I just have everything? 

I have OPD

I have OPD, it's pretty obvious and pretty bad.  Couldn't hide it if I tried.  OPD.  Obsessive Project Disorder.

1. We are still working on our front porch, but it's been raining, DUH. It's October in Seattle.  But it looks like we are going to have a few days of sun, so we may get it sudo finished this weeked.

THE BEFORE.... Makes me shutter to look it.

THE NOW. We just need to make the stair stringers, and put down the stair decking.  The railings can wait, LOL. But the fence is gone and I got the grass planted.

2. The dining booth still needs another couple coats of paint, and 2 coats of poly. 

3. My master bedroom "closet" still looks like this

4. Soooooo then why are am thinking about the living room, moving the boys upstairs, moving the door of the "office" and putting Lue in there? 

Just want to decorate a girls room?  Build a mini-kitchen? The office would be so much more functional without the huge bed in there.

Eh, Priorities. Finish deck!

The Booth Reveal

I went with Hamilton Blue.  But my big secret is I just had Home Depot match the Benjamin Moore color. They said they do it all the time for  BM colors and I didn't have to drive 1.5 hours to go get it; Redneck picked it up on his way home from golf.

So here we are before and gold. 

Benjamin Moore Hamilton Blue, so glad I went dark.  By the way, I strongly considered using oil base.  It's so much stronger and I think would hold up to a lot of wear.  But oil doesn't have as much elasticity as latex so I'm afraid with the flex and flux of the vinyl when people sat down, the oil would crack.   So once it's all said and done, there will be 2 coats primer, 3 coats paint, and 2-3 coats of matte water - base polyurethane. 

And the AFTER. I am so happy with the result.  Even the faux wood tabletop doesn't look too bad.

BEFORE and AFTER
 Linking up to:

Ehhh, WRONG

I really want these seats to be a shade of blue, I think it says "Country" best. But I had this "teal" from our last house. Just a year and a half ago, I would have painted everything this color, Laurel Mist. I LOVED it.  I loved it soo much.  Now, NOT so much.

So after the kids went to sleep, I threw a coat on.  Too green... better than gold but still too green. 

If I stay with a light color, I'll be going with Martha Stewarts "Robins Egg".  What do you think?

But I'm torn.  I think I may need to go darker, to ground it.

I love Hamiliton Blue by BM, but I don't want to drive an hour an a half to the closest BM.

So, then theres' Winters Lake by Behr but I much prefer the Hamilton Blue.

What do you think?

Smitten Restaurant Booth

We have been "making do" with my parents table, it was tight and wobbly.  I didn't like it at all, but it worked. 

I consider myself a faithful customer to Second Use. Ok, maybe a bit more than "faithful", probably more like Stalking customer. Anyway, every morning I log onto their site and check for newly listed items and Ooooo and Awhhh over them.  But last week, I had to dive in.  At $95, I thought it was a steal.  66" x 48" would fit perfectly of where I'd been dreaming about putting a booth.

(the only picture I saw before buying it)

I thought it was brown, ugly 70's brown, but that was ok. I didn't mind.  So I called in and bought it. I was soo excited.  Redeck went and got it the next day, it's an hour drive and we had to borrow my dad's van.  We got it on the back porch and I started to scrub 30 years of nasty away, luckily no smoke smell, just filth.  So I finished scubbing and realized, it's not brown, it's GOLD. LOL. 

 (this shot combines the faux wood countertops, different faux wood tabletop and GOLD seats).

Oh well, ugly is ugly.  But it was so functional.  We ripped out the cabinets and gave those away in a day thanks to my best friend, Craig... Craigslist that is! 

So it looked this way for a week. I couldn't decided if I wanted to pay $200 for vinyl paint and haul the whole thing outside and paint. Granted it's now October in Seattle, which means we have another 8 months of solid rain, and I do not have a garage or carport. 

So I decided to start with a latex primer. I'll do  2 coats. Then 3 coats of the gray / blue you can see over the dishwasher. Then another 3 coats of a flat sealer.  It will probably take me 3-4 weeks because I have to work at nap time and bed time, and in the mean time, it still has to function. 

But as for now..  I am one happy momma!!!

Who I am

Who I am ~

My name is Melissa. I am a child of God. Wife to Redneck. Mother of the Rhyne Brine.

I am a dreamer. I am a planner. I am creative. I am an optimist. 

I am a support personality. I am a pusher. Not a push you out of my way, but a push you towards YOUR goal.

I am a bows(wo)man.  Shooting my fire arrows to light the world on fire. Psalms 127:3-5My children are why I am here, to teach them and support them.  They are my biggest blessing.

I love what Redneck and I have been through together, now we are strong. Built on the ROCK

I am a giver, learned from my mother.

I am simple, don't try to figure me out. There is nothing to figure out. I like you, I want to help you and am here for you. OR I don't like you much because of your negativity or narcissism. But I am learning to love all.

I love living small, it's the new big.

Where I live ~

Outskirts of Seattle, in Cow Town. We just bought our first family house.  It's 920 sq ft of bliss. It is PERFECT. We are 0.8 miles away from my parents, can walk to town for ice cream or coffee.  We have awesome neighbors. 

What I love about my home ~

That its ours.  We were in negotiations for this house for 4 months, it almost feel through about 5 times) but everytime something came up, inspector issue, loan processing, etc. GOD CAME THROUGH.

It was build in 1916, needs a lot of work. My family was "if-y" about the house, didn't outright say it but you could tell. With everything that kept coming up, they seemed to want us to back out.  But the more things that came up, the more I felt that this house was God's, and He wanted us to have it. Every family needs an embassy. My family is going to do great things and we needed a home.  I feel like our family is a threat to Satan and he tried everything to make sure we couldn't get this house.  But God just laughed and the impossible became possible.


I love that my architecture background is turning this house into our home. I love being able to make a warm, functional home for my family who homeschool and work from  home. 

My favorite room is ~

 The master bedroom.

Although by the time I get to spend time here, I am 3 seconds away from unconsciousness, I love how serene it feels. I love the built in night stands and my daughters built in co-sleeper that I built.

My favorite thing to do DIY wise is ~

I wish I could chose a favorite, but I love it all. I love painting, walls, murals, plaques, anything. I love building something from nothing. I love demolishing. I love reorganizing.

I wish I knew how to ~

CODE.  Like build computer applications.

Then I could speak to my Redneck and actually understand what he's talking about 95% of the time. He is a genius. I am serious.  It runs in his family.  There has been a genius in every generation of the Richardsons (his mother's maiden name) as far back as they can remember.

I am not the book smart, I am terrible at memorizing anything.  But I was smart enough to snag my Redneck before anyone else did.   And that is my genius, I love creating something when most people would see nothing.  When we were dating, Redneck thought it would be awesome to be a barista, really!  But I quickly smothered that dream and shoved him a whole 'nother direction, where he should have been going in the first place. CHASING BIG Dreams.

Sometimes I wish I knew how to settle. I see other people coasting through life, just fine, no real obstacles.  But I can't. I don't know how.  I have to keep pushing towards the impossible, overcoming things that make me more reliant on God than every before. He has never failed me and never will.
Never mind... I don't wish I knew how to settle, it would be a waste of a brain and a purpose.  I am a rhino, even if you tried to paint spots on me, I could never be a cow. I have to charge, I can't sit around and be happy munching on grass.  Please read Rhinoceros Success. One of my favorite books.

Something you may not know about me is ~

My family was in a cult when I was in high school.  I ran away to my aunt and was without my family for 2 years. And during that time, I met my Redneck.  Don't you just love how God makes all things work together for good? I do. 


Because of Redneck, I got into my dream college,  University of Washington and rowed crew. (I'm second from the front, if you couldn't tell. Well, third from the front if you count the coxswain)

Then we eloped and got married in Hawaii.

Why I love to blog ~

I love to journal, helps me think. I love to look back on life.  And I just don't have the space to scrapbook anymore, so this is working just fine.

This post was inspired my Funky Junk Interiors and I am linking to the party!

New Laundry / Kitchen Door

Nothing like a new purchase to kick your butt into gear to get things moving.  I had received this door for free when I picked up the huge slider in the laundry room.  Solid wood, no osb and heavy as they come.  But it was about 2" too side and 6" too tall.  I have been procrastinating cutting it down to size and had it stored back in the gap between the cabinet and wall.  Well, since I needed to rip out that cabinet to tall our new dinette, I  had nowhere to store it, so I got my boooty in gear.

And the ugly before.  Pretty sure they just cut that hole in the door and stuck in some plexi glass... EWWW!! Sorry for the different angle. Now that there is a huge window, you can see the ugly furnace from this angle, I need to do something about that.
PS. Can you see a peek of our new (to us) restaurant dinette set (in the first photo)?  I should be done patching the walls for the reveal next week.