Sunday, August 29, 2010

House Tour 8.29.10

Well, my house is getting back in order. The back yard is completely out of control and the driveway looks more like a weedsway, but the inside is much better. I can just pretend that the outside is not a disaster zone!

I decided to take some pictures of the house today after I was all done cleaning all the rooms. I like to remember the different ways I decorate since I change it up every once in a while. Supposedly, it's also a good idea to take pictures of your house for insurance purposes incase something happens. So that's basically just an extra little bonus.

This space has been bugging me for so long. I'm never quite sure what to do with it. It's beside our front door in the living room and when the door is open, you can't even see it. That's at least what I told myself for the year that the pew bows from my wedding hung from the old electrical cord for the non-working door bell. Did you follow that? In any case, my aunt snipped all the electrical junk out and patched the hole and there's just a nail there now. At Christmas time I have the perfect decoration for that space, but the rest of the year...I got nothin'. I'd like to maybe get something like this because I think it'd look great in that space and match some other art I have on the walls. For now, I have this. It's not bad, but the picture is too small for the space. I need something to fill the space a little better. I do really like the little "love" letters at the bottom though.


Here's our living room as of lately. I bought some extra pillows for the couch about a month ago. I was in VCF one day and the pillows in their clearance section were an extra 75% off lowest price. I got those two tan pillows for $1.25 each! I love the fabric on them and the size is great too. You can't even buy fabric for that price anymore! I keep debating about whether or not to get a second end table for the other side of the couch. The first one I got for $50 at the VCF clearance section. They are originally $250. Nothing was wrong with it and I loved it! I just can't bring myself to spend $250 for another one.

I love this curio in the corner that holds my Willow Tree figures.

Here's the living room from the other side. I like the bookshelf instead of DVD shelf and the addition of the love seat and coffee table so much. Most of our furniture is from Craigslist or a family hand-me-down. I love the hand-me-downs. The bookshelf in our living room is the one that was at my grandma and great aunts that housed our children's books when we were little. :)

The layout of our house makes it hard to take a picture of the entire living room. This is from the steps, but I couldn't get everything in.

I love our dining room furniture. It's old school style, but I like it. We got it from CraigsList for $375 for 2 hutches, the table, and 6 chairs. And the color matched the color of the wood of the buffet that we already had. Bonus! The dried flowers in the vase on the top of this hutch is the bouquet from my wedding.

This is the other buffet that holds my good dishes as well as all of the Italian ceramics that have been given to us from Aunt Grace and Uncle Michael and Mima. When we were in Italy this year, we also bought a few small items to build our collection. Aunt Grace helped us special order something, too! She is going to pick it up for us in September when she goes again. I can't wait until Christmas when we can pick it up from her!

A shot of the dining room. I still love the yellow color on these walls. It looks cream during the day and night, but when the sun hits it, it's magnificent! It's exactly what I had in mind when I picked the color. I was a little worried when I first painted because it was like baby, pale yellow, but it dried nicely and now it's wonderful.

I have to throw in this picture. Peter and I both received in the mail a $10 coupon for our next purchase at Kohls. Peter, being the loving husband that he is, handed his $10 right over to me. I found these great cloth napkins on clearance for $0.79 each! They had tons so I bought 8 since many of my dishes are in sets of 8 (I have a slight obsession). It was less than $6.50 for all of them! So I bought those as well as a cute, cheap shirt for a few bucks to put me to $10 to use one of the coupons. I was thrilled. I was even more thrilled when I was in a different Kohls and found the matching tablecloth (in oval nonetheless!) for $6. It was the only one they had so I snatched it right up. I bought some tea towels (that I actually returned) to get me to the $10 mark. Thank you Kohls!

I'm so glad that our kitchen no longer has 4 types of non-matching wallpaper, aqua cabinets, and a super ugly floor. This picture makes it look light and bright. I love the way the cabinets turned out and for being a cream color, they don't get too dirty. I'm still thinking of better ways to fix up the hardware and countertops. I painted all of the hardware black to match the tile trim and appliances and I like the way it turned out. I just don't like that they aren't holding up that greatly and the black is rubbing off. Maybe I need to get my craft paints and polyurethane out. We'll see...

I love our new back door and that I painted it and the door to the basement to match the rest of the cabinetry in our kitchen. It really pulled things together more. The added storage with the old dining room buffet and small island are coming in quite handy! The buffet was painted to match everything as well and provides tons of storage! And it frees up counter space by housing the microwave and toaster oven. The island has some storage as well, but provides additional counter space when needed. The top actually opens up for double the counter space! I think in one of my upcoming trips to Ikea that I need to do something to fix up that old spice rack. I'm thinking a coat of cream paint, some stenciling and some of these will make it much better! What do you think? I also think I need to take down the pictures above the window. Who puts stuff that high?? And maybe clean up the chalkboard area a little bit.

Now let's head upstairs...

This is a nice little shelf that I shortened (there's another level that I removed) to fit nicely in the corner at the top of the stairs.

Our bathroom is looking much better than when we first moved in. We still have to finish the trim, but just never seem to get around to it. I recently took down the old lace curtains and replaced it with a valance that I already had. It looks much better. What a difference a small change like that can make! Of course the beadboard, new sink/cabinet and medicine cabinet made a huge difference too!

This is the only room in the house that hasn't been painted. It's our bedroom. I found this comforter at Bed, Bath, and Beyond a few years ago and it matched perfectly! Peter wanted to keep the room blue so this works out nicely. I think that eventually we'll put a fresh coat of paint in it, but it will most likely be the same color. I picked up those two blue pillows at the VCF clearance sale for $5 each. As I look at this picture, I also realize that I really want a matching nightstand on my side of the bed and I need to do something about the lackluster artwork above the bed...

The spare room has seen many changes. So far this has been my favorite. I'm glad to finally have pulled some of the reds out of the carpet with the wall decor and the pillow on the bed (VCF clearance sale again -$2),

The other side of the spare room. I'm thinking about painted the tv stand red too...any thoughts?? I made the valances in this room from a panel I picked up at Target for $3.28. I made both valances and still have a bunch of fabric left over. It looks great with the greens in the room. The valances that were in this room were beige and blended too much with the wall. They both found new homes - the bathroom and the hallway. The lace curtains had to go. I like the lace curtains in the dining room because they kind of go with the room, but I'm glad they are gone upstairs.

If you're still reading this, then I'm sure you have read more about my house than you care to know. Thanks for reading to the end!

Friday, August 27, 2010

Time For a Change

Last week was the worst week at work that I've ever had. My supervisor is completely useless. A co-worker left the department and due to poor management, we've been scrambling to make things work in my department. We have a new addition, but she has no HR experience and was supposed to be an administrative assistant. Now she's being dumped on with HR things. My other co-worker is leaving in a few short weeks for 4 months at a client. Last week my supervisor lost his temper with me for no reason. The co-worker the left the department and the new addition both didn't do something they were supposed to do. When I got pulled into it, I tried to inform my supervisor and he was cutting me off, asking irrelevant questions, and told me to shut up and quit acting like I know everything. I was super peeved. I cleared out my desk and told Peter he needed to come pick me up. I sent my supervisor an email saying that I didn't appreciate what had happened and that I was taking the afternoon off to think about what I need to do. He denied telling me to shut up and said that he's only ever been supportive of me since he's gotten here. Um, what??

Anyways...this and everything else that has been going on with being completely overworked, underpaid, and demotivated has pushed me to actively seek other employment. I'm still working at the same place for now. I don't want to hurt myself and Peter financially by quitting. I almost, almost, almost did though. Peter was super supportive and we talked for days about how we would make things work if necessary.

I'm trusting God through this and that He has a plan. I know that He can see the whole picture while I can only see a piece of the puzzle.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Random Rambles

Well, we've been back to the ol' grind for 2 weeks. Vacation seems like it was so long ago. Work was like I never left and my supervisor did nothing while I was away. He left things for me to come back to...nice. I'm also feeling under the weather and wish that summer would be over and it would be autumn. I'm sick of the heat.

I also feel slightly overwhelmed because I feel like I'm behind in everything. I know there's always something to do or more to be done, but I feel like the house is a wreck, work is nuts, and I'm not making enough time for the things I enjoy in life and for those that I love sharing life with.

Tomorrow's a new day. I feel like the Lord is teaching me something, but I just don't know what yet...