Vic the Horse Mascot for Victory Junction

Victory Junction Gang Camp added another stuffed animal to their sewing program, Vic the Horse, so of course I had to attempt it. It went a lot better than the teddy bears that I made for Victory Junction a couple years ago - and it's cuter too! Each camper at the Victory Junction Gang Camp receives a hand-made camp teddy bear or a Vic the Horse mascot to take home. Find out more about the sewing program on their website.

Roo's debut into show biz

Roo's adorable picture (above) is now featured on amazon.com and gianthamster.com reading the recently released book, Celeste and the Giant Hamster. The book features a Capybara, the world's largest rodent.

From amazon.com:
Celeste the Cat is tormented by her human’s insistence on keeping a dwarf hamster, appallingly named Celestina, as a pet. Enlisting the aid of two friends, the brave but intellectually challenged Tiger and overly-enthusiastic Ruby, she sets out to trap a giant hamster that is loose and living in a nearby field. She plans on placing the giant hamster in front of Celestina’s cage to show her owner what she thinks of pet rodents. The giant hamster--actually a capybara--proves to be a larger, stronger and more intelligent adversary than the cats expect, resulting in a series of humorous mishaps that leave the trio battered but not dispirited. Slowly the cats come to realize that the capybara is not the frightening monster they imagined. When the capybara has a litter of eight precocious capy-kittens, Celeste, Ruby and Tiger find themselves doing things they never imagined, like going for a swim and protecting baby rodents from a tough gang of tom cats.

Crown Molding

The crown molding was installed today and really finished off the rooms!

dining room before crown molding

dining room after crown molding

close up of the new crown molding

New furniture and baseboards

As promised, below is a picture of our new living room furniture and also of our new baseboards. The crown molding will be installed on Monday. After that, all that is left in this remodel project are a couple of new light fixtures and the installation of the new microwave (that has been in Schmoopy's closet for more then a year...) and possibly a new gas stove to replace the old electric one.

Floor Install - Days 2 and 3

Yesterday the contractors finished the living room, entry hallway and office floors. The whole house except for the dining room had 2 layers of sub-floor so they had to add a second layer to the dining room floor in order to level it out with the rest of the house so that took up the remainder of the work day yesterday.

Today they got most of the dining room and kitchen done. I've posted a ton of pictures below (I couldn't narrow it down). The floor looks amazing and I can't wait to have this project done and to start enjoying it!

A sample of the original kitchen vinyl floor

Kitchen floor (so far)


Another view of the kitchen


Special stair nose piece piece - it looks so professional!


A view of the stair nose piece from the stairs.


Original dining room parquet floor


Dining Room (with the red wall!)

View of the dining room from the living room

Floor Install - Day 1

The contractors got about 2/3 of the living room and most of the office done yesterday. Here are some pictures:

Living room (as viewed from the dining room)

Looking across the house from the living room,
thru the entry way and into the office.

Painting is a Pain

We got the dining room primed last night - next time you see a photo of this room, the wall with the fireplace will be bright red! Eventually there will also be a more modern light fixture as well (good bye 1980s ceiling fan!). There's still a lot to complete in terms of painting this week, but we're closing in on the end of this renovation project that began back at the end of January. Starting next Monday the contractor who did the work on the walls will be returning to install our new wood floor!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter from the chinchillas!
Click here to see the rest of the pictures.

stltoday.com

The St. Louis newspaper website has launched a new logo. I was never a fan of the old one, so this new one is an improvement in my mind. I would have used a different font though - similar but with less definition in the bottom of the "d" and "a" and the top of the "y". Also, the arch cut into the "tl" is awfully thin and would all but disappear if the logo were to be any smaller.

Did you notice it?

New logo alert - I noticed on a Jack in the Box commercial last night that it ended with a new logo. Of course I said to myself, is that a new logo or just something special for the commercial?

Low and behold, the fast food chain has reinvented itself and has plans to revamp the restaurant atmosphere as well. I have to say that I like this new logo!

Flooring Choices

We've pretty much narrowed down the flooring choice to bamboo, but haven't made a final decision on the style.

In the photo above, I am leaning toward the first sample, but after seeing the second sample in the house, it might be a good choice too. The first and second are pretty much the same color, just different cuts of the bamboo - one has narrow stripes thru it than the other. The third choice is called a "carbonized" bamboo which means that the bamboo is steamed to caramelize the sugar within it to change its color. We have pretty much ruled out the darker color.

Workday #2

Today they tackled the old door frame in the kitchen and also taped and mudded the new drywall in both the kitchen and dining room. Pictures are below.

This is what the kitchen looked like. This space was the original door that went out to the patio, before the previous owners had the sliding door put in.

Here's a shot with the junk and cart moved out of the way - it's more obviously a door frame now. They must have thought they were really clever by turning the door frame into shelves.

and after all the work today we have new wall in the kitchen. We are still deciding what we are going to put there in place of the junky cart.

and lastly, here's a shot of the dining room after today's taping and mudding.

Workday #1

We had Prestige Home Repair and builders out today to start work on the dining room renovations (that I blogged about a couple weeks ago). I just wanted to share pictures of the progress today. They'll be back tomorrow to mud and tape the drywall they installed today and also to work on the wall in the kitchen. I'll update tomorrow with more pictures!

This first picture is just a reminder of how it looked before. I took these after we moved all the furniture out of the way last night.

By lunchtime today, the new supporting wall was installed.

Next they tore off the old paneling on the other wall. Good bye last of the yellow walls!

and cut and installed drywall on both walls.

It looks amazing to have drywall in the dining room and not yellow paneling. Even though it isn't even taped or painted yet. (The ironic thing is that the drywall is very similar in color to what it will be painted when it's all said and done)

The beginning of Lent 2009

Today is an absolutely gorgeous day for February the 25th. The thermometer reads 55 degrees, and it's only 10:30 am. I've got the windows open and the birds are singing. The smell of the fresh air is so refreshing, and reminds me that we are getting close to spring even though it doesn't seem like it (the 10 day forecast is predicting highs in the 30s all weekend).

We're giving up soda and eating out for Lent. I think the soda will prove harder to start, with the eating out kicking in closer to Easter. I am actually looking forward to it in a strange sort of way. I need to eat healthier and learn some new recipes to expand our dinner options. I also hope we can get into the habit of eating breakfast together before Tom goes to work, as it's the most important meal of the day even though we rarely actually fit it in.

March of the Penguins

We stopped by the zoo this afternoon on our way to Andy's birthday party - it was the last week for the Sunday "March of the Penguins" where they let the penguins out of their habitat and outside into the cold winter sun. Overall it was really neat, but the organization of the whole event was horrible....they should have had one long line and rotated people through but instead they blocked off the line at one point, then opened it back up later. Madhouse!

This guy was literally right in front of me.

this one kept running back and forth in front of everyone

looking down the way at all the penguins

Happy Birthday Andy!

It starts with 4 separate cakes...


Cut and assembled...


iced to become one cake...

and decorated to be a monkey-pirate

Happy Birthday Andy!

Tom's Birthday

I just wanted to share a pic of the cupcakes I made for Tom's birthday. We went to the newly opened International Tap House in Chesterfield, MO. It's a neat little place, and they even had a beer that I liked!

Lack of support in a supporting wall

We knew it'd be interesting when we took the paneling off the top portion of the wall that the previous owners had removed...and here is how interesting it is...


Notice that there is no beam that goes across the top of the cut out area...seems they "recycled" the studs that they cut out and nailed them in haphazardly. We assume there was probably an electrical outlet or two on the wall also - so who knows where those wires were cut. I'm sure we'll find those as the project progresses. The diagram below illustrates how a load bearing wall should be removed.

(from www.bobvila.com)

shawfloors.com

The shaw floors website offers a feature called "Try on a Floor" so I had to try it out with all the rooms we're doing work on to see how the renovations will look. What do you think?

*note - while this is a neat web application, it crashes a lot so if you try it, be prepared to refresh a lot and have some patience.

New Kitchen?

I think that maybe I should rename this blog to something related to home repairs, since that is all that happens in my life these days that is worth blogging about.

March 2008:
We bought a new microwave that matches the new fridge in the kitchen. Didn't think it would be that big of a deal to put in a new "over the range" microwave, did you.

September 2008:
After realizing we really needed to have the microwave on a dedicated circuit (and not the same one as the rest of the kitchen) we had an electrician out to add in the circuit. He couldn't finish the job because he needed to pull out the stove/oven in order to get to the wall behind and run the new wiring. The stove could not be pulled out because the previous owners had installed tile over the feet of the stove in front!

January 2009:
Attempted to cut the tile around the feet, only to realize that in order to lift the stove the half inch it needs to go up to get it out of the tile, we'd have to cut a hole in the tile out into the room. Looks like we'll be getting a new kitchen floor to go with the living room renovations I blogged about last week. Might as well get a new gas stove to match (since Gimlet is dieing to have a gas stove...) So who knows...maybe the microwave will finally be installed a year after we purchased it. About right on the timing considering how long the other stuff we've done on the house has taken.

New Living Room

room layout

With the master bathroom nearing completion (look for a blog about it soon!) we are now tackling the living room. It has long been our desire to connect the living room and dining room through some sort of a common theme to bring them together but were at a loss as to how to do it. With the help of an interior designer we are now well on our way to modernizing the main living space. The color scheme will be gray, black and white with punches of red here and there. In the layout above, the television will reside in the corner by the window, with the couch against the wall and a red swivel chair beside it. The rectangle in the lower right is an ottoman which allows for extra seating and doubles as a storage chest. A coffee table on an area rug, and a couple end tables with lamps complete the space. In order to connect with the dining room, we will be painting the wall with the fireplace red, and the remaining walls in the living and dining room gray.

paint colors

It will take about 3 months for all the new furniture to come in so in the meantime, we have lots of work to do with painting and getting a new wood (pergo type) floor put in.

Chicago Roots

I just learned that some of the sayings my family used when I was a child come from Chicago where my mother grew up and my parents lived for a few years before moving to Columbia...

"gym shoes" instead of "tennis shoes"
"front room" instead of "living room"

The birds found the feeder...

but so did the squirrels - even after I moved it to the backyard...

Birds - 0, Squirrels - 1

The birds haven't found my new bird feeder but the squirrels sure have...

Pictures here and a video below:

Vote on Tuesday

If you live in St. Louis County, you can get your sample ballot here:

http://www.co.st-louis.mo.us/scripts/elections/index.cfm

In addition to the "big issues" that are advertised all over the place - like president, governor, prop A (casino loss limits and supposed money for education), Prop M (for metrolink) and Prop S (parkway schools) there are several others that I had never heard of. Check it out before you are at the polling station and you're trying to decipher what you're voting on.

Fipsy's Belated Birthday Present

Fipsy got his belated birthday present last night (his birthday was back on August 3, and he got some presents then - a canister of raisins and a canister of oats, but he had to share those with the other chinchillas in the house). I found a picture of a chinchilla daybed that someone had made online and commissioned Merc Man to build one for Fipsy.

So far he has only used it as a chew toy, but I'm sure once he gets used to having it in his cage he'll make use of it as a bed as well.

Palin Rally

I got to see Sarah Palin in person last night (even if it was from the "nose bleed" seats at the very top of the arena). She kicked some butt in the debate last night...however, I just have to say, I had no idea that Biden and I had so much in common - we both shop at Home Depot! (some very funny person photoshopped a pic of Biden in Home Depot for us here).

You can see the rest of my pics from last night here.

Love Quilts

In June I started a new service project with Love Quilts. An organization which asks volunteers to create counted cross-stitch quilt squares which are then made into quilts for very sick children. I've completed 2 squares and am well on the way to completing a third, with a goal of one per month.

I own a company!

Big news that I can't believe I didn't post about 2 days ago when it became official......

I am now the business owner of Jenny Kyle Design, LLC!

ABCs of St. Louis

This is kind of fun, even though it's from stltoday.com....Alphabet City. For each letter of the alphabet, it shows you 4 characters and you must choose the one from the description at the right.


Of course, being a designer I'd rather know where all the letters are from, not just the one that answers the question. Maybe they could add that in....tell you which one is correct, but tell you where the incorrect answers are from. They also repeated way too many signs (including letters of the same sign over and over). I swear I recognized several from my St. Louis Walls project from my senior year of college.