The Red Door

Happy Saturday to you all!

This was a rather unusual Saturday for me.  

I usually spend at least part of my day cleaning the house.  But today, I had projects that were calling to me...

Every time I walked by the front door...

Going THIS way...

...and THAT way...

I thought, "how terribly brown this area is!" 

(Please ignore the mess in the above pic.  That is, of course, my second project of the day.)

Anyone that had been to my house in the last few days had seen my little paint chips taped to the front door as I tried to decide on the perfect color.  This area was just BEGGING for a POP of RED!

Decision-making in general is not one of my strong suites, but when it comes to choosing the perfect shade of red...that was AGONIZING!!

Time will tell.  It changes throughout the day.  If I don't like it, it will only take another coat or 2 of paint.  

It's growing on me :)

The front entryway still needs something...

Definitely need to rid the area of the last vestiges of the orangey pine trim seen in the pic.  

Next up...

A Day of Rest :)

Have a blessed Sabbath!

Blessings, 

Ronda

Another Step in the Right Direction!

AHHHHH!!  I am so excited!

No, it's not completely done, but...things are moved back and I am unpacking boxes. 

Here is the view at this point from the front door...

And the view from the back door...

Obviously, there are still many things to finish.  Most notably, the base cabinet with now countertop on the left.  And yes, I have removed the doors from the pantry on the right in preparation for painting it.  

And yes, that is hubby's air compressor sitting in the kitchen! He decided it wasn't worth taking back out to the garage since he hasn't quite finished putting on baseboards.  

Exciting times!! We are just a handfull of boards away from having the floor complete!  

Blessings, 

Ronda

A Good Way To Spend A Rainy Day...

Wondering what I have been up to lately?

Maybe a more appropriate question would be "what haven't I been up to?"

Things have really been hopping since the first of the month.  In fact, I can hardly believe this is the last day of July!  AAAAHHHH! Can summer almost be over?  I had so many projects lined up in my head that I KNEW that I would accomplish over the summer!

I know...unrealistic.  When will I ever learn?

But the good news is that the BIG ONE is nearing completion. 

This was my kitchen at the end of last week when my husband rigged up plastic booths to sand. He is so thoughtful!  This way I didn't have nearly the dusty mess!

Ah, this last pic tells me it was Saturday.  Note the bowl of pizza dough sitting on the stove!  Yes, I cooked through the mess! 

And my before pics of right before we started painting to show all the lovely red paint.  I liked it, but am SO over it!

 You can also see the blue that was in the original dining room.  

And of course my not-so-lovely blue countertops which I am over, but am helpless to do anything about right now since they are not at the top of the priority list. 

My beautiful daughter helped me with the painting to work off her trip to Holiday World.  Actually she says she was going to help anyway.  Either way, I was very grateful for her help as it was a very large job.  1 coat of primer and 2 of topcoat, all those cabinets, and lots of wall space!

So, that's what I have been up to!

I will get some more pics up once we have the base boards back down and stuff pushed back to the walls.  

Also, after 7+ months DH is about ready to put down the final boards on the floor!  YIPPEEEEE!!!

Blessings,

Ronda

Help With a Decision!

I realized today that I had yet to show off the cabinets that I painted in my tiny downstairs bathroom! 

I won't give you the complete reveal because the floor is not done and the trim is still off the doorway. 

But I want opinions, so please read to the end of the post!!

For a while now I had been contemplating painting some of my cabinets.  Every cabinet in the house originally looked like this--

So the logical place to try was this tiny downstairs bathroom where there was only one small upper cabinet and a vanity.  And I knew that white and distressed was the way to go for this primitive loving girl.  

I love them!  Just hoping they hold up for several years, even though it really wasn't too difficult.  

Now for the big question!!  As hubby works diligently to finish laying the wood floor in the kitchen, I can see that I REALLY don't like the floor against the cabinets.  This should have come as no surprise to me since that is why I am painting all my woodwork! 

Something must change!  

The cabinets are custom-built, solid oak cabinets.  I don't know that I can bring myself to paint them.  So I have though about a darker stain over the existing, but that would also darken the kitchen.  So the other option is white paint like I did in the bathroom.  Just maybe not quite as distressed.  

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE GIVE ME OPINIONS!!  

I'm not in a hurry to do it, but when I have a decision like this, it typically consumes my thoughts until I decide! Help put me out of my misery!

Blessings, 

Ronda

Linking to:

http://www.funkyjunkinteriors.net/2013/08/party-junk-200-grain-sack-projects.html

More Kitchen

Some of you may be wondering how the big kitchen reno is going! 

Well, I will get to that in a minute...

Last weekend we the privilege of attending the wedding of Jeff's youngest brother and his lovely bride.  Actually, Jeff did more than attend, he officiated.  It was a beautiful wedding and a great time with family.  Our oldest son, Matt and his wife, Sarah were here from South Carolina for the wedding and also for her to spend the holiday weekend with her family.  

After the weekend, while Sarah drove home, Matt stayed for several days to help Jeff work on the kitchen project.  

When I came home on Sunday, this is what I found...

Both sons were here helping Jeff and they had thoughtfully put up plastic on both sides of the wall that was coming down to try to prevent drywall dust from going absolutely everywhere. 

The bad part was the fridge sitting in the middle of the current kitchen!  Made it extremely tough to move around in there. I knew I wouldn't be doing much cooking, but this kind of sealed it! 

Here is the view from the other side after the wall came down.  

This is Matt laying the subfloor in the room that originally had carpet. 

And after the plastic came down and the fridge got moved to someplace easier to handle...

Yuck! This shot makes me very anxious to get rid of the blue laminate countertops...but...that will be a while.  Unlessssss...well, still thinking about that.  

The wood floor is about halfway across the kitchen now, but you will have to wait for the finished product to see the pics!

Blessings,

Ronda

Confession Time

Ok, so confession time...I spend far too much time drooling over other people's homes on their blogs! I find myself just jumping from blog to blog pouring over pictures, admiring their knack for decorating.  Really wishing that I had that same "something" that seems to be inborn in them, and also wishing that I had the knack that they seem to have for finding cool "junk" at great prices.  Since my house is getting a face lift, there are many things I want to get rid of, but feel guilty for getting rid of things on which I spent our hard-earned money.  And of course, with getting rid of things, comes wanting to replace some of them with new things!  I am trying to make do as much as possible with what I have, but I admit, some money is going to be spent on "things".  

I hadn't shown a pic of my music room bookshelves since I had reloaded them.  I am pretty happy with the "stuff" for the most part.  I left a lot of the framed pics in a box for now.  You can see my new pendant lights in this pic.  Still hoping the one on the right straightens out a bit! 

In the process of the home face lift, I seem to have developed an affinity for wire baskets :) Here is one filled with old books. 

And while the frames are new, the "things" in them are old ;) (Sorry, Mom!).  Pics of my mom and dad when they were quite young.  And to the far right is a piece of needlework made by my great-grandma. 

I am giving you a sneak preview of our Family Room bookshelves now that hubby has them completely done.  They look SOOOOO much better!  I am holding off on loading them for now, once again waiting on the paint to cure.  So, while I took pics of the whole thing, I just couldn't bring myself to post them.  

And finally, some pics of the Family Room and center hallway so that you can see more of our new floor and the rug.  

Yes, in the above pic you can see the carpet in the Dining Room off on the right.  And it will definitely stay that way at least until after the wedding! :)

Ok, so the drawer was standing open a bit.  But you can see another one of my wire baskets on the bottom!  A TJ Maxx find :)

Blessings, 

Ronda

Welcome to My Mess!

Those of you who know me, know how much this drives me crazy!  

 My Family Room has now been in disarray for over a week.  Can I say this again??? I like my house neat!  Ah, the things we can learn to live with for a little home improvement!

Sneak peek of my lyre table that I have worked on between painting woodwork.  Haven't found the perfect spot to set up a little vignette.  One day soon....

Blessings,

Ronda

No We Are Not Moving

Sure looks like we're moving, doesn't it?  Feels like that would be easier some days!  But, no, this is just getting all the "stuff" out of the way to do our renovations.  

I will certainly not be in a big hurry to junk up these shelves again!  It will be a great time to purge.  With the "end" of home schooling in my sight, I will most likely donate anything that smacks of homeschooling to our local group.  Unless that is, one of my kids wants some of it in case they eventually choose to home school their own kids. :)

Hubby will most likely not be happy with me for posting these pics since it was certainly not his finest work.  But that is why much of it is coming off and is getting re-worked.  There was a stressful, long trip to Lowe's last night where we discussed what he would remove and what he would add to make it look more professional.  

Of course, you must understand that this was actually his first experience with woodworking of any kind, at the time we were both pretty content with the result.  Now that he has so much more experience, we are both eager for him to improve on this.  

                           

More of our floor waiting to be put down! :)

Blessings, 

Ronda

First Room Done (pretty much)

This room has actually been done for a few days.  My excuse is the same one, remembering to get pics at a good time of day.  I don't know that is a good excuse or not.  I guess if I was a great photographer, it wouldn't really matter what time of day.

First a reminder--

All woodwork in the music room was this color and this was the wall color, although, in these pics, it looks lighter than it was.  You can see why I have doors on the lower shelves ;) I tried to go back through some old photos to find a pic of the carpeting, but you are just going to have to take my word for the it, that it was BEIGE.

And now...

 So here is the first sign that I am a terrible photographer...shadows!  But you can see my white trim, the new gorgeous floor and the new rug (yes, it was too loud in here, so we had to have one!)

 Don't look to closely or you will see that we need quarter-round under the book case.  Haven't decided yet whether we will do the whole room with it, or just that spot.

 I purposely avoided including the boxes of books and frames pictures that are sitting in the room.  But they are there-- 3 of them!  Going to try to wait out the entire 30 days for my paint to cure before putting things back on the shelves.  Bad experiences in the past with things sticking.

Good shot of my wall color-- which btw, is Toll Booth from Valspar, if you were curious.

Hubs is hard at work on the next section of flooring.  I have actually completed my next portion of woodwork.  Next big decision-- are we (meaning him) painting the ceilings?

Blessings,

Ronda