The First Bedroom Nears Completion!

Here is how progress has been made!

In the beginning there was a very tired room.  It was dirty too.  My favorite: the haunted house curtains hanging in the window!  LOVE them!!

A large portion of the plaster from the ceiling had succumbed to the forces of gravity.  We knew we needed to insulate and run new wiring.  So we thanked gravity for helping us get a head start on the destruction process.

We hammered and got all dirty.

We updated the electrical.

 We put in insulation and energy efficient windows.

Then we put up sheet rock and mudded and taped and mudded and taped and mudded and taped and did a whole bunch of sanding in between.  And we got all dirty.

Then we primed and painted and wall papered!

Wallpaper detail with a funky cast of color.

Painted wall with the great antique bed find (painted a smoky purple.  I will probably do a black glaze on it when its done getting painted)

Still have a corner to take care of.  We need to put in the duct work for a vacume system and finish tying in the sheet rock with the chimney.

We will be putting crown molding at the top of the walls.  We will be putting picture rail molding on where the  green meets the cream color.  The moldings will be stained in the same color as the other mill work in the room and house.

Here is another project, but it also has a story.  The same day that I went antiquing and found the bed for 10 bucks, Gracie Anne found this lovely framed print.  

Gracie loves thumbing through pictures in our church Children's Songbook.  There are little pictures in there with Mary and baby Jesus and the stable with little lambs.  Her favorite song for quite a while has been, Mary Had a Little Lamb.  She would run up to me with her song book pointing to Mary and exclaiming, "Look, Mommy, its Mary had a little lamb!"  

Not too long after we entered the antique store Gracie Anne had found this... in the dark!  We had a bad storm go through the night before and a lot of power was still out.  That sure didn't stop us from our adventure!  We had flashlights!

When Gracie saw this she ran up to me.  Pulling on my arm she was exclaiming, "Mommy!  I found Mary had a Little Lamb."  So what could I do?  I had to buy it!  I was already married to it so the best I could negotiate was from 15 bucks down to 11.  I do have to say, she does have very good taste for art!

I don't like the frame AT ALL!

But found this and negotiated $3.

My Amish neighbor in MO is cutting some glass to go into this.  I need to cut a matte and I will  need to do some chip repair on the old frame.  After that I will paint it.  

 Finally, my rocking chair.  It will go in this room with some diy shelving for picture books.   My Amish neighbor, Joe, made this for me when I was expecting Gracie.  We had to start from scratch with the baby necessities since we got rid of everything after Avery!  This is such a comfy rocker.  I do want to finish it though.  Not sure if I should stain it or paint it.  It definitely will get some cushions!  Any ideas?

I still need to scrub, stain and seal the floor.  We still have some more big projects in this room, but in a week and a half, we've gone from sheet rock to paint and wallpaper in the 'south wing!'  In the same week and a half, we've gotten the west wing from sheet rock to this point:

More to come on the 'west wing!'

Windows to the World!!

This old lady of a house was in desperate need of new windows.  Many had cracks, several wouldn't slide up and down, some were falling out of their frames... OK bunches were, and to protect ourselves from the winter, we had to cover them with a pretty thick plastic.  Imagine our surprise when the new windows arrived and were installed and we could actually see outside!!!  Which created another project - window coverings!

All of the windows made a huge impact - efficiency wise, and visually.  However, the kitchen window was a very exciting moment.  We decided to go with a much larger picture window for this particular window.  With some of the big changes we are making in the layout of the kitchen we really  need to be getting natural lighting wherever we can get it from.  

Here is the hole they made for this bad boy!

 Window is in!

Enjoying the view!

This is a very serious game!

After the windows were installed, which happened within a day and a half, the tedious work of wrapping the old trim work began.  It took several days to finish, but as you can see it has made a monstrous difference to the exterior of the house!

Before

After!

Before

After!