Too much paint!

1. Our dining room is no longer pink!

We definitely have more work to do, but oh, what a difference!Hopefully we'll get the new light installed sometime next week, then we'll work on finding new sconces. But we have our dining room back! No more plastic sheeting on the table, no more furniture pushed into the living room, and no more pink! The new color is called Martinique Morn. We're pretty happy with it.


2. I still want to paint a navy/indigo blue sideboard or china cabinet for this room, but Keith thinks if I put a big blue something in here that we'll be limited to palette of blue and green for the whole room because other colors won't go. I'm not sure that I agree ... what do you think?


3. Taking down wallpaper is addictive. I am repressing the urge to get wallpaper out of ALL THE ROOMS. (Blue checked in the twins's room. Dogs in Michael's room. Yellow in the kitchen. Varied shades of pink in the bathrooms). It's near-instant gratification, second only to putting that first coat of paint on a wall. (Least satisfying, to me at least, is that coat of primer. So anti-climactic!)


4. But ... it's also a lot of work. I think we could've knocked this out in a weekend, except we're limited to working while the kids are asleep. It took us a week and a half. When it comes time to paint the kitchen, we might just hire someone else. Our kitchen is HUGE, and there are a lot of nooks and crannies to get wallpaper off/paint on. It would take us at least a month.


5. Speaking of the kitchen. We really do need to redecorate the whole thing eventually, but where do you start? Cabinets? Floor?

Probably the floor, right? It's a bit Dr. Seussical for our tastes. But more importantly, when the previous owner built it in the old garage (which is why our ktichen's so big), she didn't put down any subflooring over the concrete. Which means the kitchen floor is hard, REALLY cold in the winter, and now there's a big crack down the middle of it. But that is a really big project--and definitely not DIY. So we can't just "redo" the floor without it being a huge thing.

And yet if we start to work on other parts of the kitchen first, that floor is still going be there. In a very not-passive way.

BUT. My mother-in-law pointed out that you can pain laminate and tile ... which might be a good temporary solution. It sounds like a lot of work in its own right though ... does anyone have experience with how well painted floors hold up in high-traffic areas?


6. Anyway, when buying paint for the dining room, I brought home a few chips of deep teal. I think I'm going to pain our kitchen block teal and stain the top. Which will make our pink-and-yellow-kitchen even more colorful. ;) But happy colors for the coming winter sounds okay to me.


7. Okay, I think that's enough of that. :) Head over to Jen's for more quick takes!

Dining Room--Before

Now that I have time to do more than nurse babies and change diapers (our twins just turned nine months old!!), I've been itching to do something about our dining room. Itching. So I hope this "before" will soon be an after--or at least an "in progress."

You may recall that this room is a rather shocking shade of pink. It has a beautiful picture window--the only window that lets you see straight into the house from the road--and in the evening when we're eating dinner the pink literally glows out into the dusk. Neighbors can't help but slow down and gawk at us while they drive by.

We've had paint chips sitting on the desk for a while now, and we've decided to ask Keith's dad to bring us the wallpaper remover next time we see him. So we're hoping to get started on this very soon--if not this weekend, then the next. Ideally, I would like to have everything done by the end of September so we can have friends over for a Michaelmas goose. :)

I imagine that the layout will stay the same for now. It's very bits-and-pieces; furniture that doesn't have a home anywhere else lives in here. Someday I'd like to get a used buffet or china cabinet and refinish it. After we paint, I'm hoping to hang some sort of shelving for my teacups, and put a little more thought into what goes on the walls and where.

Keith really dislikes our chandeliers (we also have one in the living room), so we're going to be taking this one down and replacing it with a drum-shade pendant. Eventually we'll replace the sconces too, or else just get rid of them. And then there's this switch plate. 

It's pretty, but very ... feminine, for a house full of boys. ;) And it really doesn't go with the wallpaper at all ... bronze with pink?

Eventually I think we also need to do something more substantial about the windows, but I'm not sure what. We like the natural light and truthfully, I'm not that concerned about privacy since we live on a very quiet street. But they just look kind of under-dressed, don't they? Or am I overanalyzing? The curtains are from Ikea--inexpensive and very pretty.

Michael has his own little corner. :) Both chairs are cracked from adult men sitting on them, but he doesn't seem to mind!

Bedroom Tour (with a little before/after)

In the past few days I've really buckled down and tried to get the twins on a semi-consistent routine. The main goal that being their (sometimes quite short) naps overlap, at least a little. And so far it hasn't been too bad! Some successes, some failures ... but right now I have a kettle on for some chai, a slice of pear-cardamom upside-down cake awaiting the tea, and this blog post open on my computer screen. And all three boys are SLEEPING.

(I'm sure one of them will wake up before the tea is finished brewing. But that's okay! Just ten minutes is enough to make me feel a little more grounded.)

Right now Gregory sleeps in a pack'n'play in our closet. Because I am scared of what will happen if I try to put them down in the same room together. One step at a time.

It's a step above having him in a pack'n'play in our bedroom ... and two steps above him sleeping on our bed, although that's where both babies end up eventually. (They've also started falling off the edge in the wee hours of the morning. :( Time to back off on the bedsharing. Luckily our bed is less than a foot off the ground.)

Anyway. Our closet is pretty awesome. It's a walk-in with plenty of space (and a window, artfully covered by a thick blanket so that Gregory will actually sleep in there). In fact, we have a another (regular sized) closet just across from this one ... I think our bedroom has more storage space than any other room in the house.

Our bedroom was the first and biggest project we tackled in this house. It was a partially finished attic that was used as a bedroom by the previous owner, but ... it was in pretty bad shape. We finished it a week before the twins were born. (And then I couldn't sleep there for four weeks because of the c-section ... and since then the babies have shared it with us to varying degrees!)

Before

The flooring was this weird white vinyl stuff, and the wallpaper was not exactly our style. I don't know how well you can see it, but the previous owner cut individual plates out of the wallpaper and pasted them to the (also wallpapered) ceiling.

Long story short, we had a LOT of wallpaper to take down. We even bought a wall-paper remover ... we figured it was a good investment since there's wall-paper to take down in every room but the living room and the basement! (And even in the living room it looks like some previous wallpaper was painted over, so hopefully that won't become an issue.)

Removing wallpaper from the ceiling is a PAIN.

We also had to replace one of the walls (you can see the plaster in the first "before" picture), and of course paint. (So imagine me hugely pregnant wearing clothes that don't fit painting the ceiling. Or maybe don't. It's not too flattering a picture.) We also got new carpeting and were paranoid of dripping paint on it ... probably should've saved that step for last!

But the results were very worth it. I love this room; it's one of my favorite places in the house. 

Ta-da!

Doesn't the quilt complement the colors of our bedroom perfectly? It makes me happy. :) The Moroccan wedding rug that Keith's friend gave us for our wedding is at the foot of the bed, and a print given to us by friends of Mary and Joseph's wedding (left of the window). I'd like to get a side table of some sort for Keith's side of the bed, perhaps two matching ones ... we'll see! The doors on the right open to a little cupboard where I keep our sheets and a few other things. 

 The Sacred and Immaculate Heart statues on our windowsill belonged to my grandma. And the curtains in the room were made by my great-grandma Ivy, who passed away when I was 8 or 10. She traced the pattern onto the linen, embroidered the flowers, and sewed the curtains. I think she copied the flowers from an illustration in one of the Little House books. They are a bit worn in some places; I need to have them repaired soon.

Our little alcove. The windowseat opens to more storage, and the door to the left leads to a crawlspace under the eaves. I admit I am kind of terrified of the idea of the boys falling out of this window, so I never ever open it. 

Cat doorstops my husband gave me when we were dating. :) I told him a story about sleeping in a bed and breakfast when I was a very little girl. The lady who owned it had these stuffed cats that served as doorstops, and I took one to bed with me. (I also remember waking up that night to a terrifying noise; when I shook my mom awake she told me it was just Dad snoring.) These cats migrate a lot because Michael likes to come upstairs in the morning and play with them.

View from the bed. (Except normally Keith has clothes piled on top of his dresser ... sometimes up to the ceiling. I staged an intervention before taking these photos. ;) ) The alcove is to the left. Our walk-in closet is just left of the doorway, with the other closet opposite. If you look, you can see we still have that wallpaper above the stairs. 

I found you Mama!

And Gregory just now woke up! How providential. :)

Living Room Tour!

I finally had a chance today to snap some pictures of the living room. Aside from Michael's room and the kitchen, this is the room that feels the most "settled." There are still some boxes, and there are no pictures on the walls yet. But it is cozy and homelike, and my favorite place in the house to be. 

This is the little reading/knitting corner. It makes me very happy. :) Sadly only half of our books fit on that shelf. We had another that didn't survive the move (it was cheap and falling apart and we don't miss it) so we need to get another one (or two). Some books were obvious choices to put out (as Keith says, some of our books just represent who we are), and others were easy choices to banish to the basement. But there were a lot of books that were really hard to look at and say, "I'm sorry, you'll just have to live downstairs for a while." (Actually, all of these books are still upstairs, in boxes, as you will see in a moment. But still.) 

The part of the house you can see through the window is our kitchen, which has a door to the outside. Sometimes when I sit in that chair Michael goes into the kitchen, looks out the door, and shouts hi. It's a fun game. :) 

That door goes out to our deck. (Pay no attention to the toddler "cave" sitting in front of it ... ;) ) The pink curtains were left here by the previous owner. They are weirdly waterproof in texture, a lot like shower curtains actually.There is so much pink in this house, there was no way this room could escape it. 

We used our wood-burning fireplace for the first time a few days ago. Someday we want to build shelves above the mantel. (You can see the boxes of books that still live up here with us.)

The Moroccan wedding rug was a gift from one of Keith's groomsmen who spent time in the Peace Corps; I'm so glad we finally have a place to put it, although I worry a bit about whether it should be in such a high-traffic area. And the couches were given to us by a family friend. A huge step up from Ikea! :) We love them. Although we will need to invest in some slip covers as soon as possible ... white upholstery does NOT mix well with little boys, especially ones who like to shake out the contents of their cups when their mamas aren't looking. 

The view out our window. Isn't it lovely? This room gets a lot of light because the windows are so big. 

The last shot is kind of fuzzy. To the left of the couch is the hallway that leads to our front door. On the right you can catch a glimpse of our (very pink plaid-wallpapered) dining room.

And that is our living room so far!

We are here.

Our furniture is here. (Most of) our stuff is here. The internet is here. Our new washing machine is here (but no drier).

I wouldn't say the moving process is entirely over, but this is where we are.

Michael knows his way around, is now proficient at climbing steps (and getting better at coming down them), and usually loves his new room, though not napping in it. The kitchen is almost entirely unpacked, as are our bedrooms. The living room and dining room are still in pretty severe disarray.

Yesterday Michael kicked/threw a soccer ball around the driveway, and we discovered a gravestone in the back yard. (I guess the previous owner didn't know about it??)

Our first real dinner, cooked by me last night, was salad and pumpkin mac-n-cheese. The perfect meal for early autumn!

Aaaaand I think Michael is now throwing his snack on the floor in the next room, if his repeated exclamations of "throw!" mean anything, so I will finish typing and leave you with a few pictures.

Helping Papa put together the bed.

Matthias the Squirrel

Housewarming gift from a friend

House and Home

Today, we bought a house.

The past week or so has been a little rough around here. There was a kink in the mortgage process and things were a little uncertain for four or five days. Which was really, really hard. I had started packing and then stopped because I just couldn't. I couldn't pack away the home we had when the home we hoped for might not happen. I've written about disappointment in house-hunting before, but when you are literally a week away from closing and something comes up? Ugh. I shed some tears.

But we got through it, and today's the day we signed the final papers. Now our bookshelves are slowly emptying (so many books!), I am gathering more boxes, and we may move as soon as this weekend.

(This is also why it's been a bit silent around here. First I was discouraged, then I was busy.)

We're gonna need a lot more boxes for all those books!

We had our walk-through for the new house yesterday. I hadn't been in it for more than a month. It's a little weird, the way "home" is building up around this place and yet ... "home" is still this apartment. Keith and I have lived here since getting married; Michael's been here his whole life. It will be weird to see our furniture in another place, along with all our other things, because they feel like they belong here.

I wanted to take pictures of all the rooms before packing, but instead found myself capturing corners, little places and gatherings of the things that hold meaning for our family. The owl cookie jar, a gift Keith gave me last birthday, sitting next to the plants on the kitchen counter; the kitchen Madonna standing amidst the teacups on the shelf above the sink; a sunny corner of our back porch where the rosemary plant sits by the fire escape.

I feel that being a homemaker can be such a challenge. We are called to keep our eyes on the next life, and yet as homemakers--wives and mothers--we are called to make that vision present in this life for our families, and we do that using tangible things. A home is so much more than the material, but the material matters. Material things communicate and make possible the rhythm of our life.

I know how we live here. I don't know what that looks like for our new home yet. So while I can picture cooking in the kitchen or the boys playing in the backyard, I still have trouble picturing the material aspects of "home" in the new house--our couches, my teacup collection, the kitchen Madonna near the sink. But I know that when we move and the Madonna is in her place, and owl cookie jar somewhere on the counter, they will soon feel like they belong there; that "home" will continue to spread over this house as it has already begun, and then slowly grow into it, sinking down roots, accumulating meaning and stories and love.

Soon Michael will wake up and we'll head over to the new place to do some cleaning, so maybe I will have pictures for you soon. :) In the meantime, have a Michael:

Ours

Oh look, I'm posting again! I feel a little bit like a blabber-mouth--ten posts in ten days!!

I was reading Bits & Pieces at Like Mother, Like Daughter and this bit really spoke to me:

We home-makers have to train our eye. Our home needs to be more than decorated. We can't really just aspire to decoration and leave it at that. Even the lowliest abode calls out to be made beautiful according to the tastes of the denizens. (Remember Ma's china shepherdess?) But that's not as easy as it sounds! I've found that I've had to study hard to know what our taste really is, and then work hard to try to make it come true within our means. Often my choices have been off the mark, but mistakes are part of the journey. I just keep reading books, magazines, and sites, trying to look past what is merely fashionable (or marketable) to what truly expresses my desire to bring humble beauty into our lives. 

This week I discovered Spoonflower and have been drooling over fabric for the twins' nursery. Serious nesting mode happening over here. I know myself well enough to know that, between moving and Michael and, well, my habits of procrastination, I will never quite create the picture-perfect nursery in my head.

But in general, what with house-hunting and new babies on the way, I've been thinking a lot lately about feathering my nest and making things pretty. One house in particular that we've looked at keeps popping up in my head, and I find myself redecorating it in my mind. (And believe me, it really needs redecoration!) This morning, while Michael and Keith both napped, I was making my coffee and looking at the plants on my kitchen counter.

I kill plants with good intentions; Keith loves them, and they love him back. But there are only so many windows in this apartment where they can survive and thrive. One of these is in the kitchen. I have made Keith promise that there will be no plants on surfaces for food preparation in our new home. I don't like having to clean up dirt before cooking food.

Anyway, I was looking at those plants and suddenly my whole vision of our (potential) new living room shifted. There would be plants. In every window. I hadn't even thought of it, because left to my own devices, they wouldn't be there. (I had a rose plant in my apartment when I lived on my own; that's it.) Lovely floral curtains, cushions on the couches, an upright piano--yes, these would all be in my home.

But in our home, there are plants. Always. Without them, a place would not be ours, would not be home.

And that thought makes me happy.