Open House

Welcome! Come on up the sidewalk.Don't mind the cat. He's just hanging out.Go ahead. Ring the doorbell.I'll leave you to wander around and look. If you have any questions, just ask.







This way to the dining room.








I hope you enjoyed your tour.

One of these days I'll finish getting stuff on the walls, my lampshade covered, etc. Until then, I just keep tweaking. Eventually stuff will land where I like it.

Open House on Saturday

Pictures are coming. Hang in there. I'm still tweaking and trying to get stuff hung on the walls. Come Saturday you're all invited to an open house. We'll start at the front door and you might even get to see a few other rooms.

I hope everyone is having a great week.

Good Golly

I'm beat.

When our guests arrived on Friday, I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. I just needed another 30 minutes and I would have made my deadline. This sweetie didn't care how clean the floor was though. She was just happy to watch while I cooked. She's working on her first teeth and showed me she can roll over by herself now.

The kids thought the house looked great. More about that later though.

DH took the boys fishing Saturday while the girls and I went thrifting and played with the baby.

On Sunday we took the kids to the zoo. Little Miss is ready to see lions, tigers, and bears.For the record, you don't take babies to the zoo. You take a stroller to push a sleeping baby while you go to the zoo. They could care less. DH and I both agreed that the kids don't know how to visit a zoo. When did it become a foot race? Have mercy on us old folks and slow down. It wasn't one of the more enjoyable visits I've ever had.

All in all, we had a wonderful visit and look forward to them coming again. We never realize how big this house is with just two of us until company goes home. We're also very quiet people. They on the other hand, aren't.

Don't grow too much until we see you again.

When we last met

It was early in the morning and then, I left you hanging. Sorry about that. Unfortunately there's not much to see when paint is drying, or not drying as the case may be. We'll get to the paint later.

I promised you pictures of the saw cuts in my floor. I don't know how or when (during which ownership) these happened. DH wanted to sand them out. I vetoed his desire because they're so deep. I'd like a little floor left.Around the base of the fireplace. DH does wonders with quarter round.A rose from my garden. Ignore the honking black thing and the light reflection.Filling up shelves. I like that bunny.The manly side. Please don't judge me by the movie titles. I didn't check them before posting.So that's where we're at. The exciting news, my furniture gets to come home today. I can't wait. Maybe I can. That dining table weighs a ton and I have to help move it.

On a sadder note, the plantation shutters are no more. DH was trimming one and the saw jumped and sliced right down the middle. While I hate that he ruined a shutter I'm so very thankful it didn't get his hand, arm, or leg. I'll just make curtains. I'll have more pictures as things progress.

Please note the time

At this moment it's 3:38 AM. I've primed the woodwork in the dining room. I'm headed for the living room.

Oh yeah, I have baseboards in both rooms. Hooray!

Fun with lightening

I love a good lightening storm. Here are a few pictures I managed to take. They would have been better using a tripod, but hey, it's lightening.

I swear

If DH doesn't stop jumping from one project to another I'm going to brain him. I just want one thing finished. Just one. I don't care if the grass gets mowed and if you don't have clothes so what. I just want to be done.

On a happier note, I have French doors. Please feel free to use your imagination and picture them white with white trim. While you're at it, feel free to ignore the crap scattered all over the danged place.The dining room side isn't finished because we ran out of moulding. DH doesn't know his left from his right and that's a mistake you can only make a couple of times before you're in a pickle and out of wood.

I'm finally done painting the shelves next to the fireplace. Again, call on your imagination and imagine actual shelves in place.While you're at it, conjure up a couple of plantation shutters for those glaring windows.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm to the "I'm sick of this" portion of the remodel. I'm tired of the mess. I'm tired of caulking and painting. Hammering sets my teeth on edge. The whine of a saw makes me want to slit my wrists. I miss my furniture.

He's a good egg

DH worked like a dog this weekend. He never grumbled, well not much anyway, and we got so much done.

He built the cabinets flanking the fireplace.He started putting down the baseboards. These are 6 inches tall and original to the house. He installed wall plates and straightened out a wonky outlet.He put all of the window and door facings and trim up so I can caulk and paint.
He even took me to garage sales and bought me this adorable bookcase. It's perfect for the end of the hallway. I think I'll keep him.

Happy Mother's Day

I want to wish all of the mothers out there a very happy Mother's Day. I hope your day has been wonderful.

To my mother, thank you so much for all of your help and encouragement over the last 42 years. I love you.

Where did this week go?

I've worked my tail off this week, but you sure can't tell it.

Monday I put a second coat of paint on all the walls. This is my accent wall and the adjoining wall in the living room. The darker wall is "Caramelized Onion" and the lighter wall is "Desert Fortress". Both colors by Valspar.
The ceiling isn't white. Instead I painted it "Riviera Dune" also by Valspar.
The dining room ceiling is also "Riviera Dune". The walls, oh the walls. I had fits. I tried "Desert Fortress" and it felt like a cave in there. I hated it. I just got rid of a cave and here I had another one. So, I ended up adding another pint of base to lighten it up so it's a lighter version of Desert Fortress. Tuesday we started putting the trim back up around windows. Why does nothing ever fit the same way? Riddle me that. We marked locations and which end was the top and still nothing wanted to go together right. I blame the humidity.

Here are the dining room windows. We just need to put on the final trim, caulk, prime and then paint. Here's the trim we had made. It's got a first coat of primer and is waiting to be cut and installed. I can't wait. My poor old window trim. It looks so sad. Nothing a ton of paint won't fix though. These windows will have plantation shutters.
In between sanding, scraping off silicone, and other remodeling chores, I've been playing with glass. These are going in the swinging door. Just wait and see how cute this is going to be.

The plan this weekend is to get the rest of the trim and doors up so I can paint. DH is shooting to be done by the middle of next week with his part. I want to be totally done by Friday so I can start cleaning house. We're running out of time.