Cora's Nursery

 Our little lady still isn't here, but her room is finally ready and waiting for her! There are still a couple of tiny details that need to be finished up, but for the most part, the projects have all been completed. This has been very beneficial for the rest of my household, because I definitely neglected more mundane tasks while I worked on getting her space ready.

 When we first found out we were having a girl, there were two projects I already knew I wanted to work on for her: a quilt and a sampler that I had stumbled across in different places on the great worldwide web (you can see my post with the pics that were my inspiration here).  Those two projects really set the tone for the feel of the room, and after lots of Pinterest browsing, I settled on a color scheme. Nearly every detail of her room has some significance, so it has been really enjoyable and special to piece it all together.  That said, on to the good part: the pictures!

While most of the fabrics in Cora's quilt are from a line called Children at Play by Sarah Jane, along with a few other newer prints, there are several vintage pieces that came from my grandmother's scrap stash. As a child, my mom even had a dress that was made from one of the fabrics included (the print with little turquoise geese, one of the pieces is on the top row, middle left). This was such a fun project to work on every step of the way, and ended up being much easier than I thought it would be.

Here is her sweet little sleeping corner!

We found her crib on Craigslist and Josh lovingly labored to strip the dark gray paint off of it so we could spend a million hours painting it white. The crib was possibly the one project that was not fun ... it was a lot of work. My mom & I picked up a used bumper at a thrift store, which she cut the fabric off of and then re-covered with an old sheet Josh and I had. The fabrics in the adorable pennant banner are scraps from the quilt. She also sewed the crib skirt using more of the same sheet, so costs for Cora's custom bedding were quite low!

The paintings above Cora's crib are gifts to her from both of her aunts, my sister & Josh's sister. A couple of months before I found out I was pregnant with Cora, I was reading a blog I admire, and loved the idea the blogger had of asking her mom and mom-in-law to paint coordinating canvases for her little one's room. Since Abbie & Heather both love to paint, I asked them to do the same. I picked out the paint colors and asked them to each do a simple painting of flowers, using the flowers in Cora's sampler as inspiration. They never saw each other's paintings until they were done, and I am just so impressed with how precious they are, and how well they go together! The massive orb of floating tissue poms and lanterns was Pinterest inspired, and such a fun, cheap way to brighten the room. I made all of the poms, and the lanterns were less than a dollar apiece at Target (I painted the coral ones, so that I wouldn't have to order more expensive ones online).

The little shelf above her bed was a find at a local flea market and then repainted. The print is an old picture from a magazine from the 1920's that my mom found on a different flea market outing, and the little baby booties are family heirlooms.

The focal point of the other side of the room is the alphabet sampler. I love it so much! I so enjoyed using this project to learn embroidery, and it kept me busy many nights from February-May.

We took one of Liam's bookshelves out of his room and I painted it white to match her furniture. The little nightstand was already in the room (it used to be the guest room), and it was repainted gray and given new drawer pulls. The glider was also in Liam's room, and my mom so kindly re-covered the cushions and ottoman in a Joel Dewberry fabric I LOVE. My mom also sewed the curtains (I know, what would I have done without my mom!).

I love this antique baby book I found at a different flea market. It's empty now, but I plan to hole punch paper to the appropriate size and fill it with Liam & Cora's monthly pictures from each of their first year of life (and any other kiddos we might end up having).

Another nursery I found on Pinterest and was inspired by gave me the idea of doing a photo wall of pictures of family wedding photos. It will take a little tweaking here and there for this part of the room to be finished (and I still haven't printed the two pics from Josh and my wedding that I'll be putting up), but I love that she'll see her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents every day!

I also LOVE this print I purchased from an Etsy seller - she adjusted the colors for me to better coordinate with Cora's nursery.

The dresser belonged to one of my grandmothers, and was yet another repainting project. I am SO glad to be done painting!

  So there you have it - the little nest that has been so lovingly feathered for our little girl. Now we just need her to come and live in it!

All Aboard the Crazy Train

 How do you know when you've completely lost your marbles? Maybe when you find yourself hunkered over the kitchen counter, meticulously mixing two different colors of paint samples using your son's medicine droppers to ensure that you are using exactly the same amount of each color of paint*.

  At least that's how I knew I had crossed over into crazy this morning.

  So, here's what happened. I found out I was having a baby girl. I opened my brain and just doused it in Pinterest. I thought, "it would sure be nice if Cora had lovely, pale aqua walls" ... perhaps like this:

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Or this:

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  Now, a great thing about finding room inspiration online is that, often, the name of the wall color will be listed, so that (theoretically) you could just buy that color and be on your merry way. Yeah right. Back in the great living room paint debacle of 2009 I learned that just because you LOVE how a paint color looks in a picture, someone else's home, or on the walls of a store (say, Silver Sage in Restoration Hardware, for example), it does not mean that using the same paint will get you the same look on your own walls. I learned that lesson after our families helped us paint our entire living room, kitchen, and entry silver sage, only to discover the next morning that our home looked like a baby boy's nursery. Many paint samples and hours of work later, we finally nailed the look I was going for.

  So, I knew that the rooms in the pictures above are both painted in Benjamin Moore's Robin's Nest, but there was NO way I was going to go out and just buy that paint & hope for the best. Especially after seeing some pics taken from different angles in the rooms, or with different lighting, and realizing that color has the potential to look like this:

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 Still pretty, but just a smidge more intense than I'd like in one of our smallish bedrooms. So, I decided instead to just hit up our local Lowe's and Home Depot for paint chips and find one that would recreate the look of the first two pics. That's when the crazy started. In the pic below, there are 5 different paints tested out on the wall. The two furthest to the left are the first two I bought. They were both too blue-gray. So then I picked out the two colors on the right and tried them out. They were both too white (which is why you can barely see them). However, I was hung up on one of them - Bubble by Behr. It seemed like the look I was going for, just a tad too pale (and none of these colors are translating very well onto the screen from my iphone pic, but you get then general idea).  

  

  

Actually, the Bubble color on the wall was a far cry from the color on the paint chip, so today I took it back to the kind man at Home Depot (3rd visit this week) and showed him on a piece of paper what color Bubble had turned when it dried (we'll call this color Bubble #1). He said that it couldn't be right and tried mixing me another sample ... to make a really tedious story only slightly less so, I'll just say that another couple of tries later, he had finally concocted his own paint formula that looked very similar to the paint chip (this color I'll refer to as Bubble #2). I brought it home and painted it underneath Bubble #1.

  So, so close to what I'm looking for, but now instead of being too white, it was just a bit too intense. And that is was brought me to the point of playing paint apothecary on my kitchen counter. After inspecting the formulas listed on the top of my samples I realized that Bubble #1 & Bubble #2 were identical, except that the first one had only 1 part of a particular color, and the second one had 3 parts of that color. I thought that just maybe, if I mixed equal parts of the two samples, I'd end up with a color that was just right.

 And you know what? Bubble #3 is just right. It's the color wedged between the other two, with the paint chip taped next to it. I actually think my attempt at paint mixing got me a color closer to the paint chip than either the computer or the nice Home Depot man were able to achieve, but I couldn't have done it without their help.

 So, tomorrow I will go to Home Depot for the 4th time this week. I'll find Mr. Paint-Mixer and explain my formula to him and ask him to mix up a couple of gallons of it for me. And then I'll be committed ... possibly to a wall color, possibly to a mental institution. Either way, my husband will be glad the paint debate has been laid to rest. He likes to say that when I'm working on a project I like to aim for an incredibly small target. This is very true, and this post is proof that small targets can be hit, sometimes it just takes a whole slew of arrows before you get it right**.

*Don't worry, I threw away the medicine droppers I used for my paint mixing ... I'm not going to contaminate my son.

**I'm really banking on this color working, but so far I've only got about 4 inches x 8 inches of color on a wall from a paint I've mixed myself. Let's hope I don't have to write a sequel about how you really shouldn't make up your own paint formulas.

*** Final note: I know there are more important things in the world than paint colors ... like just about everything. Please don't judge.

Hello, Lovely.

  No, I am not addressing my napping husband, the video monitor with my napping son, or the giant expanse of blank, blue wall that is the corner of my living room.
 

 

  The loveliness I am referring to is that little upright Yamaha piano behind the loveseat. She just joined the Lawson household yesterday afternoon and we are so pleased to have her.

  I took piano lessons from the time I was 6 or 7 until I graduated from high school. My family's first piano was purchased from a garage sale, which was what allowed me to begin the lessons. I don't remember how old I was when my parents purchased the Yamaha, but I was probably somewhere in the middle school/jr. high age range.

  I've only played a handful of times since I left for college nearly 12 years ago. I was busy being a college/grad student, then a newly-wed, then a new mom and never had a piano easily accessible during those years. Now that my youngest sibling is about to finish his junior year of high school and has musical interests that are focused on other instruments, my parents offered to let Josh and I relocate the piano to our home (actually, they made this offer months and months ago ... it just took us a long time to get around to moving it. Apparently moving a piano is no walk in the park.).

  I am so thrilled! I fully expect that it will take at least a few years for me to be able to play the way I used to - my brain remembers certain things and my fingers remember other things, but they are no longer efficient at putting themselves together to make beautiful music. However, beautiful music can wait. Last night, Liam sat on the bench next to me and pounded along as we played and sang Twinkle, Twinkle; Mary Had a Little Lamb; and Old MacDonald Had a Farm. He didn't want to stop, and this morning it was the first thing he wanted to do when we walked out to the living room. I know the novelty will wear off, but I'm excited my little ones will have an instrument accessible to them from an early age, and I hope I can model to them the enjoyment that can come from playing it.

  Also, I really need to decorate that corner.

Cora's Room: The Projects

  On Monday, I will be 22 weeks pregnant. This means I probably have somewhere between approximately 16-19 weeks to get Liam's big boy room ready, prepare Cora's nursery, transition Liam to his new room & big boy bed (and hopefully off of his pacifier), and celebrate his second birthday in May. This is potentially a little overwhelming, but also exciting. Today I started making my lists of what needs to be done for each of the rooms and I can't wait to see them come together! I thought I'd share a few of the sewing projects I'll be working on for Cora's nursery.

  So far I've spent the most time working on this sweet crewel embroidery alphabet sampler.

Daisychain ABCs

  Well, hopefully that's what it will end up looking like. I'm embroidering mine on a lighter colored fabric and substituting the bright pink yarn for more of a coral color so that it will be a better match for our color scheme. Also, I haven't really embroidered anything before, so I'm learning as I go (a common theme in the projects I undertake). Hopefully it will turn out somewhat close to the original.

This has been really fun to work on, and since I can get a letter done in a day or two, there's a happy amount of instant gratification as each letter pops to life.

  Another project that will be pretty time-consuming is making Cora's bedding. I'm SO glad that I figured out how to quilt last year, so that I can make this beauty for my little girl.

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  I saw this quilt on Pinterest just before I found out I was pregnant, and as soon as I found out we are having a girl, I knew I'd be making it. Gratefully, my mom has offered to help me out with this one, as it involves a ton of cutting and sewing circles. I feel a little less overwhelmed knowing I don't have to complete the whole thing on my own. I really need to get to work on collecting the fabrics I'm going to use on this quilt - so far I only have these two that I picked up from the clearance bin at our local quilting shop (along with the really cute lamp I picked up for $13 from a baby boutique that was having a big moving sale).

  I also plan on sewing a bumper for the crib, and while I'm not committed enough to a fabric to have ordered one yet, this Modern Meadow Poppy from Sandi Henderson's Secret Garden line is a front runner.

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The last big sewing project we have (and I say we, because this is another one I'll be relying heavily on my mom to help out with) is recovering the cushions on the glider & ottoman. I think we'll be using this gorgeous Dandelion fabric from Joel Dewberry's Heirloom line.

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  I LOVE Joel Dewberry's fabrics and used a beautiful print from his Aviary line a few years ago for our living room curtains. You should check him out if you're needing to order fabric anytime soon.

  So, here's hoping I'm super productive in the coming months. You know, so I can also tackle all the furniture painting and stuff for Liam's room that I want to do. And, if I'm not, I think we'll all survive ... perhaps just not as adorably as I'd like.

Baby Girls' Room: The Colors

  Today I had an extra long lunch break, so I took a little time to browse some local shops in search of accessories and fabric for little girl's room. When I posted a few pics of my finds on Facebook, I got several questions about my plans for the nursery. Since I'm generally terrible at documenting the process of any creative project I'm working on, I thought it would be kind of fun to try to use the ol' blog to keep track of what I've got going on. Before last Thursday, when we found out our baby's gender, I had really tried to avoid looking at baby/nursery stuff too much. I didn't want to get too attached to any ideas before I knew if I'd get to use them or not. However, there were several pictures/ideas on Pinterest that had caught my eye, so as soon as we found out sweet baby is a girl, I started the hunt to find them again.

  Three nurseries, in particular, really inspired me ...

  In the first one I love the colors, but a toned down version of them. Our kiddo bedrooms are fairly small, so walls that bright would probably be headache-inducing. I also love the fun floral fabric on the glider. I picked up our rocker/glider at a flea market for $55 before Liam was born. Initially, I was going to recover it in a neutral fabric so we could use it for either gender, but since the old fabric on it is kind of a light, dusty blue, I ended up just leaving it since it worked in Liam's nursery. Now that it will be in a baby girl room, it definitely needs to be recovered, and I'm pretty sure I'll be following my friend Emily's advice to cover it in a big, fun floral.

Found on House of Turquoise  via Pinterest

This second room really captivated me initially, primarily because of the aqua walls with coral accents. I'm also kind of in love with the soft gray dresser. The more I've looked at the pics of this room, though, the more I feel like I'd prefer a buttery or dandelion yellow as the third color in my nursery as opposed to the black & white accents.

Found on House of Turquoise via Pinterest

And finally, my favorite inspiration room ... If I could just transport this room into our house I think it would be pretty perfect. Unfortunately, we do not have wood floors, an ultra-modern white crib, a funky green velvet armchair, or a super-expensive (but GORGEOUS) rug from Anthropologie. However, I'm pretty sure the wall color is just about perfect, and I love the way the coral & yellow accents look so cheery yet soft against it.

Found on Project Nursery

So, as I noticed the coral/aqua theme of all of my favorite rooms, I started searching Pinterest world for more inspiration using those colors. I could stare at these lovelies all day.

Found on We Don't Sleep When the Sun Goes Down via Pinterest

Found on Pink Lemonade via Pinterest

Found on A Kiss of Colour via Pinterest

  I really can't get enough of this combo, and I'm thrilled to have settled on a color combo that feels feminine and sweet without being super-pink. In the next Baby Girl room installation I'll share some of the fabrics I'm considering and a few of the items I've found for the room. I'd love feedback and ideas!

Goals Update

1. Read Bible everyday this week - yay! It made me realize how much time I really do have to spend time with the Lord, I just get distracted and do other stuff instead and then tell myself I'm too busy.
2. No change on quilt, but I'm getting ready to cut my remaining pieces for the front when I'm done with this post.
3. no progress on piles
4. no progress on winter wreath - not planning on working on it til Thanksgiving
5. I read a few pages in Don't Make me Count to Three & most of an easy-read, fiction book I got for my birthday.
6. I mailed in my test registration form & check! Woo hoo! In about 4 weeks I should be cleared to schedule my testing date.
7. No playdates with friends, because I let the beginning of the week get too busy and was a crazed woman trying to find all the accessories needed for our ridiculous Ken & Barbie costumes.
8. no progress on Christmas stockings
9. Windows washed! Goal completed on 10/28!
10. no progress on pallet seating
11. still no running ... ergghh.
12. no progress on Liam's book

 Well, last week I said I wanted to complete goals 6 & 9 and I did! I'm not technically registered for the test yet, but I've done all I can for the next few weeks. I'll cross it off the list when I've got a date on the calendar. I also said I wanted to be more faithful with goals 1 & 11. I was a total slacker on #11, but followed through with #1. As much as I'd love to really be disciplined in exercising, I do think it's good to grow in faithfulness in my relationship with God, first :)

So, this next week? Let's keep up the pace w/ #1, finish piecing the quilt top & back (#2), complete #3, and participate in #11 at least 2x.

I know this is the most boring thing ever for anyone else to read, and I doubt anyone actually does, but somehow putting my goals out there, in all their halting detail, helps me feel motivated to keep up with them.  Also, this week I finished Christmas shopping for my sis and sis-in-law, which felt pretty good. I'm hoping to have all my shopping done by the weekend following Thanksgiving so I can really focus during the Christmas season on making fun family memories instead of feeling stressed about making sure I get gifts for people (that makes it sound like I do not like giving gifts - I do, I just start feeling stressed when I put it off for too long).

12 by 2012

 Almost 5 months ago I posted a list of projects I wanted to finish. At this point, I had forgotten about the list, but this evening I was reminded of it when I was checking up on a blog I enjoy and I saw this challenge:



The challenge is to choose 12 goals to accomplish before we roll over into the year 2012 - you can read more about it on Hello, Friend, here. I decided to participate because deadlines are a very helpful to for me (ie, I tend to procrastinate so I NEED them). Additionally, Josh and I have been particularly productive around the house over the past few weeks, so maybe this challenge will help me keep that momentum as we head into the winter months.

So, before I set my 12 goals for the next 11 weeks, I went back and reviewed the goals I set in June:

1. Canvas painting - finished for a friend's nursery in June
2. Baby quilt - I finished my 1st in September! You can see it here.
3. Study closet - This closet was a hot mess of china, serving dishes, boxes I hadn't gone through since we moved, and craft stuff. At the end of September I got it completely organized and it is WONDERFUL. It is a task I was dreading for a long time, and I feel so much better now that it's done.
4. Liam's one year book - Still haven't finished ... had to just use my $30 credit to get prints so I wouldn't lose it.
5. PICTURES!!! I'm gonna say this is partially complete, even though it isn't fully finished. I enlarged a framed a bunch of photos for our living room, which is at least progress.
6. Birthday crown - I still haven't completed my little felt birthday crown, but since Liam won't be 2 until May, it's not a high priority at this point.
7. Christmas stockings - Uggh, I don't know why I'm having so much trouble getting motivated to finish these. Maybe if I start playing Christmas music soon it will help.

Okay, so I at least accomplished half of my list, and I feel pretty pleased with that, considering that in the last 5 months Josh broke his foot, took sabbatical, and numerous other things have come up. So, what to accomplish with the rest of this year? Let's see:

1. Read Bible daily - I am ashamed to admit that I've really had trouble with being consistent in spending time in the Word lately. We have been so scattered and busy over the past couple of months that I have had a hard time being disciplined and I know I just need to spend more time with Jesus.

2. Finish baby quilt for secret friend - I'm working on quilt #2 right now. I'll be done with the top as soon as my final fabric arrives in the mail. This one has come together MUCH faster than the first, so I'm confident I'll have it done in a couple of weeks.

3. Sort remaining piles/bins in the house - I still have some piles of books & stuff that don't have homes after some rearranging Josh and I did recently, so I need to get them taken care of before they breed, as piles tend to do.

4. Make a Winter wreath - I made a fun fall wreath, per pinterest inspiration; and I already have an idea picked out for the one I'd like to put up after Thanksgiving. Perhaps I'll get it done while we are on vacation with my fam in Destin for Thanksgiving.

5. Finish 2 books - I want to finish reading Don't Make me Count to Three and ... um, I'm not sure which other book I want to finish, but I'll keep you updated.

6. Register for exam - So, there's this exam called the National Counseling Mental Health Counseling Exam (NCMHCE, if you're in a hurry ... and no, I don't know why "counseling" is in the name twice). Anyway, if I would take the exam and pass it, I would be finished with my counseling licensure and supervision - a goal I've been working toward since January 2008. I've been qualified to take this final exam for several months now, but I keep putting off registering for it because there are other things I'd rather do than study for another giant exam.

7. Have at least one playdate a week (when we're home) - Since I'm not in women's Bible study this fall and since Liam spends the days I work with his grandmas instead of childcare, I think I really need to be more proactive in getting him time with kids his age.

8.  Finish Christmas stockings - Of course it's back on the list. They'll be on our mantle this December.

9. Wash windows - They are icky and we have finally ordered blinds, so it's the perfect time to have clean windows.

10. Make pallet seating/bed for study - I'm not convinced that Josh and I will get this done by the new year, but we at least need to get started.

11. Run 90 miles - No, not consecutively. Historically, I have HATED running. In the past few weeks, though, I have started making myself run, and I've been delighted to discover that I no longer hate it as much as I used to. Although early morning p90x workouts have been successful for me in the past, it just isn't always reasonable to spend 60-90 minutes working out before Liam wakes up. I'm really trying to build a running habit/positive relationship with running, so I'd love if I could just run 90 miles between now and the new year. That's just a little over 8 miles a week (because so far I run short distances, and SLOWLY), so I think I can do it.

12. Finish Liam's one year book. I seriously need to get this done sometime before his second birthday :)

Okay, so there they are. I think my list is a bit unreasonable since I also have to factor in Christmas shopping, cards & decorating; but I wanted to aim high & see what happens!

Sunny Days

 So, this little man and I have been having a LOT of fun lately. At the beginning of last week we found out he had a double ear infection, but ever since he got through the first couple of days of antibiotics, he has been feeling great and we've been living it up! I've also been really motivated to work on fun crafty projects, so my house is sort of a wreck, but it's been delightful.

It all started with these little crazy flowers I made out of  stryrofoam balls & q-tips. After I finished dyeing them orange I really couldn't decide if I liked them or not for a few days, but I finally decided they could stay on the mantle ... I've been needing some orange accents to go with the giant orange curtains that are hanging in the living room, anyway. So then I had to change out most of the other stuff I had on the mantle because it clashed with the crazy flowers, but that motivated me to paint some picture frames white so I could display a few of Liam's sweet one year photos. I love it.

Another project I worked on over the course of several nights this week was zebra-striping some letters for a friend of mine. She is getting ready to redecorate her little girl's room (moving up from a nursery to a "big girl" room) and she's using zebra accents. Since I'm not much of an animal print girl, myself, it was kind of fun to work on the sort of project that I'd never do for myself. While I can't see zebra fitting in anywhere in my home, it was fun to paint & I think it looked cute (I did "Wild" & "Lilly").

 Liam is becoming more and more interested in "helping" me with whatever I'm working on, so this Tuesday when I was making some treats for community group I was happy to let him smash graham crackers into crumbs with his little wooden hammer. Here he is, very pleased with his work:

 And, just one more random story from our week ... Today we had lunch with a couple of friends from our community group on the patio of a sweet little tea room that is located next to a creek and a sort of a green space (I promise, that is relevant). After our lunch arrived, it started occurring to me that Liam was throwing his food on the ground (which he normally doesn't do until the end of the meal), and that he was making the "barking" noise he makes when he sees a dog. My mom brain finally kicked in and I looked down to try to figure out what had caught his attention, and this is what I saw:

Yep. A baby raccoon. Liam was throwing his food down to a baby raccoon, and was barking at it because I haven't gotten around to teaching him how to make raccoon noises yet :) The little fellow must have somehow gotten separated from his mom and made himself at home in the bushes next to our table. He spent the rest of our meal napping next to my feet and feasting on grilled cheese and grapes. Aside from my brief concern that he might bite my toes and give me rabies, it was a fun surprise and a great way to keep my son entertained through lunch!

My Newest Love

Okay, so I don't know why, but I really don't feel very into today's Reverb prompt.  Maybe it's because I'm tired and have a headache after spending 2 1/2 hours at our cell group town home with 40 jr. high kids & my baby.  So, I think I'll just wait and double up tomorrow.  Instead, a few pics of my new favorite room in our house ...

 Last Monday we got these glorious bookshelves installed in our home:

One of the men who works on building & grounds at our church used to have his own cabinet-making shop and now he fills custom orders for people as he has time.  He did an amazing job, we got them much cheaper than we would have gotten them anywhere else (or I think even if we had attempted to build them on our own), and the money we paid for them goes to the church! We waited to put our books on the shelves so we could use them to display Tara's photography for her art show we hosted last weekend, so this week I was very excited to finally start organizing our books.

Today I unpacked them:

and I was so glad to release them from their multi-year captivity in these:

and I had such a sweet little helper

It's been a great day - I love our books and it is so nice to know I can finally access them again.  Also, a wall of bookshelves?  It's kind of  dream come true.  Well, the dream would actually be a room full of walls of bookshelves, but one wall is good for now.

I've Been Busy ...

So, my schedule as of late has not allowed for much time for writing, which is sort of a bummer, but I have really enjoyed the busyness that I've been wrapped up in. Most days my schedule is as follows: wake up & go to work, get off work anywhere between 5:00pm-9:30pm (one night a week I do private practice until VERY late in the evening), come home & jump around between projects (painting rooms, unpacking boxes, refinishing/painting furniture, try to keep up with regular household chores), & finally, go to bed around midnight. Here are a few of the projects that have been occupying my time ...

I bought this old china cabinet



& made it look like this



I repainted a 60 yr. old bed for our guest bedroom



And we've been figuring out good living room arrangements



So, that's what I've been up to!

Finally some house pics!

Originally I had a goal of putting up some house pics every Friday to show our progress, but I've been a bit too busy painting & unpacking. However, today I did finally take the time to upload some pictures ... not great, but just a few before & after painting shots. We haven't decorated anything yet, as we're just trying to get things painted, boxes unpacked, and furniture purchased.

dining room before



dining room after



our bedroom before (with some paint samples on the wall)




and after




We've also painted the living room & kitchen, but I haven't taken pictures of either of those rooms since the've been painted, so that will have to wait. If you want to see a few more pictures you can look here. I hope everyone has a great Sunday!