A New Year

Before leaving the first month of this new year of 2014 I should recognize we have come into a new year which I am overly excited for.  Most know our 2013 was a little crazy and WE were so ready to say goodbye to 2013.

Quick recap of what our 2013 looked like...

1. Troy's new job at TIU
2. Troy moved to Chicago and live on campus.
3. Lot's of flu season take overs
4. Packing
5. Putting the house up for sale
6. Troy totaled you beloved toyota corolla
7. we refinanced our house
8. my dad came for a weekend to help us buy troy a new car
9. found someone to rent our house
10. loaded up the truck for storage
11. moved in with my parents for 4 months
12. good times in cinch from friends to amazing bible studies
13. photographed wedding #1
14. the air conditioning unit went out on the van
15. photographed wedding #2
16. our move to Chicago with a truck that leaked
17. schenk family vacation
18. 10 years of marriage and back in the same city to celebrate
19. new friends, new church, new memories
20. home-school pre-school for Gracie
21. the start of a new football season
22. miscarriage, weight gain, and missing family & friends
23. we all got older
24. issues with the canton house and finding new tenants
25. Photographed wedding #3

I literally went through all the post of 2013 to just remind myself.  Although there were lots of hard times that tried on us as a family, individually, even on our marriage there were some wonderful times too.  Lots of times to love on each other as a family to see our true hearts.  Gracie and Nolan have changed and grown so much this last year and there were many first for both, lots of new friends, and new experiences in a new place.  I am so thankful that we were loved on by so many that checked on us so often and prayed for us as unconditionally.  Thank you Lord for pushing us through it and thank you for new beginings.

Good Bye

Canton has brought so many blessings to our lives and this home has been filled with so much love, joy, and laughter.  We bought this house in 2006 where we stripped wall paper, painted walls, re-did floors, put in carpet, painted cabinets, updated bathrooms, and updated landscapes.  We have housed 2 of the schenk brothers during transitional times.  We struggled with becoming pregnant and then had the joy of bring home our first baby and then our second.  Our children have had many of there first's here including Gracie learning how to ride a bike.  God has blessed us with an amazing church and great friends who have loved, supported, prayed for, and encouraged us.  This is the first church where we have felt lead to be members and to have both of our kids dedicated, for us this church has been home.  But now it is time to say good bye to all the things that we love, all the things we will miss, and all the memories that we made here.  Thank you little house for being the roof over our heads we will miss you and all that you hold dear to our hearts.

the end!

The last room that needed finishing was Gracie's.  I was going to wait to pull down the flowers when she was not their but she was really excited about pulling them off the walls and I was glad to check the room off my list.

 the truck arrived a day early so I was a bit overwhelmed

but once the movers got there I was ready to get this 

whole packing and empting the house off my list.

Finding Fun

In the midst of packing I find myself stoping just to play with the kids.  Trying to make sure I still enjoy my normal side of life while the other side is a little up in the air.  My old place of work has given me loads of boxes which has been wonderful.  Some boxes have just been for the fun!  Check out the kids playing in the box and please ignore the laundry that needs folded in the back ground.

There's No Place Like Home

It has been 5 years since we moved to Canton, bought our first house, and started the transformation, room by room.  Don't get me wrong this old house had potential but it needed some updating in the areas of wallpaper, carpet, the ceramic Green toilet, and sink in the bathroom.  I look around at all the hard work and think look how far we have come.  But I still seem to find projects to work on.  It never seems to get old to find a project within the house that I want to work on.  This is the longest I have lived in one place since living at home thru high school and ever that was not very long.  From the time I was born and thru high school I had at least 8 different places I called home.  In the fall of 1999 I left for College, those 4 years consisted of living in different rooms, living with the family I nannied for, and bunking up with friends for the summer, literally from place to place.  When Troy and I got married in 2003 we lived in Wheeling, Illinois for 8 months, then moved to Sterling, Kansas for 2 years and then in 2006 we moved to Canton, Ohio.  To celebrate for living in one place for 5 consecutive years I wanted to share all of our hard work over the years and the transformation of the place we call home.

Beware of the very 60's home decor :)

THE KITCHEN: BEFORE

The beautiful wallpaper

The progress of the wallpaper being scrapped off,

the amazing green floors, ugly brown cabinets, and

the long heater on the floor which interesting

enough is right by the floor vent....interesting.

One day I decided to start pulling up there floor thing there was hardwood under it and thinking it would be easy.  WRONG.  There were 2 layers of floor that were dark green and dark blue.  Lovingly my hubby and his brothers got shovels and took over the job and pulled up the floor.  There was hardwood under the flooring but only for part of the room because of addition that had been done.  The back part of the room, the addition, where we thought about putting in hardwood to match was not going to happen.  We had several people tell us the plywood flooring that was putting was not up to code it was way to thin.  That they would have to lay day a sub floor over all and then put in floors.  Well for get that we will just do something different because the wood would never match the rest of the house

THE KITCHEN: AFTER

not perfect but we like it

THE DINNING ROOM / 1/2 BATH: BEFORE

Here you can see the awesome wallpaper in the dinning room and the bathroom.  If you look hard you can see the awesome green toilet, sink, and the same green floor from the kitchen, yum.

Wait!  Did I mention the shag green carpet : )
THE DINNING ROOM/1/2 BATH: AFTER

Yeap under all that carpet were hardwood floors, don't you love that!

LIVING ROOM: BEFORE

Sadly I do not have one but just picture the shag green carpet and the wallpaper surprisingly was just plain cream color no flowers.  I am not sure what the point of it was but wallpaper was so in.
LIVING ROOM: AFTER

all done

Top 5 Places I love to shop in Canton for Great Deals:

1)Marc's in North Canton - I find tones of Target stuff there

2)Habitat for Humanity ReStore -  Great stuff, you might have one close by

3)Hartville Market - amazing crazy suff

4)Target - I love search the sale racks

5)The Birds Nest - this one is new, basically the lady that opened this place use to be in real estate and has lots of connects with people that purchase furniture to sell homes and she sells it at much less of the prices, or very very gently used from some very rich person who actually never used the table in the front hall.  That kind of thing and last time I was in there my mom made friends with the owner.  So I know more then I needed but the lady said by the end of the day Saturday she has sold most of her store.

Guess What?

Gracie's room is finally done.  Wahoo!  At the end of all of the re-arranging and cleaning out of closets, and going thru everything we own.  My house is very clean, well minus the attic and that will happen this summer.  I have been trying to finish her curtains since well, I think November.  That's sad!  But it looks cute and she is not allowed to change it for a while.  I love it and it has lots of different colors so as the next years pass and her favorites change I will have to just point them out.  Right now she really likes the flowers on her wall.  At some point I will find her a twin bed and layout her comforter but that won't happen until this summer.  Enjoy!

the new room

her play area

I wanted to do something with decals on the wall.  I worked on these with someone from my work and then we printed them off.  They came out looking pretty close to what I found on etsy for way, way less.

the curtains  

I have plenty of left over fabric so I will

also make some pillows with this at a later date.

I also got these letter from work, for free, wahoo.  

I thought they were pretty cool and this 

is what I did.  It is hanging above G's bed.

I thought I had a before picture but I don't.  This was a hideous 

picture of a girl.  Which I spray painted over, made a chalk 

board and painted the trim purple.  I did not want anymore white.

How to Frame it?

Back in November I needed some help with pictures on our mantel. I was not sure how many to do or what I was going to put in each frame.  Well it is finally finished.  I finally ordered the pictures through photopipe and they turned out great.

L-E-T-T-E-R-S

In Gracie's old room I had letters hanging above her bed that I had painted.  There is nothing wrong with them and I would like to use them some where in the room or in some other way.  Here are the options I have come up with so far:

•  Can they be turned into book ends?
• Make it one long hanging name to hang on her door knob?

 

Any ideas?

A Room in Progress

So although I promised not do this and potty training at the same time, I changed my mind.  It's  really Gracie's fault, she decided to start potty training 2 months earlier then what was scheduled and I wanted to finish the process of the move.  And she has done great and is loving all the space, so am I.   I have been wanting to move Gracie's room for sometime but could not decided on what to do in the decorations of the room.  I found exactly what I wanted at Marshall's except they are actually fabric shower curtains and thankfully they were on clearance so I made a mad dash for them.  From the fabric I am going to make Gracie's bed skirt, once she is in a big girl bed, curtains and a couple of decorative pillow cases.  I also had my work print decals of huge flowers that I could put on the wall that I love.  That to come later.

Mr Troy painting the pre-Khaki walls to a white color.
(ps-walmart has some cheap basic paint)

I just like the pottery barn clean white feeling. 

Plus with all the color I think it will be perfect.

The room after it has been freshly painted and mopped.
The back wall where I have the fabric hanging is where the flower decals will go.

A better shot of the fabric and all the great colors.

The only problem is this fabric does not come close to hitting the floor so I have to come up with something creative for the curtains, any ideas?  Maybe color on top and solid on the bottom?

Just a fun shot of Gracie napping while we moved everything out of her room, she literally slept thru the whole thing.  I just thought how weird will it be when she wakes up and everything but her bed is gone:)

Gracie's First Room

I love Gracie's room.  I love that it is small and quant.  I love it but as Gracie has gotten older the items she has to play with has grown.  She now has a kitchen, a little baby bed, a stroller and a grocery cart and then there is the highchair, that also use to be mine that my dad is trying to fix that will also be her's.  Between the living room dinning room and her bedroom it is getting to much for me.  Although I like her playing in the living room I would also like to have most of her stuff in one place.  Right now her peoples are all upstairs and she does not play with them much because they have been pushed in the corner.  Point of all this is I am moving Graice to the Bigger room.  I figured out what to do in her new room we just have to get her in there.  I am posting pictures to show her first room before it gets pulled apart.

You may look at these pictures and think it's not so bad but I did throw about 10 items into the hall to get these:)

The room from the door, the left side

from the right corner

the back left corner

from the closet

I love these pictures and verses

you may recognize this from Gracie's 1st Birthday

I worked so hard on this I did not have the heart to stuff it into a

box or throw it away so I hung it.  It may make it to her new room.

Gracie's book case.  Here furniture was $20 at a

garage sale down the street.  I love it.  Those boxes in the

corner I have had for years, I think it is time to redo the paper.

Picture Help

Ok, so I need a little help.  This might sound silly but I know there are plenty of people that read this who can help.  I am redoing the pictures on my mantel, it was boring before but I cannot decide what I want to do.  Is if better with more or less.  If you are willing to help I would take any suggestions.  If you don't want to write anything you can fill out the poll to the left.  I would appreciate any help that is offered.

here is the over view of our mantel I am updating

Here are the Frame Set up Options:

Option #1: Just the 2 frames leaning

Option #2:    3 frames

Option #3: multi frames

 Here are the actual Picture Options:

Option #1: Family picture in the center 

and Gracie pictures on each side?

Option #2:  the center picture would be of trees 

incorporating the colors of our down

 stairs with family pictures on both sides?

Option #3: If I do hang the top two 

pictures I was going to do letter's, good idea?

Thanks for all the help:)
I know my drawings are lacking....a lot but you get the point, I hope.