A Few Finished Projects...

I know I have written about this in recent posts. But I thought I would share some of our progress around the house. Once we came in from the summer activities, Matt and I, with the help of the kiddos as well, have gotten to work on some much needed painting around the house. We have been slowly working through each of the rooms upstairs. This time, we have been so incredibly content with the results and are very much looking forward to the upcoming holidays! Here are some pictures from our adventure in paint cans...

We finally tackled our stairway to the basement. A place of sore neglect and chaos. I believe that there were still areas that was original drywall still finally getting a taste of paint. And since I walk this stairway at least 50 times a day, I can now stop and take in all my blessings.

This is our front closet. I had taken the doors off of it a year ago and put up coat hangers instill of the basic pole. That helped to keep the clutter to a minimum. Everyone was allowed 2 pairs of shoes only, and the rest were to be stored in their rooms. So since it was open at all times, I wanted to paint it and draw it into the room. Noah was my right hand man on this project and it was a project that I could work with him on without to much collateral damage;)

There had been some pretty funky shelf liner paper still at the bottom from the previous owners which meant it needed to be primed once it was torn off. Noah had a good old time doing that for me!

Bell helped me roll on the red, actually almost all of the kids took a turn at that.

Here is the almost finished closet. I am not so anxious to bring in the pile of coats and shoes quite yet, who needs a winter coat or shoes anyways-right?! The dresser was also a project this past weekend. It keeps all of our hats and mittens organized for us.

The dresser was extremely beat up, but I used paint from some other projects we were working on and gave it a nice face lift. I used tape to create the inside boxes for red on each of the drawers. Here is the final look.

The bathroom just got a fresh coat of paint-a bit lighter than before. The walls sure take a beating from all the moisture!

We did have a fun day for Halloween. We did a little bit of trick or treating and then spent the evening at church for our fall festival. Bell was a lady bug, Noah a lion and Joslyn was Lucy from Narnia. Madison and her friend went at homecoming queens.

One of my most precious friends just had a little girl and we have spent some time visiting(kind of helps with the baby cravings!) I think I will be there a lot! Madi is pretty happy to hold this little wonder as well!

I had one of our lovely students from church come over and teach the girls and I how to make jewelry-what a fun and overwhelming hobby! Breann did a great job teaching us the basics as well as giving us some fabulous inspiration!

We have painted our living room with two happy colors, but of course before we began I accidentally put a hole in the wall while attacking a stubborn nail-oiy!

So I learned how to patch holes in walls-useful-especially when you are me;) The kids were quite amused with my predicament.

Here is a glance at the two colors we choose to put together. I am just in love with them. I painted the room orange a few years ago and from the first roll of the brush, was crushed at the color-but decided to finish it and live with it. It feels wonderful to actually like the color on the wall!

I still have yet to get things back on the walls, but I will be slow to accomplish that. Life has been neglected too long and we need to refocus. No more projects for awhile. Feels good to have that behind us though, especially with the windows still open and heat still off. Now that we are all painted up, the kids would much like it to snow. As Noah says, "now we can Thanks Give and put up the tree". There is a reason for that being so important to him, we do not bring out the train until the tree is up, we do not put up the tree until after Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving is here as soon as it snows(at least to Noah). Love their minds!

And last but not least, I made a new slip cover for the ottoman a few weeks ago. It was time to use up some of my scraps.

In Need of A Little Sunshine...

I love rain, and even more-storms, love nighttime, love the lights off with maybe a hint of lamp light, love fall, love winter, a cuddly sweater, love the warm stove, love cozy. But after a summer spent in the sunshine, I have begun to see a real change in my moods now that we are indoors so much more. At first I feel happy to be pulling indoors a bit, nesting inside, instead of out. But this year I think I am sunshine deprived more than other years. So, I brought the sunshine in. At first glance, the color drew me in and made me smile, at second glance, the color scared me and I thought, here we go again with another bad color choice, at third glance, it does make me happy. Just a little corner of sunshine in my bedroom. I can spot it from the hall as I pass, and I love it every time.

About 2 months ago, when we were saying goodbye to the summer, Matt and I began prepping for a fall filled with indoor painting projects. Almost every wall in our house needed to be shown some love and repair. Finding color charts laying around was a normal sight. Piles of decorations began to gather in the garage, and walls started to look like they had chicken pox from all the filling of holes and dents. But, those plans have halted. The shop has been unexpectedly slow, and the truth of the matter is, that is where any "extra" for us, comes from. So we are doing our best to be patient and focus on other things that can be done. So, one night Matt and I on our date night, took our $20.00, got some coffee and ended up in the Menards parking lot debating what to do with the little amount left. We decided to buy a little can of sunshine with that date money. Every other project would cost more than we had, so refinishing a few pieces of furniture was the best for using what we had.

The dresser used to be Noah's(he is our youngest) but now that he can dress himself, this dresser, as cute as it is, is hard to open drawers on. So we switched one of our dressers for his. It was a grey and I noticed in certain light that it still needs another good coat of the yellow. But the yellow seems to suit it.

I also decided to paint this little TV table with the sunshine too. Makes it a fun little nuk in our home.