Bright, Inviting Office

I love my new office! The final touches have been done and I am calling the office complete. Chad may think that I rarely call things complete and he may be right about little touches here and there, but for right now, the office is done.

The natural light in this room is something everyone needs in an office. It has a huge window that opens right up to our backyard where I can spy the boys digging, jumping, playing, exploring, imagining, and yes, fighting. I wanted a color that really played on this natural light and with the help of my husband, we found the right hue to go in our now cheerful office.

When looking at your house now or when house hunting, look beyond the dull and dark and horrible wallpaper. For me the draw to this room was the window. Find what you do like and then run with it. Some may not like my choice of color, but just come visit me on a sunny afternoon and you'll feel just as drawn to be in my office as I do - and that's hard to do in an workspace.

BEFORE: There were three different wallpapers. - textured on top and plaid on the bottom with a hunting border in between the two. Maybe they were trying to play on the dark green carpet. And oh the sad place for the desk - blocking the window!?

AFTER: We removed the wallpaper and replaced the carpet. The baby blue countertops that were replaced in the kitchen were primed and repainted white and steel legs were added. Now there's room for kid's art/drawing and both computers and the room still feels, well... roomy.

The built in dresser was painted as it had a medium-toned stain and we put new hardware on. We even managed to find a nice space for Chad to paint. Now he just needs more time and for people to unlearn the fact that he designs and edits.

Spring! Uh, nevermind.

Last week was so gorgeous! We spent nearly everyday outside either at parks or letting the boys get dirty in the backyard. On Saturday, we woke up discussing what to do and just decided to take advantage of the springtime weather (it was the official first day of Spring!) and went on a hike. The hike was to a waterfall and we were very excited to see it. However, we managed to get to some water and had our picnic and then looking at the dragging feet of the boys, decided that we didn't want to lug an extra 50 pounds each (Chad was already packing McCoy), so we enjoyed ourselves at the water and promised to try again another time to make it to the waterfall.

Today is Monday, two days after it being nearly 70 degrees and we've got snow. Not sticking, but it's still snowing. So here I type, still with anticipation of a TRUE spring - to stay.

Leprechaun Visit

St. Patrick's was celebrated for two days at our home. We had our corned beef and cabbage meal on Monday and delivered cookies to a neighbor and then LEM the Leprechaun came to visit on the morning of St. Patties (Tuesday). Kayden setup 3 traps for him and nearly caught him with plastic wrap, but he managed to get away and left his footprints through the flour that he split. Could've used that pot-o-gold, but we'll try again next year!

Here's our cookies that Chad made the yummy dough for and then I made the spiral designs. We have to admit that the end result was pretty fantastic and gone quickly.

Lem's footprints through the flour.

Kayden doesn't look like he's in too much of a hurry to clean up after the Leprechaun, but just enjoying the chocolate 'gold' that was left behind.

Family Room... check!! (whew!)

Our family room has been completed for some time now, but I've finally got all the pictures together to show off our work. This was a many, many, many step process, but we are very happy with the results and very happy that it is all done!

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Here's what the family room looked like when we were touring the house before buying it. The wood panelling had pictures of pheasants and deer etched into it. Some may like this, but this was not for us.

We took off the wood (messy, but the boys had fun) and discovered this beautiful green-striped wallpaper underneath.

After many a hour steaming off the 70's wallpaper, our walls were finally white, but the wall was damaged from it being on there for 30 years. The drywall paper had ripped of in strips.

The first attempt of trimming the ripped up drywall paper, plastering and then priming and painting ended with a bubbling wall. Not so beautiful. We sanded and started again by purchasing a special sealer and putting that on all of the rips. That sealed the paper so it wouldn't be effected by the water-based paint.

Because the wall was so badly damaged, we decided to add texture to it, so all of the imperfections wouldn't stand out nearly as bad. We sponged on the texture little by little.

Our plan was to put on wainscotting around the bottom of the wall, so we taped off where it would go and painted above it.
Here's what our furniture looked like for a few weeks. The plastic saw so much dust from sanding and also plaster and paint that we were grateful for the cover!

Kayden and Boston always insisted helping when painting time came around.

I didn't get any pictures of the MULTIPLE pieces of wainscotting that are put together to make the beautiful end result (it is NOT all one piece) or how it looked before we puttied the nails and painted the wainscotting, but here is the FINISHED RESULT.

It is a movie-themed room, thanks to Chad's work at a major movie studio for four years, my grandparents old camcorders and equipment and Chad's love of film.