Category Archives: Before and After

Blue Room Upgrade

We are in the midst of our Thanksgiving family time here in Colville. This post was prepared ahead of time to publish until I gather the current family photos from activities we are enjoying in real time.

A ‘before’ photo of the queen size bed and accessories in the ‘Blue Room’. We sold this bed complete to my cousin who lives here in Colville.

We have two guest bedrooms in our Country Bungalow. We call this room the ‘Blue Room’. The other guest room we call the ‘Play Room’ because that is where any toys and books are stored for our Grands.

The Blue room was ready for an upgrade with a new king bed set-up. It was fun to pick wall art and linens for a new look. Most of the wall art came from Hobby Lobby on a week when they were all 50% off. It wasn’t as much fun for Greg to assemble the platform for the mattress. It also was a complete clown-show for Greg and me when we took off the wrapping on the mattress that came in a box, rolled up tight. It pretty much explodes into it’s flat king size shape. We were tossed about until we gained control of it and slid it on to it’s platform! Whew!

Andrew and Katie arrived here on Thanksgiving and got to enjoy the ‘new look’.

Here’s a recent photo of Katie with her latest hair coloring. By now we have taken many family photos while celebrating the Thanksgiving extended weekend together. I’ll be sharing those soon.

And in other news we had our first wee snowfall of the season.

We hired a couple of young men from our church to come and clear our planters for winter. Little did we know when we scheduled that we’d have snow to deal with. Thankfully it was just an inch of snow that melted quickly. The guys persevered with freezing fingers and did a great job for us. I’m so thankful to have this task behind us in time for Winter.

Marcus Cider Fest 2025

Every October the little town of Marcus hosts a Cider Fest that is well attended. It starts with a parade on Saturday. This year the weather was so nice it seemed the attendees and cars in the parade doubled!

We spotted Dan, Jamie and our Grands arriving in Jamie’s 1964 T-bird. Jamie’s Granny bought the car for Jamie’s Grandfather. Jamie inherited the car.

All the usual suspects were lined up to enjoy the parade, Granny Great, Granny, Dan, Jamie, Gramps, Addy and JJ. Addy and JJ were ready to gather all the candy that the parade participants threw to the kids along the parade route.

The highway is shut down for the duration of the parade.

There was a clown this year.

Royalty came from nearby communities.

Batman was unexpected.

Our state representative and his family participated, too.

The sheriff was the caboose for the parade keeping the regular traffic at bay for the duration.

I took this photo of our kids/grands in front of the t-bird. I asked Auntie Lolo if she could clean up the photo and the photo below is the result.

Isn’t that cool? Are you able to do that with your photos?

Me and my Grands!

This year one of the choices at the food stalls was smoked turkey legs. We decided on this treat.

I snapped this shot on the way home and you can see part of the area across the Columbia that was burned.

We enjoyed our caramel apple when we got home from the Fest, delicious. We also brought home a half gallon of fresh apple cider.

Hello March!

Today we are traveling by air to another state for a visit with loved ones. Here are some clues as to who we will be visiting and the state they live in. I think you’ll be able to guess with these clues. All these photos are flashbacks taken many years ago and a couple years ago.

We are going to be in one of the states above from the second row of quilt squares.

We will be visiting two households.

The kids in these photos are now teens. The adults are all in new decades of their lives.

Any guesses? We’ll see y’all on the other side of our trip and hopefully we’ll have lots of blog fodder to share.

DIY Master Shower

We had plans to replace our Master Shower well over a year ago. We purchased the tile then and waited for the right time to begin the project. Our hard well water didn’t do any favors to the floor of this one piece shower insert and it was frustrating to try to clean it. Dear took the old shower stall out and it was hauled to the dump. We envisioned the project being done during the summer but that didn’t happen.

Each step along the way took lots of planning and tweaking.

The floor tile went in first and then it was covered up to protect it during the rest of the project.

At one point we didn’t think we had purchased enough of the 12 x 24 tile sections and we returned to the tile store to see what options we had. We found these decorative 8×8 tiles and added some of the floor tiles to frame them and get a 12 x 12 format. (Did you understand that?).

Greg’s left hand only works at 30% since his stroke so this project was a lot more difficult than the last shower tile project he completed at our old home in Kenmore.

 

Time to apply the grout.

Time for fixtures and safety bars. Another nerve wracking endeavor to cut the holes just right and get them into studs.

Success!

Vanity kicks in now because my shampoos and other product stick out like a sore thumb on these pretty niche shelves because of the color of the packaging.

All that is left for this project is to touch up some of the walls and do some paint touch up.

I’m enjoying our new shower and thankful that Dear persevered during this very tough project. There were times in the process that we both just wanted to walk away.

Our Guest Bath Update

Good morning friends. The forecast here in our corner of Washington State has predictions of heavy wet snow with the possibility of falling trees and branches breaking and downing power lines. Hopefully we will not lose power but if we do, I’ve created a few posts for this week and hopefully the predictions won’t be as dire as forecasted.

When we moved into our current home in September of 2018 we knew that we wanted to make changes in our guest bath. In 2019 we bought a slab of maple wood with a live edge to replace the countertop in this bathroom. That slab lived under the guest bed in what we call the Blue Room for about 3 years. Along the way in those 3 years we bought a new sink for the bathroom, too.

Demolition day…

After he stripped the bathroom, the walls, ceiling and cabinet were painted white.

The slab of wood was measured for cutting the hole for the sink and faucet.

Now it was time to treat the wood with TopOil.

The top oil complete it was time to install the backsplash.

Time for the plumbing. We tried some of our old wall pieces and really didn’t like the look so we contemplated changes that would function better. That wall piece on the side wall got moved to the master bedroom. It poked out to far over the new countertop and imposed on the counter space.

Time to set the sink and hook up more plumbing.

We tried a few pieces over the toilet area and finally settled on this piece with shelves and a rod for hand towels. We found this piece at Wal-Mart.

We are pleased with the update. Josh and Laura were our first overnight guests to enjoy the changes.

Dear does good work and has saved us thousands of dollars over the years by doing these projects himself.

I was going to list the projects that Dear was planning to complete in the next several months but as Providence would have it we had an emergency health event that has changed our plans. Dear suffered a Stroke on Saturday in our home while we were together enjoying our lunch. He and I recognized something was terribly wrong. 911 was called and we had a great response with the EMT’s and the Fire Chief of our area. Once evaluated at our local hospital, Dear was transported to Spokane to the ICU at Sacred Heart for further evaluation. Our son drove me to Spokane and booked a room for us across the street from the hospital. Dear is in expert care and it was determined he should have surgery sooner than later and he will have an Endarterectomy on Tuesday afternoon. We are grateful that things were caught early and the right treatment was given for the best overall outcomes. His brain and speech are in great shape. The lingering symptom is weakness in his left hand. Thanking God for watching over him. Thanking those of you in advance who will pray to our God for Dear’s surgery to go well and for his recovery to be free of complications.

We have had such an outpouring of care and prayers from loved ones, our kids have rallied, our church family in Colville, old friends in Edmonds, Monroe, Bothell, Lynnwood, Kenmore and Poulsbo. Family in New York, North Carolina, Texas, California, my ‘girls’ in British Columbia and Manitoba. We are so thankful to our God for the love and peace we have experienced because of those prayers.

Posts this week will be sporadic if at all.

Hope your new week is going well.

Our Country Bungalow ~ Before and After

I’ll start with some good old photos of our home past seasons…

Such a sweet memory of Addy bringing me a bouquet of flowers on my birthday. Old door color, new door color.

Before and after…

 

We put our summer shade cloth up on Thursday.

Front and Back in the new colors.

Dear also removed the outdoor light fixtures and painted them white. They were a gold finish that was not in great shape.

There is still a little touch-up on the white trim that needs to be done. Dear also had to take out the decking closest to the house to put in flashing so the rain water wouldn’t soak the siding and destroy it. That set him back a few days.

We are happy with the new look. The paint is Teton Blue by Behr.

The new view for all the south bound traffic that drives by with the clearest view of our home.

It took almost 6 gallons of paint. We have enough paint left over to redo the south side of the house in a few years. That’s the side that gets the most sun and other weather beating.

We have moved into the last week of July. Time is ticking away. Predictions this week are for temps to get upwards to 100 degrees and above. We’ll be working very early in the morning and staying inside in the heat of the day.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a good week.

Friday Tidbits

Painting continues on Our Country Bungalow and Dear is doing an great job as usual.

Soon I’ll be able to show before and after all the way around the house. The new colors are Teton Blue with white trim. We purchased a 5 gallon bucket of the Teton Blue and we might need one more gallon.

My photos aren’t uploading this evening so I’ll try again tomorrow.

The small businesses in our little town are having sidewalk sales. They started on Thursday and continue till Saturday. After I was done at the hairdressers on Thursday I stopped by and walked Main street to see what I could see. I bought greeting cards for 50 cents each and a handmade soft simple leather wallet that fits in a pocket. I’ll use that little wallet on walks instead of taking my purse. There is a new little shop in town that I made two more purchases from that I’ll show photos of soon.

This photo popped up in my memories on Facebook this week from July of 2009. Me and my daughter transformed our patio gazebo into a Moroccan dining room for a bridal shower. Katie’s friend was into all things Moroccan. So much has changed for all of these young ladies since 2009. This was at our home in Kenmore.

Back to the present. After our very busy times last weekend we are heading into a quieter weekend with only painting, mowing and church on the schedule. What is happening in your corner of the world?

Before and After ~ Master Bedroom

The day we moved in, September 2018. Happy to see the house was vacuumed.

Progress and it stayed close to this until last week when Dear got inspired to paint. We’ve had the paint since 2018 but the bedrooms and guest bath had not been painted. All the other living spaces have been painted.

I didn’t get a great shot while Dear was painting but once the ceiling got some fresh paint on it the rest of the walls looked really yellowed to us.

And now in 2021 this is the new look in our bedroom. Next on the list in this room is changing out the closet doors for pull out style as opposed to sliders.

We are happy with the new look.

Dear finished painting one of our guest bedrooms this week, too. I’ll do a before and after as soon as I get all the bedding back on the bed. I’m a fortunate gal to have a hard working guy who is a painting pro, too.

Today I’ll be mowing our acreage for the last time this year, I think it will be the last mow. The weather has changed and grass growth is slowing. I’d like to get it done early so I can go to Junk Drunk before the rains come our way.

Here’s the description of the event:

Our Vintage & Shopping Market “Junk Drunk” will be held in Colville, Washington at the N.E. Washington Fairgrounds Ag-Trade Center and Dairy Barn. Join us and our wonderful group of vendors with all their wares and amazing treasures! You are sure to find some great “Junk”! Our Vendors will be selling Vintage items, Jewelry, Home Decor, Home Goods, Salvage, Art, Handmade items, Bath items & More!

Hope your Friday is a funday!

Dress Blues

On August 17th while we were in Spokane we stopped by The Sherwin Williams paint store and bought a quart of paint for our doors. We were tired of the maroonish look. We chose Dress Blues because we liked the color and the name. Our son-in-law Andrew wore his Dress Blues for the wedding ceremony we had for he and our daughter Katie in March of 2012.

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We love the color. Dear finished painting the door on the day that eleven of our Marines were killed in Afghanistan by the suicide bomber. This door takes on more meaning for us. We are heartbroken for the families who will soon be notified. 24 hours after the families are notified we will learn the names of these Marines. What a devastating week in our history. We continue to mourn and hope for all the stranded Americans and others waiting to be safely airlifted out of Afghanistan. We mourn for what America has become to the world. My hope is not in our country or our leaders, my hope is in the God who made heaven and earth and everything in it. It’s a good time in history to make sure of your eternal destination. There are only two choices, with Christ in heaven or without Christ in hell.

2 Thessalonians 2:16:

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.