MIA

Sorry I've been away but I have a great reason. Let's just say it involves the following:


A U-Haul

A great group of friends

My awesome packing skills

My super helpful father-in-law

A sprained ankle

messy sitting room

and a messy rest of the house too.

Not to mention a double ear infection for the littlest and four colds for the four of us. It's been a long week...but an exciting one.

Stay tuned!

I'm Thankful for PAINT!

During this 4-day Thanksgiving weekend, we've had some family and friends come to help us paint. The whole left side of the house is now painted in "Croissant" by Sherwin Williams and looks beautiful! London, a friend of my sister-in-law's and my brother-in-law, Daniel were two of those helpers. We are so grateful for them!

Dan had to borrow Adam's painting pants and we got a kick out of how they fit him.

This is how the color looks as you enter the entryway.

Looking to the left in into the living room.

Really makes a house look like a home doesn't it?

This is just a close up of the primer over the termite damage on the living room ceiling. We still have to paint over it with ceiling paint and hopefully that'll disquise it that much more.

Keepers of the Home

We had a group of kids and their moms come do a service project over at our house a couple weeks ago. Never would I ever thought I would end up being a service project one day, but we were so blessed by these kids and their moms willing to serve us in this way. They raked leaves, cleaned out our flower beds, swept, mopped, dusted, cleaned windows, picked up trash, hauled off sticks and broken branches, sprayed weed killer on the driveway and cleaned the bathroom all in a matter of 2 hours. It was such a morale boost for us to just work in a clean area as far as the interior was concerned and not have to worry about the exterior for now. It was even better when one of the girls was like, "Thanks for letting us clean your house!" Um, you're welcome!

Christmas Came Early

Our surprise is revealed!

A couple weeks ago, I was on the phone with one of my sisters mentioning in passing how nice it would be to have her handyman husband Phil come help us with all of our projects. Adam has been working so hard every.single.night after long 10 hour days at work. He comes home for dinner, plays with the kids and heads out from 7:00-9:00 or 10:00 to go plug away at sheetrock, mudding, and whatever needs to get done. We have seen so much progress leading up to this point, but it is slow. We've also had some sweet friends come help whenever they can which to them we have been so grateful. Our house has progressed so far, but we still have a LOT of detailed work to go; trim, paint, tile, cabinets, floors, etc. Anyway, Christmas came early.

Phil is here to help.

How's this for a morale booster?

Just hours after I talked to Gretchen, she called back saying that they thought it actually might be possible for them to send Phil out for a week to come help us. With our mileage combined (this sounds like Captain Planet :) ) we were able to get him a ticket for him to come out and help us. After a 16 hour day of flying thorough the night with no sleep, he is going to work all day every day that he is here. Seriously, can you believe this guy? Our spirits our lifted.

We gave Phil the grand tour tonight of the place including the property.

They walked around from room to room getting a game plan together of they'd like to see happen this week.

Adam will be able to take a little time of this week and work alongside Phil. I can't wait to see what they can accomplish together. Praise God for Phil and thank you Gretchen for sending him!

Surprise

About 11:30 today, we have a surprise coming to our house! SOOOO excited. Be prepared to see great things done. Check back later to see what is is. :)

Bring in the Sunshine

Here are the beautiful drapes my mom made when she was in town! Window treatments are not my thing. It is so hard for me to figure out what I want! That is unusual for me because normally I can look at something and figure out soon enough what I want it to look like. Curtains, nada. I knew what color I wanted so I started with that. I wanted sunny curtains to match the neighboring "vintage yellow" room to tie them together a little bit. My last house I had a blue kitchen, tan living room, green office, yellow nursery, red bathroom, all colorful but no symmetry. I'm wanting to see flow-age in this house. Cute mom, cute kid. Dark picture, sorry.

*Back to my ignorance on curtains. I've always heard to hang your curtain rod higher because it makes your windows look bigger. So, I hung it high, but looking at this picture it's starting to bother me. Should I lower it to the molding? Maybe I'll just pull the tops together and get curtain tiebacks. Then, I don't have to spend more hours within a period of 3 DAYS hanging those forsaken curtain rod brackets.

This is a closeup on the fabric.

This is where I got it. My mom and I had to make two trips to Gastonia to Mary Jo's to get more fabric and ended up with two extra yards in the end. That's what happens when you don't know what you want! Bringing two kids two and under doesn't help either. :) This picture looks smokey and I think I know why...

Doesn't he look like a little Vinny smokin' on his pretzel rod? He always hangs them out like it's a big stogie. Funny boy.

So with my extra fabric, I am considering just using it again in the yellow room also. What do you think? Too much yellow? I have a variety of quilts that I want to use on the guest bed and I don't want it to be limited with a certain color scheme in here. The other option would be just a pretty white probably. If I did the yellow, they'd have to be little cafe curtains because of where we've cut them already. I think I'm pushing the bed up to the window anyway so I wouldn't necessarily need the look of the height of the windows. It's not that great of a view, just the neighbors, a power line and an overgrown holly bush.

And if I don't use them in there, I'll probably use them in here..

The bathroom, I don't have any other plans for this room yet though!