I Love my Living Room

Finally, finally we have our living room "back to normal." It's taken almost two weeks (though I've been sick this last week) but last night for the first time since we tore it apart to paint the floors, it's clean and decorated like we usually have it!

We still need to paint the trim along the back (or side, however you look at it) wall and put the quarter round molding around it and the entry way but at least where any furniture needs to be the molding is complete and the trim is repainted! Amazing what a difference a little piece of quarter round makes.

Tony also found us some beautiful grate covers for our air conditioner vents in the floors. Since we moved in we had these ugly generic brown ones that didn't fit in the holes. They just sat in them, lopsided, half sticking up on one side. We'd spent hours looking at them at Lowes and Home Depot but didn't think they made ones that fit. Tony, on a lark, picked the next size up from what we thought and beyond belief, they fit perfectly! Black wrought iron looking too like our lamps and DVD racks. I love them.

I am so happy with our progress. We are still planning to texture the ceiling to cover up some patchwork we had to do before we moved in, and hang a ceiling fan but for now the living room looks AWESOME! I love the black floors, what a great idea!! I love how the new bright white molding and trim just pops.

In other news... we passed the building inspection for our bedroom upstairs, just need to get the electrical inspection ordered on Tuesday (ran into a little snag and that got delayed a week or two). Then it's on to insulation and drywall! Stay tuned....

What We've Been Up To

What did you get for Mother's Day? I tend to be a little unconventional, and my husband hasn't had a day off since April 12 so I took the liberty of shopping for him. I got a really awesome, sexy pair of black high heels, 2 books by Janet Evanovich and a painting for above our fireplace.

When Jeremiah was about 18 months old I let him finger/brush paint an 8"x10" canvas and we have it framed hanging in our stair well because it turned out really cool. We've been unable to find an appropriate art print or painting for over our fireplace for an amount of money I want to spend on one, so Friday I bought a large canvas, set the kids up with paints and brushes on plastic in the yard and let them have at it. The result was awesome! Mom and the kids showed up as they were finishing painting on their way home from Kentucky to pick up ducks so we painted duck feet and let the ducks walk across the painting as well. I try to be a cool Mom and I think I succeeded this week.

I, we, also got the "gift" of re-doing our living room floors this weekend. I thought we could do it yesterday but it's turned into a 3 day thing as we put the first coat of clear/hard sealer on it this morning and have another planned for tomorrow morning since my MIL will have the kids all day. We can insulate around the cracks and put up half round molding too and finish it with one fell swoop.

Conventional "wisdom" said we couldn't paint our nasty, stained and dog-urine ruined hardwood floors without sanding and re-staining them. Bah. I laugh in your general direction, sir. Our theory was that if we could find the right type of paint/clear coat we could simply paint the floors the black we wanted without staining and ruining the wood (that way if we ever get tired of the dark, we sand up the paint, sand up the sealant already there and have light wood to work with.


It is fabulous.
We are so in love. Now the molding looks shabby but that's nothing another gallon of bright white paint won't fix.

We've also still been making progress upstairs, we have both windows in now!!! Our friend came over Tues and helped us finish the electrical so
we're ready to order BOTH the building and electrical inspections!! Hooray! We missed calling the electrical inspector this week, he only takes calls on Tues and Thurs mornings from 8am-9am and we called the building inspector but apparently he took Friday off, so tomorrow... it's on.

I've also spun this skein of hurt your teeth pink merino I carded with black merino, blue bamboo and blue and black angelina (I handdyed the last 3). I got 167yds of bulky wieght average yarn.

And I was in a yarn swap and received this gorgeous hummingbird green 100% bamboo sock yarn. I have a wonderful mother in law. She loves green, hummingbirds and all things luxurious. She is allergic to wool so bamboo is perfect. She can wear them, sitting in her menopause-ily freezing air-conditioned house, in comfort. She loved them.