The Lofty Summer Project

Summer Milkbarn projects!

We had so many plans and then like anything, 

summer came and kind of went

(well, unless you count the 25 days left of actual summer). 

We accomplished 2 things. 

Here is the the boys room remodel.

 We haven't completed the built in book shelves but this is a pretty amazing re-do since it was a pretty nasty room to start with.

Before photos 

(after I delightfully cleaned, donated and organized the boys belongings! well, not all of them)

Right below this crack through their ceiling slept Henry 

in the top bunk. If I was him, I would've imagined monsters or something trying to break in from another dimension...

oh wait, that is Stranger Things on Netflix

( okay, so that was my 3rd summer project) 

old paint swatches from 2 1/2 years ago

lightening speed around here!

Ripped up the carpet and remains of a rainbow loom

rip rainbow looms

After the carpet and linoleum underneath was pulled up, our old floor boards were exposed

The original builder used coffee cans to nail over the knots 

in the wood. 

Kind of cool!

 Except, not cool for our house but if this was a retail space with original art work and giant chocolate cookies and accessories...it would be awesome.

Clay ready to tear out the ceiling and the 60 year old insulation

(hence, the suit)

Re-framing the ceiling  

There's that sailing hoist again for drywall :)

Raising the ceiling and making a boys dream come true...

a built in loft bed to escape the sounds of Mom.

Drywall finished in the loft with a small ledge for books 

(or out of state license plates, alarm clocks, bookmarks, ipods, and 

granola bar wrappers)

Hickory wood framing out the loft

beginnings of the ladder and landing part

Some dancing in the room

New hickory flooring to match the rest of the Milkbarn

looking up at the hickory landing

Taping off to paint the trim

Clay swears by using a sprayer, believe me it is the way to go. 

The trim is always smooth with no brush lines. 

Absolutely no trace of me messing up the paint here :)

And when choosing the paint for the room and Henry saying yellow (no way) and Chester saying gray or blue or maybe red (double no way), I went with the color in the main house...icicle by Benjamin Moore. Seriously, I can't think anymore about paint...unless I had an entirely new project...but that would be CRAZY 

door needed painting too!

Voila!

A boy and his cool loft bed!

With Chester's bed below

The girls were a bit jealous.

We had to remind them that 

A. Their room was the very 1st room finished in the Milkbarn, even when we hardly had heat

B. If we found food wrappers up there, it would quickly become Chester's loft bed.

The summer was busy and peaceful at the same time, does that make sense? 

We finally got our flag up. Really, I swear, I am gonna have this exterior painted by next year. 

White.

 White is the color. 

I can't think past white.

So while we finished the boys room, the kids were up in Alaska with their Grandma and Grandpa last June.

They sent me photos of a Grizzly running down the road on their way to the lake.

They horsed around.

And floated a bit with cousins. 

I am very grateful they have these experiences on their own. 

And if you are wondering how my gardening went?

 As I had predicted.

Not so good.

The tomatoes liked me. 

I got some for one meal.

 hahaha

Even though I watered them all the time. 

Here is Chet one early morning wanting to pick those 5 tomatoes off.

Luckily our neighbor Mort came by!

 We watched his garden explode over the summer and got to try out some of his sunburst tomatoes. 

Heaven.

Our 2nd summer project is done but I want to try and plant some flowers by it.

please please please let me be able to plant flowers right!

Thanks for reading :) 

I took a break this summer because like I said, it just came and went and I wasn't sure what happened. 

I'll have to write a post of all the nothing we did  :)