Good enough for now

The past month we have been busy de-nautical-izing this house. As with all home projects everything takes at least twice, some times three, times longer than you anticipated. I am so sick of painting I don't know that we will do anything else to the place for another year!

Shepherd was real tired of painting... her little ear was not the only area that "helped", one day she decided to take a nap at the bottom of the stairs after I finished painting them and her back was slightly white washed when she got up. Another day she decided to bring her fetching ball in and dropped it in the paint tray... blasted dog!

The before pictures:

As you come in the front door, here is the living room. Previously it was just all white washed.

Next you walk into the dining room, still just a white washed room.

From the dining room there is a staircase up to the girls bathroom and bedrooms, from there you can continue up another small staircase to our master's sitting room. Note the "beautiful" sail ship gate!

The dining room also leads into the kitchen.

Here is a closer look of the "darling" sea creature backsplash.... a dastardly design.

From the kitchen there is a staircase up to our master bedroom, or down to the family room and also a side staircase down to the laundry and garage. Here the lovely family room is in all her glory. Don't you just LOVE the blueish gray trim, it highlights the wood paneling so well!

Oh yes, a wood paneling nightmare! Around that column on the left of the picture below is a door to the spare bedroom and half bath.

The after pictures:

While mom was here she helped me pick out paint, I wanted to be daring but chickened out and went with a version of light beige as our main color throughout the house.

Initially as the paint went up I was wishing I would have gone a little darker but now I am really pleased with it. I already have so much color in my living room that I think it balances the room out nicely. This is not a permanent bench by the window, I just needed to see what an extra piece of furniture would look like in that space so eventually I will find something to go there!

In the dining room I decided to add some more color on the walls, pumpkin butter, I really love this color! I think it adds some richness to the room and is also a nice contrast as you come in from the living room and see the kitchen/family room beyond.

We tore up the carpet off the stairs and said goodbye to that cute little gate, with some putty and a fresh coat of high gloss white paint they look much better.

In the kitchen we covered up the backsplash with some of those facade panels and changed out the blue cabinet knobs with bronzed copper knobs.

Eventually we would like to put a counter unit in by the stove. The one thing this house really lacks is counter space in the kitchen, but for now it's GOOD ENOUGH!

We toyed with the idea of a breakfast bar and stools or a small little bistro set for this area of the kitchen, but in the end our leather wing chairs inherited from dad and a little pedestal table I had worked out just fine... and with no added expense!

The family room turned out really nice, it actually looks bright and clean now!

This room was an absolute nightmare to paint... some of the trim required 4 coats of paint and still looks like it could use one more.

I cleaned up the fireplace, spray painted the vents and removed the screen. I wanted to make it more of a focal point but even though this room is really good sized with the cabinets, the staircase and sliding door I have had a hard time coming up with a good arrangement. Eventually we would love to sheetrock the room and get rid of the paneling and cabinets... for now it's just a dream!

I still HATE this carpet but I am trying my best not to look at it. The room still needs some more furniture... coffee table, side table and maybe a love seat???

Who knows when we will decide to tackle our master bedroom area and the spare bedroom, like I said... good enough for now!

Nate was also able to get our gates in the backyard secured so it is finally Baby proofed! It is such a relief to be able to let her out and not watch her like a hawk. Speaking of the Baby, she woke us up a couple of mornings ago having a seizure. I can not even describe to you how scared I was, I didn't know if she was dying or what. Nate called the vet while I stayed with her and they said to just watch her and wait and if she has another one to document everything about it and come in. So hopefully it was a freak thing, I can't stand the thought of watching her go through that again.

Hope you all had a wonderful summer, I am back on rotations and the kids will FINALLY be going to back to school the day after Labor day!

Summer is winding down

I can't believe that summer is ending! This past month has gone by so fast I feel as if we haven't even been able to catch our breath. Last week Lexi was lucky enough to have one of her friends come stay the week with us. We decided to go check out the county fair (aka: total money pit). Here Lex and her friend Ali on the first row of some spin and puke ride.

Liv on yet another spin and puke ride....

And Liv again on some sort of human hamster land.

I was lucky enough not to have to go on any rides!

Ali and Liv gave Lexi a beautiful makeover... it could be a great new look for the first day of school!

When I took Lexi's friend Ali back home to Erie, Liv was able to spend the day boating with one of her friends. The girls are really missing their friends but they have both been adjusting pretty well.

Lex is in the middle of soccer tryouts for the high school team. I think today they might find out which team they made, I'm sure she will post on FB when she finds out. Lex also got her schedule for school yesterday and we spent some time wandering the halls of her new school. This is her school below, it is a beautiful old building.



I have less than a week left of my vacation and I am still painting. I don't know if I am going to get all of it done, the baseboards and trim have proved to be incredibly time consuming. We also started cleaning up some of the over growth in the front yard so I should have some more pictures of our projects this weekend if we hustle! I start my psychiatry rotation next and I will keep you all posted on how much "fun" I have.

3 Rooms Transformed

This week I got to work on a few of our projects. I had mentioned before that I somehow found myself with a chisel and hammer in the girls bathroom one day.... mom helped me putty the damage when she was here!

Here is the before pic of the bathroom... I was not diggin' the nautical theme. The tiles had sea shells, anchors and ship wheels on them, HIDEOUS!!

Here are a few after pictures! So glad the tile is gone!

When the girls first started telling me some of their color ideas I was a little hesitant... but oh how I was wrong! They did such a great job picking colors and accessories. Here is a before picture of Liv's Room... ugly boyish blue with some sort of home made "art" on the wall.

Her new room in underwater blue, chocolate brown and red! Liv wanted a canopy bed so I did my best to accomodate... I think it turned out pretty cute.

Liv is pretty pleased with this space behind her clothes in her closet... she has pillows and a flashlight so she can hang out back there!

I thought I had a couple of pictures of Lexi's room but I guess I didn't. Her room was just really plain, here is a before picture of the wall in front of her closets... it's all I had!

Lexi decided on some shades of purple. We also repainted one of the sweet chandeliers from another room in the house and somehow I managed to hook it up without electrocuting myself... of course I did a crap job of it and Nate had to help me when he got home from work with some rewiring.

Spoiled... they are spoiled rotten! Today Nate is going to help me tackle the family room/kitchen area. We will see how much we get done. My hand is totally cramped up from doing the girls rooms this week. Have I mentioned how much I HATE painting, it really is awful!

Picture overkill

Together Steph and I would make the perfect blogging team. I am in love with her new digital SLR camera! She took over 300 pictures while she was here and you know that I love to blog so we would be a dangerous duo to say the least!

Here is a sampling of our weekend together! Our first excursion was to the U.S. side of Niagara Falls. Having been to both now I will say that Canada has a beautiful street to walk down and the best view of the Falls. The U.S. has an amazing park with a lovely path that weaves through creeks, rivers and trees, and it still has a pretty good view of the Falls.

We had a lovely picnic before we explored.

This time we decided to take the journey on the Maid of the Mist. Here she is when viewed from the top of the Falls.

Here we all are in our awesome blue poncho's!

It was definitely well worth the boat ride to get to see the Falls from below. A totally different view... pretty awesome! Here are a few pictures of the American Falls.

The mist was so extreme under the Horseshoe Falls that we didn't get a picture of it from below.

Our second excursion took us on my lame architectural tour... again... same outcome! Shocking, I know! So we ended up at the Canal and took a look at the naval ships, while we had some ice cream.

Ava and Liv loved to play on our swing set.

And if our swing set wasn't enough, they found one to play around on at our third excursion to a Taste of Williamsville which was taking place in one of our village parks, Island Park. A bunch of tents were set up where you could sample several tasty treats from local restaurants. And of course there were a few fun games set up for the kids.

Ava mastered the ring toss.

Liv rocked the fish flip.

And we all had fun teetering and tottering

A quick walk across the street from the festival took us over to Glen park which is home to our pretty little waterfall. Liv and Ava had a great time crossing the rocks and floating Ava's prize duck, from the ring toss, down the creek.

We feel so fortunate to have had family here all week to share our new home with! We loved it and NEEDED it so badly! The house seems so empty tonight... who's up next?