decorating is hard.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

I started shopping for the dining room, and let me just say - it's hard. I'm so worried things won't look right together. I want everything to "match" but not look matchy-matchy..... I guess I just want flow. I know I'm probably just freaking out because I've never really done this before and haven't really started yet. The thing is, is that most of what I want to buy to decorate isn't available in town, so that means online shopping and I just don't want to deal with returning things online. On a lighter note, I've bough two things for the dining room and some book-ins for the living room. :)

I'm going to back in Indiana next weekend, and I'm hoping to hit up some stores. We will just have to see if there is time.

abe and me time

Sunday, August 15, 2010

It's just been Abe and I this weekend since Mike was out of town, and I can tell you one thing. We BOTH missed him. In the morning, when I went to get Abe out of his kennel, he ran upstairs, because he knows there are two of us. He just keeps looking for him. We will definitely be happy once Mike returns this evening.

It was a lot harder to have my relaxing sewing weekend this time. I've never had one with a puppy.... It's hard to tell Abe that I just want to sew right not and not play fetch. He just sat next to my chair and whined over and over. I really felt bad, so I set the timer and sewed for 30 minutes and then played for 10-15 minutes. Well, this makes my purse making last for Saturday AND Sunday. I was not planning for that.....but I couldn't just let him sit there; it wasn't fair.  It was funny this afternoon, I couldn't figure out what he wanted; didn't have to go potty, just was fed, not really into fetch. So I went and sat on the couch, and you want to know what Abe did - he jumped up and fell immediately asleep on me. He's used to laying on one of us. :) So spoiled, just like a tired kid needing a nap; He is truly our baby.

I did end up getting a purse made for myself in the end and a present for someone. So it was still productive.  Since I don't have my sewing room set up yet, I took over the dining room. It was actually really nice. I wish I had a big table for my sewing room now. I loved having all that work space.
Loved having my four stations -sewing, serging, pressing and cutting.


pretty fabrics

This is just the second purse I've made that has coordinating fabrics instead of just one. What do you think?
I'm liking the change. I can't wait to carry it! :)

sewing - i miss you!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

I have something to tell you all and it's not good.....I haven't sewn since before Christmas. GASP!

I know, I hate it.

I can understand not sewing from January to maybe April, because of the whole moving 3 hours away/buying a house thing. But there really isn't a good reason for not now. I don't have my sewing room set up yet and that's probably why it's not in use. It just wasn't anything that needed to be unpacked and with every bedroom needing updating, I felt silly unpacking everything and then just rotating rooms when one is completed. But now since it's been so long I feel that it just needs to be unpacked or I'll never use it until the house is done, which is expected to be Summer 2025. :)

Since Mike is going to be out of town this weekend, my plan is to take over my newly finished dining room and SEW! I know I could do this any other weekend while he's here, he would have no problem with it at all, but I feel better doing it while he's gone. I won't be making myself proper dinners that need a dining table this weekend, just soup.

I'm going to definitely make myself a new purse. I've needed wanted a new purse since December. I bought some fabric for myself when I bought for Christmas presents and it's still in the box. :(

I just want to get back in my groove so to speak. I have other projects I want to start: Christmas tree skirts, stockings, that dang quilt I've been talking about for 6 months, etc. I also want to try my hand at baby clothes. Since I have my serger now and know how to use it, I want to make presents for people. There are a couple of girls at work that are pregnant and I think it would be cute to make them part of there present. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

chimney work

Sunday, August 8, 2010

A couple weeks ago we had our chimney worked on. It was something we knew had to be fixed when we bought the place and it was the main thing the previous owner told us he was going to fix before he sold the house to us. Well, we all know how that story went, the owner did not hold up his end of the deal.

Sadly, I don't have any before shots of the chimney. The workers kind of surprised us with when they would start working on it. They just called Mike one morning and said they finished a job early and asked if they could start on our a week early. Mike said 'of course', and I found out when I came home for lunch one day. But to give you a visual, the top bricks of the chimney weren't connected anymore. They were just laying up there; all the mortar was gone.

So the plan was to remove the bricks down to the roof line and rebuild. They would also grind away the mortar throughout the entire chimney and re-mortar so it all looks uniform.


showing how much they ground out.
bricks removed.



finished!
It took about a week, and was pretty painless for us (except in the checkbook!). We really like how it turned out. It was a little nerve racking doing our first expensive thing to the house, but I'm sure the next ones with will be easier. :)

dining room

Saturday, August 7, 2010

before....
after!
before....
after!
before....
after!
Here is the dining room all painted! I'm so glad we decided to tint the blue a little darker. I would not of been completely happy with the lighter blue that was the first coat of paint.

I seriously can't believe the change. That mustard/mcdonalds yellow was so bad. And let's not forget the fruit wallpaper border with clashing floral curtains. :)

The only thing left to do is refinish the floors and add shoe molding to the bottom of the baseboard. Well, and of course decorate! I told Mike last night that it's time to start shopping for some art/pictures and things to go in the built ins. He hates nic-nacs, so this is definitely going to be a challenge to find things that we both like. I don't want to fill them to the brim with crap, but I don't want them to look bare and empty.

what i'm doing today

Sunday, August 1, 2010

The only thing I told myself I have to accomplish today is painting the second and final dining room built in.

So I'm making it look like this......


and I started with that.


The thing that keeps me going is knowing the next step is decorating! I can't wait. :)
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