Here's to good friends...

Yesterday after church we celebrated Maddie's birthday (which was Jan 3). We invited her good friends the Blackman girls, the Barnard girls (and parents) and one of Kreutzer girls. She was so excited and happy.

Our long lost friends, the Armstrongs, surprised us by saying they were coming. We were so excited and happy. We haven't seen them in years and it was so nice to catch up. Brian and I even held their newest little girl, Violet. She is sooooo cute. Now I can't wait to see our little one!

Even though we were all tired from the long day, it was nice to sit and relax and talk. Brian and I pledge to invite friends over more often.

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I thought I would outline what we spent last week on home projects. It wasn't as bad as I thought. We completely transformed the look of the dining room.

Antique buffet: $495
Wood for paneling: $130
Paint: $68
Chandelier: $130
Buffet mirror: $59
Flower painting: $8
Red bill organizer: $10
Total: $900

With the extra hundred left over from our $1000 budget we bought the Pottery Barn Kids desk and chairs at Goodwill for $69.00 and a HUGE clock from Target for $49.00 for the living room. So were were slightly over $1000. We also bought a mudroom rug at Costco for $16 as our dogs had peed on our other one.

So not too bad. We had the money set aside so everything is paid for!

I'm giving Brian and myself a week off so we can work on our new website and then back to fixing up. My next project is the hallway. I need to paint and Brian needs to install some trim moulding on the ceiling. Then *maybe* we can start work on making our bedroom pretty before the baby gets here.

Home reno is never ending but I like it that way ;)

We did it!

We finished! Or at least enough for now. I LOVE how it all turned out. I wasn't too sure about the green wall at first (Brian picked the new paint color) but now I really like it. Adds some zing to our dining room.



We painted just the front door portion of the room green and around the front door and closet the same color as our living room.





I framed some Heather Bailey Freshcut fabric. I didn't get around to making the seat cushion for the bench yet. The foam pad I needed was too expensive so I need to wait for a coupon.



Here is a picture with the new wainscoting paneling. Brian did a fantastic job - even though he got a little carried away with the nail gun. ;)





Here is my buffet. It looks really good in there.



And a basket of limes to go with our new green wall. I picked the basket up at Goodwill for $0.99!

We are exhausted from staying up really late working on it. We have my family coming over today and a birthday party for Maddie after church tomorrow so we really wanted it done. I actually like working on deadlines. It forces me to get things done.

A lot going on...

No formal exercising going on unless you count going up and down a step ladder at 11:00 pm every night. We've been bit by the remodeling bug again and are working hard to do a $1000 dining room makeover. We have almost spent that but I think we have everything we need (except a new green paint color as I HATE the one I picked out).

We gave ourselves a $1000 budget and are trying to completely makeover the dining room. It was painted a nice yellow when we moved in but came with a chandelier that was held together by twist ties. It had crystals hanging off and was a brassy color. I lived with it a whole year. We purchased a new one at Lowe's that I don't love but it is temporary until we can afford a nice one.


The wall had bubbles in the paint and we are not sure if it is because the dishwasher had leaked (it is right behind that wall). When Brian scraped the bubbles off, huge sections of paint and plaster came off. So we decided to do some wainscoting paneling. Like this: 1900 Farmhouse blog . It is the second entry down.

Ours will be painted a creamy white color. We painted the wall by the front door a green that turned out way to minty so we need to buy another quart of a more olive color. The opposite walls are a nice apricot color that brings out the rich wood of our new 1940's buffet. Brian spotted this in an antique shop and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it. This was half our budget but I have always wanted a nice piece of furniture that I can hand down to the kids. But I love it so much that I might be buried in it.




We have a bench underneath the front window and I bought this amazing fabric to match. I'm going to make a padded seat cover. The fabric is from Heather Bailey's Freshcut line.


We also painted one wall of our living room red. I love red and this is a deep dark red paint we bought at Lowe's for $5.00 for a whole gallon. It was labeled "mistint".


Oh and I went to Goodwill last night and spotted this desk and chair set for $69.00. It is from Pottery Barn Kids and retails for $350 for the set on their site. It is in excellent condition and is now displayed proudly in our school room.


And here is the newest member of our family. Captain Jack Sparrow.