Remy's Room

Before (picture from last year):

And today...(sorry about the photo quality, had to use my point-n-shoot to get a wide angle.

My favorite part is my reading chair! I've got a spot for a cup of tea on one side and all of Remy's books in those blue baskets on the other side.  Oh, and a beautiful view of a flowering plum tree out the window!

As you can see it is not one of those matchy-matchy rooms. We still have the animal theme from his baby days and have added more construction themed stuff and brighter colors. I will have to keep my eyes out for new sheets.

Remy's desk. Even with the bad hardware it came with I consider it a great buy - Remy uses it a ton!

Around the House

Last weekend we noticed the popsicles in the freezer had turned to mush. Unexpectedly, our fridge had lost its mojo. We quickly moved the perishables into coolers on the back porch, but going out there in my socks to get the milk every time I want a cup of coffee is getting annoying! So this weekend we will be shopping for a new fridge.

Though the fridge going out is a pain in the butt, I feel like we've been pretty fortunate so far with our aging house and its aging appliances. Besides a clogged drain in the spring, a couple of dripping pipes in the basement, and a leaking porch roof, the house has proved more sound than expected.

Eventually, though, we know there are some very large updates that we won't be able to put off any longer. When we bought the house we were anxiously focused on the updates the experts were warning us we needed - new roof, new wiring, updated plumbing - but when we moved in and nothing catastrophic happened we slipped into a "wait and see" posture.

Instead we've focused on the cosmetics, things that require little skill and little money (right up our alley!) Today I'm on day two of painting the stairwell. Next on my list is replacing some lighting fixtures. Then I'll probably make my way back to the old task of replacing the hardware on all the doors. What I really want to do though is fix up the bathroom, but I'm going to have to learn some plumbing skills first!

In the meantime, I've got my fingers crossed that our wait-and-see approach doesn't make complete fools of us!

The Dining Room, WIP

The entire house is a work in progress, but here is an update on the dining room. The first picture is from our second visit to the house before we bought it. The dining room seems to have been being used as a bedroom. It, like every other room in the house, was painted peach and it had weird medical equipment screwed to the wall, an air conditioner decaying in the window and a truly ugly, gold colored ceiling fan.

Here is the house after we moved in our stuff. The Bodes helped us dislodge the whale sized air conditioner and I yanked the medical equipment off the wall but the bar is hiding the cables. We hung the drapes Mom made for Ross's old apartment so there is about a foot and a half of fabric hanging on the ground.

Here is the room as it looked yesterday morning. That's the new ceiling fan we bought over the weekend. I've removed the cables and patched up the walls. The trim has been painted white and I'm getting reading to put up our new wall colors. Our plan is to install a chair rail so I've taped off the room in two parts, upper and lower.

Here's the lower color, Garden Wall.

And here it is with the upper color, Sandstone Cove.

Next up; chair rail, rehang the drapes, hang some art, and then it will be the kitchen's turn!