Dining Room Plaster Disaster

This little box is my friend this week.

Actually, two of them are. You see, I am starting on the dining room. I MUST have it done for Christmas. It was wallpapered ( like every other flipping room in this house ) and they had the trim painted puce green...so once the wallpaper came off, the wall paint under it is flaking off- who has to scrape their paint INSIDE? Seriously.

So, after that, I am patching holes. And cracks made from jacking up the center of the house again.... And big round circles made by electricians running wires through the plaster walls. I think they got carried away.

So, here is the wall I worked on tonight. 2 round holes and one rectangle where they were going to put the light switchin the WRONG place so I made them move it....but only AFTER they cut the hole in the wall....

So, I cut circles and one rectangle out of extra drywall and put it in the holes and covered it with the first coat of joint compound. Another coat will go on tomorrow and then the sanding...And then the priming...

You see, I intend to PAINT 3 of the walls and YES, wallpaper one wall. The worst one, where we took out the 2 windows and put in the paper doors. That wall is in tough shape and I just don't have the patience to sand it all down...AND I fell in love with this wallpaper AND it will be $100 for JUST ONE WALL ...My decorating plans are always made on a budget, you know...

Baseboard circle hole repair


Light switch hole repair...

You can see that someone else thought the green was horrid enough to try and strip it- so they did this one foot length and gave up....

Me? I am painting it all Dover White like the rest of the house that was already painted puce green. EXCEPT the staircase and entry- which we never painted and shall remain au naturel...

I hope to have the primed wall to show you next week...

The outside painting is done ( for now...)

It has been a cold rainy fall here...and so the scaffold has come down. We have finished with the main structure. The south side still needs some trim colors ( mostly burgundy and green) added, but that will wait for Spring 2010. We are moving on to the inside. This weekend, Ross moved our dryer, so we can make progress on the laundry room/my office. And I primed all the dining room furniture white and ordered the wallpaper for one wall. Christmas dinner will need to happen in the dining room and we would like it done for the holidays. With me back in school full-time and working 2 part-time jobs, and Ross working his 2 jobs, time is hard to come by. But we have not given up, never fear.

Here is the south side before...when we first got the house, before we cut away all the scrub trees and tore off the addition....

And here is what the front looked like then....

This burning bush is on the south side of our yard.

I LOVE these in the fall.

And this big tree is one of 3 in front of the house...

This is the front of the house today....



And this is the south side.



Watch for a laundry room and dining room update soon!

And tell us about YOUR projects...we love to hear how they are going too...

Homecoming Beauty

Saturday morning started early at a cross country meet...Keighley ( lil sis) is out for the season with a stress fracture...and an MRI on Monday for more info...she passed time reading while her sister ran...and then it was off to Indulgence Salon for the updo and home for nails, makeup, etc.... and then the arrival of her Prince Jake....Haleigh and Jake all smiles before leaving for dinner....

Here's Kee reading while waiting for her duty of timing...

Sunday afternoon found me painting trim colors on the last part of the house...Rosss aid in a couple weeks it will be cold and the paint brushes will be put away for the year...at least for the outside...but it was almost 80 today in the sun...

Almost done exterior....

Ross has been diligently working every night on getting the rest of the house painted while I have been busy writing papers for class and getting stuff ready for the big Junk Bonanza show I did ( see my other blog for info on that.) But here is how the south side looks today ( rainy). He's got the yellow double coated...just white and trim left.

And hopefully Sunday, the rain will stop and I'll get up back up on the scaffold and finish the trim and start to catch up to him....
And then, we'll both relax in our hottub ( seen here next to our unpainted garage) which has been patiently waiting for us to hook it up and stain it since our move last year....

Ahhh...

We interrupt this project for some cleaning and canning...

Yup, I've been off the ladder, working on some other stuff.

Like canning tomatoes. And salsa. And spaghetti sauce. And pizza sauce. And chili sauce...well, you get the picture. I have my own tomato patch and we eat them raw too. Don't think I can everything. And my Aunt Pam, who has been sick, bless her heart, gave me 2 - 5 gallon buckets of tomatoes. Can't let those go to waste. So, I'm running the canner at full speed. Getting the cupboards full for winter. You see, you can take the girl off the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the girl :)

Tomatoes from my garden waiting.... the BEST kind...grown 50 feet from my back door and the only thing poured or sprayed on them is RAIN. No chemicals or sprays...no long truck ride from Mexico...
Besides canning, it was time to put some order into this broom closet. I put up the brackets, cut and painted a shelf and hung the hooks. Now they all have a place and don't fall out at me...

And, here is where we are on the house- back side about 1/2 painted as of tonight!



To see the back before the painting, addition removal and patio, look at the before pictures outside. You can find them organized on the right of the blog.

Look how far we've come!

The painting continues...and as we put 3 coats on everything (1 coat primer, 2 coats paint), I am understanding why the estimate to paint it 5 colors was over $20,000. The trim especially takes time...But often for inspiration, I find it motivating to look at how far we have come...and maybe you would too. So here's the NE side when we bought it last Spring...the snow kinda camoflauges the peely paint...

Here is the front AFTER I cut down all the overgrown bushes and the holes in the siding were repaired and all critters relocated....
Here is the NE side as it looked last evening...new roof, front plants in, porch painted and NE side almost done...just the scaffolding remains in the way back for me to paint the Sun-Dried Tomato color on the trim piece under the eaves....the final coat goes on there today!

another look....

The work continues...but we are living too. So work, family vacations and birthday parties ( James will be 2 !) take precedence....

Takinga break

We took a break from painting the house to go on a family vacation to Florida. It was super hot...fun to visit, but happy to be home in Iowa again.

Ross and I at Whiskey Joe's in Tampa

Haleigh & Keighley in Tampa


Ross under the beach umbrella at Clearwater Beach

me and Ross again

Ross and Keighley on a jetski in Tampa Bay

Haleigh & Keighley in the pool at our hotel

me and Keighley in Tampa Bay

Haleigh & Keighley in Tampa Bay

And now...back to work....