Yea!!

Interior doors and all porch supplies have been ordered.

our interior doors will look like this!

All first coats of paint are done!!

In every room but one!! The kid's area with the shower is the only room that has not been painted yet. That will be a limey green. All other areas of the house have one coat of paint on, but need at least one more coat. Not sure how I feel about the red entryway, but we'll leave it, I suppose. I think it's really dark, but maybe once our real dront door and sidelights are put in, with a little light it won't seem so dark. The kid's bath is not quite the color I expected either...how in the world can I be expected to pick out paint for an entire room by looking at a 2x2 square of color!?! We'll see...I am trying hard to envision the kid's bath with stuff/cabinets in it, but it's hard. It's not that it's a bad color, it's just very odd.

The flooring was supposed to be in this past week, but we didn't get a phone call yet. Mike wants to start the hardwood ASAP (as soon as the painting is completely done of course.) While the things I picked out are nice, I already know that the floor for the master bath isn't really going to go with the rest of the bathroom, and same with the kid's bath. The upstairs carpet I already know was an awful decision--it doesn't go with the runner going up the stairs, and I wish I could go back and do it over, because I'd pick out different stuff for sure. Considering doing hardwood in the hallway upstairs so it doesn't look goofy where the runner from the stairs meets the second floor. Obviously too late to cancel the carpet altogether, since it's been ordered ---which I called the guy the day after we met with him to change things and he said it was too late and everything had been ordered and probably cut at the warehouse (which Mike thought was a load of crap), so I'd be charged a 20% restocking fee. Couldn't afford to do that unfortunately, so I will just have to live with more of my poor decisions. It's just so hard, you go and pick out stuff you like, and don't really think about how it will go with the rest of the house--paint colors, cabinet color & style, etc. I hope everything blends together somehow, and that nothing looks completely wacky or out of place. I am really just sick of looking and picking stuff out, and worrying about it all matching. I am so over all of this, and wondering when we will move in. It will be a while yet--still have to put all flooring in, the doors, the woodwork, the cabinets, light fixtures, and plumbing fixtures, and of course, the porch.

But it's mostly painted, and that's cool!!

In the kitchen, looking at the pantry in the corner, and the dining room doorway. Kitchen color is latte...I was hoping for more of a "coffee with lots of cream" color like our old house, it's a little darker than I thought, but it will be fine, I think. 2nd picture I'm in dining room looking into the kitchen. in dining room looking into the kitchen.

rear of the house...just a little more siding to go!!!!!! Next, on to the porch!!!

1/2 bath--dockside blue. Hard to get a good picture, there is not a window in there.

Great room looking at the fireplace wall--2 shades lighter in the same color family as the kitchen (don't remember the name!) This color is also upstairs in the hallway, as well as going up the stairs. You can see the dark red on the wall on the right in the entryway. Above is the balcony (we ran out of the lighter tan but the white area below the balcony will be painted, too). The left doorway is the master bedroom, the right doorway goes down to the basement. The 1/2 bath is directly across from the master bedroom, but you can't see that in the picture.

Mudroom--cupola yellow ...& Laundry room--was going to be a green, but Mike accidentally took a different paint swatch that had "laundry" written on it. I actually think it's a perfect color for the laundry room...very clean and fresh looking!! It's lighter than the 1/2 bath blue.

Cal's room finished with the blue & gray ...Girls' Room. I am going to put up a chair rail where the two colors meet. I took their quilts in and perfectly matched colors with it. Some pink & buoyant blue.

Our bathroom, some beige color & Our bedroom--tavern taupe

One and a half rooms down...

Only eleven and a half to go (?I think?), along with a hallway or two. So painting has begun!! How exciting!! I love the way the dining room turned out, though I'm not sure what I want to do with the stepped ceiling...some people put a wallpaper border around the stepped part, some people stencil, some do it a different color...I was contemplating putting a quote around one step and then stencilling or wallpapering the other step. Not sure. The quote would be complicated (though I would order one from http://www.wallwords.com/ ). Cal's room (2 walls done) is an awesome blue, too. Kaycey was extremely mad that her room wasn't started...well I haven't even picked out the colors for the girl's room yet. And I was thinking about putting a chair rail up and doing one color above it and one color below it. I know it seems like I am putting way too much thought into this, but it will be way too hard to paint after the floors and white woodwork are in. It's so easy now because you don't have to be all that careful (even the windows are covered, so no need to worry about those). I think I decided on a yellow for the mudroom...maybe a green for the laundry room?? I don't know about those two rooms yet.

DINING ROOM--Herbal Green CAL'S ROOM---Indigo Batik

In the pictures of the house that I take from the road, I feel like the windows are way too small for the house. But when I see the house, and take up close pictures they really aren't. It seems more proportional when I'm not taking a far away photo.

So I bartend tonight, I hope it's busy. It hasn't been busy in a while. In June it will inevitably pick up, when everyone is riding their motorcycles regularly, and people are just out because it's nice out, and festivals and such are going on, too. Yes, it will get incredibly busy, so busy we might need 2 bartenders on, even on a Wednesday. But that's okay. And, Mike is starting to take off Thurs/Fri now to work on the house all day and night, so he'll probably take the kids to school tomorrow so I don't have to get up so early. That'll be nice!! And the mom who lives nearby the new house offered to watch Maddie for the day in case I want to sleep, or paint. I think I might take her up on the offer and paint!

I could really use a weekend scrapbooking getaway. I haven't bought scrapbooking stuff for so long...I am just dying to go nuts on stuff, though I've been so good at restraining myself, since I know I haven't been scrapbooking very much. Though at this point I would love any vacation!! Mike and I are talking about going somewhere this summer once we are settled into the new house. Just got to decide where....preferably somewhere relaxing, quiet, and doesn't require a whole lot of anything but sitting in a chair by some water, perhaps. We'll see...for now I have to keep making the big tips so I can keep buying stuff for the house, and save for a small vacation!!!!!!!!!!!!

Colorful day

So, maybe I'm a little wacky. I went to Sherwin Williams, and pretty much took one of each paint swatch. There are many more, but the ones in the picture are potential paint colors!! Mike took my paint swatches for the dining room (a sage/country green), Cal's room (dark blue and a gray), entryway (deep red), upstairs hallway (tan), kitchen (a creamy tan for most of the kitchen and dark red for behind the cooktop), master bath (creamy beige) & bedroom (taupe), and great room (a hard color to describe--straw?? A gold sort of color). He is going to pick up the colors I chose for those areas, and start painting tonight!! I will hopefully get to paint sometime this week, too. So here we are at the point where I can actually help out, but tomorrow I work all day and night. And this weekend my Grandparents leave and my Dad and Stepmom leave for vacations (people that would usually babysit or that could help paint). So the plan is for Mike and I to take turns painting I guess. I cannot decide on what colors for the laundry room or the mudroom. I'm torn!! Still have to officially pick out the 1/2 bath, kid's bath, girls' bedroom, and spare bedroom, too. I think I've decided to keep the quilts I bought for the girls. Though, part of me thinks I should try to find the same one for Maddie that Kaycey currently has. It's 3 years old, though, so I don't know that I could find it if I tried. We had gotten it free from a local Kid's Bed & Bedding store when Kaycey was sick. I certainly won't get rid of it. But it's pretty worn, being 3 years old and washed probably at least a hundred times. I also bought this mini chandelier that I decided to hang in the corner of their room where there are some built in shelves. I thought it'd be cute to make it a little reading corner with some cute chairs & a table. I have to get Cal a new bedspread yet, too.

THINGS I'VE BOUGHT RECENTLY:

GIRLS QUILTS (I'm thinking of painting their room a pink and blue, to match the quilt)








GIRLS CHANDELIER




CUTE THING FOR KIDS BATH

Happy Mother's Day!

Yep, I am going to the concert in Chicago in October. New Kids on the Block! They're back!! I also plan on going to see Everclear in July, Counting Crows in August, and Cracker in July. I love music!!!!!!! I miss the summers I used to go to Summerfest almost everyday and see band after good band (back in high school--the good old mid to late 90's: Foo Fighters, Elastica, 7 mary 3, 311, Everclear, Spacehog, Pearl Jam)

Anyhow, in other news, I haven't been feeling great all week, the girls have been sick since Monday really. I had taken them to the doctor Wednesday, who did nothing, and we ended up in Urgent Care today because they've only gotten worse. Bronchitis it is. I'm sure we got whatever Cal had a couple weeks ago. I am hoping now we are finally on the up end because we are tired of being sick!!

We get to start painting Tuesday...Mike & his brother sprayed primer in the whole house Saturday, and Mike and his Dad are doing a second coat today. It will have taken 100 gallons of paint to spray the house--walls, ceilings, closets, garage with the white paint!!! That doesn't count the colors of paint we have to go buy yet!!! Yikes. Hopefully we can start painting in the next couple of days!! Off to Sherwin Williams to pick out my swatches : ) Gotta buy appliances this week, too.

MY OVENS & FRIDGE/FREEZER: