LOVE IT

I started this painting project on Thursday afternoon. Had to take all our pictures down, clear off the mantle, move a little furniture (or wait for Andy to come home and move furniture is more accurate), tape off all the baseboards, 7 doorways, 7 windows, bench in the mudroom...lots of tape--you get the picture. I painted most of the day Friday, but with the cutest little boy in the world here to keep me company, progress was slow. Paint, nurse, paint, take dog toy away from Eli, paint, feed Eli squash and oatmeal, paint, take computer cord out of Eli's mouth and redirect him to an actual toy, paint, put Eli down for nap....ahhhh peace and quiet and painting for what?!? only a 30 minute nap? poop. Eli's naps have generally only lasted 30 minutes. I was "blessed" with a short napper, but for the past 3 weeks he has been giving me the WONDERFUL gift of a 1 1/2 hour nap, only once a day, usually in the morning. I love it because can get things done around the house just a little easier. So Friday morning when I put him down for his nap I was expecting 1 1/2 hours of uninteruppted progress. The joke was on me...30 minutes was all I got. He just didnt want to miss out on all the excitement. I painted until Andy got home then called it a day. We started back up on Saturday morning and sharing baby wrangling duties allowed us to finish up mid afternoon. We cleaned up, assembled our new cocktail ottoman and put all the furniture back in place. I just love projects like this....well, I actually love all home improvement projects because you can SEE the results. You work and work and work, but you get to see and appreciate what you accomplished with all that work. This was a relatively easy and quick project but made a huge difference in the look and feel of our home. Our living room feels so much cozier and so much more "us" now. I don't have anything against beige walls, but I stared at those darn beige walls for 15 hours a day for 6 weeks straight while on bedrest so I was pretty much done with them :) Anyway, we are loving our new living room. The downside is that looking at this room makes me want to paint EVERY other room in the house. This is the mudroom (too small to really get a good picture) and the coat hook on the right was made by Mr. Andrew Froese. Isn't it awesome? We got the 5 hooks from Hobby Lobby but wanted to unite them somehow. He got some sweet tiger stripe maple and walnut from work and made this for me. Love it!

Our new cocktail ottoman. We wanted to replace our coffee table that would be a hazard to Eli's head once he starts to pull up on things (sharp edges and corners). I think this changes the feel of the room too....makes it feel so loungey (probably not really a word)

Eli's toy corner and the chair that used to be an accent color in our red living room. Now it is camoflauged...or maybe it clashes now.

Cute dogs. What color should I paint the entry hall? (That is the room through the arch) We have some great botanical photos and I think I will hang my cross collection in there on the opposite wall. We will be getting some sort of cabinet/table for under the photos (right now I am using 2 tv trays covered by an old curtain...haha...those don't get to stay much longer)

come visit us. we won't make you paint.