My office - craft - hobby room November 10, 2011 update

I wanted to give you an update on my office.  

Paint color:  Tropical Tide by Behr

My son, Richard, is doing all of the painting and crown molding and it's looking beautiful.

I didn't get pictures of the first color I chose, however it wasn't bright enough.  I wanted bright and cheerful and very turquoise in my office.

I love the color!!!

The crown molding begins.  There is not one straight wall in this house. 

It is beautiful!!!  Richard is doing a wonderful job on the molding.  This is his first time to work with crown molding,   I remind him that wood putty and caulk work wonders with bad walls and ceilings.

My 6 Home Depot pantries are in.  These are stock cabinets.

 Some doors open to the right...some to the left.  I will re-hang the doors when time permits.    

Finally, I will have plenty of storage for my crafts and office supplies!

These are, also, stock cabinets from Home Depot.  My fur-baby AnnaBelle is always with me when I am home.  You can bet I will be getting her a matching bed for my office.  She deserves chic just as much as I do :)

The top over-hang doesn't allow the top drawers to open.  We will be adding a piece of plywood and molding to this. 

There is much more to come on my office.  This is going to be a fun room...MY room!!!

Have a great day........

Dining Room Progress

There is one piece of furniture that I have a love/hate relationship with.

It is a Philippe Langdon St. James Entertainment/Bookcase piece.

It is massive as you can tell by the dimensions.  When we moved into our traditional house, I was told I had to decorate in a more traditional up-scale way.  Gone were the days of my cottage furniture and decorations I loved so much in my Cottage #1.  I had to change ME.

So, Larry went to a ball game and I went to an auction one Sunday after moving into the Traditional House.  I fell in love with this piece of furniture.  I decided I would get it for a song and antique it in white.

It was the end of the auction and I had already told the manager of the furniture store going out of business that I wanted to bid on this piece.  Finally, this piece came up.

It retailed for $13,000.  I didn't care.  They wanted the stuff gone and I was willing to help.  Unfortunately, they started the bid at $8,000.  NO WAY!!!  Then went down to $6,000.  DUH!!!  NOPE!!!

"OK, young lady, you start the bidding since you wanted it."

A. I am not young
B.  OK, I am game.

"$500," I said.  Everyone looked at me like I was nuts.  Well, I had already spent money on other things, I was going to be over my limit that I promised myself.

No one else was bidding on the piece, so I eventually got it for $3,500.  It wasn't a steal, by any means. however it wasn't $13,000, either.

So, I am now stuck with a huge piece of furniture that Larry and I love, however there is not way I will paint that piece white.....well......I don't think I ever will (wink.)

When Larry and I decided to build our new cottage, we knew this piece would go in the dining room.

It fit perfectly.  If you have been reading my other posts, you will know that during the hardwood floor installation, I was sleeping on this borrowed sofa.  My sofa will not be in until December.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to make a trip to the local Antique Mall in Spring, Texas.  I do these kind of things when Larry goes to the Texans' games.  I do love his season tickets.  It is my guarantee each time the Texans play in town that I can go shopping.

I wasn't in the mall 5 minutes when I saw the most beautiful dining set.

So, I took pictures to show Larry.  Then, I thought....he doesn't care what I put in the dining room.....so I bought the set and it was delivered the following week.

It had just the right elegance to accompany the bookcase.  And the turquoise velvet chairs....oh...do NOT get me started on turquoise.  I love the color....You will see.

You might have noticed the grandfather clock.

It belonged to my mom and dad.  I remember when they bought it in the 70's.  Daddy loved those chimes....the rest of us hated midnight....12 long bongs.  And there was no way Daddy would turn the chimes off.

Daddy died of a sudden heart attack in 1993.  He was only 67 years old.  He loved his fried eggs, bacon and half a jar of jam.  He looked healthy and was as fit on the outside as a man 30 years his junior.  He still did his 100 push-ups every night.  But he wasn't fit as a fiddle....not on the inside.

Mom downsized several years ago and told me that I could have her beloved clock.  I am so proud of it.

Several weeks ago, I had purchased 2 chairs from Cost Plus World Market that were so pretty.  I wasn't sure where they would go, but I had to have them.

Immediately, I knew....

I call the dining room "Ladies' Tea Room."  Many more things are needed in this room...which I will update you on.

So, that is my dining room so far.

Have a wonderful Tuesday.

Hugs,

Moving in and having hardwood flooring installed at the same time - Part 2

You can read Part 1 HERE.

Having flooring installed after a move-in would not be bad if it were one or two rooms.  However, we were having the entire house done!!

During this time, there was....

NO TELEVISION.....NO INTERNET......NO TELEPHONES....ok, we had cell phones.  We had better keep them charged up or we wouldn't have that either :(

This first week we rented dvds and watched other dvds we already owned.  I was missing all of my good shows.

So, I decided to use my cell phone to connect a laptop of the internet.  I had never done that before.  Sprint has unlimited data, so that is good.  We connected the laptop to the tv and I was able to catch up on my favorite shows.

That was the first week.

The day finally came for the flooring installers to begin....Monday, October 3.  Larry and I had both taken off from work to make certain we were all on the same page since Larry's office and game room would have different flooring.

By 10 am, I am wondering where the installers are....by 11 am, I am calling Home Depot....The HD rep is trying to get the 3rd party installers to let her know what is going on.....

We call HD back at 1...she has heard nothing.....At 4 pm, we find out the installers assigned to our home were running late on their last job.

They would not be starting until Tuesday, October 4.  Ok, Larry and I would have to stay home another day.  Not good news to tell bosses :(

So, Tuesday morning was spent with arguing about leveling material (float) and furniture being in the house.  The installers had been told we paid for 10 bags of float.  However, Home Depot had not delivered it.  The installer didn't know that he was supposed to provide it.

Also, the installer was told that the house wouldn't have any furniture.  Yes, when the installation was to begin September 26, there would not have been any furniture, however, as we told Home Depot a dozen times, if they didn't begin the install until October 3, there WOULD be furniture....HEAVY furniture.

I had to leave at noon to go to work and the installers were still waiting for the Home Depot rep to get back with them.....nothing being done.

When I got home from work, some carpet had been pulled up and some float had been applied.  A lot of  furniture was more jammed than ever.  Our movers were going to bring the rest of our heavy furniture the following Saturday and the refrigerator was being delivered Friday.

Our oldest son, Richard,  is staying with us.  He has been a tolal lifesaver in all of this.  It's wonderful to have your own private superintendent. 

During this time, Larry was sleeping in his office recliner and I was sleeping on a borrowed sofa.  Many sleepless nights and back pain.

Finally, one room is done...the dining room.  The flooring is beautiful. 

Here is our dining room and make-shift sleeping quarters in the dining room.

Richard's bedroom, foyer, the guest bedroom, the 2 and 1/2 baths and the utility rooms were NOT having the flooring changed out.  So, these were the rooms were everything was piled up.


Larry's office became the installer's workroom.

 

Leveling material and fans to dry it were everywhere!

 After 3 solid days, our bedroom and closet were done:

The installers even set our bed up.  A bed....lovely....We could actually sleep in a real bed after 2 weeks!!!

Amazon had delivered my new books and I had a bed.  I was in Heaven!!!

More progress would be made over the next week.  It took 2 1/2 weeks to get this done.

After all was said and done, the flooring was beautiful.  10 years ago, Larry and I could have put this flooring down.  Not now.  Back and knee and hip problems have stopped many of the wonderful DYI projects we loved in Cottage #1.  Those days were over.

There were are are many more projects to be done.  As I write this a month later, I can tell you many have been done.  Richard, our oldest son is actually working on the painting and trim in rooms we went basic on with the builder.

Much, much more to come.

Hugs,

Moving out of our Traditional Home of only 4 years-Part 1

Moving out of our beautiful home was bitter-sweet.  I never loved this house.  I felt over-whelmed by this house.  It was 4,000 square feet that should have been decorated.

I wanted a one-story when we built our red brick house 4 years ago.  However, we fell in love with the subdivision and we were told that we couldn't build a one-story on a large lot.  We actually wanted a 1 1/2 story with the game room and media room upstairs.

Besides the small lots, all of the one-stories offered by the builders of the subdivision were wrong.  One builder's 1 1/2 story had a garage in front of the house where the driveway headed toward the front door.  Another builder's 1 1/2 story had the staircase completely closed in.  All of the rooms seemed cut off and the useless formal dining room and living rooms were present in all of them.

We would have to spend a lot of money to have walls moved and turned into a more open floor plan.  We just could not afford it.

Larry may think I don't remember why we didn't build one of the 1 1/2 story homes, however I do.  There were too many things I didn't like.

So, we found a builder who offered a very large home on a very large lot across from the lake and waterfall for a good price.  We were able to have a few upgrades, however not all of the ones I wanted.  If you look at pictures above, you will see a small front porch.  That was an upgrade, but we could do it!!

There are many things I miss about our traditional house.  I hope, one day, Larry will read this post and know that.