Living Room Christmas Decorations

Decorating has been slow going.  I have the tree up in the living room so far.

The flower pot I put it in this year was spray painted green and I redid it in a antiqued stainless spray paint.

Before

Then I got it ready and made sure I checked all the lights and none of them worked so I had to run up to the store to buy new ones!

I ended up getting some larger C7, I think, LED warm white lights from Menards.  I really like them! 

The bell wreath hanging up was red, silver and green.  I just gave it a quick coat of spray paint.

Then I went to hang the garland which I couldn't find anywhere!  I have no idea where I put it when I took it down after last Christmas.  So back to Menards to buy some more.  I really like the new one better than last years anyway!!

Nathan is in charge of the Christmas countdown.  He insisted his kangaroo help as well!

No More Rugs

No more area rugs for now.  I cleaned them and put them away.

We came home from work not to long ago and found yet another hole in the little love seat and a big rip in the living room area rug under the love seat.

Trixie Destruction:

Not only that stuff but Trixie has "trimmed" my curtains and scratched up some trim around the doors.

Our 12 month old doberman, Trixie, has been a busy girl!

So I put the rugs away and will bring them back out later.  The other issue is all the dog hair.  With 3 dogs, my allergies are through the roof!!  The dog hair is insane around here.  I was vacuuming daily and sweeping.  Now just a quick sweep in the morning and at night seems to help.

Here's the rug and no more rug pictures!

Dining room:

Living Room:

At least the kids like it better without the rugs.  They said it doesn't look as dark inside and makes it feel bigger.  I liked the rugs but not the dog hair in them and the dog trying to eat them!!

Entry Table

Over the years many things have changed.   When we first moved in our walls were a builder grade flat white paint.  Then I painted them an off white then the orange.  Now they are the tan color.

edited:  Look what I found today (5/8/14) going through some pictures!  This was at Christmas time a few years back.  Grandma & Grandpa Owen were over.  Goodness the boys look so small!! :)

 That was before we put in new doors & windows and before we refinished the hardwood floors and redid all the trim in the house.  The floors had a walnut color stain on them.  When we refinished them we just gave them a good sanding and clear coated them.

Here's what it looked like when it was orange.

Then I painted it all and redid the trim.  We put all the oak trim in after we moved in.  Hubby milled all the trim and we stained it the golden oak color.  Now I have it stained with the java gel.

I started to make a cabinet to go by the front door to hold shoes, gloves and hats.  The only problem is while I could get it to that point I have no idea how to make doors or drawers that I wanted.  That is all hubby's department!   So instead I took the top off that I made, bought some legs and put a table together with baskets underneath.  The unfinished cabinet will be used for something else eventually.

 

 

The table legs were from Lowe's  They were roughly $88.  The apron was left over poplar from our workshop. The table dimensions are 36" tall, 18" deep and 78" long.  For the aprons the short ends are 6"x 10 1/2" and the long ends are 6"x 70 1/2".  I used pocket screws to put it all together.  The stain color is Early American.

The baskets under the table are from Target.   They were $39.99 each.
The lamps were from Habitat Restore for like $5 each.  They were brass and I spray painted them ORB.

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Painting 2

So in the previous post I talked about eventually replacing the crown moulding in the dining room.  I just don't know when hubby would get around to 1) making new crown and 2) having time to install it.  So I went ahead and stained it.

Before:

Progress:

After:

Before painting and stairs in 2002:

During painting:

After:

Painting

Today I worked on some painting.   So sad to say I started painting the walls, ceiling and trim about 2 to 3 years ago!  I don't like tall ladders.  Step ladders I'm fine with.  I've asked hubby to help me with this several times until I gave up since he's so busy with work.  Today I went to the barn and took the ladder that goes to the hay loft and got to work.  There is still a ton of painting left to do.............like the ENTIRE living room ceiling, finish up some of the beams with the gel stain and eventually replace the crown in the dining room with larger crown stained to match the rest of the trim.

 

The picture above is of the ladder on the staircase landing.  The ladder feet were on the edge of the landing so I had Matthew hold the ladder for me while I was on it and Nathan handed me the paint once I climbed to where I needed to be.

The picture below is of me on the ladder it's resting on a step and then the beam.  For some strange reason that freaked the kids out more than the ladder on the landing did!  

T

I still need to finish the beams with gel stain, finish cutting in around the beams with the ceiling paint then roll the ceiling in the living room.  We've also talked about one day putting wood on the ceiling.   I just don't see that happening any time soon!

Pedestal Table Turned Coffee Table

Since I am in the middle of making a new dining room table I went ahead and cut our pedestal table down and put it all back together.

First I took it apart.  I unscrewed the  hanger bolts (dowel screws) from the base of the table.

 I then took the legs off.  Hubby and I cut the pedestal down on the table saw.  Then I added some blocks to the inside of the base since the material was  thinner there.  After the glue was dry I used the drill press to drill new holes for the screws to go back in.  After putting the screws back into the base  I put the table all back together!

Here's the ottoman we were using which was borrowed from the family room:

 Here's the repurposed table now!

The table originally had a white base and very light stained top.  It now has a black base and Early American minwax stained top.

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Another Thrift Store Lamp

Brass lamps + ORB spray paint = LOVE

This lamp was broken so I took it for $5 from a local thrift shop called The Share House.  I picked up a $10 lamp shade and a rewire kit for $10 from Lowes.

It took a just a few minutes to spray paint and then rewire it.

For $25 I now have a solid lamp and it is similar to my other 2 lamps (also resale shop lamps that were brass)  that I want to put on the cabinet that's yet to be built by the front door.

These other 2 lamps I bought from Habitat For Humanity ReStore in the spring 2011.  They were a total of $15 including the spray paint!  

Here's the new lamp & the old lamps.... I think they look good together!