SO while slave labor has been basically outlawed by all civilized world except wal-mart it is alive and well at our house. YES. I am paying my 13 year old $30 to strip the wall paper int he bathroom.
Ahhhh...if he would only clean the kitchen that thoroughly.

more Christmas out our house!

I htought I would put up some pictures of the Christmas decor...This is the front hall and the kitchen....I will get more pictures done later...

o.k. so things are going really slowly at the moment..I am not doing much and I cant even plan...
True confessions time....I am really bad about starting alot of projects at once. Oh..You figured that out?
So...Marc HAS to finish the back adn we HAVE to get the office bathroom back in commission (8 people 2 bathrooms doable but not prime) and we have to get the landscaping done before the fall rain sweeps the 400.00 worth of mud into the creek bed.
Of all of htat stuff I can do exactly...nothing. Ewwww..and doncha hate women who nag? yeah me too. so...
I am done reminding Marc abot it..I would rather the house rotted out and caved in than I morphed from awesome, hot wife to naggy mom stand in.
I will be quiet..I will..I will.

It will get done..he is incredible with what he does..such perfection and precision. Maybe haste will fall into place at some point..
Meanwhile i am going to finish up painting and faux graining (I CAN do that) and begin making some curtains...I want to get done with some basic stuff ebcause there are a few ceiling areas that I want to stencil and gold leaf. By the time I get done with this place i know I will not want to sell it. sigh.

Got the electric hologram fireplace/heater for hte bedroom..I really like wood fireplaces better but for the ease of installation and cost you can't beat htis..and it really adds charm to the room...

I don't know whether we will do this or not but as I looked at the pictures of the porch I thought about building the base of the posts out, craftsman style. I think it would look really cool..need to talk to Marc about it but not untilw e get the other stuff done...I wish I could do more of the work..I have the time but not the ability...and my mind definitly comes up with things faster than he can build them. Pray for him.
So I am still flat on my back from pain...which gives me way too much time to think...

I am feeling hte pain from the land scaping on saturday...but it is looking good..and we did get it doen before the rain came in..Now..just to plant it!

So the dirt is here, and it does NOT look like much but MArc assures me it is a great deal of dirt. I am on my way to Home Depot to buy landscaping junk (that is a technical term for those of you that don't recognize it) and try to get the front bed in before the rain hits. It is going to be a tight schedule..it is dark and cold-ish out side so we will see..I just hate that we have so much rain coming in...a somewhat large pile of dirt is much better than a somewhat large pile of mud...and then of course there is the flood fear...what if it floods and takes it out? There goes 300.00. Ah well...
I don't have pictures now but will try to get some before, during and after...
I am excited though. Marc said that he was thinking of making cement steps..YAY! It would be so much better with them....
And he also told me to go ahead and order an electric fireplace off of ebay for the bedroom. It is not the electric fireplace of the 60's...sort of stupid and cheap looking..Now days they have flames and realistic logs and mantles...By the time we get hte house ready to sell I won't want to move.

Just ordered 10cu yards of topsoil..WHOOOHOOO..It should be here friday. SO I have between now and then to plan which gardens I am going to put in first. I am definitely thinking hte front..but I imagine moving the stairs first would be the way to go?
SIgh...I wish that I was a guy..they just seem to be able to do all this stuff naturally...
Do you think if I learned how to burp it would help?

O.k..so out of the blue I hired an electrician to fix the bathroom wiring and decided since he was doing that to put up my wall sconce and put new lighting in the bathroom..well now that there is new lighting in there of course it needs a new wall treatment..the old one is from the P/Os (Previous owners or P---ed Off or whatever you want to call them)and it is ugly. It is sort of an adult If You Give A Mouse A Cookie book..You know..If you give a restorer a new light fixture she will want to change the wallpaper.....
Anyway.so here are the fixtures...and then the 2 pictures of the antique sconce...I cant decide if I like it with or without the covers. Still need to get the wall behind it painted but I am one step closer.
AND Marc did get the wood rot dealt with on Monday..Yay!

The coolest thing! YEah I kow I haven't written in a long time..don't interrupt.
The coolest thing! I won a wall sconce on ebay that exactly matches the entry hall light fixture!!!
Yeah of course it is antique. CHA!
The shades are not original as the other light fixture is but I htink we can get somethign to at least coordinate...I am so awesome happy!
Gotta love EBAY.

Yeah..Bad news..when I pulled the back porch off and down we found some wood rot under the house..Nothing structural you understand but GRRRRR. Doncha hate P/O's that do things the quick easy way? ME TOO! Marc has been unable to finish repairing it between rain on the weekends and his shoulder...I am really hoping for htis weekend as it needs to be done before i can put hte back porch up...
and I have definitley decided thatt he front porch stair are going ot be moved back to the original spot..I dont care that it costs money.

So I am kicking around the idea of going up the stairs with a half wall of faux leather and wooden trim...I looked at the Ralph Lauren faux leather paint technique and it is do-able. I would just paint about 3 ft up the wall with the faux leather technique and then attach trim pieces in arts and crafts style around up the stairwell. I am thinking that making the house a little more unusual is going to be a good thing in hte long run....scroll down and take a look again at the hall...see what I mean? O.k..I have about 45 minutes to look at a magazine I got for kitchen ideas. later.

O.k..I am back and I am rested and I am full of ideas and next week...I will be ready to go...I hope...I have alot to finish up....I have some new ideas...now, to try to be patient as God provides the money!

I probably won't get much done between now and the time I leave for my daughter's in Pa. on the 12th...so..check back with me next week for the newest updated house!

Just thinking today,..and lining up projects... I am thinking about doing the doors to the hall in either a burled walnut or a Birds eye maple...I am leaning toward the birds eye because of the lighter color for contrast..and then maybe doing the ballisters to match..Thoughts?

Finished the downstairs hall trim and the stair treads and risers...I am amazed at how much it actually opens UP the hall..I was afraid that all
the dark would close it up...It is weird that it did the opposite.

O.k....the lower one is the before picture and the upper ones are the *i n the midst of* pictures...I am moving the steps form the side to put them in the front where they were originally. They will be 10 ft wide...which I hope, will add presence to the entry. I will add a gravel path going over to the driveway....The lattice being blue looks much better, I think. The autumn red accent color (Behr Autumn Leaf) will be on the stairs and across the horizontal trim on the upper porch..below the roof. The white will be the vertical trim...

Now that you are updated thus far...I am going back to taping the hall to finish the faux trim...

O.k..well I needed a place to keep up with my house projects...Today I started the faux wood grain in the stairway and downstairs hall. I really like how it came out! The one on the top is the after picture, by the way...