Before & After

My goal this week was to get the entire carpeted area of the house painted before we get our new carpeting installed. Last night I finished up! The only rooms left to paint upstairs are the two bathrooms and most of the kitchen. Oh, and the foyer, but we have a friend whose dad is going to paint that for me. (Thanks, Jorge!)

Some of these pictures are ones I've posted before, but I wanted to have a before and after comparison, too.

Before - pinkish-brown and dark pinkish-brown.

Before

After!

After!

After!

I don't have a picture of Joe's room "before", but it was a nauseating green. The girls' room was an unattractive violent blue:

Selah and Lauryn's room - pale gray on three walls, pink on the fourth.

Joe's room - dark gray on three walls, blue on the fourth.

Our bedroom, before:

And after:

The cushion against the green wall is what I'm going to use for a headboard. Our bed doesn't have one, so I plan to hang the cushion up along with a low shelf to make a backdrop of sorts.

Spackle, Sand, Paint, Repeat!

I suppose it goes without saying that the last few days have been the busiest I can pretty much ever remember being! Friday was the day we closed on the house, and we got to work right away readying our home for our arrival.

This is the living room area - light and dark gray, with dark blue below the chair rail. Joe and Kaity have been a tremendous help to me, taking care of the detail work so I can focus on painting. They have taken off and replaced outlet covers and light switch plates, cleaned up, and basically done anything I needed them to do! Kaity has entertained Lauryn and they've all played well (and not so well) with one another.

Here's another perspective on the living/dining area. You can really see the contrast in the colors from this angle.

Joe's room, 100% finished! Dark gray, with one blue wall.

Kaity entertained her littlest sister while I painted the girls' room. Their room is light gray, and one wall will be pink.

Selah borrowed the camera and took some pictures of us working. I will spare you the picture she took of her mother. Jeff was in the middle of cleaning out the fridge and putting it back together. By the way, we ate our first meal together in our new home tonight! Spaghetti, naturally.

Behind the fridge there is the color the kitchen will be. I just painted that part to keep from having to move the refrigerator twice!

This is another shot of the girls' room. I got two coats of the gray paint on the walls, so all that's left there is the cutting in and the pink wall.

Also, we're hoping to have the carpet replaced before Moving Day, but I'm not sure we'll make it. The whole process has been a lot of hard work, but it's a joy to do it since it means we have a lovely new home!

God has been gracious and we are overwhelmed at what He has provided.

Just One More Thing

I promise, this is the last "project post" for a while ... but I had to share just one more set of projects with y'all.

For Joe's room and for Lauryn and Selah's room.

I needed a scripture for the girls' room, and I have the feeling this verse will be perfect for them both! It's from Proverbs 31.

This is a map of southern Georgia (Waycross is right in the middle!) and part of northern Florida (Fernandina Beach is on the lower right corner!). I painted the words on the glass of the frame, so if I ever want to change it from this Tolkien quote, I can.

After living with the brown for about ten minutes, I decided I did indeed want to paint the frame, and Cheryl and I decided on navy blue (it's the same color I used for "wander".)

And now, here is Lauryn's latest trick, which I call "smushy face". She scrunches up her eyes and face and it's completely adorable. I couldn't quite capture her all scrunched up, but you get the idea.

She loves cantaloupe and watermelon! Her whole face was sticky with it.

Also, we close on the new house on Friday, and we are beyond thrilled to be able to move into our new home soon! Lots and lots going on right now!

Aaand More Projects!

I have been busy with the paintbrush again this week! Over the last two days, I made two more plaques to hang in the kids' rooms: one for Kaity's room and one for Joe's.

This is Kaity's "life verse". 1 Timothy 4:12

I think this verse is perfect for our Joe. Joshua 1:9

Projects For Our New Nest

I have another new project in the books! Years ago, Jeff's aunt Denise gave us a church-shaped bird house. I thought it would be perfect to use in our little chickadees' room. A fresh coat of paint and a little creativity were all it needed.

The white-looking parts are actually pale pink. 

I made the flowers by stamping the cut end of an okra pod into paint. Did I mention I put up some fresh-picked okra in the freezer yesterday?

After I painted their names Cheryl and I both thought it needed a little something more, so I added a flower.

Last week I made this for the house:

The print is one I picked up at a VW show a few years ago. I've just never done anything with it until now! The frame is another find from Ken's shop. I cleaned it up and sanded it, then used black spray paint on it. I hand-painted the red in to give it a touch of color. I'm not sure where we'll hang this one - it's too cute for the garage!

A Sneak Peek

Our closing is tentatively scheduled to happen in a couple of weeks, so until then I'm going to go ahead and post these "before" pictures. I'm too excited to wait!

The house has a typical split-level foyer - upstairs is the main living space: three bedroom, two bath, kitchen, living room, etc. Downstairs is a finished basement with the laundry room, school room, play room, one bedroom and one bath, plus garage and utility room.

Living room/dining room combination. The kitchen is on the left; a fireplace is on the right.

Eat-in kitchen. It's bigger than it looks since the countertops are behind the camera view.

Master bedroom and bathroom.

One of the kids' bedrooms. The little girls will share, Joe will have his own, and Kaity will be  downstairs with her own bathroom!

The schoolroom and playroom! Be still my heart.

Kaity's room!

Good Times

The kids are having the best time EVER living with Nannie and Papa. There's plenty of room outside to run around and be as loud as their little hearts desire! They have colored with sidewalk chalk all over the driveway and carport. They have spent hours in the playhouse, on the slide, and on the swings. They have fed peppermints to the miniature horse (Shorty), leftovers to the cats, and bread to the peacocks. They have pulled weeds, done the weed-eating, picked up sticks, and helped with various other yard chores. One development the kids have really enjoyed is that since we decided to go ahead and get internet while we're here ... they've taught Nannie how to play on the Wii! Nannie and Papa have watched movies and television shows with us (including Doctor Who!), and Nannie's even using my Nook to read a book to Papa.

Lauryn has not done any of that, but she knows one thing: Nannie and Papa's house has the coolest toys!

This stepstool is her favorite! She pushes it all over the kitchen. When she sits in it, she kicks her legs like crazy!

Nannie also has lots of cabinets full of fun toys to play with!

They make noise when you bang them together! Oh, the joy!

Gettin' Crafty!

During our time with Jeff's parents, I've been determined, in addition to the rest of life happening, to get some craft projects done and ready for our new house. Today I worked on something I've wanted to do for a long time: getting creative with maps! I had an atlas to use, but it wasn't working quite like I envisioned. Thankfully, Cheryl dug out two old maps of Georgia that worked perfectly! 

I found some boards in Ken's shop that used to be a chair rail/border in Kaity's nursery once upon a time. Cheryl had painted the animals on them to match the animals in the nursery bedding. I decided to preserve her paintings, so I only painted on these on the flip side.

I cut strips from the map surrounding Augusta (the area where Jeff and I lived when we were first married), Atlanta (the area where Jeff was born), and Athens (the area where we currently live).

In the blue space, I painted some song lyrics ... I bet you can guess which one!

We love us some Ray Charles!

I had so much fun working on my little project that I decided to create another one! This is a gift for a sweet family who has obeyed God's call to move their ministry from one side of Georgia to the other. I cut the map on a diagonal from their former hometown to their new home.

Not a great picture, but the paint is semi-gloss so it doesn't photograph very well. The writing is a sage green.