Pictures of my ALMOST finished Living room

The painting is done, the border is up and most of the furniture is in the room however I'm not sure about placement. I ordered a few pieces of furniture from JC Penney's on line catalogue. As I have said previously, I really dislike shopping...for just about anything. It is such a "time waster" to me, due to the fact that I can never make a decision. I usually end up with one of the first things I saw anyway so I'm just eliminating all that extra shopping by going with my first find. After I ordered I started thinking about an alternative but put a stop to that constant debate over which is better. I don't really care that much as long as it is comfortable and goes with the rest of the room. I did go as far as to check with Penney's to see if there was a showroom close by so I could at least view/try these pieces out prior to purchase however, the closest was Niagara Falls and that showroom didn't have the pieces I wanted so I guess I'm just going to pray that I am satisfied with what is delivered.


Making the curtains was a project in itself though I am happy with the way they turned out and I can't believe I found curtains (with a print) that actually go with the border. Overall I am pleased with the results of our choices. I did allow input from the guys. It actually turned out that I would not have chosen the paint colors I did without their input. We chose from 3 shades of green and 3 shades of beige.

They chose the darkest green, I would have gone with the medium green. They chose the darkest beige, I would have gone with the lightest. I am hesitant to go too bold but I took a chance because I did think that the darkest green went very well with the border. So we went with the darkest green and compromised on the medium beige.


I still have some items to decide on...whether or not to return them to the room or find alternate placement and I still have to hang pictures. I'm debating on what I want where. Of course I debated on leaving all the prepared holes where they were and I'm not sure I want them there now. Hum, that could be a problem. Guess I'll have to work around that. Should I have taken out those plastic things and filled the holes prior to painting only to make new holes? I don't know. See why I dislike this stuff? To much decision making.

I brought up some of my dormant plants from the basement in preparation for spring and summer. If you haven't done that yet, it is time. I may have started to early but I want my plants flowering when I put them out in May so I started in January.


Here are the before pictures.

Painting Update

Okay, it looks like my advertisers are not going to help out here with closet organizers. Sorry Mar!

It took two days to get the living room painted on account of starting painting at about 1 or 2:00 the first day. Serious procrastination here, talking on the phone and ...had to have something to snack on so I baked some cookies :). Today I think I am going to Weggie's to rent a steam cleaner and check out the switch plate covers at Lowe's, thought I'd upgrade. Tomorrow perhaps I'll put on the trim...Can't wait :).

Closet Organizer

I am in need of some suggestions for closet organization. Anyone have any ideas? I have checked out Closet Maid locally but haven't found quite what I am looking for. Perhaps it is Closetmaid. Are there any other companies that sell closet organizers. What other way are therre to say closet organizer. How about shelving for closets or just shelving?

February Break

Now that the living room curtains finished (and what an ordeal it was...at least for me), the next step is paint chips. I have narrowed down the colors and have been staring at them for a few days now. This morning I think I have decided!

I have had to make some drywall repairs including half of one corner. The tape was rippled on the bottom half. I debated on replacing the whole corner vs just the bottom half, thinking the meeting in the center would eventually have a hairline crack. Dad's words often come back to me "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

Well, that makes it easier for me so I'll go along with that. I decided to just overlap and taper where the repair tape begins in an effort to avoid future cracking. It doesn't look noticeable to me. Hopefully it will work. I couldn't find my roll of paper tape so I borrowed some from my brother in law who had mesh. What a breeze. Nothing like the fiasco I dealt with when I did the corner in My Room last year...or was it the year before?

We also have an extra wide archway needing repairs. I wouldn't do that again, it makes furniture arranging difficult. It is 9 1/2 feet wide. At the time we were thinking of heat efficiency since we have a wood stove in the living room. The open archway would allow heat upstairs easily, however I think 6 or 7 feet would have been plenty wide. Today I will be sanding for the second time and hopefully the last then tomorrow....PAINT!!!

I know I said I would be painting in the spring but I have this week off so why not use it wisely? The garden comes alive in the spring and it will be calling to me. I will be in this hypnotic, trancelike state longing for the feel and scents of the season, to clear away fall and winter debris and find new growth hiding beneath natures blanket, and that paint job. . . . . it will be history. So I figured I'd better get it done now. If we crank up the wood stove, we can open windows :) and get that air circulation. Well, that's it for now, off to start sanding.

Ash Wednesday

Don't forget today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of lent. A time to take an honest look at our spiritual lives and pray for a change of heart and peace in our souls. What committment can we make during this lenten season to assist in spiritual growth and prepare us for the Easter feast?

Curtains and the Merry-Go-Round

Okay, once again I have been lax about posting. During these winter months it seems we should have more time. However, I don't feel like I am finding any free time. I must be daydreaming...a lot! This is a good way to procrastinate. Some of you know I have been trying to find new curtains for my living room. Now this is a project I detest. I don't want to shop. I don't like to shop and I have no idea what I want so I continue to put it off. Then every summer I have to tack sheets over our living and dining room windows to keep the suns heat out. Well, as you can imagine, it is not a pretty site. So each winter I vow to find some drapes that will do the trick for me, so that never again will I have to tack sheets up on the windows. This winter has been no exception.

First of all, you have to know what you want because the rods you purchase depend on the drapes you intend to hang. Secondly you then have to find curtains that will work with the rods. Third you have to find the curtain that will work in your room that has the appropriate finish on top to attach to your rod and it must be the correct length. After much deliberation over: Roman shades, cellular shades, distressed wood blinds, roller shades or a curtain on a traverse rod, I decided on the traverse rod and a valance. Now to use a traverse rod you have to have a pleated curtain/drape. So that meant I had to find pleated panels. I had a valance style in mind but to find that with the right panels would be a miracle. Well, I went to JC Penney's and found two different panels that I liked. I bought a package of each to bring home and experiment with. I didn't care for the valances that were designed to go with these panels (that would be too easy) so I figured I'd buy an extra panel or two and make my own. These panels also were not pleated so I would have to pleat them. Another dilemma is that since we have electric baseboard heat, I can not have 84 inch curtains because the heating units are right below the windows. So I would have to find 72" or 64" curtains. I didn't want 64" and 72" are rare so I knew I would have to hem them. Okay, so now I am pretty much making curtains because I need pleats, hem and a valance that I want. So I get these panels home, take them out of their packaging and hang them over the rods rearranging and trying to decide if I liked them. I have decided I can't decide with just the two so I return to Penney's with reinforcements because the number of packages I need to buy, I will not be able to carry by myself. So we head to the store, my sister Carol and my friend Mary Ann. As we enter the mall Carol says we have to ride the merry-go-round. Good Grief! I say okay come on. She says we will do it later....LATER!!!! with all the packages we will be carrying? This was just a fleeting thought, I didn't mention it out loud so we headed to Penney's. I can tell the girls aren't thrilled with my choices so we look around. After much confusion and deliberation I am discouraged and ready to leave with nothing. I decide at the last minute to make the purchases I intended to make before we arrived. So I do.

We drag these huge bags to the merry-go-round and pay our dollar to ride. Carol is first. She heads to the stairs, yeah you guessed it, it is a two story merry-go-round and she has to be on the upper level. We struggle to get the bags and ourselves up the narrow stairway. Now Carol is yelling down to the merry-go-round operator "hey do all of these horses go up and down?" The guy is not paying any attention to her. I tell her yes they do but what do I know. She yells down again and finally gets a response. Yes, he says they all go up and down. Why listen to me, there would be no scene if she did that. We ride. It is fun. He stops too soon. Carol wants to ride longer. She yells down to him that he should keep it going cuz we are not ready to get off. I say "come on, the ride is over." She yells down to the guy again and says that I am trying to sneak out the back way. Say what! Is there a back way cuz if there is I'd like to find it...how embarrassing. :) You'd think she was 5. However I have to say she is getting up there in years. She is no spring chicken if you get my drift but she sure was acting like one :). Okay, so we all come down the stairs laughing. It was a good time. We head home and I make them both dinner.

Life gets busy and it is several days before I can sit and stare or arrange these curtains to see if they will work for me. Now you must know that these things are not cheap. So my thoughts are going to all the work I will have to do with them and then I'm not even sure I like them, plus the cost involved. I become very depressed because once again, I have this monumental task and I have no idea what to do. I am serious, I so dislike doing this stuff I didn't want to get out of bed. I was almost in tears pondering this problem, ready to trash it all, throw in the towel, return all the stuff I bought at Penney's and go through another year with sheets, only to one day begin the process all over again. The next day I got up and decide to go to Walmart to see what they had. I came back with two different panels. One I really liked. It worked well with the wallpaper border that I had and I liked the valance so all I had to do was put pleats in the top which would hem them at the same time and I'd be done. HA! I cannot tell you how much better I felt. This huge weight was lifted. Having this situation resolved had an amazing affect on how I was feeling. I still can't believe it, I mean the difference was like night and day. I was lost and then found. Blind and now I see. Yes, I see... curtains that I can draw to shut out the sun on those hot muggy days during July and August. To finish up the story, I went back to Walmart and bought 3 additional packages of panels and 6 valances. I brought them home, ironed and put up the valances and am now in the process of putting in the pleats so I can hang the panels and be done. I still have to paint the room and put up the wallpaper border but that will have to wait until spring when I can open windows.

I returned one set of 8 panels plus 2 panels of the other set to Penney's, keeping 6 in the event I decide to use them in the dinning room. In which case I will only have to decide how to hang them. Matt wants a draw string so I'll need another traverse rod. I'm thinking of using those rings with clips on them so I won't have to do anything but install the rod. These won't need heming since they will be covering sliding glass doors.

The sewing I have to do is nothing and I praise God for lightening my burden :).