Beah Visit 2008

Beah and the kiddos come for an annual visit usually in August, although this year we smartly changed that to September. Really helped to have the not-100-degree weather when we were at the Zoo! Anyhoo, a few shots from the trip can be found below.

And yes, as usual: I cried like a baby when they left.

On the playground at the KC Zoo:

This was typical of our day: Mahni in rapturous awe of the animals, Dylan crying and petrified of the animals.

Except for the sheep for some reason, which Dylan thought were dogs (he kept calling them "JoJo!").

Yay for Train Time! Best part of a visit to the Zoo :)

And it's all fun until someone loses a shoe. While still on the train ride. When the train made a stop (much much later), Hubs and the train conductor had to go back after it.

And that concluded our time at the Zoo.

Spent the first evening at home. Beah and the kids crashed out in the chair.

First thing the next morning: Picture Time with Josh Solar! For those who missed out from my food post, clicky HERE to see the cute babies on Josh's blog.

That afternoon we went shopping, and tried on a few costumes:

After the costume shop we grabbed some ice cream, and then walked off the calories at the rest of The Legends shopping. They had a yellow brick road there!

There are a ton of pictures of our time at the fountain @ The Legends - yeah, for a reason. The kiddies LOVED it, we spent a long time there playing. Which was fine by me; it was fun to shoot them playing in the fountain, too.

We had dinner at the T-Rex restaurant. Hit and miss - the kids loved it, and were simultaneously scared out of their minds.

We made cake! Yummy cake! Even though we accidentally put in too much butter...

No trip to Nemmie and Scott's is complete until someone poses with a Jayhawk. Like the Jayhawk flag hanging on the wall in the man cave, all college-dorm-like (reminder to self: find a flagpole and get that sucker up outside).

Sadly that is it, the time went by waaaaay too quickly. But! Beah and Mahnster are back in December to hit up The Nutcracker in KC, which will be a blast.

Dining Room: Before and After

Yay, dining rooms!

BEFORE:

The old dining room was blah. Well, the shape is interesting: very much like its own little room in the house, but a narrow long room. With a big old doorway. And a breakfast nook sticking out the side from the kitchen area.
The room also shared the wall color with the kitchen, which was that sagey green that turned a lovely shade of 80s mint when the lights came on. Glamorous!

I always wanted a somewhat formal dining room, but this one wasn't really looking that way.

Here's the breakfast nook corner:

AFTER:

The things we did to this room were pretty simple, in fact it was the first one "half finished" (and the last one "mostly finished", as it was the last to get window treatments).

We painted it a soothing blue-gray, and the trim went white (you should see a pattern by now: we dig plain white trim). We put up drapery rods and some "champagne" colored curtains, that are a perfect match to the light fixture. All cabinet hardware was also changed out to an oiled bronze. We anchored one end of the room with our buffet, and got some cool things for decorating (forgive the left side of the buffet for the moment; usually there's a vase of flowers there to even it out). Easy!


All that's left is to find a rug that we like, and the dining room is officially finished.








We're going to fill up this wall with family pictures, eventually:

And that's it for now for renovations - the den and upstairs room are still in the early stages of remodeling stuff, and we've barely touched the yard (which was brilliant, because now we'll have the inside all finished and then will be twiddling our thumbs all winter, wanting to work on a yard that's frozen and dumped with snow/ice).

Beah is coming up for a visit late this week, so look for pictures later :) I can't wait!

Master Bedroom: Before and After

This room really isn't finished, so you're just getting a sneak peek on it.

BEFORE:

The walls were a nice ballerina-pink/peach color. Blech.

AFTER:

Well, here's what we've done: we painted the walls a warm "Peanut Butter" (Scott picked the color, if you can't tell. On name alone, yeah). We also got a new bed/new linens. And we changed the plastic blinds for cellular shades, and added drapery rods/drapes.

Oh! And we changed out the dated, white-speckled ceiling fan light cover for a warmer, caramel-swirled glass one.

Um, that's pretty much it. We knew we wanted an vintage-y iron bed, but got stumped when it came to the rest of the furniture. So we haven't bought anything yet. Any suggestions, by the way?

We also need to get an area rug for this room, and get our pictures up. Oh! And find a little lampshade for the sconce, that is killing us. I swear I used to see those things EVERYWHERE, and now that we're looking we can't find anything that fits. Grrr. One of those endless searches, I suppose...

Kitchen: Before and After

The kitchen is, quite possibly, my favorite renovation in this house.

BEFORE:

The walls were this weird green color. During the day, they were a pretty sage-y green. At night though, when the lights were on, it was this glaringly minty-blue mess. Yuck. So as much as we enjoyed the daytime green, it really needed a new color. Plus Nemmie always wanted a yellow kitchen ;)

On top of the odd color, we had the same problem as the bathroom - ugly cheap 70s cabinets. And the weirdest of the weird - the corner pantry area. The narrow pantry area had this recessed wall next to it, and a big block of a door that slid side-to-side to get to the pantry. It just seemed awkward and in the way and not right for our kitchen (kinda 80s looking). I didn't get any pictures of it before we worked on the room, and it's almost a shame. That thing was just not right.

Observe - greenish-blue walls with 70s cabinets:

AFTER:

We painted the walls a warm yellow, and the cabinets went white. I love painted cabinets, but beware - it is ROUGH. A good sanding and 5 coats of paint later, they were finally looking okay. We added new hardware to some of the cabinets (replaced pulls with knobs). It is amazing the change in the room:

Oh yes - those are fresh-from-the-oven cinnamon rolls you see on the counter (check my other blog!).

My extra-special baking corner, with all my flours and sugar on the counter (and baking pans, bowls, goodies in the cabinets, and special tools in the drawers...):

Here is the other side of the kitchen, where our pantry and spice shelves are. The little cabinet comes from Scott's mother's side of the family, a great little antique. It's filled with cooking magazines, newspapers, and our other cooking stuff like aprons etc. The pictures on the walls are all my favorites from the food blog.

The pantry. We took the big bulky door off, then painted the recessed area with chalkboard paint. It rocks, and is one of my favorite little corners of the house.