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This week Ella and I have been working in the sunroom. Previous to the new paint job, the sunroom was a beautiful blue; however, it just didn’t quite mesh with our current color scheme.                                                                                      Between trying to get the outdoors ready and working on the sunroom, we have been quite busy. The sunroom is fully walled in windows so it had to go with the outdoor scheme by the poolside.
We have a very old church pew that if you had to sit on during church service, you would have either definately paid attention or wiggled and squirmed the entire service. It is very primative and works well in this room with the addition of a few pillows to soften things up a bit. This is definately a visual piece, not really a place of comfort!
Two antique wicker rockers set the room off and are now spray painted a chocolate brown with new cushion covers in a coral color to match the new wall color. The color scheme of the room was derived from the throw rug that was purchased for a cool $20 at Lowes. We do love a sale!
The ceiling was left blue and the fan was changed out from the hideous white 24″ 1980′s version that was currently burned up and would have most definitely been a fire hazard. Now all that is left to do is add some window treatments.

I’ve been working in the guest room this week. I will have to say it has stumped me. I am beginning to think I need an interior designer. This is a running joke with my friends when I come to a design situation that I am unsure of how to handle! Even designers do get stumped on a design periodically. The room is very small and it is located in the center of the house. It has the largest window in the house. The window covers almost the entire wall and has a beautiful arch over it, so the window is the focal point.

At first, I thought of using my great grandmother’s bed that I have carried with us since we first got married and moved in our first house, but then my mother gave me a pretty iron trundle bed, so I thought of using it instead. After googling rooms with daybeds, I finally decided to go that route. Now the bedding is the stump. I am going to have to make a skirt to get what I want and have decided to make the room similar to a sitting room that also doubles as a guest room so we have a TV space upstairs, since that is where we live in the evenings. So while this room is still under construction, I will continue to ponder on this design.

Ella did work on the walls with me. I have finally decided to just hand her a roller and let her go. As long as she lets me get the paint, we don’t make too big of a mess!

We are saying so long to this blue carpet in a few short months, hopefully!

So Ella and I are taking this house one room at a time. We still have about 5 more rooms to go, but we are getting there. My husband finally has his own office in this house that actually looks like a man would work in there. He has dealt well with living in froo froo living quarters for eleven years!

This room was originally a pickle green and although it was a pretty color, it needed a fresh face. I really did not have to buy anything for his office.  We both grew up on farms, so over time we have collected several pieces of farm artwork, so with a little fishing, a little farming and a little hunting, his office is now a man cave fit for any outdoorsman!

Ella and her daddy have already taped some 3 year old artwork to the walls with painters tape, so a bulletin board will have to be added to keep the grown up and little one from destroying the walls!

In this house, we have been fortunate enough to have bathrooms attached to two of the spare bedrooms. Now that the little queen is a three, she has moved into one of the bigger bedrooms and has her own bathroom. This is an advantage when you are an only child! The bathroom was originally electrifying hot pink with decals stuck on the mirror as it did originally belong to a teenage girl.

I decided to leave it pink and now it is a pepto pink color with large polka dots on the back wall. I always wanted my own bathroom as a child, because I had to share with my brother and my dad, so I did this one up just for Miss Ella!

The basic white tile works well, because it matches any type of wall color. This house has blue carpet in it, which I absolutely hate, but at this time have to work with so a little touch of blue was incorporated in the bathroom as well as accents on the knobs.

A piece of furniture my husband and I have been hauling around with us ever since we were married has it’s 4th color of paint and is used for socks and other accessories. Before we had it, my parents had it as a very bright yellow back in the seventies. It has become a family member!

A plug in chandelier added a little touch of class to the space. I think she is quite pleased with the outcome!

photo to come

I haven’t updated the blog in quite some time because I was hung up in the laundry room. First of all, if you have ever taken down wallpaper, then you are well aware of the task at hand. It is such a NIGHTMARE!!! especially if there are two layers of 20 year old wallpaper.

The “poo” colored wallpaper had to come down and the underlayer as well. After a new coat of paint on the trim, new hardware and a fresh vibrant color, I may actually want to wash the clothes!

During this process, I wasn’t sure if I would live long enough to actually finish this project. I tried everything from wallpaper remover solvent to hot water to the clothes steamer. The best way is to just keep it soaking wet and start pulling it down. There is no fast way to do this job, so if you are planning on removing wallpaper, be ready to spend a lot of time doing so!

My three year old helper ripped a few pieces, but after about 30 minutes her enthusiasm wore off pretty quickly.

We have finally finished the foyer. Thank goodnes…. that was a nightmare! During the process, the sidelight was broken and both had to be replaced and a few gashes were left in the wall. A little putty will do the trick! Except for the fact that I need to give the trim a fresh coat of paint, it is finished.

The hideous brass light was replaced with this new one from Lowe’s thanks to some Christmas money from my father-in-law. Thank you Papa M.! I think it turned out pretty good!

Well, today Mr. Ken along with myself ripped up all the marble that was in the foyer. I thought I was going to die!! I need more muscles for major renovations! Ella of course assisted and it was all I could do to keep her from stepping on nails. I will have to say the plywood beneath the marble was the absolute worst to remove. What a nightmare. Now all the shoe molding, and base boarding has been removed.

So, this is what we have right now and will continue again tomorrow.

I took Ella’s crib down today and was quite saddened. I am moving her to the bigger bedroom and out of the little bedroom which is next to her daddy and me. So, now that I’ve taken it down and drug an enormous table from the work room downstairs to the breakfast room, my back is killing me and I am going to have to rest awhile before I rejuice for more moving! Here’s what I have done so far!

I decided we actually liked the color of this room and it matched perfectly with furnishings we already had in our old house. The way this house is set up, the living room and family room is one very large room so spacing was a bit tricky at first, but with a little inspiration from a few magazines, I was ready to tackle it!

I love the built-ins in this house. That is a luxury we did not have in our former home and I still need to do a little work to these to get them just right, but we will tackle that soon.

The enclosed cabinetry at the bottom of the built-ins is a great place to store toys. Our family room looks much like a daycare center that went through some sort of explosion, so if I am just insane from looking at the toys, it’s not far to toss them out of sight!

The chair to the left came from our old house. It was a fabulous find at $15 at the Goodwill store and was an absolutely hideous red and gold color.  The advantage of living near the furniture capital is the choices of fabric that are available so at $3 a yard, this cheetah print was purchased and I had the chair recovered.

The sofa, ottoman and super cool chair to the right…….target.com!!! Of course, I did have to assemble the furniture with the help of Miss Ella!

The drapes are ready made drapes that I purchased at walmart and they are lined. The windows are 102″ so, I used the drapes from our previous house, cut up the drapes that were in the dining room at our old house (also cheap!) and added them to the make these drapes extra long and then hot glued the super sized ric rac over the seams. Custom drapes on a dime!

Oh yes, and I added another layer of lining to the back to make the entire back cohesive and give the panels more body. Sewing… I really do not like it, but will hit the machine if there’s something I want done! I much prefer the mediums of the hot glue gun and staple gun!

This bedroom was a very, very hot pink… My husband and I deemed it as the “red light district” since it was so bright.  I do love hot pink, but after 6 months of looking at it, well I decided it needed a calming period.

target.com is one of my favorite places to find a pretty spread for a little money. This button tufted cover came from there and would you believe the headboard came from walmart.com? When you have a little one, store time isn’t always a luxury if someone needs a nap or is destroying the store, so I do a lot of shopping online for my sanity as well as the sanity of others!