New and improved dining room!

I promise, I haven't forgotten to post "after" shots of the house. The painting is all finished up and we are slowly putting things in their places. I WILL post pictures of everything when I get it just right! I'm working on a few projects and I hope to get a lot accomplished this weekend since the weather is going to be so nice. But for now, I'm going to show you the progress in the dining room. It's not completely finished, but it's put together enough that you can get the idea...and I was too excited about it not to share! If you recall, from my previous post with all the "before" pictures...this is what the dining room used to look like:

Soooo boring! I just didn't know what to do in here and I just tried to ignore it! I'm so happy I got rid of that mirror! I don't know what I was thinking!

This has now turned into this:

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My apologies for the iPhone picture, but I told you I was too excited! So, like I said, it's not completely finished. The pillow isn't staying there. That pillow is off my bed but I was trying the black and white out to make sure I still wanted the black and white pillow I have my eye on at Etsy. And I'm not sure if the stuff on the buffet is going to stay there or if I'm going to replace it with something else. I even added something else to it right before bed last night...I kept walking up to the room and staring at it because I was so proud of it...and when I put the new thing on there, I squealed and told David that he HAD to come check it out! And I still need to get something for the table. I'm thinking about a runner just like the one I have on the buffet and a centerpiece of some kind.

Oh! And that buffet used to look like this...

Do you remember my $50 consignment store find!?! I don't have all the knobs for it yet because I'm still deciding on which ones I should use, but you get the idea. I'll do a better before and after shot of this later as well.

March Madness

This weekend definitely felt like madness! We were crazy busy the entire time and now it's Monday and I'm exhausted!

Round 2 of the NCAA basketball tournament was played right here in Tulsa and I was lucky enough to win some pretty good tickets for Friday night's session 2 games.

It was a pretty fun date night for the 2 of us.

Saturday was full of errands and our nephew's soccer game. And then we went to a birthday party Saturday night, but of course I didn't take any pictures! I had every intention to do so, but it just didn't work out. It was a really great night full of conversation and laughter.

The house is getting finished up today (hopefully), and I'll finally be able to get everything back in order. My mind has already been going crazy with new ideas of where to put everything. I'm hoping to change it up and not put everything back where it went before we had it painted. This should be interesting!

Painting - Day #4

More progress was made yesterday!

The dining room is completely finished.

I'm so happy with the way it turned out and the color I chose.

It's hard to get a picture of the actual color because everything looks so different in person. It's almost like a slate color, if that makes any sense.
The hallway was started. I think the 2 colors blend nicely together!

The kitchen got it's first coat. It goes perfectly with the granite and the tile on the floor. I love it!

The living room got painted. And again, it's hard to capture the real color in pictures. It's getting glazed today so it will be a tad darker than this when it's finished. I'm still not sure if I want the ceiling done or not.

This is the same color that's going in the hallway, guest bathroom, and laundry room.

We're basically living out of one room in the house right now. This is David trying to watch the basketball game last night.
See the ottoman? That's been our dinner table this week!

The house is supposed to be finished today (I'm still not so sure that's going to happen), and I can't wait to put all of my stuff back out...

Painting - Day #3

There was some progress made with the painting yesterday. I at least got an idea of what it's all going to look like.

We found out that our paint crew is just Betty! She is doing the whole project alone, but for some reason, she doesn't really want us to know that. I'm sure she has a crew on some jobs, but maybe ours is small enough for her to do on her own, or maybe her crew is on another job. Who knows, but it is a lot of work for one person to do, so she is a busy little bee! She's doing a good job though!

The dining room is complete.

And she started painting the hallway next to the dining room so we can see the colors together. I really like it!
I'm so excited to take the tape off!

Most of the living room was painted. The rest will be painted today and she's supposed to start glazing it after it dries. I can't decide if the ceiling should be painted too. She suggested not to paint it, but said we can always go back after she's finished and do it if I don't like it.

The kitchen was outlined.

Painting - Day#2

When I got home from work yesterday, my little painter Betty was working her little tush off. She had completed tapping and prepping everything, the entire living room was textured and she had started going up the stairs but ran out of putty, one coat of white paint was put on the bottom of the chair rail, and she had painted a few samples of paint on the walls for us to look at. I'm glad she did that because the color I had picked out for the kitchen was not what I was expecting at all, so I had a change of plans.

Here are some pics of the house from yesterday:

Nothing really new here, just the bottom part is painted white so it's not really noticeable.

I'm going with the color on the left for the kitchen and dining room. I really, really like it. It's called Backdrop and it's like a brownish grey. I didn't want to go with full on grey because everything in my house is brown and it just wouldn't go together, and sometimes I find that all grey walls make the house feel cold and cave like. But I wanted to get away from tan everywhere, so this was a very pleasant medium.

The color on the right was my plan for the kitchen but it's too brown and would look horrible with our brown cabinets.

I just noticed that my table isn't covered up! I hope they do that today!

Just another view of the hallway going into the living room.

They are starting to paint today so I'm really anxious to get home and see it. Everything is going to look so different. I just hope I don't hate the colors! I'm always second guessing myself when it comes to this.

And...I love the fact that we hired someone to do this job instead of doing it ourselves. Just seeing all of the blue tape sent chills up my spine and flashbacks of me painting the bathroom and every room in our last house all by myself! So far everything has gone pretty smooth and looks nice. I love the fact that it's getting all done in one week. If we attempted to do this big project ourselves, it probably would have taken a month. Also, Betty has helped me with my color choices and has offered advice on what we should do. They are VERY reasonably priced, so if anyone needs a referral just let me know.

Project #1 (of many...)

I have to have something to focus on. I have to have something to plan, to look forward to, to put my energy in to. If I don't, my infertile mind goes crazy having to deal with the reality of the crap we're going through. So my understanding husband agreed to let me have the house repainted. Yes, our house is brand new...well, we've lived in it for about a year and a half now. But I've been unhappy with the paint colors the entire time. When we were building the house, I felt rushed and had no clue what I was doing. This resulted in having walls that are almost white and everything looking really bland. I find myself just sitting on the couch staring at my surroundings, trying to figure out a way to make them better. So I finally get to do something about it!

The painters are at my house as I type this! But David told me that no painting is taking place just yet. They are prepping the house today and then getting started after that.

I spent the day yesterday taking everything down off the walls and it made me excited to think that I get to start all over. After the painting is done, I get to redecorate my house and try things out in different spots and get new things (but make David think they are old things).

I took some before pictures (I cleared out the kitchen before I thought to get my camera out):

Please, please excuse the blurriness in almost every single one of these pictures...I don't know if I was just overly excited, running around taking pictures, or if I've forgotten how to take a normal picture because it's been a while (I had to remember where I put my camera!).

Everything is so brown and I'm sick of it!

This room is so boring! This is the room that actually got the ball rolling. I never really knew what to do with this room and it wasn't a big priority when we moved in because we really don't ever use it. And I HATE that mirror, so I sold it last night on craigslist and I've purchased something new. Also, the old thrift store buffet I bought for $50 is supposed to be going in this room. I have a few more changes in mind besides the new coat of paint happening this week.
That blurry image at the bottom of this pic is Brutus. He followed me around all day. I told him he was helping Momma. My sweet boy.


I wanted to have the cabinets painted too because I really love white cabinets right now. But David and the painter talked me out of it. The painter said to wait and see how I like it with a new color on the walls because it will change the look of everything.
I'm getting rid of this kitchen table and replacing the bar stools. I've purchased a new table for $40 from a garage sale and have big plans for it. I just need to find the perfect chairs to go with it now.

This is what it looked like this morning. Empty! I love the feeling of starting over!

It looks like we just moved in!




Stay tuned!

The iPad 2 is coming!

This has definitely brightened up my day a little bit! Just an hour ago, Steve Jobs introduced the new iPad 2!

Here are some some pictures from the actual announcement:

It will have a camera on the front and the back!

It's thinner than the iPhone 4!

It will come in white and black. It will also have the same prices as the previous iPad.

It's being shipped out next Friday! I'm not sure exactly what that means or when they will be available in the store, but shortly after that, right?

A new cover will also be available. The old cases made the iPad too bulky and they wanted it iPad to stay as thin as possible since they worked so hard on the design.
And get this, the new cover will attach to the iPad magnetically! So just on the front. Also, the underside of the pad cleans the screen! And...the iPad wakes up when you fold open the cover and goes to sleep when you close it...automatically!

In addition to adding iBooks, Photobooth is also a new feature...

And Facetime! You can Facetime with any other iPad 2 and iPhone 4!

iMovie is a new movie editing app that looks amazing and it's only $4.99.


So Amazing! I'm happy to annouce that I will be purchasing one as soon as they are available at my local Best Buy (I have rewards points I need to use up!)