Merry Christmas Open House

Welcome to our home! We are all painted and moved in. Painting and moving is always hard work, but it was definitely worth it this time.  Owning our own house is a joy. But will also be a lot of maintenance.  As our son said, "You realize you just married a third person when you bought a house."

 

 

The kitchen is now a sunny yellow and all the appliances are stainless.  The stove is the one that came with the house.  The dishwasher, microwave, and refrigerator are new. The dog is half German Shepherd half Husky.  His name is Rerun and keeps that floor polished for me.  Yuck.

 

The other half of the kitchen.  Washer and Dryer in the kitchen. Sigh. Not ideal but I don't have to go out to the cold garage to do laundry. The chair and little table give us a spot for someone to sit and visit while someone (Husband) is cooking.  We wanted an open concept house so everyone would be together all the time, but this house really suits us and makes us happy.

 

Dining room.  We painted it Desert Sand by Glidden.

 

The dining table has another leaf but I don't think we will ever be able to use it as the room is a tight fit as is.

 

Our master bedroom.  I adore it.  I painted the focal wall Grey. I can't remember the name but it is by Behr. The white is the Dry Martini by Behr. It is white but it has the slightest pink tint to it.  When I painted it over the white you could tell it had pink in it.

I have never decorated the bedroom for Christmas before, but I really like this.  I used scraps of velvet to make the red pillows and purchased the plaid for the big pillows in back.  I then made all of the pillow covers.

 

 

 

My craft /guest room got a coat of girlie purple.  I love purple and finally got a room painted in it.  It's pinker than I thought it would be but it works. This is still a work in progress.

 

I thought all of my stuff would fit in these lovely built in drawers but I seem to have too much stuff.  The closet is packed with aprons for sale and costumes.  I can't part with the costumes! What if I need one?

 

The hallway joining the master bedroom and craft room. It leads directly to the living room.

 

The living room did not get new paint.  Mostly because our backs literally gave out.  Husband painted the bricks, shelves, and all the trim. The mantel is brand new and made of oak.  A friend made it for us as a gift.  I stained it with Cherry Minwax.

 

 

 

Oops! Forgot to remove the Double Gulp cup.

 

I made new stockings this year.  All in shiny sari type satin fabric. Each has unique trim.

 

The tree is decorated in Mardi Gras-New Orleans style.  All the ornaments are gold, green, and purple. White glittery poinsettia blossoms. Masks. Chandelier crystals.

The piano in the background is my great grandmother's. She purchased it in 1902. It's kind of heavy to haul around.  Can't wait for Daughter to have a house.  Traditionally it goes to the kid who took the most years of piano lessons.  She beat her brother because she took a semester of piano in high school. Ha Ha! Piano is like 800 pounds! Good luck.

 

Thanks for hanging with me through this fall while we found a house.  Hopefully I will be more consistent with blogging. 

Now, if we could only find the remote control for the DVD player.......

 

Blessings,

Jeannine

House Hunting 3

Well, we did buy a house!  I've been so busy I have not been able to catch up on my blog.  It also took several weeks to get on to a new internet provider that is fast and reliable.  Apparently we live way too far from the regular providers.  Umm, there are 21,000 people in this town! How can we be out of range? Oh, well.  That is all straightened out.

 

Now if I can figure out Windows 8 on my new computer, I will get back to showing pictures!  I love my new house.

 

It was built in 1953, is quirky, and has doors everywhere!

 

Stay tuned.

 

Jeannine

Tour of Our New House

I thought I would finally post some pictures of our new house.  We found it through a friend and we are renting it for the next two years.  It was built in 1989 and is surrounded by ten acres of farm land.  We do not have to farm however! It is leased out to a farmer.

Two bedrooms and a bath at one end of the house.

Kitchen, dig the light blue tiles!

This is the furniture of the person who sold it.

This is one of the bedrooms, in process.  Boxes everywhere.

The other bedroom.

There is a cute alcove off the living room.  It is sort of a music room/library.  Our piano is on one side and a book shelf is hidden behind the stack of boxes.

Our  dining table and china cabinet.

Here is the living room. Lovely sliding glass door to the back yard flanked by windows.

Now starts the pictures of our rooms all put together.

The kitchen with our little house canisters and other goodies put away.

The living room, without boxes.  I want to do a sort of gallery wall here with the tv.

Opposite the tv wall is a bookshelf with all our memorabilia from overseas.

The alcove with bookshelf all arranged and the piano .

This is my craft/sewing room and my sons room when he returns from deployment.

Daughter's room that will become a guest room when she gets married in September.

Front door.

Our crazy huge bathroom.  It is large enough to put a queen size mattress in and still have some space for walking around. That door is one of the his/hers walk in closets.

You walk through the kitchen to get to the bathroom and through that to get to the bed chamber.  And I call it a chamber for a reason.  it is smaller than the bathroom and is a dead end at the back of the house. The wallpaper has to go.

Th view into the laundry room.  It is also a pass through to the garage, beyond the door.

Hope you enjoyed this little tour.  I love living out in the country.  No noisy neighbor parties or dogs barking or porch lights left on to shine in our eyes at night. It is a little further away from stores, but worth it.

Blessings, 

Jeannine

Paint Booth and Organized Workshop

Hello, all. 

I think I am back for some blogging.  School is out for the summer in our school district. I have spent the last two months substituting for a math teacher on maternity leave.  I'm happy to be able to sleep in. (Of course I still awake at 5:30 every morning and the sun is streaming in so it's difficult to get back to sleep.  I need blackout curtains!)

Now that we are moved in to our new house (rental) we have spent some time cleaning the garage.  The property we are on has ten acres, but Farmer John rents that so we don't have to deal with that, except for the dust when he plows.  

There is a four tractor farm garage on the property and we do have one section of that. We've turned it into a storage unit for our sons belongings (he is currently serving in Operation Enduring Freedom) and a workshop for me to refinish garage sale furniture.

Husband made a painting booth for me!

I finally got a chance to use the paint sprayer Husband gave me for Christmas!  I'll show that later when I get those black chairs finished. And the dining table they go with.

Here's a view down the length of the room.

Paint supplies on the right, Christmas in the middle, and yard care stuff on the left.  You can see our huge stack of used boxes in the back.  We saved those for the next move. We are only here for a year or two.

Stack of Son's belongings plus more furniture to refinish. 

Thanks for taking a quick look at our new digs.  I have been having fun painting chairs and a table and bedside tables.

Blessings, 

Jeannine

Super Busy the Last Three Months

I have been extremely busy the last three months! We spent February and March packing and moving into our new rental home.  Then we spent all of April unpacking. All the while Husband was coaching baseball and doing his missionary job and teaching, and I was teaching as well.

We were also spending time driving to southern California to see our future son-in-law play his last year of college ball.  While we were at the last game of the year, our son walked up and surprised us!  He was home on leave from his deployment and we had no clue.  We were so surprised!

Daughter's birthday is this week.

This week is graduation for Son-in-Law and Daughter, two different colleges.

And we have put a ton of miles on my poor little Jeep!  I love this vehicle.

Tomorrow we pick up Daughter's stuff from college. Next week is high school finals and then I am out for the summer.  I promise to get back to blogging.  I have lots of pictures of the new house.

And did I mention the wedding rushing toward us in September?

Have a blessed Memorial Day and please pray for our Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, and Airmen serving in Afghanistan.

Blessings,

Jeannine