Yes, I'm still working on my house. It's still not done. But, what has been done is exciting! Terry and I decided to divide and conquer today. His task was the school room/storage-room-soon-to-be-Aly's-room. That room has never been utilized well. When we first bought our house, we converted the kitchen to our school room. I was homeschooling then and thought it would be a great idea to have this wonderful school room full of bulletin boards, library, and desks. I painted it Big Bird yellow on the top 2/3s of the walls and then a bright blue on the bottom. I found a bulletin board border that looked absolutely adorable (it was a bunch of crayons), so I pasted it as a border between the two colors. There was a little alcove off the room that served as my office for many years. It was big enough for a twin bed and a dresser, too, so Jordan ended up landing there for a short time. :-) Anyway, it was a room to top all rooms. But, it didn't work.
Our homeschooling style changed, and the room ended up being a storage room. We kept the bulk of our books, toys and games in there, and the extra TV for XBox as well. Each of the kids had their bedrooms in there while we finished their bedrooms upstairs, but pretty soon anything we didn't know what to do with ended up finding its way to the school room.
Yuck.
A couple of weeks ago, I built a closet in that little alcove. It's really pretty awesome. It had to be disassembled today so that Terry could get in there and close up the window. But it is a to-die-for walk in closet, if I say so myself.
Alyssa has been working at tearing down all the bulletin board border turned wallpaper border for the last couple of days, and has been pretty successful. So, today, Terry was going to finish closing off this window by putting in 2x4s and sheet rock. Then he was going to frame out the door which is next to it. A header was needed.
Then came the blood. I do have a flair for the dramatic, don't I? So, while cutting the drywall, the knife accidentally found its way to Terry's thumb. Lucky for Terry he had just changed the blade so it was really really sharp. The sharpness of the blade created such a clean cut that no stitches were required...just a few drops of super glue! So, a tetanus shot, super glue and a bandage later, Terry finished closing in the window.
A few weeks ago, we were trying to decide how we wanted to change the look of the living room, and we decided that we wanted to kind of go retro with the living room. When we first moved here, there was beautiful wainscot and a chair rail all around the living room. We tried to save it, but it just splintered as we tried to remove it from the walls. Sad day. But anyway, we decided to put a wainscot up again, and Terry did just that. I tried my hand at carpentry today as well, only, I'm glad to say my appendages stayed away from anything sharp. I finished it by putting up the trim around the top.
Now all I have to do is figure out how I will finish it. Sadly, finishing always seems to be a problem with me. I'm trying to decide whether to stain the wood, or whether I should do something fancy with paint and glaze. I have all these ideas running through my head!! I should have never stumbled upon stumbleupon.com.
I may just wait until I get the flooring laid before I decide how I finish the wainscot. I had really intended to start the floor tonight, but it started raining, and I didn't want to saw inside.
That's as good of an excuse as any, I suppose.
Happy New Year!
I saw some Coffee Cozies (or sleeves) when I was using StumbleUpon.com, so I decided to try my hand at it. You probably can't tell by the photo, but this little sleeve has the most adorable pleats ever. Just sayin. Here it is dressing up a disposable cup. I need to tweak the pattern just a bit, but I like my first one. Too bad I don't generally drink coffee out of disposable cups. :-) It's supposed to save the planet or something by re-using these sleeves instead of using the disposable cardboard sleeves from the stores. Personally I think you should bring your own cup, if you're worried about the environment, but that's another discussion.
My husband gifted me with an early Christmas present last week: a Cricut Expression. I have been having a blast getting to know my way around the thing. I put it to good use with this project! I cut out letters, and circles of cute paper and then "Mod Podged" the paper to the wooden disks. I think the finished project turned out really cute!
It was only a matter of minutes after making these alphabet disks that I realized if I was going to gift them, I should really make a bag to put them in to. So, looking through my piles of fabric, I found cute little girls stuff. I wish my sewing machine would have worked well...sometimes it decides to get fussy...Fussy machine and all, I think this turned out okay. 
Yes, I'm still working on my house. It's still not done. But, what has been done is exciting! Terry and I decided to divide and conquer today. His task was the school room/storage-room-soon-to-be-Aly's-room. That room has never been utilized well. When we first bought our house, we converted the kitchen to our school room. I was homeschooling then and thought it would be a great idea to have this wonderful school room full of bulletin boards, library, and desks. I painted it Big Bird yellow on the top 2/3s of the walls and then a bright blue on the bottom. I found a bulletin board border that looked absolutely adorable (it was a bunch of crayons), so I pasted it as a border between the two colors. There was a little alcove off the room that served as my office for many years. It was big enough for a twin bed and a dresser, too, so Jordan ended up landing there for a short time. :-) Anyway, it was a room to top all rooms. But, it didn't work.
A couple of weeks ago, I built a closet in that little alcove. It's really pretty awesome. It had to be disassembled today so that Terry could get in there and close up the window. But it is a to-die-for walk in closet, if I say so myself.
