We looked through the Pennysaver yesterday, and discovered that the person who tiled our shower about six months ago also does some misc. jobs and carpentry. He remembered us, and he’s coming back in about 2 weeks. The railing will be finished in one day! I can’t wait to get this unstable metal one out of here.
I forgot to mention a couple of things in my last post. The carpet in the family room was wearing out fast. I thought we would have to replace it sometime in the next year. Then, my parents brought over their carpet cleaner. I was amazed with the results! It looks almost as good as it did when it was new, and the important thing is that it’s clean when the kids are playing. We got a 50-pint dehumidifer for the room as well. I had no idea just how much we needed it. It fills up 1-2 times each day. It’s also much cooler and fresher now.
The family room needed more color. Amazingly, the wall color matched the sofa perfectly, as did the curtains. It was very monotonous! A shade of chocolate changed all that, with four curtain panels on clearance, two toss pillows, and a $7.00 quart of paint.
We organized the play area recently and got rid of toys the kids weren’t using anymore, so it’s slowly becoming less of a playroom and more of a comfortable living space for the whole family.
We sold the crib and changing table, then decided to put the money toward a new sofa. I wasn’t really prepared to part with the changing table, but people were only interested in the set.
The futon in the family room was broken, so our old sofa went down there. The only problem there is that the walls, sofa, and curtains are exactly the same color. It wasn’t planned that way (the curtains used to be in the dining room, and the wall color was chosen when I found the oops paint). My plan for the family room is do do something with an accent wall or accented areas, get new curtains and toss pillows. I am thinking of using dark brown for this, but I haven’t decided.
Back to the living room. The new sofa is very comfortable, and I don’t feel the need to change the wall color to go with it. I added a couple of neutral, striped panels to the windows. The toss pillows have a design similar to the black candle holders I added to the room, with a foreground that matches the roman shades. I bought pillar candles in different earth tones for the holders. It all pulled together nicely, and the whole thing was very affordable! I will update the living room photos during daylight, after the railing has been installed, and sometime soon I’ll add a few things to the family room. In the meantime, here’s a photo of the sofa:
Lastly, the kids have a few new things in their rooms. The twins have new Disney princess comforters, and Will has new toddler bedding and a “thinking chair”. I creeped back to eBay and found some really good deals on Blue’s Clues items for his room. He already loves that chair! I got it for $25.00 with local pickup (a steal even by eBay standards), but I read that it originally sold at FAO Schwarz for $400.00!
The family room has been an ongoing project. I kept trying to work with what was there, but it was never quite right. A few months ago, I finally realized the wallpaper on the upper half of the walls had to go. It was a big job, but it was also an improvement. The bottom half of the walls had paneling, with a chair rail above it. I contemplated keeping the chair rail, but it was really cheap moulding and I wanted to have one uniform wall color. I figured that would open up the room a lot. And so, I began the tedious task of removing the paneling, chair rail, and the wallpaper underneath the chair rail. I should have just bought some wallpaper stripper, but like most projects in this house, this was an impromptu thing. I started working after the kids were in bed, but before Micah got home from a long day of work. I spared him from yet another one of my big ideas.
We were at Home Depot the other day, looking for a medicine cabinet for the master bathroom (to no avail). I spotted some “oops” paint in a shade of green that I really liked. Micah read the codes on the label and determined it was a custom color, meaning that someone brought in a sample of something and tried to have it matched. Now, I am not a fan of Behr paint. I think it’s an absolute ripoff, and I think Color Place is a better, thicker paint. I made a worthwhile exception. This time, I asked for Micah’s help. He stayed up until 1:00 AM helping me paint, then patted me on the back and said, “Happy Birthday”. I guess I saved him a trip to the mall.
