Bringing You Up to Speed

Where have you been, all my life?

I know you've been thinking it.

And to answer that, I say:

I've been everywhere, man.

Yes, that was a shameless Rihanna reference. Sorry, couldn't help myself.

But seriously, I've been a very bad blogger.

I'm afraid I've found that I am not so good at juggling renos, the blog, and real life.

The past few months have been jam packed and I just haven't been able to manage being where I need to be, doing what I need to do, and then blogging about it.

But this is something I'm really intent on doing. So do it I will.

I'm vowing to myself, to those of you who care, and to those who don't to stay on top of this thing.

In order to do that I must first bring you up to speed.

So hold on folks, its gonna be a long one.

I think we last left off here...

We had just applied the first coat of white spray paint to the counter top. An experiment I'm proud to say was a success. Then we added new faucets.

In this picture you can really see how white the newly spray painted counter top is.

And with that we called the Guest Bath finished.

This is how she stands today...

with a little before and after fun.

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

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AFTER

And that completes our Guest Bathroom facelift.

I still have to figure out a window treatment but other than that she is finito!

So to the garage we go.

The work in the garage was just a whole lot of painting so I'll spare you the play-by-play and get straight to the before and after.

BEFORE

BEFORE

BEFORE

BEFORE

BEFORE

PROGRESS

PROGRESS

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PROGRESS

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AFTER

AFTER

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AFTER

And there ya have it. It's so silly because it is the garage but we can't get over how much better the bright white looks and feels over that aweful bug-infested mint green situation.

On to the Den, shall we?

This is where she stood when I last reported on the progress.

We were still waiting on the chairs and ottoman to arrive. Old recliener was still in the room and so was the old end table ( that now lives with Amber and Trey...yay!).

Since the chairs have been delivered I've been playing around with that side of the room. It is still far from where I want it to be but it's getting there.

Totally blah, right?

That big blank wall was sucking the life out of the room. It definitely needs something to draw the eye up. So I walked around the house gathering ideas and decided to try the old entertainment center back behind the chairs. It still didn't force the eye up so I placed the mirror we had hung above the sofa at Russell St. on top which left us here...

Getting better, still not there.

So we added some stuff.

A few house plants and some picture frames and it's getting better.
I'm still not in love with it.
 I know I don't like the mirror. With it being the same tone of the wood of the console and just propped up there it looks like a bedroom dresser that we've randomly stuck in the Den. Just weird.
So I've definitely got to search for a new mirror or some artwork to replace that.

I also don't know if I like the dark wood furniture behind the dark steel blue chairs. It makes that side of the room a little heavy and drab. I might prefer a lighter painted piece of furniture behind the chairs? With a gold mirror flanked by two peices of art on each side?
Who knows...I'm going to live with it like this for a while and make changes as I go.

In this picture, you see that I've changed out the old side table with a small pedastal table I inherited from my Nanny. I like it there because it's sentimental and I like the addition of a different shape but it may end up being a little small. You'll also notice that I added a steel blue metalic garden stool to the end of the sofa. I love it.

I even added a little something-something to the mantel. That thing is a beast and it intimidates me to think about styling it but I went through some old boxes of decor and pilfered a few items to throw up there.

This little piece of driftwood was stolen from graciously donated by my Daddy who found it himself.

 The desk and bookshelves weren't left out of all this fun.

Some new pillows for the couch are in the works and we still plan to put some sort of table behind the sofa, get some new lamps, and hang some curtains. All to come in good time.

So there ya have it! That's where we've been and what we've accomplished in the house.

We've had some unexpected and costly set backs (had to get a new water pump and dig the well a little deeper and discovered a leak in the roof above one of the Guest Bedrooms) but we are ready to get back on the wagon so stay tuned!

I'll send you off with a little love from our boys.