Claire's Doll House

Another project I'm marking down as finished. The inside has yet to be decorated or painted, but for all intents and purposes, this doll house is finished. It was quite a project, so it feels good to say that. I really wish I had a picture of the 'before' because it came completely unassembled in hundreds and hundreds of pieces down to the individual shingles for the roof and unassembled windows and porch railings.











Jim and Teresa bought it for Claire, and assembled the body of the house when they were visiting earlier this summer. After they left, I finished up the gluing (not a nail was used in the whole construction), stained the roof, and last night I finished painting the exterior. Even on a doll house a fresh coat of paint makes all the difference.


























I enjoyed picking out possible color combinations with Colorsmart at Behr.com. I think I had about five possibilities that I showed Claire, but once she saw there was a purple option she didn't consider anything else. And then last night as I did the final touch-ups, she sat back and said, "This is exactly what I wanted!"

another storage makeover

Up until last night, Claire's dresser was a $10 garage sale find that I let her paint when we moved in last year to keep her busy. It wasn't a very attractive to look at, and I finally got sick of it. Last night we painted it white and purple, naturally, (Claire helped again, she's improved her technique since the last attempt) and added some new drawer pulls that I found while browsing around Company C with Teresa last summer. I wasn't sure what I would ever use them for, but at $.25 a piece, they were the only thing I could afford in the entire store, and they were cool. Just like the paintings in the kitchen, these 'big blue diamond jewels' have finally found their place.

With Pictures!

Another project crossed off the list: the basement stairs. We proved once a gain that a coat of paint makes all the difference. The white walls were all scuffed up from hauling stuff up and down, and the stairs really needed a fresh coat. Really the pictures don't even do it justice. In short, it looks great (before and after, if it wasn't obvious):
















Tuesday, we decided to take a quick camping trip with Claire, just to test her out and see how much work we have to do if we wanted to go camping with her regularly. Turns out not much. She did great sleeping in the tent, even when it was bedtime for her, but Mike and I sat out by the fire for a while longer. A fire that was fantastic. Its been really wet lately, and though it didn't rain Tuesday, the woods was still damp. We couldn't even find leaves that were dry enough to catch fire. But Mike was patient enough to start a fire that was hot enough that the coals were still smoking in the morning.












And then, when we got home we realized we had a cucumber ready for picking. Definitely the best cucumber I've ever tasted!