Hello World

Wow, it's been a bit since I wrote here. I have been busy.

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Photos below may not be "pretty" as they are "in progress". You have been warned!

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Our living room is REALLY hard to decorate. I have lived here for going on ten years and we FINALLY think we have a solution. I will NEVER live with angeled walls EVER AGAIN!

Walls, crown and baseboard trim all completely painted, we mounted our TV on our angled fireplace wall (the bane of our existence - see note above) last weekend. We mounted two floating shelves to the left of that wall to hold our components (top shelf Wii and modem, bottom shelf XBOX, wireless router & Blue Ray player). We will probably get a guitar mount for the Wii Guitar leaning against the lower shelf.

Now we are dealing with wires. Lots of them. (Notice how the power cord for the TV does not reach to the outlet and we have that very attractive surge strip nesteled in our fireplace tools? I think it really adds something). The mantle in the photo below is part of our old one and will be replaced. The tan tile surround will be replaced with grey and white Carrara marble tile.

Hiding the power cords is going to be a challenge. There is no option to go in to the wall. So far my husband has used flexible hosing to "hide" them and plans to paint them to match the wall. I still don't think painting them will completely hide them. We have not built our mantle yet so I hope we can encorporate hiding the cords in to the design. Especially on the right with the surge strip. Even if the surge strip was mounted to the side of the mantle "legs" and the cord hidden by one of those squared off cord covers you can mount to the wall and paint your wall color. This actually looks better then it did when first put up. Don't even get me started on a surround sound system which we have yet to purchase. This living room project is going to take a bit longer than planned I think.

C and I both tought the floating shelving would make the room feel less cluttered but I am sad to say I don't feel that way right now. I thought about a small lingerie chest that could sit there and cover the outlet. We could change the drawers to flip down when we needed to access the components. I dare not suggest to C since he worked so hard getting it this far. I just really need camoflage for that wall under the shelf. It's complicated by the angled (and unfinished) hearth.

Any suggestions would be appreciated as well.

Because we mounted our TV we were able to move our couch to a wall instead of blocking traffic flow through to our dining room. This makes me incredibly happy and almost makes up for the cord situation. Last weekend we scored two IKEA chairs through CL for half off. I bought some great brown and cream zebra printed fabric yesterday to slipcover two pillows for the chairs. You can just glimpse our DVD storage in the background - oops didn't notice the storage box behind the chair. In my defence I did warn photos were not pretty.

The room feels really roomy and I am loving it! With the curtains open and the couch facing the window it feels much brighter in here. There is no glare from the window on the TV anymore either. We have furniture we were sorely lacking for a family of four as well.

We have a few more tasks to complete before the big reveal. We need to take the rest of the old tile off our hearth and replace it with yummy grey and white Carrara marble and redo our mantle. We have decided to purchase a surround sound system first (our old one died about a year and a half ago) so we can design the mantle after we have ALL components. I also need to make a slip cover for the couch and I have an art piece I want to do to go on the wall over it.

Down the road we will be purchasing a rug but not until after our cat is gone. She is responsible for ruining our last one. We will eventually replace the sofa with something nicer and do some in ceiling can lighting.

February Update and March Goals

February flew by and I am so ready for spring. We met some of our goals for February and are crossing things off the lists. One thing you can count on is our ever changing goals list or at least where/ we are focusing. On to last months goals.


Paint living room walls and trim. This is done. We have two and in some cases three coats of paint on the walls and trim.


Make DVD shelving. This is done. They have been sanded and two still need to be painted but they are living in their new home in the hallway. We also took back the feet I had purchased for the shelving and recouped about $50.


Tile hearth did not happen. C and I have been having an ongoing debate on how exactly to do this. I wanted to get the old tile off and he wanted to tile over the old tile. We ended up using some of our condo money to buy a new tool called a Dremel Multi Max. This baby is so awesome and takes the tile off the hearth like buttah! We were trying with a hammer and chisel and not getting very far. It's time consuming though. We have some of the old tile off but need to pace ourselves as the tool get's hot quickly. We hope to tile the hearth this month.


Buy a couch is not going to happen right now. We decided the tax return (which we don't have back yet) would be in a better place if we put it in savings towards a new car (my car needs to be replaced). The couch we have will be "revamped" (post to come) and slipcovered. We have a goal to eventually buy a new couch but for now we are fine with this decision.


Put $200 in savings. This didn't happen because I forgot about getting my dogs teeth cleaned. February is national dog teeth health month and we saved about 50% getting his teeth cleaned. They have to knock him out to do it. Boy was he funny afterwards. Kinda stoned.


Put $300 divided between three credit cards. This was on top of minimum payments. We ended up putting an extra $185 on one of our cards. We decided rather than get all five of our cards to 50% we would pay off the smallest balance first and so on. We should be able to pay off CC #1 in March.


Use Wii fir three times per week. I got sick last month with the kind of cold that the cough lingers. I'm still coughing. Working out was kind of hard because it made me cough. I did do some but not as much as planned.


Lose five pounds. I lost a couple but without working out and being sick it was harder.

Next months goals...


Finish fireplace wall; hearth, mantle, mount TV

Slipcover couch

Make and slipcover a custom ottoman for couch and chairs

Put $200 in savings

Pay of CC # 1

Put an extra $400 on CC # 2

Use Wii Fit at least three times a week

Lost five more pounds


Stay tuned for some update posts of our living room! So loving the grey color!

The Hallway

It's funny to call the hallway a finished room since its really a transitionary space. However, we can officially call it done! It was completed last night and it feels so good to have another few items knocked off the condo project list. Remember Quinn and Finley from an earlier post? They found a new home here.

On the other side of this wall is our kitchen which you can see a sneak peak of on the left. On the right and around the corner to the left you go to the front door and back in to the kitchen. Down the hallway on your right are the bedrooms and bathroom. I have mentioned before our space is small? (Sorry about the glare from the light. I needed it on to take the photo.) Below a photo of our two new light fixtures. They coordinate with our dining room fixture.

The yellow in the two canvases go well with the candles on the sconces. I have had the sconces for at least ten years. They as well as two of the candles are from Partylite. The candles are electric. They are set on a timer so they are on right before we come home and go off sometime during the night after we are asleep. It's great to not have to worry about fire, candle wax dripping, etc. I have a total of six in the house. I found the other four at Costco for a steal compared to the two from Partylite. They are made by the same manufacturer.

These are my mothers parents. The photos are both when they were in the army and they signed them to each other. They are hanging above a 48 star flag that belonged to my husbands grandfather. Right now it's hanging on two nails but we want to have it framed.

We originally bought the crown molding for the living room to hide surround sound wiring. Because there is no clear change between one of the living and dining room walls and then between the dining room and the hallway we ended up buying this dental molding for all the public rooms in the house except the kitchen. The surround sound system died Christmas eve 2009 and the molding was completed soon after that. When we first started to put it up the saw we were using was off and the corners never met correctly. So, we bought these corner pieces to help us along.

Yes we have popcorn ceiling. Textured walls are not fun to paint! Even after two coats we still see small spots we missed.

Cutting in used to not be one of my favorite things. Our friend who works at Home Depot recommended an awesome paintbrush for cutting in. It was only $6 and totally worth it!

Can you believe we lived without molding around the three hallway doors for almost two years? This photo shows the last wall color we had

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Here is a progression of wall colors. What isn't showing was the yellowy cream color we started with when I moved in.

• Our first color choice was a light mocha called Colchester Taupe which I chose because I wasn't sure how C would like it and we were renting so it was a "safe" color. The molding was painted two shades lighter called Lighthouse which was a white with a little mocha tint to it.
• We were getting bored with the color so we decided to change it up, we wanted more brown in it. The color we chose was just one shade darker on our strip called Worn Glove.
• Finally our current grey which is Creek Bend.

All three colors are by Behr. Colchester Taupe was renamed Gypsy Moth.

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I really like the velvet curtains we got from Cost Plus (for some reason they don't have grey on their site at the moment). At $35 a panel for velvet like curtains I thought they were a good deal. You can see one peeking in this corner. We are actually using it to hide our laundry center since the opening needs a custom door. We have two in our living room and will get two for our dining room. They might be a little too dark for my grey but I like them!

The entire hallway cost us about $200 for what we did. We already had the IKEA Expedit bookcase. There are only two switches and one outlet in the hallway and the grey they have at Home Depot is practically a perfect match.

The dining room has already been painted and we will start the living room next month. Both in the same grey color.

Linking up to Good Life Wednesday at A Beach Cottage.

Small Accomplishments, Mini Quiche & Roller Derby

What do they all have in common? Not really sure but it's what has been going on in my world lately.

Last weekend the hubs got the rest of our baseboard molding installed in our living room. We still have to patch the holes and paint but all base and crown molding is now installed in the main part of the house (kitchen, living, hallway & dining). We technically still have to install moldings around the bedroom and bathroom doors (three of them) but narrower molding so I am calling this step in the project done!

Last night I made mini quiches with red bell pepper, mushroom, bacon and cheese. I did them in muffin tins. I was NOT pleased with how they turned out. Too small and even though it was cooked through it was too watery. I even cooked the veggies BEFORE I put them in the egg mixture.

The egg mixture probably needs to be increased in order to make enough fuller mini quiches for breakfast for the hubs and I each morning. That is a lot of eggs! I have not figured out the calories yet. Anyone have helpful tips on mini quiches?

Last Saturday the hubs and I went to Roller Derby for the first time. It was a friends birthday and she saved three of the front rows for us all to hang together. That night we even set an attendance record! It took me a while to get the general idea of the rules and I still don't understand everything but it was fun. The medics only had to be called out once and a girl ended up on crutches.

The local league is the Rat City Roller Girls. There are four teams; Derby Liberation Front, Grave Danger, Sockit Wenches & Throttle Rockets. They have the GREATEST names like Yoko Onoudi'nt, Georgia O'Grief, X-Khan & Betty Ford Galaxy.

Oh yeah, and their "cheerleaders" and fans take things seriously! Below Skeletora or Countes De Bodies - not really certain.

A huge Grave Danger fan. He was VERY in to it.

My SD and her friend with a member of the Throttle Rockets.

Her friend (in the hat) is in Jr. Roller Derby. I think my favorite was the Sockit Wenches. Probably because I liked their uniforms the best and they kicked some serious but in their match.

The Decluttering Continues

Last weekend the hubs and I ventured in to our storage unit. This unit is not something we pay for. Each condo in our complex has a storage unit off the patio and a larger one under one of the buildings. The one we have under the building houses items we don't have room to store in our house but still need such as camping equipment, holiday decorations and large tools.

The problem is it's also become the respository for all things we don't know what to do with but can't bear to get ride of.

In the past few weeks we have been decluttering the heck out of our living space. This is extending to areas that are not seen but still there. It was time to go through things and get rid of items we no longer need. We donated one car load of items already and have another one ready to go for this weekend. I found things I have had for almost twenty years and have no need for such as my highschool color guard outfit, my college letter jacket, massive a tub of fabric of which I will never use for things as my taste has changed since I purchased it.

I can tell ya, I feel so much better, like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders!

This weekend we will finish up going through the storage unit. The goal is to get rid of the large tubs sitting on the foor of holiday decorations and downsizing them so they fit in boxes on the shelves of the storage unit. I have been bringing home boxes but we might have to purchase some small plastic tubs that fit on the shelves.

Off to finish watching the first disc of Arrested Deveopment season one.

Computer Shelf Gone!

About three years ago my husband installed a shelf in a corner of the dining room to house our PC. We always intended to build a little rolling cart for the tower and printer that could roll under the shelf when the computer was not in use. We got as far as my husband taking a circular saw to our old computer desk and cutting out what we would need to "temporarily" house the tower and printer. Notice the cords and clutter everywhere. Eventually I learned to look past this mess. You can see the old computer monitor behind the open laptop.

With the recent purchase of a laptop and wireless printer (returned the incorrect wireless router and need to purchase the correct one still) we have eliminated the need for the computer shelf in the corner of the dining room. This helps to increase the usable space in the dining area and reduce the amount of visual (and real) clutter in our tiny home (still need to touch up with paint).

As I have stated before, our condo is 900 square feet. Between the living and dining rooms we have gained back some of that and its being used for - nothing. It's so nice to have room to breathe in our space!

Now our laptop sits on our coffee table (my grandfather's WWII foot locker). We still have some wiring to figure out but after we get our new wireless router.

More photos of improvements to come!

DVD Storage - Living Room Remodel

After painting our living room and putting back only what we absolutely want in that room we discovered how deseptively large our little 900 square foot condo can be. We sold a wing back recliner and invested in some DVD storage from IKEA. It's not the exact thing I want but the hubs and I are realists and we figured we would never actually build what we need before kid number 2 graduates high school. So, click on over to the hubs blog to see our new DVD storage. Can you believe we actually need more already?

What he didn't mention is that above all that lovely DVD storage we found the perfect print. It's a black and white scene of a London street. There is an older style double decker bus in red. Will post photos after we purchase and hang it.

Starbucks & The Gym

It's day five of my self imposed Starbucks Challenge. I am pretty darn proud I have managed through five days of NO STARBUCKS SPENDING! Potentially I could have already spent $15.95 (for just myself) or $33.30 (for the hubs and I) but I have not. No sir! And guess what? I didn't die! I have lived to tell the tale.

It's interesting too. The first day was hard. I thought to myself as I was sitting in the car how much I wanted to get my iced tall non fat no whip mocha. I told myself no and bypassed them completely. Later that morning I was REALLY thinking about jumping in the car and going to get one but a co-worker let me try her Coffee Mate Italian Sweet Creme creamer and I went out that night and bought some (one for home and one for work). We have this nifty coffee maker at work that grinds the beans and makes you a fresh cup of Starbucks brewed coffee. So, I throw a little creamer in my mug, push a few buttons, wait a few minutes and I have coffee all ready to go in the morning!

I don't miss it that much now that I have acheived five days of being good. The weekend might be a challenge but we shall see how that goes. I already budgeted for Sunday but it sounds like I won't have my walking buddy anymore as she has joined a gym and that is where she wants to go on Sunday. Who could blame her, its closer to her house and she get's to sleep in a hour more.

I have been contemplating joining a gym for a while. I got a free five day pass and went a couple times this week with my walking buddy. I just threw on my iPod and og. I like the gym. I like that there is never a wait for any of the machines and they are open until 11 PM during the week.

I am torn about joining cause I don't know that I have the joining fee. On the other hand, I'm not doing such a great job working out at home. I think this will be something to mull over and see how important it is to me.

Tomorrow I have a couple of home owners responsibilities to attend to (I am the VP of the HOA board for our condo association) and then its off to buy paint to paint our bathroom walls which are in total need! We also need to pick up a little more baseboard molding to finish off our living room as well. Then we will have all the rooms in to condo painted and all the molding put up in the main part of the house.

#56 in Things That Make Me Happy

Deep baseboard moldings.

Tonight the hubs and I went to Homer (Home Depot) and picked up thirty feet of 4 1/2" deep MDF baseboard molding. Total cost $25.72. We are purchasing and installing a little at a time as we can afford it.


Mind you, we are not even close to being finished with baseboard molding for the entire house. But, since our condo is under 900 square feet it won't be a terrible expense. The stuff we were looking at before we found the MDF was going to cost us $42.96 for 24 feet. Vast improvement and a savings of 52 cents per foot! Yay for saving money!

Of course this has to be painted and the other stuff didn't but I don't care. The cost of the paint will be way less than buying the other molding. Not to mention we are putting this in our bedroom and we will not be going with white molding so the original stuff we looked at would not work as it was already finished in white.

In just under an hour the hubs had cut and installed most of it. That is the wonderful thing about power tools, a compound mitre saw, a nail gun and an air compressor got the job done in no time at all.

IKEA - best place for people on a budget

The hubs and I started our day decluttering the house a little. We dropped off our donations on the way to our local IKEA.

The people who built our condo decided that, to save money, they would not install overhead lighting in all of the rooms. The bedrooms, and living room - where we spend most of our time - do not have over head lighting. The bedrooms have outlets hardwired to light switches conveniently located near the bedroom doors.

We bought this light fixture today on our trip to IKEA. It gives off a lot of soft white light in our bedroom. We think we will get one for the kids room and something similar for our living room. The price was right too.

Mystery Project

The weekend was spent relaxing and I did not get my mystery patio project started. I had budgeted $10 for this and discovered I may have everything I need at home which means no expense! I pulled together all of the items tonight so I can start working on it tomorrow.


What do you think I am going to do with six panels (two yards each) of silk sari fabric, a half dozen garden steaks and a handful of cup hooks? The photo above doesn't give the best representation of color. From top to bottom I have a dusty purple, turquoise, dark celery green, light celery green, midnight blue and pewter.

Saying Goodbye

My husband and I are working on getting our house decluttered. Trying to take a look at your items through fresh eyes to decide if you really need them or not seems easy. You have your criteria;

Is it functional for our CURRENT lifestyle? - No
Do I need to repair it in any way? - Yes
Could I repurpose it to work in our CURRENT lifestyle? - No


So why is it so hard to give stuff up? The toy chest pictured above my husband has had since he was a little kid. It's been used by his kids for the past fourteen years. Of those fourteen years the past two it's been used to pile stuff on top of (not in) it. Hubby decided it was time for it to find a new home where it would be used as it was intended. We thought about recovering the seat and fixing one of the hinges and then just decided to let it go "as is".

We posted it on Craigslist and a lovely woman came today and picked it up. It's for her autistic nephew. She plans to recover the top and fix the hinge and we hope he loves it.

Bedroom Update

Hubby decided he really wanted to get the shelf up under the TV. It's the same dark brown/black color as the shelving in our closet and the color of the floor with silver braces on either side. We had a dresser there which was holding our DVD player as well as storing clothing. We don't need it now since we have our grand new closet. The two dressers we used to have we gave to the kids and got rid of their old dressers which were not really working for them.

Visually the space is more open and looks larger and less cluttered. The old dresser we had under the TV came out as far as the hamper you see in this photo. We plan to replace the hamper with something else. Maybe a dark stained wicker basket.

Up close photo. I LOVE having only the DVD player, cable box and the incense burner up there! We do have a couple DVD cases - but only what we watched yesterday.


I wish we could say we were finished. Along with the additional shelves we have to wait to come in at IKEA we still need to do the baseboard and crown molding in here, construct our headboard and I would like to find a chair for the large empty corner between the bed and the closet.

End of Vacation - Room Almost Finished

It's been busy the last couple days around here. I am sore and tired and have not been on the computer since Friday morning. We have installed (almost) everything we could in the closet. IKEA ran out of shelving so we still need to get about six more shelves when they come in ten days from now. We have items to return as well.

We have hanging clothing on each side of the closet and drawers, shelves and shoe racks in the center. This shot is my side which needs another shelf (above my purse) and I still need to put some clothes here. My purse will probably not live here. It's hard to tell in this photo but I have left enough room under the drawers to store my sewing machine. The right side has the same configuration and my sewing basket is under the right set of drawers.

We have overhead long term storage. This bin holds scarfs, hats, gloves, etc. We have another that holds extra bedding. We have a total of three of these boxes but need more shelving before we can put the other up.

We can get twelve pair of shoes on these four racks. We are not certain if we will get more of these and less shelving. Some shoes even fit under the bottom rack (like my Uggs pictured here). The rest of our shoes are in the third bin under the hanging clothing on the right of the closet.

Here is the right side of the closet where some of our hanging clothing it (you can see the third bin temporarily sitting here). The only thing I wish I could change would be the closet to be twelve inches wider so the hanging clothing did not sit slightly in front of the drawers and shelves on either side of the back of the closet. Oh well, at least we ended up with a pretty efficient closet system. I really like the industrial look and the floor matches the shelf and drawer color perfectly. Now it looks like we meant to do the floor the way we did.

Even thought today is Father's Day hubby still wants to install a shelf under our mounted TV for the DVD player. Then our two old dressers will go to the kids and we will get rid of the dressers they have now. Our old dressers will be sanded and painted but not this weekend. Hubby came home with a rug I have been wanting from IKEA. It was in the marked down area and was only used as a floor model. It was $100 off and will go in my living room.
More updates as we complete them but the hard part is over thank goodness!

Vacation Day 4

OK, this morning we did put down the fourth coat which is the clear glossy polyurethane coat. While this was drying hubby and I ran some errands and stopped by to visit my mom.

I also spent a little time planning our next vacation. This will involve a plane and lots of sun. Our three choices were Savannah, GA, Key West FL or New Orleans, LA. We are pretty certain Savannah has won as they have the best (read least expensive) airfare from Seattle. That doesn't rule out the other two. We are going to use a week of my parents timeshare and the only one in the Savannah area is on Tybee Island. As long as they have availability when we want to go then it's a done deal.

We plan to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary while away. Possible sight seeing will include a ghost tour and the movie tour for Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil which I first heard about ironically on This Old House.

Getting back to the project at hand. We were able to paint the first coat of paint in the closet. This photo really doesn't give it justice but it really is a lighter blue than the walls. If you look where the floor meets the wall you can see where the paint stops. Chris wants to do one last coat of clear polyurethane on the floors before a second coat of paint in the closet.


It's back to the fold out couch for one more night. Early tomorrow morning we will be able to move our furniture back in to the bedroom and start on the closet organizer. We plan to go to a matinee of The Happening before we pick up the kids tomorrow. Our week of vacation is almost over but if we had done this over the course of a few weekends it would have been pure hell!

Next time we take time off there are no condo projects involved but a road trip east of the mountains.

Vacation Day 3 - Update

The second coat is on the floor. I like it better already. This particular stain has a polyurethane in it to make the floor a bit glossy which is what I wanted. The Ebony did not have that in it. Hence the dull finish of the first coat. There is a bit of red in this color as well which warms up the floor. The Ebony was just too cold and flat.


While waiting for the second coat to dry hubby and I went to lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. There is only one Rainforest Cafe in Washington. It's at a mall not near us but it is near IKEA. The entire interior of the cafe is a jungle theme with vines and jungle animals and a waterfall. They also have huge tanks full of saltwater fish. We went because we had a gift card that we had not used. It's definately more of a place for kids but the food was good. Below is one of the gorillas in the cafe.

Then we went to IKEA to get the rest of our closet organizer.

Last night we put the third coat down which looks much like the second coat. It's still not as glossy as I would like so we are going to get a fourth coat down of a clear polyurethane finish to achieve the glossy shine we want.

The photo actually shows the floor redder and glossier than in person. I really had hoped we would be moving on to painting the closet this morning. We need to paint two coats before we can install our closet organizers. The entire contents of our bedroom are in the kids room, the dining room and the living room. We need to go pick up the kids tomorrow evening and if we can't get most of our bedroom put back together before then we will have to get them on Saturday morning as they won't be able to get to their beds to sleep.

Wish us luck!

Vacation Day 3

There is a fine layer of sawdust on every surface inside our house. Despite our best efforts to contain it to the immediate bedroom area.

Sorry I did not post an update last night. I was exhausted.

It took us about an hour last night to go around the edges of the bedroom with two palm sanders (thank goodness we have two) and completely prep the floor for it's first coat of stain. The first coat doesn't look like much. We bought ebony stain which should have been my first clue it was going to be black (duh). I don't know, the little 1 x 2 chip didn't seem so formidable. And unlike paint this is harder to fix if you don't like it.

Chris really got in to it by going back over some of what we had stained in his bare feet. Don't worry, pretty much all of it came out.


This morning we are going to do a second coat in Bombay Mahogany which is what we used for our new computer shelf in our dining room. It has some red in it which I wanted for the bedroom I just wanted a darker finish. I think with the base coat of Ebony we should get our achieved results, a slightly African Rosewood look.

After coat number two we are off to IKEA to pick up the rest of the closet organizer we are installing.

Stay tuned for more photos!

Vacation Day 2

Today we have finished emptying out the bedroom so now our main living spaces look like this...

We rented a drum sander from Homer. It took us around an hour after we got it home to completely sand our bedroom and closet floors. You can't even tell there used to be two different colors of flooring in here. The blue wall color looks a little more true in this photo than in the one from yesterday.

I even took it for a spin.
Chris did the majority of the sanding though.

We need to take our palm sanders to the edges of the room and then we can stain. I hope to get one coat of stain down tonight. Updates to come soon!

Vacation Day 1 Completed

I'm going to attempt update what was accomplished each day of our vacation.

Today we moved most everything out of the bedroom with the exception of our bed (covered in a tarp cause hubby is using the saw in the bedroom - sawdust is everywhere) and a dresser that currently holds the DVD player (so hubby could watch movies while working - our TV is mounted to the wall).

Here is a pile of sewing projects that was in a corner of the bedroom. Curtains to hem for our bedroom, a yoga mat I bought supplies for two years ago, a second pair of curtains for the front of our garden window and curtains closest to the window that need to be hemmed. All of these were completed today.


Here are scrapbooking supplies that were under our bed. They now reside in my dining room and I don't intend for them to go back in to my bedroom. I need to go through them, get rid of what I don't want and put the rest that I want to keep in the bins in my hallway bookshelves.

For the bedroom - which is the main focus this week.

I was able to shorten our bedroom curtains (they had been pinned up) to keep them away from the heater (put in a terrible place in my opinion). Not to mention de-fur them. The cat loves to sit in the window and her hair was everywhere! Sounds like I didn't do much but I spent a lot of time at my sewing machine today (see below).


Hubby spent all day finishing up the flooring in the bedroom and closet. Tomorrow we hope to sand the floor in preparation for stain and possibly get a first coat of paint in the closet (the paint may have to wait). He even managed to get flooring pieces under the existing shelves in the closet. Amazing. This shelving will eventually go when we have purchased all of our closet organizational items.


The fabric pictured below is left over chenille from the shower curtain I made for the bathroom and paisley brocade from a covered lamp shade on my side of the bed. I'm thinking a throw. I did sew the chenille together but need to run to the fabric store and see if they have more of the blue and brown paisley brocade to edge my throw with.

We have a garden window in our dining room which makes it really hard to create curtains for. To complicate things even more there is a heater on the wall under the window (another badly misplaced one) so the long curtains I wanted in the front of the window (to puddle on the floor) were not going to happen. I was able to shorten the one set of curtains in the dining room closest to the windows and and make the second set of curtains. The window is bare as we still need to hang them.

Tell me what you think and ideas are welcome!

Vacation Day 1

Today marks the first day of "vacation" for hubby and I. We decided since we don't have a lot of money for a true vacation getaway we would stay home and finish our master bedroom floor. That involves pretty much clearing out the entire room, finishing laying down the floor, sanding it, staining it and sealing it. Not to mention painting the closet and installing our new closet system.

The photo below is Chris prepping the closet floor for goop to put down more flooring tile. Our carpeting was old and there is cement under the padding. You can see some of the bedroom wall color in this photo. It is brighter than in person. The wall color for the closet will be a lighter sky blue to match our bathroom.

This morning after I get off the computer I plan to empty out the bedroom and closet. If we finish all of the flooring today I can paint the closet and we can rent a sander tomorrow. Chris has really bad allergies so he wears this mask whenever he is doing something dusty. He looks like he is preparing for war.

Over the course of the last couple years we have been taking out carpeting and laying down this parquet flooring. The darker color below is the color we have been doing throughout our condo. Unfortunately, by the time we got to our bedroom they discontinued this brand of flooring and all they had left was the lighter color. That is the reason once we finish getting the flooring down we will have to sand and stain it all a uniform color.

Wish us luck!