Painting - Before and After

Towards the end of last week I decided that the living room/dining room really needed painting before I bring my dining room set up from down south.  Especially since that room's paint had been sitting in the way since early March.  Here's a look at the former wall color, with some of my autumn/Halloween decor for contrast.

 

Now here's the same view with the new paint on the walls.

 

I love love LOVE the new color!  And as an aside, don't Kat's hats look great in that random Halloween bag I did up a while back?  They look absolutely fab against the new paint too!

 

 

I can't wait to get my dining room furniture here and in place.  The chairs are actually here but need reupholstering... quite literally.  There's nothing left of the original materials, only the wooden frames remain.  That will be an upcoming project, perhaps next week.

I've got to get back to real life house work again.  We're having company for the weekend and I"m hoping to get all the random clutter, laundry, etc out of the way so I can scrub, vacuum, and mop on Friday morning.  I'll also be doing some baking later in the week.

A Blessing and Tulips

It still needs to be washed, blocked, and framed... but here's the latest finished stitching.I found the kit on clearance at Hobby Lobby on the 18th of March and have been stitching whenever I went to a Guild meeting. Why on Earth I bought a kit that has 41 French knots in the stitching (when I loathe them!) I will never know. But I needed something that wasn't all shades of one color or another to work on and this fit the bill. I just love the sheep! Wishing I had made one of them black with a gray face though.

Some of the tulips are opening in the gardens. These are a few that I could photograph from the deck.


That's all for now. I am going to be starting a new cross stitch in the vain hope I can finish it in time for the show next month.

More Floral Surprises

More and more lovelies are popping up around the gardens.
I wonder what else is lurking beneath the soil...

Illinois or Wales?

It seems that the previous owner had a "thing" for daffodils.





Watching them in the breeze is just lovely.

Quick Tour Through the Incomplete Work Area

Pictures say it all, so I'm taking you on a virtual tour through the mini work area today. Things still need to be unpacked, sorted, and shuffled but at the moment it's usable for projects.

The desk faces the fireplace and television in the main part of the basement.
The larger dollhouse buildings on those handy counters serve as a movable wall to separate the two areas.Books and finished (mostly finished) minis.Three structures that need some work. I love putting mini scenes in old console TVs. The tall house is what will become my witchy department store. (More on that later.) The dresser along the back wall will eventually be home to several roomboxes. I need to get a shelf for the empty corner so I can move teddy bears of of it first. The drawers are filled with beads, buttons, leather, and other supplies. A handy closet for storing more supplies and unfinished roomboxes.
Maddie resting in the unfinished (read: needs major over-haul since I didn't build it) cafe'.It's really much safer for her in there while I'm sorting, etc.

That's all for today. More real life chores are calling my name and then I'm going for "coffee" (tea for me) with Holly.

Don't forget about the giveaway! There's a little over a day left.

Faux Stained Glass

There's a lovely window in my miniature area that looks out onto the garden. However the height of the window allows for a good deal of sunlight coming in all day... and it's aimed right at my painted dollhouses.
So I fixed it.It took one and two thirds panels of "Wisteria" by Art Glass to do it, but I am in love with the result. The light still pours in at the bottom for kitties to nap in and my miniatures are protected more from fading.

I'm heading back to work now! :-)

Colors In the Bedroom

Here's a quick post to show off the color palette in our bedroom. I still haven't had the time to paint the border around the room, but I really think the chocolate brown, dark plum, and the brownish-peach look nice together.

Bathroom Is Done

At least until I ever get around to gutting it and starting over. ;-)

Before: There were a total of 5 curtain rods and 4 towel bars in this bathroom. Each curtain and valance you see had it's own rod. Two of the towel bars were in the shower and were not the type that could handle getting wet. Those got removed and the screw holes were filled with caulk. Eventually I will see about popping the affected tiles out and replacing them with contrasting tiles. After: The only curtains in the room now are on a single rod. I used one of the new curved ones so the thin shower isn't as claustrophobic. The window is covered with a removable vinyl film that resembles etched glass. FH and I tested it out and the only way someone outside can see in is if they are right up against the window and then we could see them.

The paint was chosen because it went with all the pretty things I already had on hand for the room. I found the last roll of border that matched the set and used it across the lave. around to the shower stall. With the exception of the knobs and handles on the original cabinet, the hardware is all satin nickel.
There is no medicine cabinet in this room. We needed some kind of extra storage in here so a free-standing cabinet had to do.At some point I will get around to replacing the cabinet hardware. I'm also thinking about putting a frame around the mirror or replacing it with a slightly smaller one.

The space next to the window is lacking something, so I'm keeping an eye out for some type of artwork that can handle humidity. I don't think I will be putting the miniature bathroom in here because of the humidity and lack of exhaust fan. The lack of fan is grandfathered into the current code and passes because of the window. It will probably be put up in the basement bathroom since the shower in that room is not currently usable and wouldn't be used often.

Behind the Bar

Before:After:
I left the white cup in the picture so you can see that the walls behind the bar are not white. :-)

When You Need Things Done...

...ask the cat.
Pollux here. Mom's busy unpacking things so I thought I would show you the best part of the new house. The sun porch. Saturday was nice and warm so Mom and Dad opened the back door and let us explore. Here I am sniffing around the wood pile. Mom says that won't be staying long. It's supposed to be stacked neatly further away from the house so we don't get termites. Here's my brother and sister coming outside.
We aren't sure why our cat tree is out here, but Castor found it.The wood pile became uninteresting after a while, but this picture shows the plexi-glass portions of the walls really well. The upper parts of the walls are filled in with screens so there was a very nice breeze. Mom said the walls would protect us from owls, hawks, and coyotes, but still let us get fresh air and sunlight. They will also keep my brother from getting into anything that will make him sick if he eats it, so I guess they are ok.Confetti has found the blinds that are on the walls. Mom has opened most of them part-way so we can get some sun.Here's one last picture of our adventure. Castor has found where Mom put some of the plants she dug up from the old house. When the snow is all gone she will find places to put them.That's all for now. I'm going to finish my nap that was rudely interrupted.

Family Room- Before and After Paint

I mentioned before that we were going to try and paint as much as we could before we moved in. Two rooms were successfully painted, but all but two were coated in primer. Of course that made short work of the painting later on.

The biggest room to tackle with paint was the finished part of the basement. The rough measurements are 44 feet by 11 feet. (I have the exact numbers upstairs, but I'm finally sitting down for a bit and not about to go find them.) The room is divided in two parts by a change in carpeting and two short shelving units topped with counter tops.

The larger of these sections is what FH and I chose to become our "family room," where the TV lives and where we would entertain more intimate friends and family.

Here it is on the evening of our final walk-through. I'm certain you recall the retro-styled fireplace.And here is it is with the main walls painted. (I haven't painted behind the bar yet. Getting the furniture in place was a bigger priority and nothing big is going to set back there. I can paint whenever I feel like it.)
And this is also the room where 'Bert, Tempie, Ada, and Alana are residing.Once I find my really strong scissors I will be trimming that vinyl a bit so it no longer hangs over the ends of the couch.

In case it's harder to see in the other pictures, here's a close up of the colors meeting in the corners.We chose the blue and brown combination to give the space feelings of both warmth and cool. Because the room is so large, we opted to use both short walls as accent walls with the brown and that works well since the other portion is really it's own space. The blue is nice and bright in addition to being a relaxing color. The added bonus is the original window treatments match perfectly and are great now that I've cleaned them. We also opted to keep the mirror because it makes the room feel less cramped. (I loathe mirrors btw. They unnerve me to no end. So far I'm successful in ignoring the stupid thing.) And for the record, my thoughts on taking the mirror down to paint that wall are forbidden by the FCC for foulness in nature. Many unlike things were said throughout the process of taking it down and even more while putting it back up.

The other main color in this space is a medium toned cream. Currently the only place painted with that color is inside the big window. It warms up the sunlight even more than the original color did, which is good since we're in a basement room. The walls behind the bar will eventually be the same color.

I can hear some of you pondering our color choices in relation to the fireplace. The answer is simple... The fireplace is going away to be replaced with a cast iron, wood-burning stove that has the ability to heat the entire house if the power fails during the winter. The decor in this area will be more rustic, which will compliment the stove nicely and suit our tastes. Once we decide where the main piece of art (a painting my grandmother gave us) is going I will have pictures. If inquiring minds want to know, we have already found a home for the old fireplace. It will live on in an addition a friend is adding to their house which is great since it is a really fine piece.