Christmas time is here...

Some say I am a scrooge at Christmas time...Jennifer Dunn. I don't like christmas music on the radio before Thanksgiving or anytime for that matter, I hate GLITTER(it gets on everything) and I just don't like how everyone acts jolly when we know they aren't. Anyway, I thought if I had a better attitude this year then maybe I would start to really enjoy the Holiday Season. I started by decorating the door, with a wreath I made from ornaments, Lee made them with his mom when he was a boy.

Its not the prettiest wreath on the block but I love it cause Lee made those ornaments and they are adorable. Speaking of decorations on the block, check out this interesting christmas tree and outdoor decor our neighbor is sporting this year...

Not really sure what is going on here, but yes they have an all white tree with blue lights in the window and below it are some twigs wrapped in more blue lights and tinsel thrown about. hmmm, is all I've got. I really wish you could see this in person, because the pictures are just not capturing the awesomeness.

Anyway, back to getting in the holiday mood. Since we won't be here for Christmas, we didn't chop down a tree but I did put up my two foot, hot pink, tinsel tree in the front window and decorated it with my favorite ornaments. I couldn't put all my ornaments on it because it would have fallen off the table:)

Isn't she a Beaut?

So slowly I am really getting excited for Christmas this year and it was awesome that is snowed here last week. I hope we have more snow because it didn't stick in the city and I would love for Arthur to pee on some snow this winter. I know that is gross but he has never seen snow and I really think he'll love it! He already loves how cold it is outside and he is ready for Christmas.

Could this have been a better picture? Look at those eyes, they are naughty dog eyes.

Arthur

So Arthur is finally at the age where he wants to please us all the time. Well not all the time but most the time and especially if it involves three things: his ball, treats, and all of us together playing. Last week we decided to start teaching him new tricks, so far he can jump and stand on his hind legs, on command. If you have any new tricks you want us to teach him, please let us know, we are running out of ideas...

One of his favorite games is when we hide his ball in another room and then tell him to find it. So we were playing this last week in the basement and the game evolved into putting it in awkward places and telling him to get it. This video is that game...enjoy!

Thanksgiving is over

Just thought I would let you know how wonderfully Thanksgiving went. Since I am not in the mood to write I am just going to tell you with pictures.

After dinner one night while my sister-in-law, Katherine was here, she drew my and Lee's profiles and turned them into silhouettes. Here they are...Can you believe how beautiful they are and it only took her about an hour for each one??

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is coming soon and I am hosting my first ever thanksgiving feast!! Can you believe it? Lees mom, stepdad, brother, and our sister-in-law are going to gather around our table and eat some bird. It will be strange to have thanksgiving at my place with out my parents. I feel this is a momentous occasion they should be a part of and I know my mom is kinda sad about it, though she has never mentioned that, I just assume she is, cause she should be. Anyway, I decided to make her feel better and keep her informed on my progress of preparing for and hosting thanksgiving.

Mom, you will be happy to know that today I:

polished the silver, labeled each dish with its contents, and finalized my shopping list

If my mom were hosting thanksgiving she would have the table already set and it would have been set a least a month in advance...FREAK!!!! But, for me, baby steps...I will probably set the table next week, I am too scared to leave my china on the table that long. And I do not have the luxury of a "formal" dining room. Tomorrow I plan to get all napkins, place mats, and silverware in order.

Halloween

I went to Dallas for Halloween with my nephews and the baptism of my god son, James. I had a great time and thought I would share the pictures.

Benton as the Devil

Leighton as a bat

James, my god son

Entryway Wall

So the pesky entryway wall has finally been removed and it looks great. It makes the room bigger, allows more light, and just looks really nice. (pic below) I still need to make a book shelf that will butt up against the half wall that remains but have to wait on that project. In order to put the book shelf up I have to take down the wood panelling and trim on the window wall and replace with drywall and drywall around the studs that frame the right side of the door.

I feel like such a slacker compared to all the work we did when we first moved in but the projects keep getting tougher and require assistance from Lee or a professional. Not sure if I told you all but we got the tax credit for being 1st time home buyers and that should come in December. As soon as it arrives we will begin the kitchen!!! I am so stinking excited to start that, I cannot wait. I will start posting ideas for that project soon!!

Birthday

Today is my birthday! I will be forever scarred by Ms. Dennison's gym class. I cannot go a birthday with out thinking of the birthday song by the Beatles and group hugs! Oh Ms.'s Dennison what have you done to me?

Filing Cabinet

I have not posted anything in about a month and I finally have something to post. Since I don't have an office I have moved the filing cabinet to the living room and made it a side table. I had seen a cute idea to cover the front of the drawers with paper/wallpaper and thought I would try it. I am not sure I LOVE the paper now that it is on but the colors went well with everything so I stuck with it. I cannot believe how well it turned out considering the paper kept bubbling and moving around but once it dried it looked nice.

Before

Tools used

After

This isn't the best picture but you get the idea.

Lee and I started taking the entry way wall down today. We have hit a stopping point because we cannot figure out how to remove the door jamb in the room, which is in the way of removing the rest of the lathe. I am going to work on that tomorrow and hopefully I can get it finished. I forgot what a mess the plaster creates and I am dreading the clean up:(

Before

Ahh...look at that mess

Stairs

So I am finally feeling good about the stairs. I sanded the stairs, put wood putty in the million nail holes(all the brown dots in the left pic), finished painting all the risers and primed all the steps. I will wait to paint the steps until we are finished removing the plaster from the wall. I still need to get some quarter round trim to cover up all the nooks and crannies but I will wait until we remove the wall and buy a miter saw. Maybe I can convince Lee to help me remove the wall tomorrow, on his only day off this week:) Doubt it.

Oh I forgot to tell you about this little gem we found under the carpet!

Cannot decide if its cool or not?

Yes, that is linoleum tile with leaves on it!

The Stairs are going down!

I am so sick of the stars and their NEVER ending issues. I had a mini meltdown today over them and I even threw a piece of wood across the room at one point cause I was so mad. It was only a tiny piece, but hey I had a temper tantrum! Anyway, I was building a frame today for the vents that go under the last step and every thing I touched, used, drilled, etc would fall a part, split into or I would accidently knock down. Enter temper tantrum. I walked away for a few moments, collected myself and said, this is not going to beat ME!!!! After that, I got it done. It looks like poo because the floor slants which caused my frame to slant which caused the vent to slant, BUT I got it done...whew. AND on top of that fiasco, I sanded the edge of each step yesterday, cleaned them, and kilz'd(fancy name for Primed them:) them and when I woke up this morning it looked like poo too. The white primer made every nook, cranny, defect, missed sanded spot stand out even more than before with the fake wood paint job. I almost feel like knocking the entire stair case down and starting from scratch. SO here is what I have or have not accomplished in the past two days.

These are the vents I added with the frame that I hate. Notice downward slant of the right vent...makes me soooo mad!

This is the giant mess I made in my fury.

nooks & crannies...forgot to take a picture of the painted stairs, do that tomorrow

Curio Cabinet

I bought a cabinet at Goodwill a month ago with the intention of painting it. Well when I got it here I for some reason felt bad for it and could not bring myself to paint it. So finally Lee said it is ugly and needs a new life with some paint. So I did it...and LOVE it. I cannot believe how well it turned out and how pretty it looks.

Happy Birthday Arthur!!!

Today is Arthur's 3rd Birthday. So in honor of him, here are some of my favorite pictures.

Family Photo

Stair help!

The stairs are killing me.... Last week I thought it would be best to strip the paint on the steps to expose the wood. Well, I stripped three of them and it was a disaster. The wood underneath is untreated pine and is now stained cherry red because of three colors I tried to remove. I should have bought stronger remover but I was scared to because I was working inside with no cross ventilation and Arthur was there. And with further inspection today, the wood on the risers is beat up, with tons of holes from nails and staples and looks awful, even if I were to patch them and paint. Now I have decided painting them and laying a runner will be the easiest and best looking solution. I have been researching runners online and have found a few options. I really love the look of white stairs with a light colored runner on top like these:

do not like the border on the right one

Ideally I would want a runner with some gray in it, to bring out the gray banister. I am not a huge fan of sisal because it hurts but I think I could find a softer one like jute. Anyway, thoughts on this? I feel like I have ideas of what I want but when I start doing the projects I am having to choose different options to cover the mistakes from the past.

I like this platinum runner but it is only 7' long, I need at least 18' and it is 2.5' wide, I need only 1.5'.

Finished the stairs

I finished painting the stair rail, etc. today. I cannot believe it took me so long but painting between each baluster was time consuming. I think it looks great and I am excited to finish the stairs. Tomorrow I will try to strip the steps of the 5 layers of paint and then paint them with varnish or what ever shiny stuff you use on wood. After that is done, I will paint the risers the living room color. I know I posted almost the same picture twice but one was to show off the color I painted and one was to show the pictures I hung under the stairs. Which I am thinking I need to lower the one on the right, it looks strange.

Yesterday, I took a break from painting to give Arthur a bath and while he was drying we was being really funny with his towel. He loves to go "crazy" after his bath, I think it's his way of rebelling after such a traumatic event:)

I love this one, his nose looks huge!

Stairs

I am painting the Banister and post tonight. I saw in a magazine someone had painted their banister and post grey and I thought it would look really pretty with the wall color and brick so I am copying them. I have not decided what color to paint the steps but I will most likely strip them of the brown paint and refinish the wood to match the floors.

I was investigating the wallpaper under the wood panelling last night and I uncovered 6 different papers. I am charging my camera at the moment but I will post a pic of them later. Can you imagine wall papering over and over?

I think I am going to buy a power saw tomorrow so I can build the half wall we are going to put in the entry way. We still need to tear down the wall, which we started doing yesterday but stopped because we were not in the mood to remove more plaster. It is so messy, gets everywhere and I hate that I have to continually dust for days after. I guess we will do that this weekend, I cannot wait until it is down, it will make the room look so big, YAY!!!

PS: PAINTING BANISTERS IS NO FUN. ESPECIALLY GETTING BETWEEN EACH BALUSTER, SO NOT COOL:(

I have, so far, primed the railing, balusters and newel post(who knew there were so many names for the diff parts?) and I have painted the newel post the grey. I think it is going to look great with the brick and paint color, I might even paint the steps the same color. I experimented with the newel post and painted one side all grey and one side left some white. What are your thoughts on this? I think I prefer the all grey side, and by the way is it grey, gray or either??? So annoying to have two spellings of a word.

As I have mentioned, the people before us wallpapered at least 5 different times, and yesterday I took a box cutter and revealed all 5 of them. Here they are in all their GLORY: