Thanksgiving

This year we are having both of our families over for dinner. I absolutely love having people over now that I can close the doors to the unfinished parts. I know, I know, families love you anyway but I like having those doors closed :-)

I wanted to do something a little different.
I made some caramel-covered apples....

And...I made a little welcome sign.

 

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Living Room

I'm late I know. It's been waaay too long since I posted on here. 
Between:
my job at school,
         working privately with a child after school,
                           working on a house
                                   and my other blog,

this little guy has been on the back burner. Thanks for sticking with me.

I'm finally writing about the living room on here. We finished this in June so I'm very behind. If you're wondering what we've been up to since then, I'll tell you. We took a break during the summer and went to Ireland. Then, we started back on the house in September and are currently working on the bathrooms. We're building a bathroom upstairs (directly above our downstairs full bathroom) and closing off the full bathroom downstairs to make it into a master suite :-). Yay!

Now back to the living room. Here are some before pictures. We were hoping we wouldn't have to tear all that plaster down....but....just like most things, we underestimated the task. The plaster was in bad condition and had to go.

In addition, there was a wall that completely blocked the front entrance-yuck! I felt claustrophobic walking into the house.

 

 

The wall had to go. So it did. So did the carpet :-) I like to play "I Spy Toto" with these pictures.



The day finally came. It was time to rip out some nasty plaster. Jesse's flexes his amazing muscles to get ready for the task. And me? Well, I took Toto and left to spend the weekend at my parent's, being the loyal wife I am. I can deal with a lot but I cannot cope with a house full of plaster dust.

How to control plaster dust: you can't. Even taping off areas and covering them with plastic, this stuff has the amazing ability to squeeze itself into areas you never thought possible.

And...drum roll please? Here is the house after the plaster and lathe demo.

Did you know your house probably looks this ugly too? No offense-it's just the way it is. Beauty is only skin wall deep.

Next comes the insulation and (my favorite) drywall. Are you starting to get used to the routine yet?
Demo. Electric. Insulation. Drywall. Finishing. Paint. Flooring.
No? Me either.

Another thanks to some of our amazing friends who came and helped us!

And now for paint! Later, I added in stripes which you can view HERE.

I feel like I skipped a lot there in that last picture. Putting up a picture makes it look easy. However, Jesse had to work hard perfecting those walls by finishing them and sanding the drywall to make it smooth and even. What took me a second to just post, probably in reality took a month to do.


Next up was the flooring. We wanted tile to mark the entryway :-)

And finally-carpet. Ah.....We had not gone barefoot (or with only socks on for that matter) since we had moved in (9 months earlier). We discovered that carpet is quite a luxury and were ecstatic to finally have some we could walk on!
And...we we weren't the only ones....

I love our carpet. It has gorgeous specks of color throughout and hides everything. The name of it is "Cookie dough." I know what you're thinking-no I didn't just pick it for its name. Okay maybe just a little :-)

And...Here is how it looks now coming through the front door.

And a view of the front door. I love the windows :-)

Last, for an added touch of "ourness," we have "Jesse and Nicole's Mission Statement" next to our door as a reminder of our values and blessings when we come and go.

Thanks for stepping into our living room for a while!