The Office

I have been trying to update my blog for a week now, but blogger just hasn't been cooperating.  I finally realized I could update to their new editing thingamajig and it seems it will work for me now.  I should say, however, that I hate the new thingamajig.  

After Christmas, we dove into another painting project -- the office.  This one was a nice small and contained space, so it didn't seem like such a chore (though all the other rooms in the house look easy compared to the living room).  The walls were just simply a color that I didn't like -- especially the bottom.  They had a real peach undertone to them in person and I just don't do peach.

So, this is the before (taken at closing, so no furniture):

And this is the after:

What can I say?  It is an office and it is boring.  It is, however, the first thing you see from the foyer, so I want to dress it up a bit.  See that large empty wall in the top picture?  I want to put a picture wall there.  On my to-do list for sometime in the near future is to cut out paper to represent different frame sizes so that I can tape them up and figure out just how many I am going to need (I think we'll turn this into a vacation wall, featuring just vacation and fun pictures).  I also want to look for some arm chairs to set in front of the windows (and maybe some curtains, too).

Aprons!

Well, perhaps just "apron" is more accurate! Last weekend I broke out my much neglected sewing machine and threw together a new apron. Now, if you've ever been to my house, you know that I positively live in my aprons. And I only have a few of them, which means I wash them ALL THE TIME. Well, my favorite apron literally shredded to pieces on me, so I decided to take a stab at making one myself.

Here is what I came up with. And I mostly patterned it after the one that shredded to pieces.

I made a loop of fabric to tie the neck strap on, because I don't like having a big knot at the back of my neck. The knot doesn't lay as flat as I would like, though I do like the functionality of the loop.

And I LOVE the fabric. Picking the fabric out was the best part of the project!

Lucy is begging me to make her one. And I definitely need to make myself several more, though I will probably keep modifying my pattern until I get one that is just right for me. Now to pick the fabric...definitely something with pink this time so I can make Lucy a matching one that she will be pleased with!

Look who turned 5!

Last Friday, we celebrated Ross' 5th birthday. He is such a ham...and a handful. Grandma & Grandpa B. came for the weekend and wore all the kiddos out (they are all upstairs sleeping soundly as of now). We had a good time celebrating, though didn't do anything major -- just hung out, enjoyed good food and played. Ross got Just Dance 3 for his birthday, so we did a lot of wiggling this weekend!

Here are a few snapshots from Ross' big day!

(As a total aside, look at that cabinet...ugh! It is an antique and is really beautiful, but that picture really shows badly where the paint -- paint that has probably been there for 50 years -- ran down from the inside of the cabinet to the outside. I've been dithering over whether or not I should re-paint the inside, including that back piece that is currently not painted but does have paint on it. I didn't want to ruin any value the piece might have by modifying it, but I'm definitely going to have to do paint it now!)

The living room is done!

So, one of the other reasons that I haven't posted in ages is because Jeremy & I were buried under a pile of paint brushes, rollers and a massive ladder in the living room. It took us about 6 weeks, but we got the living room painted (hallelujah!).

We had contemplated hiring a painter to do this room, because it has vaulted ceilings, an open stairway and is just down right huge. In the end, though, we decided to do it ourselves, mostly because we've never seen a "professional" paint job that we were happy with.

We had to buy a new ladder -- one with the legs that adjust for stairs. It was really rather cool, but extremely heavy. And even buying the tallest one we could get (without spending $1500), Jeremy could just barely reach the worst spot in the room (the wall over the bottom of the steps, where we couldn't sit the regular extension ladder and the new ladder was extended as far as it could go).

The ceiling was AWFUL! We sent the kids to grandma & grandpas for a long weekend and the two of us probably put 25 hours each into it. Needless to say, the next time this room needs painted, someone else will be doing it.

So, anyway, here are a few before pictures. Note the lovely paint job in the 2nd picture (and that was not the only spot that looked like that)...that is exactly why I was so anxious to get the room painted!

And here are a few after pictures:

I LOVE it!!!! The blue/grey is exactly what I was looking for. Now I can't wait to get the rest of the 1st floor finished, especially since the kitchen looks particularly shabby sitting next to the living room now!

Well, hello there, 2012!

Looking back at 2011, we had quite a year. We said goodbye to active duty, a steady paycheck, our best friends and having grandma & grandpa down the street. And we said hello to a whole new life, city, business, church and many new friends. I really can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm really happy right now. Change is usually something I don't do well with. I was expecting it to take a good 1 to 2 years before we really felt settled here, but we've been here just over 6 months and we're past those awful days of transition where I was pining for our old home.

We spent New Years Eve with a group of friends from our new church. It felt so wonderful and comfortable and I truly feel at home with these people. I am perpetually amazed by how welcoming everyone here has been to us!

I'm looking forward to enjoying a much calmer 2012 -- a year in which we can continue to set down roots here in our new home. And I'm continuing (or refreshing) a resolution from a previous year, which is to get cards and correspondence out in a timely manner! I did better for a while, but then we got busy with the move. (And, I don't care if some of you think resolutions are silly, I think this is a great time to take stock of the things that might need improved in our lives and to make some reasonable goals and plans to address those issues.)

Wishing everyone a very blessed 2012!

Mean!

So, needless to say, I am well aware of the fact that my blog has fallen by the wayside over the last several months. And I miss my blog...I miss the writing, the outlet for joys and frustrations, and the chance to record the comic strip moments that are our daily life right now.

I'm not sure why I've become so detached from it, though if I have to be honest, I know a lot of it has to do with my overwhelming frustrations with people (yes, I said people). This feeling of frustration has been brewing in me for the last several years, though it seems to have come to a sort of head lately. Do you know the song "Mean" by Taylor Swift? The chorus pretty much sums up what I want to say to the world right now. The chorus is essentially this, "Why you gotta be so mean?" I think letting the blog slip was just a way of cutting ties with other people and this cycle of meanness that I see everywhere I look.

I think I've had about all I can take of hard line attitudes that diminish other people's dignity. I'm tired of people using politics, religion, parenting, finances and other hot topics to berate each other. We all have opinions, and of course we think ours are the correct ones, but that doesn't mean we should stop being civil with each other.

Anyway, I will step down off my soap box now. And I'm going to do my best to get back in the habit of daily writing, because maybe I can be just one little light of joy and happiness shining in this grumpy old world!

More stripes!

I'm just way behind on updating this. It took me the better part of three weeks to complete this project, but I have our guest bath painted. While I was at it, I painted the pantry because it needed it. And I do mean that it NEEDED to be painted. The shelves were unprimed and unpainted MDF, which can be destroyed easily with just a little bit of water. I've been worried that a bottle would spill and we'd end up needing to rip out the shelves (which are very thoroughly nailed in). I also painted a small hallway area off the master bedroom. I did this to test out the color we choose for the great room. I didn't want to find out after we started the great room that we didn't really like the color (and I LOVE it, by the way).

I don't love the fixtures in the guest bath. I usually like very clean simple (though not necessarily contemporary) designs. The fixtures and hardware in the bathroom are just the opposite. Most of it I left alone, but we did splurge for new sconces. The old ones had vines wrapped around the glass globes and I absolutely detested them. At first I thought I would try to reuse them (because, after all, we reserve that bathroom for guests so we really don't look at them very often). However, after I took them down, I just couldn't bring myself to put them back up.

Here is the before (from the realtor's pictures, as I forgot to get a good shot before demolition):


And the after:

The stripes were a total pain in the you know what. The painting wasn't bad, but the taping off is time consuming (especially since I am totally OCD and spent an excessive amount of time making sure they were perfect). The dark stripes, by the way, are the same color as the kids bath and the light stripes are a light gray from the same color family.

I really like these colors -- they are much more "me" than the peachy beige that was here when we moved in. I can't wait to get the great room finished, which I started working on two days ago. It is going to take FOREVER because of the vaulted ceilings. I'm still working on patching and sanding off rough spots. Maybe by the end of the week I'll have all the prep work done and will actually be able to paint! My goal is to have the room painted by Thanksgiving (so that it is in good order when our holiday company arrives, but also so that I can put my Christmas decorations up).