On a whim at midnight Paul and I decided to try and redo the window above our kitchen sink. I made the curtains with the leftover fabric from the seat cushions I reupholstered-the color looks much different in the lighting under the cabinets! So we took out the old blinds that were discolored and falling apart-yuck! and Paul took out the 20 year old light fixture that was above our sink. We picked this pendant light up at Home Depot the other day because we've been keeping our eyes open for one that was a good price, and this one was the least expensive we've seen! So in just 1 hour Paul and I got rid of another dated window treatment and one more dated fixture! Many more to go, and lots of painting to do still, but it always feels good when we finish a mini-project!

Here are some before and after photos of our staircase. We primed and painted the railings with about 4 coats and then we coated them with a clear polyurethane to keep the paint from chipping off. The carpet on the stairs is new and the carpet on the main level is still the blue, as you can see in the picture. The edges of the stairs are done "Hollywood" style! We know so much more about carpet and paint now than we did 5 weeks ago, that's for sure! And I love the name of the paint color "Swiss Coffee". It really just looks white to me, but if you've ever looked for a "white" paint, you know that there are about 50 shades of white! We're happy with the way it turned out though, it really gave our banisters an updated look!

We bought a dining set on craigslist that I made my project to refurbish. When Paul was sick with the flu I kept myself busy by sanding off the old, light colored finish on the top of the table and re-staining it a dark mahogany color. Then I painted all the chairs and table legs with fresh paint and "distressed" them just a little. I also recovered the seat cushions to go with our color scheme in the kitchen. From previous pictures you can kind of see the old 1980's window treatment on the sliding glass doors-so glad to be rid of those! One window down, many more to go! There are some before pictures of the chairs too. They were supposed to be "distressed" but these chairs looked far too distressed for my taste. The whole project doesn't sound like a lot but it took me a week to complete! It has 6 chairs and a leaf so we can extend it when we have extra company, but without the leaf and just 4 chairs, it is the perfect size for our every day needs-it turned out great! The last picture is of the first snow at our new house! It was taken from the sliding glass door in the dining area looking into the backyard.

I love this huge window in our Master Bedroom! One of my favorite things about our house is all of the natural light! There are two skylights and lots of big windows, even in our garden level family room. The picture from the family room looking into the dining room/kitchen was taken when we came to view the house so it has the previous owners' furniture, but it gives perspective of the openness between rooms. The picture with the book case is in our family room area. We've recarpeted down there since and Paul and his dad cut out a space in the bookshelves to mount the tv but the project isn't completed yet.

Our dinette area that has a huge sliding glass door to the backyard. I love having the shades open during the day and there is already so much greenery planted back there!

These are pictures of the day we moved into the house, hence the messiness of the place! The fireplace is in the main living room as soon as you walk into the house. The view of the stairs and dinette area is from standing by the fireplace. So far we have installed new carpet upstairs and downstairs (the family room-don't have pictures of that up yet) and we have begun to paint the banisters and trim white. In the next couple of months we will be installing wood floors on the main level, so until then we still have the lovely 20 yr. old stained carpet!

The picture to the right is of Paul and I on our closing day-celebrating at Happy Hour! We closed on September 25th and are still not completely settled in the house yet, but it's a work in progress. We are very ambitious with the projects we want to accomplish, but neither of us have lost steam yet and I don't think we will any time soon. That's why we work well together as a team because when we set our minds to accomplishing something, we don't mess around!