First project: Paint the dining room. I've disliked the dark green of the dining room for a few years now but haven't been able to picture a better color to paint. My inspiration came from watching Under the Dome where "Big Jim Renny"'s living room was painted a yellow-based green. My mind tends to lean towards blue based colors so this shade hadn't occurred to me. One long weekend later and here are the results:
Before (circa 2009):
After:
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| Why yes I am on the top of a ladder at 36+ weeks, thanks for noticing... |
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| Mid-way...note the stark contrast in color...although the new green really isn't as "lime' as it looks in this light. |
There was also much drama surrounding what color to paint the inside of the bookshelves...I wanted to do it the same as the trim, then I accidentally did the slightly more beige hallway color instead since I didn't notice I was doing the wrong color at first and then couldn't find the extra trim paint... and then when I did find it I had already put the stuff back on the shelves and didn't want to go back and re-do it so right now it just looks slightly darker...as if the yellow from before is showing through..it's not, that's just the paint color. Also some drama surrounding the curtains. I had it in my head that I wanted to get new blue ones, but after dragging my two littles around to various stores for three + hours and coming home with curtains I still didn't like, I decided the old ones looked just fine after all.
Project two: Baby dresser.
I had been trying to think of where I was going to put the new baby clothes. I didn't really want to buy another of those cheap plastic drawer sets from Walmart like I did with George as I know I have more girl clothes then boys and the drawers were too deep to make digging through them practical. Then I remembered how Patrick had once brought home a small, ugly dresser from a garage sale that had since been parked on our back porch for a year or so. The problem with it was the awfully garish shade of pink it was painted.
Before in all of it's "buried on the porch" glory:
I thought I could fix it up and paint it green with pale pink drawers. Well the first attempt didn't turn out so well. I used the lighter of the two shades of green used in the original dining room scheme (see above) and had planned to leave the drawer faces as is. The problem was that once the dresser was painted the drawers looked kind of sad no matter how clean they were as they were still old and chipped and slightly stained in places. I thought; hey! I painted the kitchen red a few years back and have left over white trim, so I'll make my own pink! The result looked like a bright, garish watermelon theme from an overly colorful pre-school. (Note my pink was supposed to be subtle, but instead looked like I had dumped pepto-bismol on the drawers).
First Attempt:
So after staring at it for a day or two, I decided there was no way I could stand looking at it in my bedroom for the next four to six months and took another stab at it. This time I used the more subtle newly purchased yellow tinted green from the dining room and mixed a whole lot more white into the pink for the drawers. The result was much more to my liking.
After:
Like I said, it's a subtle difference, but just enough that it won't clash with the wall in my bedroom.
In the past month I had also needed to hall out of the attic the bouncy seat, cradle, "girl" bumper pad and car seat...(well really the car seat wasn't in the attic as George just barely moved up to a toddler seat but still). William and I spent an afternoon deep cleaning all of these. I also cleaned all of the baby girl clothes I've been stock piling/saving for the last 8+ years and organized them by size. So with dresser complete, and since the baby could theoretically come at any time now, I felt the need to complete the "nursery." Really, this is just the corner of my bedroom where we stick the baby until it moves up to the crib in the other room. But this still demanded much cleaning and rearranging of over a year's worth of accumulation, including finding a new home for the dusty treadmill that had since taken up residence in the corner. Here is the result;
Baby Corner:
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| I also bought a new bedspread as ours was getting a little thread bare... |
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| On the trip to return the curtains, I finally found a frame for the painting of fairies my sister did in 1999. I thought it looked nice in our "nursery." |
Note the three-tired hanger I snagged from some of the new clothes I bought and turned into a cutesy display/hanger for the cute headbands I'm hoping will actually fit this baby's head. (Isabelle's was too big to fit anything on, but these seem bigger so I'm hoping...) Newly cleaned bed, painted dresser, feminized cradle (note the pink bows), washed bumper, mattress pad/cover, sheets, new stuffed animals, and girly cover for boppy. Now if she decides to come tomorrow, we have somewhere to put her. ;)
Over this past weekend, in between painting and re-painting the dresser, Patrick and I also overhauled the laundry room. This won't be as impressive if you haven't seen it since I don't have any embarrassing pictures to show how awful and cluttered the laundry room had become since I painted it five years ago. But for those of you "in the know" you'll remember the stacked boxes of various canning items, paint supplies, kids school projects and other odds and ends that had piled up over the years to the point that really, there was a path to the washer where I could "kind of" angle the clothes into the machine, and then a small space through the clutter on the dryer where I could fit my hand through to turn it on by feel. Well we cleaned all of that out, added another shelf, moved the ironing board, swept mopped, etc...and it is now back to it's original, presentable and accessible glory.
After:
Again, this is not as impressive if you haven't been here to see the state of the laundry room "before." But trust me, it was bad...there may or may not have been excess evidence of mouse residency that was cleaned up...hopefully no one is getting hantavirus...
After all of this, I also had to get out the Halloween decorations for the house since it is October and all...this is something of a project in itself, though I didn't go as all out as I usually do with the yard since I wasn't feeling up to it. I also didn't take pics so you'll have to imagine it yourself..or drive/stop by if you're in the area. ;)
That is the end of my major projects of the last few weeks...there was also the time a month or so back when Patrick was in Dallas and I got sick of living with our sad and broken couch, so me and the kids literally picked it up and tossed it out the living room window (our doors are too small to get big furniture through). Luckily, we found a nice replacement at the consignment store the same day so the living room didn't look bare for long...of course now the sofa and love seat don't match, but I can live with that for awhile...
Here are some belly shots to leave you with. :)
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| 24 wks |
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| 28 wks |
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| 32 wks |
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| 36 wks |
So I still have a few "projects" I'd like to complete in the next two weeks, but they're more of the "paint my toenails," "clean the bathrooms," and "write up kids schedule for sitter" variety rather then overhauling the house. So there is your update. I hope you enjoyed it...most likely I won't post again until after the baby comes, but you never know...
