The start of the beginning

What's today's blog post title even mean? Really, right? Well it has to do with my first meeting with a contractor to finish off our basement and to build my new and much larger Scrapbook Nook! I'll even get a bathroom that's adjacent to my scrapbook nook/creative art studio...now I'm living large! I'm giddy with excitement as we're to meet with a different contractor this evening- apparently my husband has several different contractors coming over this week to give bids on what we want done to the space that is now just a basement.

Our basement, currently it's just a big hole that contains the majority of my quilting and sewing goodies, the bulk of my beautiful fabric stash and of course ALL and with that I do mean my entire scrapbooking and paper crafting world!  Everything I own in the way of creative mediums is either packed in cardboard boxes or plastic bins, ugh!  Well with exception of my kitchen toys, they are on shelves.

 The crazy life of a creative person such as myself whose mind is always percolating with ideas is a complicated one at best(insert laughter here). I'll have to pace myself so I don't overboard before we even begin on the space. I need to think about paint colors, yup that should keep me busy for a little while, LOL! 

Now before I digress yet again... the real fun begins as I start with designing the actual floor plan for my new creative space. Where do I want the electrical outlets? Where do I  want my work surfaces to be? And of course there's got to be cabinetry, lots and lots of cabinetry! I know that I want to do radiant heat flooring in there since my new creative space will be in the basement - I always say that warm feet are happy feet♥.

I'm off to have another cup of coffee and to look at my diagram and think about cabinets and shelves and a big island in the middle to use as a design/cutting table. Oh the possibilities!

Hard work and Perseverance

Hard work and perseverance really does pay off!

 I had this vision of what I wanted for our en-suite bathroom. I wanted to incorporate feelings of relaxation in the space, yet have a fun and energetic vibe happening at the same time. Finding the right color for the walls to make the space feel large and open. The previous owners had a dark dusty purple color on the walls and dark brown (the oiled bronze look) bathroom fixtures which soaked up all of the light and made the room feel small and drab. Sometimes people have an idea of what they want for a space but don't know how to make it all come together. Whatever the previous owners were trying to do (and I'm not condemning them), it looked more haphazard and thrown together. I know that I see things differently, that I can look at a room and be able to transform the entire space in my mind; Changing it all together into something new and completely different as if I was waving a magic wand. Being able to pull colors, textures and patterns together out of the air is something that most people have great difficulty accomplishing and they usually end up throwing in the proverbial towel. Now for me, it's been something I can just "do". I've always felt a little frustrated that others can't see what I see, until I learned that most people are blind to change. But I digress...

Our en-suite bathroom is now being transformed into a tropical paradise.My inspiration comes from a trip we took to Hawaii a few years ago. The experience left me with ideas for a future project.  I wanted a room full of energy yet one that gives you that take your shoes off and stay a while feel. I'll take you through the process with a photo spread detailing what was done once I finish my sewing and take pictures of the "almost" finished space. I'm still deciding on some artwork (actually I have it all in my mind what I want- you all know how that goes). I'm on the lookout for a cabinet to go above the toilet for storage space. What I like about the master bathroom is that the toilet is in a separate little room with a door. Now we'll be closing off the bathroom adding a small wall and doors. Currently it's a open space concept bathroom minus the little room for the toilet. We're going to be working on that very soon- look for pictures and even patterns in the very near future!     

color, design, texture and fabric

This is my formal living room. I've got a lot of color and texture going on in here...and I love it!

I finally found a lampshade for my Burleigh Lamp. I went to a shop that specializes in custom fitting lampshades to lamps- it was worth every penny!

Here's a close up of those antique brass pineapple finial drapery panel holdbacks. Ever have an idea if what you want and then spend months looking for it? This is that very thing from to life!

I simply LOVE the finial! The shop owner at the lamp and shade store picked this out and it was perfect for this lamp! Its the intricate design that sold me on it!

The whole room plus the cat. Apparently my cat loves this rug.

I'm always rearranging stuff in this little corner. Antique milking stoll, Polish Pottery crock, some small American flags and some Americana themed Longaberger Baskets.

Looking into the formal living room from the foyer.

a deeper look...

Looking out into the foyer

I'm always changing out my displays. I received these lovely Burleigh cannisters as a farewell gifts from my closets girlfriends when we were stationed in England.

A view from the foyer ,,,now to take you into the half bath...

Looking in- it's pretty enough but I'm not really into wall paper. Now the Kohler toilet and pedestal sink are rather cool.

So here's the True color of the wall paper and yes the ceiling is painted some sort of grayish green. I have plans for a reno in this bathroom and will be shanging it to fit my ideal New England half bath.

Welcome to my home...

One of my favorite rooms in our home is the foyer

An Ocean of Cardboard

All I can see in our basement is what seems to be to be an unending ocean of cardboard boxes. Some people tell me "It's just like Christmas". Christmas in hell maybe but it certainly has no resemblance to Christmases I know, LOL! I'm shaking my head at the fact that all of this stuff fit into our house in South Dakota. Okay so most of it fit. We did buy some stuff while we lived in England, we had to buy a new push mower (we did get rid of our old one while in SD). I went through and donated all sorts of miscellaneous furniture, tons of books, paper crafting tools &  crafting supplies, not to mention all kinds of house-ware items. Now I find myself opening boxes and instantly wanting to put stuff back into those boxes. I'm ready to "reduce and recycle" the "reuse" part of this phrase is for someone else to do because I am going to reduce the amount of stuff I have.

I have to laugh at the amount of towels we have. Once upon a time we  had a house that had 3 full bathrooms (and loads of visitors.) I had shower curtains and bath towels for all 3. Well we're down to 2 full bathrooms and only 1 of those bathrooms needs a shower curtain.  My visitors now live locally and drive back to their homes. Yup, it's reduce time! Break time is now over and I have to get back to work since I don't have any house elves to help me.

I'm an over achiever

Well at least I admit what I am. It's hard to not want to get this house set up as soon as possible. I've waited so long for this "forever home" that I want to enjoy it as soon as possible. Granted, we've not gotten as far as getting the walls painted (yet) but we have our new curtain rods up! I'm about to hang the sheers in the family room (thanks honey for buying them for me yesterday). I'm waiting on my latest order from Amazon (you can get just about anything from them) the  gauzy weave type-Waverly© sheers for the formal living room and I'm in the process of ironing all 6 drape panels for the living room (what a chore). But it's a chore that will end up giving me great satisfaction in the end. I'm enjoying piecing together all of the rooms, giving them each a different look and feel.

I'm almost ready to take pictures and then of course I'll post them :-)

Future Space for my all new Scrapbook Nook and Quilting Corner

Mia Bella Cucina

That's Italian for "My Beautiful Kitchen".

Honey...I'm home!

Here it is, our new to us home. After 7 months of temporary apartment living, we are finally in our new home. This is hopefully our last move. It's a beautiful house which with love and care we'll turn into a warm and loving home which will be filled with family and friends often. This picture is actually one that the realtor took, I'll eventually post pictures of our house with the things we have have done to it. I've actually unpacked 99.9% of the boxes from our move from the apartment to here plus I've started to hang some pictures (I currently have 2 hung up but have great hopes to have more done by the weekend. I'm working on getting the kitchen organized but that will take some more time as I'm waiting on getting our 3 remaining HHG shipments from the USAF- which has my British pottery and all of those kitchen appliances that I so dearly love. Stay tuned for more to come...

Appliance Shopping for the new house

It's been about 8 years since we bought our last washer and dryer set. As you know, we left them with our house in South Dakota as an aid in helping the house to sell. I loved my Duet washer and dryer and for that time they were the best things next to sliced bread for me!  Washing machines have really come along since my last purchase 8 years ago; there are steam features, and sanitize settings that remove 99.9% of germs. After looking at what's on the market and reading the great reviews and seeing that it was rated highest in customer satisfaction by JD Power and Associates for 2008/2009/2010 and 2011- well I don't think that we couldn't do any better with another brand.

I've always bought plain ol white machines, never really had the desire for colored ones- until now. When I first saw these blue ones I knew that they were for me! And yes, we even bought the pedestal drawers that go under the machines (no hunching down to retrieve the laundry). I like that the dryer door is reversible if you need to switch it around. We'll be installing these babies on the day we move in! The thing I'm most looking forward to- no more hand washing of lingerie and delicate clothing!

Shopping with my husband

My husband and I decided to go do some window shopping- to check out things for our new home. To our surprise we found many lovely items, and we even came home with a few. Some wall art pieces for our Bella Cucina (that's Italian for "beautiful kitchen"), a lovely 5 foot round oriental rug for the entry way and a new Le Creuset 3½ quart braiser (little gift for my soon to be new kitchen). One of the things on my list is to get some new drinking glasses. Ours seem to be dwindling down due to breakage over the years. So that's something else to look for in the future.

We looked at loads of carpets- oriental style rugs for the formal dining room. I know what I'm looking for- now to quest to find it. I don't want to rush the process, I want to get a quality wool rug. I can't wait to be reunited with the rug we bought while in Germany from the Turkish rug store. I get all warm and fuzzy inside thinking about it. From bathroom items to kitchen goods and more- I am excited about getting things together for this soon to be new home of ours!

Keep, Toss, Donate, put into Storage

I've added another part to the basic "Keep/Toss/Donate" concept of moving. It's not that I'm not appreciative of living in this newly renovated house, its just that it is so much smaller than what we are used to. Even though the house was renovated, it was built in the 1930's and is the same size house now as it was then-just with closets and more bathrooms. The issues are that the house was built in the 1930's and our furniture came from well, 2004- just a little difference in the proportions of furnishing from then to now plus from British to American furnishings as well. Somehow I'll make this work but I need to reduce some pieces of furniture to make it work.

Those that have been keeping up with all of the purging I've done this past year; of household items to all of the craft room supplies and basically donating everything under the sun- well here we go again!

My Toss pile is relatively small. basically it's old school work from the kids, clothing that has been worn out and some broken items.

My Donate pile- well it's spread into a couple of large boxes and is still growing. There's also the plastic storage carts that I'm weeding out. It's frustrating for me at this point because I'm pulling out even more stuff and wondering why I didn't push myself father? Then again I was pretty stressed out with this move 7 months ago.

Keeping and putting into Storage- storage would consist of things I do want to keep but frankly just don't have the storage space here to keep it. I'm peeling off some of my pottery and bake-ware and am putting it into storage. Cupboard space here is minimal, so I've got to make some hard choices for what stays here and what goes into storage that I will see after this assignment. It's all kinds of things that I used to have out on display such as Candlesticks, vases, dishes, baskets, teacups, tea pots, serve ware- my list is getting longer by the moment.

Furniture is another thing that will be going into storage. Our living room aka lounge is narrow and rather poky. I'm going to have to put somethings from that room into storage as well. Along with paintings and other art work, some wrought iron pieces will also have to go into storage- there simply is not enough room in this house for all of it. We had a home office in the last house- all of that stuff will go into storage minus the small desk and file cabinet.

Now for me to finish my fruit smoothie and get to work in the laundry room/butlers pantry!

crunching numbers

Our meeting with the realtor went very well. He's crunching numbers we've got the average expenditure on our utilities ready. I'm excited to be at this stage on this move of ours. It's beginning to feel real, I feel safe saying it- we're really moving! The realtor was excited to see our home, he loved everything we've done to it. He said that it was nice to see a home with so many upgrades. Now for him to find us a buyer!

I've gotten rid of so much stuff from our house these past few months and it shows! The storage areas look large and spacious instead of feeling crowded with piles of stuff everywhere. Even my husband got into the groove and went through his things this week and pulled out clothing and shoes for me to take in for donation. I'm quite proud of all of us and the work we've gotten done. I still plan on doing more reducing around here. Stay tuned to see what else I go through and donate. There are things in the garage that need to be gone through but there's no way you'd catch me out there today! Sure we have an insulated garage, but it's still tooooo darn cold for me to be out there!

Open House

Yesterday afternoon, my daughter and I went to an "open house". The realtor was showing a new home here in our subdivision. This was a home built by a different contractor than the one who built our home. Nice house on a corner lot, loads of potential. I see the "potential" in just about every home I walk into. I can look past the color of paint on the walls or the kind of carpet on the floors and envision other things-apparently that's a gift and not everyone is capable of looking past "things" when looking at a home. I can look at a poorly landscaped yard and envision rose gardens, wildflower gardens and patio furniture. For the most part I'm an optimist :-)

So as I'm going through this newly constructed house the realtor is telling me-oh this is an extra feature and that is an extra feature, this is only $500 extra and that is only $1,200 extra and to add knobs on the cabinets is only $350 extra. Holy Catfish!!! 99.9% of those "extra" fees are things that new home owners can do themselves and save themselves thousands of dollars off the price of the house. Adding things like phone jacks, cable jacks and extra outlets are things best left to the professionals everything else- DO IT YOURSELF!!!!

There was a fee of over $200 for a simple upgrade on the thermostat the contractor puts into all of the homes. I'm here to tell you it makes good sense to upgrade to a digitally programmable thermostat, that they can save you hundreds of dollars on heating and a/c costs in just the first year. I'm also here to tell you that you can replace that yourself and it'll cost you under $50 to do it! Our friends/neighbors in Virginia were taken in by having the contractor upgrade their thermostat, Jane had to take a half day off from work and paid $350 for the same thermostat we bought and put in ourselves and we paid $39.99 for ours. We immediately saw the savings, Jane and Tim saw savings a year later, they had to get past the $350 point - that they paid for someone else to spend less than 20 minutes total time spent in their house taking out the old thermostat and putting in a new one not to mention that the contractor didn't even give them a fresh battery for the thing! Needless to say our friends Tim and Jane were less than happy with that contractor

Even with the crown moulding on the cabinetry there was something lacking- knobs and drawer pulls. The cabinets were very blonde and to me it looked and felt like they were laminated, the only thing I could see that was maple about them were the doors. The white appliances although they were of good quality, they were giving the kitchen a dated look. Black or Stainless Steel appliances in my honest opinion would have given the kitchen a more modern updated look which is preferred by today's consumer. White is best left for other appliances such as freezers, dryers, and washing machines and even that is questionable.

Home Improvement stores have all kinds of workshops for Home Owners and most of them are FREE! I highly recommend checking them out before you have anything "extra" added by your contractor.

Another Home Improvement DONE!

I bet that I have you wondering what I've got my Honey doing today...next up on my "Honey Do" list is the Kitchen Back Splash. Are you curious? Would you like to see it? Here are a couple of pictures...

I just love how it turned out, it looks even better than I thought would :-) My husband is quite the Handy Man if I do say so myself! No need to hire a contractor when you have a husband like mine!
Here's a partial view of my new "Aged Pine" wall in our formal dining room. Once I get the rest of the room together I'll have a better picture for you. It's a dark color but I think that the 14 foot high ceiling can pull it off, LOL! I'm planning a larger quilted wall hanging to go on the opposite side of my armoiré, I'll be doing it in blues, greens and off white prints...I can hardly wait to get started!

The "Honey Do" list grows larger...

It's going to be a delicious day! I had coffee out on the deck and I heard the birds singing happy tunes, saw little bunnies frolicking in the grass (and snow) and the deer were grazing out on the open field. A small flock of Canada Geese flew in and are nibbling on the freshly sprouted prairie grass. A perfect day for being out of doors! But alas, I've got a list of "Honey Do" projects a mile long and need to get my husband working on the ASAP. He's got the day off and with that I'm putting him to work. Okay so I let him go to the gym for an hour...time for me to get to Lowe's and back with more stuff for him to around the house :-)

Items on my "Honey Do" list

*install curtain rods and hang valances and sheers in Hannah's room
*install wooden curtain rod and hang valances in our home office/guest room
*paint accent wall in formal dining room
*install back splash in kitchen

Honey Do projects

I love going to Lowe's and it's even better when I'm there with my husband :-) We're going to be working on a couple more home improvement projects. First up, a back-splash for the kitchen , something to accent the appliances and counter tops. We've been going back and forth on this for a year now...not knowing what we want to do. Then we saw one of those home improvement/remodeling shows on HGTV and knew that THAT was what we wanted for our kitchen, but the challenge was finding the product locally. Okay, so now we've found what we were looking for and now to get it installed. The second project is to paint another accent wall, this time in the formal dining room. Yes, it's another rich and deeply relaxing color. This is very opposite of the colors I had on the walls of our little cottage on base, those colors reminded me greatly of Sherbet ice cream.

With my husband doing all of this hard work I better make some plans on making some of his favorite meals...and of course his favorite dessert classic New York Cheesecake! We haven't had lasagna in ages, looks like this will be a good meal to make for Mother's Day!

I've decided on the All American theme for the guest room/home office. I had been between two different themes, on the standard red, white and blue and the other a tone on tone beige and tan sea shell beach theme. Being that we are military and I have a lot of Americana stuff I might as well go with the patriotic stuff. When we go to sell this house in a couple of years some people might not understand my obsession with the ocean when we live smack dab in the middle of the US and just a couple of miles away from an Air Force Base. Now to get the curtain rod up, and to get some valances hung up in here!

Snow Day photo's

As we opened up one of the garage doors, this is what we saw...a lot of snow! Snow was everywhere and this was the view from the sliding glass door in the dining area...this was after the ice started falling of of the windows so we could see out of the windows.
The snow was 4 feet up the brick exterior of the front of our house on the drive way. I think that we'll wait until some of it melts before we attempt to dig ourselves out.

Coffee Bean accent wall

Here we go on painting an accent wall in the dining area...the color of choice is Coffee Bean. Here's the plant/basket ledge about the arched or barrel ceiling of the hallway. The walls were done with bull nose edges which makes it a little difficult to mask off and paint cleanly. Power Rollers- every household needs one!
Our daughter really gets into painting with her Dad. Here she is painting in outlets and switches.

Hannah has some "extra" paint in her little container and so she decided to give Sponge Bob and little friend.
When I stop and think that I only paid $5 for this gallon of premium paint and that I've got a rebate form to fill out to get my $5 back...that doing this was FREE- not too shabby! I got the paint from the mistint reject bin at Lowe's, it was just what I was looking for without the $25 a gallon price tag :-)
Bye bye Sponge Bob
Finished Wall...what a HUGE difference it has made! You now get the feel of how truly large the room is and how tall the ceilings are.
The view towards the sliding glass door, what a dramatic change- I love it! And now a straight on view of my pie cabinet, the Oak wood looks fantastic against the dark brown wall. Now to let the paint cure for 24 hours before hanging the artwork back on it. I know that there are some that will question me on this color choice thinking that it's too dark. But this room is flooded with natural sunlight during the day. At times the sun is so bright in this area of the house that I have to close the blinds or I'll get a major tension headache (eek). I have plans on painting accent walls in the formal dining area and down stairs in the family room.

Snow, snow and what? MORE SNOW!

Ice is at least 1 inch or more think on the North side of our house. The wind has been relentless and have been blowing nonstop since yesterday. Everything is white and I can't see out of most of the windows because of the ice on them. The glare is blinding so I'm hiding away in my office with the blinds closed. And today is one of those days where we're all wanting to be doing something to keep busy and to take our minds off of the horrible weather.

Last night my husband decided to do a paint test on the wall of the breakfast area to see how we liked it (see pictures).

There's nothing like Sponge Bob dipped in chocolate and splattered against the wall to add some humor to things eh?
Now comes the sad truth...never lend your tools to friends, especially your power painter! My husband has made the sad mistake twice now and well things never come back the way that you lent them. The power cord which was new at the time he loaned it is now wrapped in electrical tape to cover the cuts in it (yes, it's rather UNSAFE to use now). If that was us, we would have bought our friends a new power cord instead of sneaking in a botched patch job. The power painter- what a big mess! There's nothing like having to scrub something clean that was supposed to have been clean. That's it! No more lending things out, grrr! It's such a major disappointment to see that our friends didn't respect us enough to return our items (my husbands tools) in the same condition that we lent them in. I hope that they buy their own power painter because this baby is done being loaned out!

Now for me to move on and think about happier things...such as my Chocolate Brown wall. I want to have an accent wall and my darling husband is making it happen for me. I hope to have more pictures to share later on this afternoon.