Updates and a Sneak Peek

Remember I said I would have some great after pictures for you? Well, let's start in the basement. I spent the morning cleaning and organizing and moving stuff around. Although it is still a lot of stuff, I did haul out a couple bags of clothes to go to Goodwill, along with a few other items. I went through the kids' clothes that were in storage and pulled out lots of things they can be wearing now. I finally got all the Christmas stuff consolidated and packed away properly. I also consolidated Kennedy's stuff down into a laundry basket. I put all the building supplies in one corner and, the best part, cleared the pathway to my food storage and freezer.

(You are seeing the backs of our Christmas caroler decorations. I finally brought them in since we were experiencing a heat wave. I have to store them with their backs to the door so they don't creep the kids out. I must admit, it can be a bit unnerving to walk into the basement, flick on the light, and see four people staring at you.)







Last night Lincoln and I (mostly Lincoln) got the entire wall insulated. Now we're just waiting on that door order to process so we can close this section off.

Another after picture I took was of the weather. Remember the day I took Jesse to the park?


24 hours later it looked like this around here:


I'm not complaining. It IS January, after all.

Today (like most days, honestly) my bed is unmade and piled with laundry. I just walked in to find the dog there:


That's her idea of a great way to spend a winter's day.

The other project I have been working on is something I'm pretty excited about: A face lift for our dining area. This has been in the works for a while. Back in the fall when I painted the trim, I painted the bottom portion of the walls in the dining area in the same white, intending to install chair rail. Considering our open floor plan, I thought the chair rail would be nice to kind of set the dining area apart. The thing that has held the process up was choosing a paint color for the top portion of the wall. I finally took the plunge with the Glidden color, Polished Limestone. I LOVE it! It is light and bright during the day, a little more warm at night. It is similar in tone to the other grays in the house, but leans a little toward green. I painted yesterday and today I am cutting chair rail. Unfortunately I need one more piece of chair rail, so this project probably won't be done today. But as promised, a sneak peek!