home

We diiiiiiiiid it. It only took three years, but we finally “finished” the master bedroom. Of course, we’ve already shown that we changed up the windows and added the balcony, but we’ve never shown images from the inside of the room because its always been gimpy and unfinished. Well, its as finished as it going to get, so its time to let fly with the pictures.

As long as we were at it, we finished up 98% of every other outstanding thing that isn’t done on the house. We figure the house will never look as good as it does right now, so here are a ton of pictures we took yesterday and today.

p.s. we are UTTERLY exhausted from all the work. We want to be like normal people again… maybe not “Monday Night Football” normal, but somewhat normal would be nice.

The rain is coming and the leaves will soon fall. Its time to hunker down and get ready for a long winter.

s+s+n+s

• Read More »

well for the first time since having babies…. i ran a race! a 10k! it was actually almost 7 miles because there were some other races going on and the course got a bit confusing and i ran extra. argh!!! BUT it was good.

here are some fuzzy pics from the cellie.

• Read More »

we are spending the weekend nailing trim, filling gaps, sealing holes, touchup painting, pressure washing, weatherstripping… the list literally goes on and on and on and on. The price of admission is high when livingg in the little chocolate house.

• Read More »

As part of this last flurry of house activity, we also finally got around to adding the deck that we’ve always wanted off of the master bedroom. The house actually came with a deck a long long time ago, but it was rotten and not shaped right, so we got rid of it.

This project was very difficult to start. The thought of making the largest hole in the house we’d seen in years was daunting, and properly framing and installing the sliding door for the deck was an intimidating unknown.

We ended up getting a good push at the start from our friend Royal, who had some spare time and vounteered to help out, even though I don’t think he knew what he was volunteering for… heh.

See the picture captions for the entire story.

As for the next round of projects: we are burnt out. we have a to-do list of small things we need to get done, but we are going to go into project hibernation soon I think…

• Read More »

this past weekend stephen did an epic mtn bike ride with some buddies and was gone most of the day so i tried to get creative with the kids. after changing FOUR poopy diapers and getting a flat tire and switching cars and carseats…. we finally made it to portland! it was a special day for noel… she got her first mocha! (it was hot choc of course but she kept calling it a mocha and it was so cute.) then we walked around for a bit and noel wanted to look at dresses so thats what we did! samuel just hung in with the girls and made the best of it! he liked his balloon.

• Read More »

lookie at this image i found while digging around some old folders! compare this one to the new 3 window brown side for the TRUE before and after!

*note how tiny noel is too!

**and that thai thai our kitty was still with us.

• Read More »

Michael Jordan had a comeback, Lance Armstrong had a comeback. Lets face it though, they should have stayed in retirement.

The Wall Of Logs however, NEEDED to come back. If you’ve read the blog since the beginning you know that the W.O.L. has had two previous ill-fated incarnations.

The first was made from Alder logs that had been sitting in the rain for months and were infested with powder beetles (which can destroy a house in 30 days). We burned that W.O.L. after the first sign of sawdust and the house escaped damage. The second W.O.L. was made from freshly-felled (and bug free!) trees from our neighbors yard. The problem: fresh wood is WET and wet wood molds bigtime. After we grew a mold culture worthy of a university science lab, we took the logs outside and burned them once again.

After that we were beaten. The wall just wasn’t meant to be made of logs perhaps… we filled our glass panels under the stairs with fabric instead, which was okay, but when people visited they always seemed to mention how great the W.O.L. was.

Over the winter we had a wind storm and it blew down a bunch of brances around our property. They looked like they were a good diameter, so I chopped a bunch up and put them in the barn to dry for six months just in case we wanted to give the wall another try. This summer we had a100 degree heat wave, and I thought it was the perfect time to clean the logs up and let them dry out for good. Sarah and I spent a few afternoons pressure washing the moss and grime off of every log (jeremy thought we were crazy), then we sliced them up for nice stackability and let them dry in the heatwave.

Soon thereafter the wall of logs re-emerged from retirement and I’m happy to report that its bug free and moss free this time around. 3rd time is the charm!

whew! that a whole lot of writing for such a simple project. Here are the pics!

s+s+n+s

• Read More »

Noel and Samuel have been right here in the middle of all the birthday/house project/visitor activity thats been goin on! i have to dig thru pics on the camera for proof but our good friends from LA John, Charity and their new little boy Judah came stayed with us for a few days! It was wonderful having them, and we miss them already!

For now, here is a pic of samuel doing his new thing…push ups! this turbo tank is about to go mobile!

And poor noey got her finger REALLY pinched in a cupboard corner, it was so bad she needed a band aid.

• Read More »

…Thats what the saying says…

The plan has always been to get rid of the nasty aluminum windows on either end of the master bedroom, but life has consipred against us and its been on the “yeah right” wish list. Things started to change this spring when we snagged three square windows at the Re:Store (construction recycling store) for about $100. We stashed them in the guest bedroom and waited for a day when the motivation hit to actually put them in.

Lately we’ve been feeling the motivation to button up the house wish list pretty much once and for all, so one day I just walked outside and started peeling the siding off the house in an effort to force the project to get started. As soon as the siding started coming off it was evident we were in for another ride on the emotional roller coaster that is remodeling. We chipped away at the project bit by bit whenever there were breaks in work, and over the weekend. Once the siding was off I decided to re-frame the openings for the new windows form the outside so that I could leave the sheetrock un-disturbed on the inside of the house (this was to save money). That actually worked pretty well, and one by one the windows went in.

Once I had all three windows in we felt pretty good, but if you saw the disaster of building scraps all over the yard you might understand why we all of a sudden felt overwhelmed with the whole project. When you climbing a mountain getting to the summit is the easy part, and getting back down is the real challenge. Putting the house back together was hard. We had to put the plywood back up, wrap the house in housewrap, prepaint and install the trim, re-cut and re-nail the siding, caulk the trim, re-touch-up the trim, repaint the siding… and THEN we were done. Phew! Sarah and I spent a few nights up on ladders at 10pm painting by floodlight because that was the only time we could paint without the kids adding to the frey.

All that said, we finally got rid of those two ugly windows and got the three new windows in, and we love the result! We have almost banished the 1960s pall from the house and brought it into the modern era. Our room used to be a dark cave but now the light pours in and we have a great view out into that side of the yard which is usually a lush shady green oasis.

Here are some pictures, and stay tuned for part 2 of this remodel: the mini-deck!

s+s+n+s

• Read More »

OK we are seriously behind on showing our house projects. We’ve been holding out. We will get organized asap and show some before/middle/end stuff of our recent flurry of epic projects!

In the mean time, here is a picture from last night at my b-day party before everyone showed up. (Before you ask, the white thing is a bedsheet for projecting a movie.)

If you look closely you may notice a little more landscaping done here and there, and you also may notice a new Juliet Balcony hanging off the house way in the back as well as a new sliding door that leads out to it. Oh yes… we’ve been busy, and we’re exhausted!

more soon!

-Stephen

• Read More »

noel and samuel were crying on queue yesterday. basically noel flipped out non stop about her baby doll blanket coming off her baby. she has to have it wrapped JUST so. and when it wasn’t it exactly right, the whining screaming crying began. and that would set the little man off. i think he was just reacting to her being upset.

in other news, stephen cut the biggest hole in the house yet. (post our move in) and here is a teaser pic of what the master bedroom is starting to look like!

• Read More »

i dressed samuel in little bib overalls and noel ran into her room saying she wanted to wear bibs too! this is a rarity because if i suggest ANYthing other than a dress she flips out. SO they were bib twins! and its official… samuel has brown eyes!

this was a weekend full of activity. we are crossing major things of the ‘to do’ list… the one that we’ve had for almost 3 yrs running. some items included; re-nailing the trim in the living room where it was popping off, staining the LR floor trim to match, caulking with wood filler some of the gap in the wood/transition boards, re-stained the staircase (looks sooo much better!), re-caulked the kitchen countertops with bright white, finished putting in the three new square windows in the MB, put trip up outside, and resided the house where stephen had taken boards off to put in the windows! whooo. i know that is probably a boring list but its nice to write it down and feel accomplished. somehow we also had some normal weekend activites like jeremy and lorena and cousins coming over for pizza, having a family coffee date in portland, and we went to our bible study last night!

now. what to do today?! ha! there is plenty to do with our friends john and charity coming to visit this weekend and stephens birthday party prep. AND its also our anniversary mid week!

my coffee is cold and noey and samuel are calling from the family room!

here are the pics!

• Read More »

the last few days we’ve been outside a lot watching daddy put windows in the side of the house. samuel has taken a liking to reaching for the leaves for entertainment. he gets so excited like a little giraffe because he of course tries to eat them!

last night we ate dinner out of tupperware and stephen ate his balanced on a ladder on one foot while he slurped his noodles. noel decided her favorite food is pasta.

• Read More »

when i woke up today i didnt know id be dismantling an entire side of the house.
more pics soon!

• Read More »

so the blog has become somewhat obsolete with everyone on FB these days. but i don’t like that. i was looking back through some blog archives and i realized i really want to keep it going! plus the blog can be a bit more personal because i don’t think there are 300 people checking it daily and that way i can show you (close friends and fam) little peeps into our life without putting noey and samuel all over the internet.

obviously with 2 babes and the busyness of the days the posts will be short and sweet. i am gonna try to post a photo of the day that kind of captures a moment… even if its not EVERYday it will be way more frequent.

i guess this idea is more for me than anything else. i want to document little events in the day because i know this time is precious and with my sleep deprivation i may forget what ‘these days’ are actually like.

—

so yesterday was a good day. we went to target and neither samuel or noey screamed or cried. noel picked out a pink dress that she put on in the store and wouldn’t take it off. good thing it was 3 bucks on clearance so i got it! she told me she was the princess and i was the ballerina. samuel ate his first bite of sweet potatoes today. and here is a typical minute on the couch with these 2 siblings.

• Read More »

here she is running wild in the field behind the portland international raceway… where stephen had just finished a bike race.

the light was so pretty and she was so happy running barefoot looking at airplanes and playing in the field i had to break out the camera.

• Read More »

there is something so amazingly peaceful about naptime! most of the time they nap at different times. the last few days i have just been watching them sleep. i decided i’d try to capture the tranquility that is soooo sweet about a child napping. so here are a few snaps!

• Read More »

coming soon to a fitzfarm near you: Wall Of Logs 3.0

• Read More »

Hello All! We’ve been away for a while (or at least over on Facebook too much), but we’re to the blog again as of right now.

Its been a long summer already for the Fitz Fam. We jammed in the yard a few months ago to get ready for the New York/Ohio trip, then when we got back we swore not to start any new projects until we got all of the unfinished projects under control. Its so easy to start a project, and so hard to finish a project.

We did make one exception to the rule yesterday. Our front porch has been bugging is forever because it is so plain and boring. We decided a quick face lift was on order.

We used to have two pots next to the front door with Jasmine in them, but the plants were never happy, and ended up looking very scrappy there. We moved them to the patio where there is more sun and reconsidered what we wanted the front porch to look like.

We always have a lot of fun making things with the cedar blocks that we purchased for firewood, and we knew we wanted some sort of pots/planters by the front door, so we decided to use the blocks again to build new planters.

In the end the project took about a day start to finish, and we are very happy with the results. We hope you are too!

• Read More »

hey party peeps! we are finally getting some more of the ‘in progress’ yard projects pics up! you know the drill, too much yard worky and baby duty to actually put up posties! but thats gonna change now.

we have been continuing the landscaping on the slope in front of the house in front of our patio/flagstone fire place area. of course this was a bigger project than we thought starting out, (not just digging holes and putting plants in the ground). stephen of course did the hard work of; reshaping the entire hillside, carving out areas for the ‘dry waterfall’, building a bridge, bringing in rock, laying fabric, etc etc… i will let the photos tell the story. so, here we go! make sure to read the captions!

• Read More »