Tomorrow we have our adoption re-assessment for our home study. This always throws me into a nervous reck even if the house is spotless. I know we need to have a home that looks lived in, but I don't always wanna show my "living" persay. Sometimes I am careless to where I set things, especially when I get my hot flashes. Those clothes go flying and I may not pick them up for a few hours. So when you have someone coming in that is going to be the one deciding if you have a home worthy of kids then everything matters. I think of it like as if you were to have a celebrity coming into your home, you want it to look as good as it can. Nothing out of it's place and not a thing that looks cluttered. As silly as this sounds right now, it is how it makes me feel.

  I understand that once we get any children that they are going to turn it upside down and every which way; with my hubs and I trailing behind putting it back together. Even if they don't look under the cabinets to see everything in a single file row, I still feel better knowing that it is. Just in case they get curious and want to know what I am storing in the home. So for now I am going to be in a tizzy and running like a mad woman through my home to make it presentable. Especially since we found out yesterday it was going to be tomorrow!

   Have you guys ever had anyone so important over that it throws you into a spiral of cleaning even the tiniest nook and cranny?

   About three weeks ago I talked the hubs into something that I know he loves me for. To paint the 3 main living areas a beautiful light shade of gray and the ceilings white. And he totally agreed with me, which was fabulous for this girl who can't keep a room the same for more than 6 months. I did pretty well for the last two years with the green on the walls, but I couldn't keep up with the decor all the time and having to match it all to green. Sometimes I want things that don't always go with green, or I don't want the house to always look like Christmas since red is it's complimentary color.

Our dogs didn't seem to mind the change in furniture, they must be used to me moving things around.

  So for a weekend our home looked like an episode of hoarders if you were to look in one room. We moved everything from the living room into the dining room first. Then while I started in the kitchen, the hubs began painting the ceilings white in the living room. So that eventually the last room we would paint together would be the dining room. Day one, we got the whole living room painted and kitchen. As well he got the whole living room ceiling painted. That was pretty awesome and then we totally passed the heck out.

  The next day we moved all the furniture back into the living room including the dining room set.Finally by midnight we were done with everything! And I must give some tips, spend the money on the good rollers. We got special ones for textured walls made by Purdy and it made all the difference. I never had to re-coat or go back over another spot again. Of course the paint helps too, we bought the Behr Premium Plus with paint and primer in one. As well we got it in Satin finish since it was in all of the main living areas of the house. It's going to have to stand up to us, the dogs, and in the future kids. I want it to stand strong!

I love love love just love the new color, did I mention I love it? All of the colors just pop from the decorations. I can literally use any colors in any room and everything kind of flows on together. Have you guys ever tackled a painting job in one weekend? Or are you patient and spread things out over a few extra days? Tell me!

    We're taking a bath!....okay, not literally. But this post is the first half to the wonderfulness that is our new hallway bathroom. This poor room has gone through many changes, and I think I have finally found the one it needs to stick to. First there was the red bathroom phase. I had dreamed of having a red bathroom since high school basically, not sure why. Maybe to stake my ground and show the world my bold self, or also because I saw it on TV once and fell in love with the idea. The room had about a year, and I got sick of it.

  Since I am so impatient, I forgot to get some great before shots. Pretend like this is the bathroom minus the whole green tape on the walls and no step-ladder. These are not my usual accessories to a room, promise.

 

  I am also notorious for browsing the mess-up paint aisles at any place that sells the stuff. You never know when someone else mess-up will be what you wanted! Well this was one of those glorious times, and it only costs me $5! The awesome color is called "splish-splash" by Color Place. It is sold at Wal-Mart, and I am so glad I dragged my hubs out so late at night to browse. The cashier made a comment of "what room are you going to paint with THAT color.....". He was pretty disgusted, but I was darn proud of it. Too bad he will never be a guest in my awesome guest bathroom. Missing out on something pretty cool I think.

  So first thing I needed to paint the bathroom our awesome aqua before anything else. It only took two hours, and I might add all by hand. The texture is all kinds of crazy, and roller just won't get the job done frankly.  I sectioned it off with the paint so it didn't feel like so much when I was actually doing the work.

I don't know why I thought a sideways photo was sufficient, but this is what I have.

  We were going for a adult and kid friendly bathroom, if there is such a thing. I wanted it to feel like a place that anyone can be in, including messy kids. But at the same time feel like a small oasis and very welcoming. I have had a dream to do bead board on these walls for almost a year now, but when it came down to budget and skills, I was no where close to it. So onto Pinterest I went, and found the lovely bead board wallpaper.

   I read through every review on the stuff, and found the brand with the highest reviews and best price too. It came down to the Allen + Roth Bead Board Wallpaper at Lowes, for only $20. How could I pass this stuff up? I found out it would only take one roll to do the whole bathroom, and I would have plenty left over for anything in the house I could find to put wallpaper on. It is textured exactly like the real thing, but water resistant too. Which was the number one reason I went for the wallpaper, it needed to stand up the the water splashing out of the tub by small children.

  We measured up the wall where we would want the wallpaper to hit. There would be a chair rail to cover the section where wall met paper as well. I measured every nook and cranny, and drew diagrams out to know exactly what pieces we had to cut out. I did cut one piece out backwards, but we had plenty left to re-do the whole thing.

If you look close you can see the little bubbles everywhere.

  A major problem we ran into though was the texture on our wall, we put up the wallpaper with out realizing just how much the texture would show through. Enter another trip to Lowe's here. Thankfully the paint department girls could get the jist of what I was trying to do, without having to do a whole ton of extra work. They recommended drywall sand paper and primer for textured wall paper. Thanks to the hubs he sanded down the bathroom walls and applied the primer for me all in just a few hours. The next day we were able to re-apply the paper no problem.

   This is what it looked like after all of the extra work, but it was well worth it. Also since we had to take down the wall paper and re-apply it we got some great wall-paper glue. It only costs about 5-6 dollars, but it is worth it. With any strips that were new we followed the directions on the wallpaper wrapper. It is very easy! I will update later this week on the second half of the process.

Mush smoother than before, still wet though.

    This is an update, on my chandelier project. Unfortunately it has taken me longer than I expected to get this baby under way. But I am on it! It's still taking a little extra time, it needs more lovin than normal.


   I took off the "candle wax" covers to the arms where the bulb goes first. Also I made sure to wrap the exposed electrical with some craft paper and tape it off with some painters tape to protect the area.Then I gave it a good rub down with paper towels and a damp towel. I found some little critters living in the crevices, so I sprayed them out with some air. After this I had to stop for the evening since I kept feeling creepy crawlies all over me. I couldn't shake the feeling, so I left it until the next day.
 
      I soon found out that the lovely piece is actually mostly made of wood to my surprise. It was covered in a lot of gold flake and paint, that came off with just a little water. I cleaned the whole thing down again and took it outside to start the whole remodel. I consulted with my friend and decided on an Oil Rubbed Bronze look. I had a can of the spray paint in my garage so I thought I would start with that. Word of warning, don't spray paint in Oklahoma. The wind decides to blow and every piece of dust and hair in the world follows wherever your paint goes. Needless to say it got frustrating, I am going to have to sand off some of the paint again and try all over. Woops!

   But in the midst of that debacle, I came up with what I thought was a pretty awesome solution to painting a chandelier. Since it is so wobbly, kind of like the weebles, I couldn't get it to stand up straight for the life of me. I decided first to let it lean on some paper and to paint each side, let it dry, and turn; repeat over again. This my friends does not work with Okie wind. So once I was fed up with the chandelier looking more like a dust ball than a light fixture, I literally had a light bulb go off. Congrats to you if you thought of this before me, but I feel pretty awesome still.
    We had a garage sale a while back, and couldn't figure out how to show off all the awesome clothes that everyone would die to have, right? Well I found a carabiner and some extra rope in the garage, and figured why not string it across the garage from the door tracks. The tracks are bolted into the ceiling, so it couldn't hurt them. So thanks to my hubby we strung it across the garage high enough to hang clothes on it and walk under too. This same contraption was laying around when I couldn't figure out how to properly paint this chandelier.

   Thank goodness, it's exactly what I needed! So I looped some other rope through the chain on the top and knotted the heck out of it so it wouldn't drop on my feet and shatter into several pieces. It was so-so-so much easier to paint. I could get at it from every angle. Now there are parts I am going to have to sand and patch, as with painting I found a couple of cracks that need to be repaired. It's all okay though since this is part of the project and the learning experience. There is much more planned for it right now, so much more. I feel it will be beautiful and so glad it will have new life!

I love these little flowers and leaves on it, I have GRAND ideas for them.

  Have you guys ever had that "light bulb" moment and feel a little brilliant? What was it, and did it end up solving your problem at hand? Let me know! I want to hear your stories and read your comments.