Feels Like Home

  It has been over 7 years now since we bought this house and I know we won't be here forever.  Recent events in my life have made me feel more nostalgic about this little house. I have always loved our house and it has always felt like home.  It felt like home to me before we ever ripped up carpet or hung a single picture.  I hope to have that same feeling every place we live.  I am resolving to enjoy what I have more.  Not that I won't continue to improve it but there are so many little things to appreciate like the couch with pillows thrown every which way and a pile of blankets from cuddling on the couch the night before.

How the light streams into the house during the day and changes how the paint colors look. 

 

Having a spot to let things grow.

 The little details that made me fall in love with this house in the first place.

And the satisfaction of looking over the improvements we've made over the years, transforming the space into something we love. But mostly it is really the feeling of home.   

Haunted House

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.  I love kids coming to trick-or-treat, going to Halloween parties, and watching classic Halloween movies like Young Frankenstein, Dracula Dead and Loving it and Hocus Pocus.  Its officially November 10th and I'm just getting around to taking the Halloween decorations down.  I used what I have except I bought less than $5 worth of mini pumpkins and gourds at the grocery store (which should transition nicely into Thanksgiving) and some cobwebs from Target.  I think it cost $4 for a huge bag of cobwebs. So without further ado, here is how I decorated for Halloween this year.

 

  I made the blood candles a year or two ago.  (An old Martha Stewart Idea) They are really simple to make.  Just drip red wax from a red candle down the top and sides of another candlestick and presto! bleeding candles! I recommend making the candles over some newspaper or over the sink for quick cleanup.  I got the birdcage at  a garage sale forever ago.  I'm on the hunt for a bird to go in there (maybe a sparkly one).  So if you see one, let me know!

I also used my husband's deer sheds as part of my decorating.  I thought they looked creepy/cool. 

 Maximus (the horse head) all dressed up for Halloween.

 The trees in our front yard have these gnarly looking branches.  I just take two or three branches, stick them in a vase and hang the pumpkin strands and pom pom spiders on it.  I got the garland and the spiders at Tai Pan Trading several years ago but you could make those spiders yourself out of pom poms, pipe cleaners and googly eyes.  They are hung with fishing line that I threaded through them. 

 The gourds and mini pumpkins in the bowl were under $5 total from the grocery store.  The big pumpkins on the porch (below) we grew ourselves. 

Halloween was unusually warm so we sat out on the porch carving our pumpkins while trick-or-treaters stopped by.  Can you guess which pumpkin is mine?

Cold Decor

Believe it or not this isn't an ad for Puffs, this the end table in my living room. Yep, that's three boxes of tissues. Can you guess what's been happening at my house lately?

Off the Wall

A couple weeks ago we woke up to a crashing sound. We didn't know what it was and it sounded a lot like someone breaking in. After a few minutes being scared half to death we found this:One of our masks had fallen off the wall. It was hard to be sad because I was so grateful we were safe. No one had tried to break in. Thank goodness. But the mask is beyond repair. We picked in up when we were in Columbia. See: Kellen's Mom, Me, Kellen

I loved it because it had an iguana on it and a nose ring. I guess we'll have to go back to get another one.

Baby Steps

Sometimes projects are really overwhelming. Like the bathroom. It needs to be repainted. We have some peeling paint. It kind of looks like a cat went crazy on the walls.I decided to break the job down into smaller parts so I could stomach actually completing the project. Today I scraped off all the excess peeling paint. I was about to start sanding it down but then the thought occurred to me, "Why should I do it the hard way when it would be so much easier to use an electric sander?". So if you've got a palm sander I can borrow, let me know! I may just see if I can rent one for an afternoon. Here's some of the mess I made scraping off the excess paint. I also washed the ceiling. That way, it will be ready to be primed soon. I made the mistake of having the painter put flat paint on the ceiling. I think repainting with semigloss will be much better. Live and learn. Now here's the scary part. I want to paint the bathroom with stripes like these from Young House Love. Since we have an older home, the walls aren't exactly straight. I'm a little nervous about taping off the stripes. My goal with this project is taking baby steps. Here's my to do list:

1. Sand off all the areas that are peeling
2. Spackle
3. Sand off the excess spackle
4. Wash all the walls
5. Tape the ceiling
6. Prime the ceiling
7. Paint the ceiling
8. Remove towel hooks, light covers etc.
9. Tape the walls
10. Prime the walls
11. Paint the walls the same color as the hallway and dining room
12. 2nd coat (if necessary)
13. Use a laser level and chalk line to mark stripes
14. Tape off stripes
15. Paint white stripes (possibly while listening to The White Stripes)
16. 2nd coat (if necessary)
17. Remove tape

What project are you taking a step at a time?P.S. I always find it funny that people on home improvement shows are dressed up when they do projects. This is how dressed up I was. Hot, isn't it? What can I say? Safety is sexy!

Perfect?

Not even close! I don't want you to get the idea that my house is picture perfect. Not that you would so far since you've only seen before pictures. But I think there is a common misconception among blog readers that the people whose blogs they follow have picture perfect houses every minute of every day. Not only that, but we think our own houses should be spotless and photo shoot ready all the time and if it isn't we apologize profusely to those beholding our chaos. This happened to be just the other day. I had a pop in surprise visit from someone I really admire and think is fabulous. She hadn't seen my house before and wanted to check out what we had done with the place. Let's just say the house wasn't in tip top condition. I kept apologizing profusely. I've thought about it ever since. Most people don't notice the things that haven't been done. When I go to someone's house I'm not checking to see if they scrubbed their baseboards or even if the floor is clean. So my apologizing was probably just drawing attention away from all the hard work we've put into the house and made everyone feel more awkward. So the moral of the story is, quit apologizing. If you're unhappy with the way your house looks then grab a scrub brush, quit whining, and get to work. Otherwise, open the door with a big smile and say welcome to my fabulous home!

Hole in the Wall

"Buyers remorse is a very common affliction among new homeowners. Just because you have an acid stomach and a sudden urge to weep, that doesn't mean you made a mistake. Everybody knows old houses have their quirks." - Quote from the 2003 movie,Under the Tuscan Sun

There were definite moments of wanting to weep. Taking down the wallpaper was one of them. We started scoring and spritzing the wallpaper; slowly pealing it back, layer by layer. It was a tedious process. I swore I would never put up wallpaper, ever. As we were working in the dining room we were surprised to find large holes in the walls underneath the wallpaper. It looked like someone had glued wood panelling to the wall and then ripped it off and just hung the wallpaper over it. Talk about an acid stomach. Up until this point we had debated back and forth weather to paint the house and the kitchen cabinets ourselves or to hire a painter. That was pretty much the last straw. I can tape, fill in nail holes, and roll the paint on the walls but beyond that I call in the experts. And it was one of the best decisions we made. Our house has mostly smooth walls with not a lot of texture and I wanted the dining room to be the same. The painter did a fantastic job. Looking at the dining room now, you would never know that it used to look like swiss cheese. We had him prime and paint the entire upstairs, including closets, trim, cabinetry, and doors. All I can say is money well spent. He did a fantastic job. We did have one minor hiccup when he accidentally painted the bedroom the wrong color but he got it repainted in the correct color. I'll have to save the topic of choosing colors for another post.