What I've Been Up To...

With the weather being as gorgeous as it's been, it has been hard for me to stay in the house. I've been digging around in my flowers and thinning perennials, making up hanging baskets and trying to get my garden in shape. One day last week, I think I only went in the house to eat lunch and use the potty. Otherwise, I was out ALL DAY! Gardening is like therapy for me. It's my time to reflect on things and file and sort what's going on. It's also the time when I feel really close to the Lord. Maybe because Spring is like a miracle time of year. Things wake up out of Winter's slumber just at the right time. Only God could create things as intricate as that. I will be sharing pics of my flowers and whatnot as soon as I get things wrapped up out there. But today, I'm focusing on the inside.

As part of my coping with what happened, I decided to revamp the house. I had to tunnel my feelings into something. It was a huge undertaking, so my mom came up and helped me. It took us a week and a half to get things completed. The only room we didn't touch was the downstairs bath/ laundry. Every other room we did something to. I feel like things are more organized now. Was it "Good Housekeeping" whose motto was "A place for everything and everything in its place."? Well, that's how I feel about the house now. I will try and get pics of all the rooms eventually. But today, I'll share the upstairs.


This is our room now. I wish I had pics of this room BEFORE we redid it. But, I neglected to take any. The walls used to be a peachy, pink yucky color and it had this awful border! There was carpet too. My mom and I tackled the job of redoing it. Matt and I yanked the carpet out last Summer. I patched drywall. Later in the Fall of last year, Mom and I painted and sanded the hardwood floor. Apparently when whoever had the house before us decided to redo this room, they were anything but particular. Instead of putting drop cloths down when they redid drywall, they let the hardwood floor catch it all. When they painted, they let the floor catch it all. Beautiful honey-oak hardwood splattered with drywall and white paint! It was awful!!! Mom and I sanded it with palm sanders. It went a lot quicker than you might think. I put on a few coats of finish and it looks pretty awesome. I went with a beige for the walls. You can't see it in the picture, but I added some stick on "stained glass" to a small window in the room for a little extra "bling". My brother helped put up new baseboard. I really like how the room turned out.

This used to be the "kid" room. But, we decided to turn it into the guest room. That is a faux fireplace. I have some of those electric logs. It gives off a nice atmosphere. This room has had nothing done to it. It was this color when we bought the house. The floors are hardwood. Mom and I scrubbed this room. We did a lot of "re-purposing" in here. The pillows, fireplace, a chair, pillows and lamp all used to be in my dining room. Now that I don't have a dining room (more on that later), I wasn't sure what to do with the stuff. Then, I had this idea and it worked out.

Okay, nothing too impressive about this shot. The upstairs bath will be my bath and the kid's bath. I got these frog accessories when Matt and I got married. I would like the bath to eventually be frog themed.

Ahh, the crowning jewel! This is the new "kid" room. The theme is Noah's Ark. Not in the shot is a Pack-n-Play. As you can see, there is a crib and a twin bed. This room is technically the master bedroom. Matt and I figured that we have the whole house and the kids only get their room for all of their stuff--so why not give them the biggest room? Mom and I scrubbed this room too and arranged it and re-purposed some stuff in here too. I had been collecting the Noah's Ark decor from garage sales and Goodwill. I was finally able to put it all together. If this room would have been done when we got our placements, that would have made a huge difference. This room is ready to go. The only thing I need to do is organize the closet-full of hand-me down clothes.

Hope you enjoyed the pics. I'll try to get pics of the downstairs soon.