A little blue

You really can't tell in this picture but this is blue paint!

Bad lighting + small room = bad picture.
Anyway - I've been painting this week - which would be why I haven't answered email or visited blogs. Who would think it would take so long? All I can say is I started in the half bath - took a whole day just to do that small room. Small room+ ladder+ fat woman who doesn't like small places, 'nuff said?

Corner of the bedroom where my conservatory lives - doesn't it look so much better with a blue background than it did with the beige?

Do you have any of these? If you can get it under the legs you can move anything with these things! Mind you, I have moved a lot of furniture in my time w/o these things - I've walked all kinds of furniture across carpet and folded towels will do the same thing on a hardwood floor but these things are like magic! (In case you don't remember it from past posts - this chest is HUGE and I can just push it where I need it with these things). Hubby did help me put the discs under the furniture and I'll probably get him to help me get them out when I finish. The smaller ones from this set came with covers so you can use them on hard floors (I used them on the tile when I was painting the entry and kitchen)

I'm not through - I still have the back wall in the bedroom to finish painting (will finish today!) then I need to put the bathroom and bedroom back together. I also need to paint the green shelf that was in the bathroom (some shade of white - depends on what I have in the garage) but I've got to get it sanded first.
More pictures, blog visits and email later!
Enjoy the rest of your week.

I finished something!

I finally have a finish. Can't believe it. I started this in July when I spent a weekend with the girlfriends and I finally finished it the other day.

'Chocolate Shoppe' by Little House Needleworks
Have no idea how I want to frame it at the moment but I would like to hang it somewhere in my kitchen/breakfast area. Not at the top of the priority list at the moment though.

Thought I would show the picture I forgot to upload in my last post. This apron belonged to my grandmother. I'm sure she sewed it herself. Personally, I never wear an apron and even if I did, there is no way I could wear this one. (she was tiny - I am not) Rather than just having it hanging in a closet or hidden in a drawer I framed it. It was in my dining room at the other house because I didn't have a wall space large enough in that kitchen. When we were placing furniture in this house I made sure to leave this space open for the apron (only place in this kitchen large enough!) where I see it every day. It looks much better hanging on the yellow wall that it did on that dreary beige!



I'm still behind on blog reading - I managed to get the post count below 200 but I'm back to painting tomorrow so who knows how far I'll behind I'll be by the time I finish the half bath and the master bedroom.

Kitchen pictures

Thought I would post a few more pictures of the kitchen since I finished painting.

this first picture was taken from the den. With the light it is kinda hard to see the difference in color but everything from the den side is still beige. It will be getting a coat (or two!) of Pebble (green) sometime in the near future.

Looking back across the breakfast bar. I love my new sink!

I'm sure the stuff on top of the cabinets will get a shuffle or two. I still want to paint the cabinets white and build some type of cabinet/shelf over the fridge. I'm trying to make myself get all the walls painted before I tackle the cabinets.

This is the wall that comes from the kitchen into the breakfast room. Just to the left of this picture is the little area I showed you that goes into the laundry room then the other half of this wall that is in the kitchen. I have my grandmother's apron hanging there but I missed it when I was uploading photos - I'll show it later. Just to the right of the little while table is the den. If you look at the upper right corner you can see how much different (and better!) the yellow looks from the beige. (that's the wall going up the stairs)

Another shot of the entry. I decided to hang one of the many yet-to-be-hung pieces over the front door.
Better go check on dinner. Hubby should be home in a few and I have one of his favorites in the oven. (pork chops on rice)
Have a great weekend.

Just popping in

to say hi!
I've finished painting with 'butter' (unless I change my mind and decide to use it in another room) I took a few pics the other day but they aren't great. It was cloudy and/or raining most of last week. The sun just popped out a few minutes ago but I'm sure if I took off back downstairs to take pics it would slip behind a cloud again so I'll stay put and let it shine!

It's really hard to tell the colors in pictures, but here is one of the entry with the light on

and one with it off.

This is the little area between the kitchen and laundry room - basically just a space for doors to open! I left the light off so you could see what the fixture looks like. (it is the same as the one in the entry, we just took a few more links out of the chain to make it a little shorter here. (so the doors don't hit it) Just a note - it is really hard to paint with your head stuck up in a light fixture! I did finish the kitchen but haven't taken any pics yet.
A question for you people that move on a semi-regular basis - do you ever get things where you want them? I can't seem to find a 'home' for most of my stuff. The furniture is pretty much all where it will stay (always subject to change w/o notice) but things that sit around or hang on the walls, I just haven't been able to find them a happy spot. I keep telling myself it took me 24 years to get the other house the way I wanted it, and even at that things moved around a lot. We have been here just over 3 months. It really bothers me that I don't have things all settled yet. I feel so inefficient.
Next up on the paint list - half bath and master bedroom. They are both getting a blue paint, but not the 'seaside' I had previously chosen. I painted some samples on the walls and didn't like it at all. Went back and got two more blue samples and found one I like better. (can't remember the name - again, downstairs) Anyway - after I get some things in order around the house, I hope to get back to painting in a few days.
More pictures soon.
Hope you are all having a good week!

3 'new' lights - zero dollars

Here is how I got three 'new' light fixtures for zero dollars.

This is the light fixture that was in the upstairs hallway


Replaced it with this fixture that was in the entry. Nothing great, but not horrible - and zero dollars.
Remember I said we found a box with light fixtures in it when we were moving boxes around in the garage last weekend? I had bought two hanging lights to use in the guest room (in the old house) and rather than go to all the trouble of hard-wiring them, we just hung them with hooks since they had switches and plugs. When we got ready to put the house on the market, I took them down and stored them with the mounting hardware (can you believe I even saved it, much less found it!)

And now one of them hangs here outside the laundry room - right inside the garage door. The fixture that was here was the same as the one we replaced in the upstairs hall - ugly. Two lights, zero dollars.


The other hanging light went in the entry to replace the one we moved upstairs. Really hard to get a picture of these lights since the crystals send light in all directions!

Three 'new' lights - zero dollars!
Probably not what I would have chosen for an entry if I went shopping, but the price was right!
If you look really close at the hanging lights, you might be able to see what color paint I have under my fingernails. :) And no, that color isn't going everywhere - just the entry, kitchen and that small space between the kitchen and laundry room.
The last look at my blog reader showed 275 unread posts. My, my. How far behind will I be before I start catching up? Is there a limit to how many unread posts it will store?
Back to the current project.

Will I ever catch up?

Doubt it, but I keep trying! If I haven't been around to your blog or responded to an email - I'll get there, sooner or later!

We marked a few things off the to-do list this weekend, but most of it wasn't 'picture worthy' (I'm sure you don't want to see pictures of hubby loading boxes in the attic!) and the few things we did do, like hang curtains in the game room and change out a few light fixtures, I haven't taken pictures of yet.
Now on to this weeks (personal) challenge.

Don't you just love these little baby cans of paint. Last week I picked up samples of the main three colors I'm thinking of using.

Butter (yellow) Pebble (green) and Seaside (blue)
I decided to use the yellow in the entry, kitchen and little hallway (that is basically all doors) between the kitchen and laundry - also where the garage door opens into the house and there is a closet door there too - see, mostly doors. Anyway - when we were moving boxes from the garage to the attic we came across a box with two light fixtures we brought from the old house and decided to change out the fixture in the entry and the one by the laundry room - so while the fixtures were down hubby used my little baby can of yellow paint and painted a circle around where they were so we wouldn't have to take them back down. Now I have yellow circles around those two fixtures. Not where I had planned to start but my new goal for the week is to get those two areas painted.
Wish me luck!

Out with the old, in with the new

For someone who was going to try to be better at blogging in 2010, I'm not off to a very good start, am I? Here we are 5 days in and I'm just making my first post!
I hope everyone had a happy and safe New Years! We did a little shopping at the hardware store then stayed in for the evening. It pretty much sounded like a war zone around here. Hubby went outside and watched - I stayed inside wrapped up in a blanket on the couch. I swear sometimes it sounded like they were going off in our backyard! I think they finally finished on about the 3rd or so.

So, on New Year's Day the plan was to replace this. So much for best laid plans and all.


When we went to bed New Year's night, we had this.


How many trips to the hardware store should it take to replace one sink and faucet? I lost count but it was either eight or nine. One of which was to return the first sink because we found a chip when we took it out of the box. It was getting pretty late in the day so before we loaded it up in the car (can you say heavy?) and drove back over (the closest one to us did not have one in stock) we called to make sure they were open. No answer. Not really willing to drive that far only to find them already closed so we boxed it back up and went back on Saturday.

After a few more trips for things like hoses that weren't long enough to reuse we finally have this.


Isn't she lovely?

Nice and deep. So much better.
On to the next project!