Happy Holidays

Just wanted to wish everyone Happy Holidays and share a few photos.

This dresser is my latest find.  I was drawn to the handles and had to have it.  It certainly needs to be painted, but that's not going to happen until the spring.  It works just fine (for now) in our living room, which I'm still working on.  Since we don't have a mantle to decorate, I chose the next best thing.  Here's a closer look:

Here's our beautiful Christmas tree:

 

My daughters had a blast helping me decorate it with all the cute little stuffed animals and dolls.  Here are a few of my favorite ornaments:

The girls also picked out a little tree for their bedroom.  It's definitely a girly tree that represents their present interests:

I hope you all have a wonderful Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  I already have a New Year's resolution in mind:  Blog MORE!

Linking up to Thrifty Decor Chick's Christmas Tree party!

We Finally Moved In

I realize that I have been MIA for some time now.  Our time was up on our lease so we had to move in to our new house regardless of the fact that the painting and the flooring is not complete.  It's been fun trying to decide where to put everything.  The most unfortunate part of the unpacking process, is that we no longer have built-in bookcases to house two big bins and a few smaller boxes of books.  Building my own bookcases crossed my mind, but that was nothing more than a fleeting thought as I remembered the millions of other things waiting to be addressed.  For instance, check out these stairs:

I'm not sure if you can tell, but these stairs are unusually high.  When the inspector spoke with us, he informed us it was a little higher than what the code states.  Until recently, homes built in rural areas didn't have to follow codes.  Of course that makes absolutely no sense to me, but I'm glad the rest of the house stayed pretty close to all building codes.  What is so unfortunate for us, is that we had two people tell us that in order to lower the rise, we have to bring the stairs more out.  That seems absolutely impossible to me.

There's a closet directly in front of the stairs and the master bedroom door is on the right.  There is no room to bring the stairs further out downstairs.  One suggested going further out upstairs.  Once again, I don't think it's possible.  It's not such a problem for us, but I have two little ones and it is certainly a safety concern.  I thought perhaps the stairs could go to a ninety degree angle into the living room, but I fear it will disturb the feng shui of the room since it is so open as soon as you walk through the front door.  Feng shui or safety?  Hmmm... Feng shui or safety?  We all know what is most important.  I need to get another opinion and will do so soon.  I am certainly open to suggestions other than the spiral staircase my husband jokingly suggested.

How not to paint . . .

Today, I'm going to focus on one particular area of our new home that I mentioned (here) is an all-consuming eye sore.  Remember this?

It looks nice from a distance right?  Here's an even better picture of the previous owner's setup:

All those neat little cubbies for all your electronic toys . . . Nice you say?  I took the shelves out to thoroughly clean it and this is what I was left with:

There are multiple things that went wrong with this wall hogger.  They painted the entertainment center with the REMOVABLE shelves intact, which made them quite difficult to remove since paint was stuck to them.  Can you see the brushstrokes?  

This is what happens when you attempt to use white latex paint on laminate.  If you are going to paint (even if it is with the wrong type of paint), don't be lazy.  Go ahead, paint the whole thing.  Take all of your little electronic toys out and outlets then PAINT!  Don't leave this behind:

Above all else, do not allow your little four legged hairball coughing felines to walk on wet paint all the while embedding their forever shedding hair to dry in the paint for some poor unsuspecting future homeowner to find while scrubbing out the dirt and dust you left behind. 

Did you really think this post would not include me ranting about cats and cat hair?  When I'm done cleaning, scrubbing, and sanding cat hair, I won't blog about it anymore.  Until then, just remember the source:

Courtesy of the previous owners- I give credit where credit is due

He is one of many . . . don't be fooled.