Hola February

I have really been looking forward to my February goals. I needed a change up from organizing and picking through stuff and trashing stuff and sending stuff to Goodwill... I need a pretty project.

So here it is my tiny half bath on the bottom floor of our house. It is most commonly used by my kids. Next would be guests. Last would be AB and I. I want something pretty and elegant, a bit edgey and fun.

I never used to have a hard time picking paint colors, but I have seriously been all over the map with this room. Partly because I want a unified theme for the entire first floor. Specifically the office, foyer, dining room and half bath. I have lots of two toned woods, grey carpets that will hopefully see the curb this year in favor of hardwood and clayish, terra cotta-ish colored tile.

And this green foyer. The green foyer is going bye bye. I can't coordinate anything with it. It's killing me.

February is a short month, so I can tackle the half bath and get a start on my redecorate the front first level of the house.

I started with some brown/deep purple/plum colors. I want something a bit dramatic and am not overly concerned with making the space appear small. It is a half bathroom after all, it is never going to appear spacious.




The main color I was targeting was the one next to the mirror. (Don't you love the wooden mirror? I do.)

I went a tone or two softer to test because so many people said, "you can't go that dark in that room".

And well... maybe they were right. But I also couldn't do the mauve.

Back to square one.

One evening of after Christmas shopping I came across these iris paintings on a great clearance. And I love irises. Reminds me of living in Boulder and the iris field on Broadway as well as my wedding flower.

See in addition to the dark color and the mauve, I had also picked out an "acorn spice" color. When we put it on the wall we said, "ewww, breastfed baby poop". (The mustard on the right by the window. Yes, I will be replacing the valence.)

Then I put the picture up.


And suddenly the breastfed baby poop color wasn't so bad. The gold on the frame really popped!

But I wanted to play with the color a bit more, I am not a fan of yellows that much... I was attracted to the color because of the name... acorn spice.

I went and bought a few more colors. Four more to be precise. And this is the collection so far.

See the color at the top on the right? Loving that for the bathroom. Just enough orange and gold to bring out the gold on the frame. On photo #2 it is the color to the left of the picture.

See the brick color on the bottom? Loving that for my foyer. AB has issued a "we'll see about that" decree. (He still loves the green.)

So President's Day - a forced day off since the kids' school is closed - I hope to paint the bathroom. Then we will need new rugs, a new valence and I would like some decorative element to go on the little cabinet I have in there that holds the TP and all that stuff.

I had kind of hoped to piggy back on another goal this month. But it is seeming short enough as is. My March goal I am hoping to devote to backing my quilt and quilting it for spring use in the bedroom.

Help?

I need help with one of my January goals. It’s the paint colors one.

AB and I went bold and had no problems selecting colors in our other house. Unfortunately I am having a serious problem with selecting colors in our new house. The kids’ rooms, no problem. Our entryway? Gah.

I have been playing with the behr.com site, but my biggest issue there it seems is that I cannot share with you the colors I have selected. No copy and paste allowed.

Ok, so my foyer area is painted “Egyptian Nile”, it is a deep green. I liked it at the time, but have to admit it isn’t sticking with me. And there is some part of me that wants to scrap that color altogether so that my palatte can start new. Because trying to coordinate all my other adjoining areas with Egyptian Nile is giving me a headache. The Egyptian Nile is the reason I cannot commit to anything. About the only coordinating color I can come up with is shades of grey and frankly, grey isn’t tripping my trigger.

Oh yes, this blog was going to be about selecting colors for my half bath.

I need inspiration! I want something slightly funky, slightly sophisticated, not stuffy, a bit edgy and that will match ANYTHING I decide to do to the foyer/office/dining room.

Make sense?

Small half bath with a beautiful deep mahogany framed mirror (that I love) and white white toilet and pedestal sink, mirror finish stainless fixtures. The lights are good too. Floor is a clayish terra cotta colored 18” tile.

Go forth and bring back ideas!

Skadi's new bedroom

She wanted "pink and pink and pink and pink and blue". We compromised with pink and pink and green and green and periwinkle.

AB thought he was going to lose it doing the pink. The addition of the green provided a nice balance though.

He kept asking while painting why we didn't do "tester quarts". Umm because was there going to be ANY pink that was suitable??

Skadi however, loves her princess room.



Once finished she immediately had to get on her Cinderella garb and play.

She CAN be a total sweetheart at times.

This should be proof and I will come back here and remind myself how sweet she can be.

My week

Thanksgiving is my week. After about my first year at the lab I started saving my personal holidays to use during Thanksgiving, whereby I could then supplement these two days with 8 hours of vacation time and wa-la... a full week off with minimal expense on my part.

Thanksgiving is my second favorite holiday of the year and one that I really enjoy prepping for. I remember back to 1st or 2nd grade when the neighborhood boys came to get me for sledding one Thanksgiving day and I declined the offer in favor of cooking with my mom.

I enjoy puttering about the house, working on small projects, improving little things, thinking about Christmas presents and prepping for the big meal. Or little meal as the case may be. We always cook more food than we can possibly eat because it is thoroughly impossible to make a traditional Thanksgiving meal for just a few people.

This time around I hadn't taken much time to plan for my week. Many factors playing into this... first the plan to host Thanksgiving for my mom and stepdad and then that not working out. The second is work. I have never been so busy and overwhelmed with work. Third is the kids, they keep me hopping. Fourth is that this year is just moving by so quickly that I am still (despite the fridge full of groceries) having trouble believing that Thanksgiving is really here.

I did think ahead enough when we found out my family wouldn't be visiting to declare it a good time to paint Skadi's room. So we are tackling that. (Pink, green and periwinkle with flowers. The pink is done.)

Aside from that the plans are:
-Make jerky (aka pemmican) with Leif (done and it turned out superbly).
-Clean the fridge (done)
-Dermatologist appt (done and I have the wounds to prove it)
-Cook/bake (will start with cranberry zin sauce tomorrow)
-Entertain children for six days straight.
-Check work e-mail multiple times a day (ongoing)
-Keep checking my phone for signs of work distress (ongoing)
-Empty (and quit paying for) the storage unit (still need to inform AB of this one).
-Christmas shopping started and/or done (good start)
-Photo for the Christmas card (working on tomorrow)
-Abandon town for the snowy hills this weekend for a day of sledding/scouting ski areas/retreating to nature.

You will notice a number of different things on this list from previous years. The work aspect... cannot seem to abandon it all this year. And the Christmas shopping (normally nearly finished by now) and the photo (normally with cards in hand at this point). Also there are fewer projects.

This year there is more simple struggle to stay on top of what is at hand as opposed to undertaking new things.

Leif's bedroom

So there is still a fair amount that I want to do. He needs another light in there because the black ceiling paint soaks up the light something fierce. The glow in the dark stars are missing off the ceiling still. And he needs some new furniture - a goal for the coming year to get him a great little loft bedroom set.


But since those things (except the stars and the light) are likely to take awhile, I will post the pictures of where we stand now.

The Foyer

So I have decided to get back to my one room a month routine. One month I will tackle putting together, organizing and setting up a room. I keep telling myself this will take forever and I would like to be "in" the house, fully IN our new house earlier. But it's not going to happen. It's just not a logical approach (yes, I am part Vulcan apparently... and if you haven't seen Star Trek, go see it. Now.). The one room a month IS logical and will get me further on my path to being IN the house and also it engages AB better because he knows whiat the priority for the month is.

The remainder of May (since I just started this) and all of June is the foyer. It doesn't sound like a lot, it isn't a huge area, but it is the first area people see when they walk in my house. And I have ideas and plans to put into motion.

The post from a few weeks ago is where I started.

Here it is during the Memorial Day weekend paint-fest:



Skadi loved painting and she was terribly helpful. When she decided she was done she had two green feet - and I had more paint on me than she had on her favorite "Icky Mouse" pajamas.

And here is where it stands now:

Favorite black and white pictures are up.

I have a great mirror to hang perpindicular to the pictures, but AB lifted it up, chastized me a little for thinking I was going to use nails and suggested he was going to need anchors and screws (same as in the other house I guess) to mount it and he didn't have time today. So the next task is to hang the mirror.

Next task after that is the touch up stuff. I have a lot of green edges to touch up.

And white on the ceiling... somehow.... somewhere I will find a white that matches. Yes, I am a klutz with the paint and am apparently no longer allowed to tape the ceiling... or paint near the ceiling.

I also want a bench. A nice bench to put under the photos. I had wanted a bench and coat hanging thing, but we don't use the front entrance to go in and out and we have a coat closet *right* there. So instead I will get a bench.

And maybe a side table to put across the arch in the photo above by the coat closet?

Yes, with it being summer and all, it WILL take me all of June to do this list.

Month of July is Leif's Star Wars themed room. Goal is to have THAT done before his birthday on July 29th.

Upcoming Holiday Weekend

I am really looking forward to the coming Memorial Day weekend. Since we have yet to sell our house, we will be hanging out here. One of the downsides to listing a home For Sale By Owner. If someone wants to see it, you are on the hook to show it. And Open Houses? That’s up to you. The good thing though is that we can Open House it every weekend if we want to. Try and get your real estate agent to do that.

Not that I have anything against real estate agents mind you. My mother in law was one for a long time and we adored our real estate agents who we bought our house with… just wish their commission and brokerage fees were a little less than $13K… that’s a lot of money and so far, worth our time to put into selling it ourselves. We don’t get the traffic that homes on the market with an agent do, it just requires more diligence on our part.

Since we will have a three day weekend without houseguests and with no major plans other than swim lessons, a playdate, a pedicure (much needed by me) and an open house, I am thinking this is the perfect opportunity to sink further into our living quarters. I still have boxes stacked in regions throughout the house and I really need to get those emptied. I have loads of boxes in my formal dining room that are full of wall hangings – art and photographs.

This is where I start trying to figure out cart before the horse and egg before the chicken issues.

I want the boxes emptied.

I want my art on the wall.

I want my photographs on the wall.

I also want the walls painted that will house many of these items.

Do I put them on the wall, then take them all down when I get around to painting and put them back?

Or do I leave them in the boxes, paint, then put them all up on the wall.

My inclination is towards the later. While AB (my tired of painting husband) leans towards the former.

I am currently fighting a very ambitious notion of painting my entryway this weekend.

Not the whole entryway, and certainly not the very, very tall area.

While my mom and stepdad were here this past weekend they helped me line out what to paint and how. I am leaning towards an olive green in the entryway where AB and I think some of our black and white photos will go best.

This is the foyer area:

I am not a big fan of the stenciling here.

So I am leaning towards an olive green - mahogany/Japanese maple color - and creamy white combination for the formal dining room and office with foyer and half bathroom region. The olive green an Japanese maple in more accent roles.

Office:

Formal Dining Area:

So what do you think?

A day

AB convinced me to take the day off. Take the day off and drop the kids at daycare/preschool.

He did great at convincing me, I cleared my schedule. Then *I* dictated the task list.

Paint. We painted and painted.

AB went and picked up paint this morning after dropping the kids (while I ran on the treadmill - love that thing - and then started taping off the bathroom). After the drop off he went to Home Depot and came home with paint AND a power roller. Figuring that at minimum we have the Master Bath to paint, our hallway to the garage and *maybe* (if you talk to AB) but *certainly* (if you talk to me) the Master Bedroom, and more likely we will be painting the interior of a new home eventually.

We worked our tail off in the bathroom and got a good amount done, probably 2/3's done?

Leif thinks we just started destroying the room for some reason and hopes we might plan to put it back together someday so he can take a "Big Bath".

After we were completely sick of painting we cleaned up and AB kept his promise to take me out to lunch.

Lunch ended up being about 3:30pm and we were a touch crunched for time to get the kids. Tagaris has a freaky limited menu between lunch and dinner and so we ventured to Bookwalter and drank wine and ordered plates after plates of tapa style and antipasto plates.

We were starved.

And we never go out just the two of us anymore. We had to live it up.

And their wines were quite tastey.

It was a good day off, well worth my 8 hour expenditure.