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

Tour of the New House

I finally figured out how to edit

 pictures on my Windows 8 program.  I am not a fan.

 

Anyway, that said, here are the pictures of our new house before we painted and moved in.  We closed escrow on October 18 and got right to work.  Fortunately the weather was still in the 80's so we could paint and move without overheating or getting caught in rain.

 

 

Above is a view of the kitchen.  The wall here is painted avocado. That's my son in front of the microwave.  The first thing Husband did was to remove the microwave and the shelf it is sitting on.  It took up too much of the usable counter space.

 



 

This picture is taken standing by the sink. Laundry straight ahead. the white door goes to the mudroom and garage. The open door on the left is the bedroom and bathroom on the front of the house.

 

The room is a "human tank". It has two massive banks of windows and you can see up and down the entire street.

 

Here's the bathroom.  Lovely avocado.  All of that was repainted my favorite whit, Dry Martini by Behr.

 

We painted in here as well. 

 

Yay! We have a huge front coat closet. 

 

This is the living room.  The part painted white is a funny little addition that will eventually have to be removed and French doors put in.  That will allow the room to have so much more light.  The red bit above got a healthy coat of white as well.

 

Main bathroom.  It is not en suite with the master bedroom, unfortunately.  It has to be shared with guests who might visit and use the craft/guest room.

 

This is the craft/guest room.

 

It has a great set of windows and this entire wall with built-ins. 

 

Master bedroom.

 

Master.  We went from a house with two large walk in closets to this huge master with one shared closet with one rod.  Ouch!  We have to learn to share again.  The room at the right is actually a mudroom for an outside door.  It also leads back around to the living room.  I've never seen  a house with so many doors.

 

 

The dining room has a built in buffet with a mirror over it.

 

I hope you enjoyed this little tour.  We spent most of a week painting the rooms. It took a week or so to move all of our stuff over after that.  But it is now all together and feels like home.

 

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

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

Still in Moving Process

I have not posted in a month!

Sorry.

I've been busy working, packing, planning my daughter's wedding.

This will be the new guest room/craft room.

Backside, former tenant hasn't removed all her things.

Kitchen.

Here's a dilemma: All of my stuff is black and white or green.

This kitchen has pale blue tile counters and back splash! I don't do blue!

What am I to do?  Any suggestions?  Keep to the black and white theme?  The floor looks tan but is actually toward the pink side.

Blessings,

Jeannine

Packing Assembled Lego Sets

Since we are moving in three months, I decided to continue the process in my son's room.  He is 23 but currently deployed so he is not in any need of these items, just yet!

He loves putting together the Lego sets. They have been sitting around collecting dust but since I have the time I took special care with them.

After Christmas I purchased 30  10-sheet packs of tissue paper for ten cents each. I scrunched up sheets to pad between any spaces between sections. On Mater I placed a scrunched sheet between the cab and bed of the piece, wrapped the tow hitch area and smooshed a piece between the tires underneath.  Then I completely wrapped up the entire piece in three or four sheets.

The Millenium Falcon took even more special care.  I first removed its four tiny, little, spindly feet. They would have snapped off or broken.

I then nestled it down into a box filled with packing material left from a gift.  I removed the lid as the box wasn't tall enough to close its lid safely.

This box went down inside a toter type box. More packing material was placed over the top.

I then cut cardboard and created a shelf over this. The rest of the Legos were also padded and wrapped in the tissue paper. They were placed on top. Lots of tissue paper was used.

This ship (Rebel Blockade Runner?) had to have a lot of extra tissue paper throughout.  It also went into its very own box.  The large box from large dog size Milkbone Dog Biscuits worked perfectly.  And more tissue was stuffed down inside that as well.

I hope this helps in guiding you through your own Lego packing logistics.  I'll let you know in several months if I was completely successful.

May the Force be with You,

Jeannine