If I had a Hammer....

"If I had a hammer I would hammer in the morning, I would hammer in the evening...all over the land!" Well, actually for this posting it should sing more like " If I had a paint brush, I would paint in the morning..." So we have been in the house for about (90) days now, where did that time go? Here is what we have accomplished thus far ( I feel like I am prepping for an episode of HGTV House Hunters). We had to paint every wall and every ceiling in this house. Yep, you read right every wall and every ceiling as most of them were PINK! Who did we call for a job like this well "JOE" of course. So, he came a packing with his crew in tow and in a short (3) weeks, this house was done..whew! I can't begin to tell you how many gallons of paint it took to paint all these walls, but I can tell you it took at least three coats per wall. The existing paint was like tinted shoe polish. If you brushed up against it with something wet, like a cloth it was off in a minute - great! Here are some before/after photos of the room. There were too many to put them all in this post, but suffice it to say we LOVE the paint colors and we LOVE the paint job and we LOVE Joe and his gang of painting maniacs! Dining Room Before Dining Room After - Ceiling were painted with Ivoire and the walls with Restrained Gold Study - Before walls were a taupe with white trim Study - After - Walls were painted with Sun Dried Tomato Master Bedroom Ceilings Before - Joint compound white Master Bedroom Ceiling After - Inserts Baguette and the grid Believable Buff

Joe's Back

Those were the first words out of our daughter’s mouth yesterday as she arrived home from school the other day. I received a call from the school “O” feeling a little under the weather and as a general rule I can’t recall when I have received a call from the school nurse asking me to come and pick her up from school. There is a lot of “funk” going around with the weather changes, which I am convinced has given a rebirth to all those dormant viruses. So, I left work to pick her up and deliver her to the care of her grandmother. When we pulled up in the driveway that is when she spied Joe’s work truck or in this case van. Joe is our handy dandy contractor and the mastermind behind our recent kitchen renovation (I know…pictures to come). He had returned to paint our dining room and the ceilings. It is the last room, which needing painting before we can begin the installation of the hardwood floors.

After finishing up our kitchen in December, Joe headed to Mississippi to begin some kitchen renovations for his father-in-law. He just arrived back home last week and headed to our house on Monday to begin painting our dining room. Here are a few photos of the work in progress. We chose a two tone paint scheme with restrained gold being the top color and hammered gold for the bottom wall color. He will be back today to apply another coat to the bottom of the wall and to put a few finishing touches to the trim. We are making great progress with the downstairs and I am looking forward to the day when it is all completed. Of course, we will still have to purchase or make new window treatments and there is always the need to look for new furniture, but for now I am staying focused on the floors and cabinets for our project room, that will be enough to keep us busy for a couple of months.

Fit for a Queen

As you recall we "flipped" our daughter's bedroom and our spare bedroom. We are still working on "finalizing" the decor, to include hanging new pictures and posters in her room, adding wall pops to the wall, hanging her dry ease and cork board etc.

For the spare bedroom it was all about hanging new curtain rods along with new curtains. Putting out the new lamps, hanging new cellular shades and of course adding the new bedding, to include this luscious chocolate fur throw. As you can see our "little" dog must have thought we were doing this all for her, as she wasted absolutely no time in plopping herself upon the new bedding and stretching out for a nice relaxed stay.

She was so cute perched up on the bed and the only reason I even let her lay there for the split second it took me to snap the picture is because she had just returned from the groomers and was sparkling clean. After snapping this photo, I wasted no time in scooting her rusty dusty off of the bed...I am fairly confident she didn't stay gone for long!

Trading Spaces....means fish go to a new location!

The work begins. Once we had all the personal "stuff" stowed neatly ( right) in our bonus room, it was time for Joe and his crew (insert Brian's name here) to begin breaking down our daughter's furniture and moving it to a temporary holding area, while he prepared the room for painting.

As you can see our daughter is a BIG fan of the Buzz Light Year green, which is actually called honeydew melon on the paint swatch, but in my minds eye they are about the same! She had requested that we paint her new room the same color. However, as Joe soon discovered this one would require multiple coats to cover over.

We decided on spa for the new wall color. Mom and I thought that sounded "relaxing" and since it was going to be the spare bedroom, we were willing to take a chance and go with it.It was a light shade aqua, but not the green hue more toward the blues. It works really well with the white trim already in the room, along with the extra pieces of white furniture we decided to leave in the room.

Everything living and non-living had to be relocated, this meant our daughters prize goldfish Bonnie and Clyde had to endure the renovation process as well. We drained down their tank and Mom fished them out of their cozy home with a small pan and plopped them into a 5 gallon Home Depot bucket. Have no fear, they faired well and were returned by the end of the evening to ensure they didn't get to cold.

They began cutting in the room with the new paint color, and I must say it looks very nice. I think we have made a good choice., but you will have to wait to see in tomorrows pictures!

Cluttered desk...cluttered mind?

As you have read, we are doing a few project in and around the house. One of those involves painting of several rooms and relocating our daughter to the room our spare bedroom occupied as it is larger.

We have a terrific painting contractor - Joe Hefflin. He is a wonderful painter and a all around great guy! I couldn't help but notice the inside of his "work" van, when I was leaving for work the other morning....check it out (picture to the left).

Talk about your cluttered work spaces. I am not sure how he finds anything in all that "clutter", but I am sure he has some type of system as he seems to be able to lay his hand on the tool/supply he needs just when he needs it.

This lead me to find the following quote from Albert Einstein. "If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?" Albert Einstein

I think this quotes sums it up well don't you. I know people who have immaculate desk/spaces and they can never find a thing. While my faux OCD would never permit me to maintain a workspace such as the one above, I do believe there is a happy middle ground, and evidently Joe has found his!

We could be an A and E Special

In September we embarked on several painting projects, two of which involved the "swapping" of rooms with our daughter relocating to the larger spare bedroom and moving our spare bedroom to her smaller room. What must you do before the painters arrive you ask? CLEAR THE ROOMS! Ack....this was enough to send us screaming from the house, as it required moving "massive" amounts of stuff our daughter has acquired since our last purging. Everything from the spare room, furniture, sewing machine, mattress, box springs, and her room, toys, stuffed animals, Cd's, gaming systems, clothes, linen, furniture etc ended up in one very strategic location.................our bonus room! Upon seeing the state of the bonus room our daughter turned to me and said "Mom, are we hoarders?" This caused me to bust out in hysterical laughter, as the state of this room could definitely put us in the running for a guest appearance on the A and E Hoarders night time series. After some reassurance that we were most definitely not hoarders, she seemed content to know we were not in the running for any prime time series focusing on dysfunctional lifestyles. What couldn't or wouldn't fit in there ended up in my mother's room. Our painting contractor was pretty clever with fitting "things" into the smallest of places in an effort to clear out the room. I snapped this picture at the end of the first evening, when my mother stood with a stunned expression no doubt trying to figure out how and where she was going to lay her head for the night. Once my initial thought of "It would be easier to blow this place up than to clean it up" passed, Mom and I rolled up our sleeves and made three piles Save, Sell and Donate. I am very pleased to say we are 95 percent complete and you can see all the floors and furniture. Stay tuned for room pictures.....I will post them over the next day or two!