More is More

It’s Tuesday and I’m getting ready to go into the office to work while many many of my friends are in Florida or on their way there to attend CHA this week.  I can’t complain because it was my choice not to go and I promised myself I wouldn’t pout all week, but I am feeling just a twinge of *out of the loop sadness*.  So to get my mind off all that I thought I’d share some photos of some of what we’ve been doing around here for the past month and you can see why I haven’t had much time to stamp!

Besides painting the kitchen red – which I LOVE btw – we had professional painters come in and paint the living room, dining room/office, hallway, bathroom, kitchen ceiling and trim, back entry way.  Except for the bathroom and kitchen everything was painted Warm Cocoon with one accent wall in a darker color called Sahara Shade.  The trim and ceiling is a creamy almost-white called Eggshell Cream.  The entire house started out Navajo and I could live my whole life and never see that color again!  We took up the carpet in the office and washed the existing hardwood floors with Murphy’s Oil Soap (that stuff ROCKS!) and this weekend we purchased a rug.  We got new plush mossy green carpet for the rest of the house.  Here are a couple of overview pictures – click on them to see them larger.

The first photo is standing in the office looking through the pocket doors into the living room.  On the right is Curt’s desk (where I am sitting now at the computer.)  If you look carefully you can see R.B., our Greenwinged Macaw sitting on his play tree in the living room.  The second photo is the opposite view taken from a position in front of the mantle.

There was never supposed to be a dining table in Curt’s office, but since I teach a stamping class once a month and this is the only room to do it in, a table ended up here by default.  This dining table is part of an entire house full of furniture that my great-grandmother bought in the early 60’s and it is one of the last pieces that remained in it’s aged once-creamy french provincial finish.  We are amazed at how good it looks refinished!  It’s oval (which is one of the things I love about it) and it has 3 leaves so it can be made as big as needed when I teach.  I plan to get a runner to go in the middle of it along with some sort of decorative centerpiece.  We also re-covered the chair seats which is an easy-peasy DIY project with a staple gun!

Our living room has a mantel for a fake fireplace.  It has a fitting for a gas ceramic heater so there was never a real firebox.  We have candles set up in it.  Above the mantle was a huge frameless beveled mirror.  When we took the mirror down there was wiring for two sconce lights and an electrical outlet – perhaps for a mantle clock or something?  We were excited to get new sconces lights and finally use that weird switch that previously seemed to go nowhere!

In the photo above you can see Beaker (our Red Fronted Macaw) on the left and R.B on the right.  I’m expecting my drapes back from the cleaners tomorrow (who knew it could take 3 weeks???) and the room will look very different when they are re-installed.  I’ll try to remember to share another photo after they are back.  Oh and we’ve ordered an oval frameless mirror for over the mantle and hope to have it up this weekend.  The next project on the list is to have the gold antique chairs re-upholstered.  After bringing home tons of swatches, I found fabric last week but it was on hold by a designer so I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get it.  I was so excited when the store called yesterday to say it had been released and I could come and get it!  These chairs were given to us by a friend several years ago as he was going to get rid of them.  They were tattered when we took them with the idea that we would *try them* in our house and if we liked them we would get them re-covered.  For the past 7 or 8 years I’ve felt the need to explain this to anyone visiting our home for the first time.  Sheesh!  It sure will be nice to have them finally done!

There’s still so much to do.  There are big things like finding fabric and having kitchen curtains made and a ton of little things like bringing in all of our *stuff* from the garage and motorhome to sort through and find places for whatever we are keeping.  I’d like to find some new artwork to hang on the walls and I have a bunch of photos to frame and hang in the hallway.  It’s going to take some time, but it’s all worth it.  I’m missing stamping, but if you saw the shape my stamp room is in you’d know why it’s hard to go in there and just spend a little time to make a card!  I do need to carve out some time this week though to get in there and create!  Thanks for hanging in there with me and thank you so much for all of your kind and encouraging comments on our home improvement projects.  This has been a very exciting, albeit exhausting, time for us.

Before I go I just have to share this silly photo I took of Tessa.  She doesn’t normally get up on Curt’s desk, but I couldn’t resist!

I’m off to work.  I hope you have a fantastic day!