Growing cuter and cuter...

Is she not too cute? This is my 2 month old niece Kaelynn. She gets cuter each time I see a new picture of her (I know I'm biased). It's been a while since I shared one on here so I thought it was time. I think she's going to have at least 1 dimple - see it trying to peek out on the right? Ooh, I just want to kiss those cheeks! :) This made my Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I saw a link to this post on a blog I read and it is too funny not to share.

I don't know who this guy is, but he can write some funny stuff.

Even if you're not single, it's still funny to read. Of course what makes most of these things funny is that there is an element of (sad) truth to them all.

Enjoy.

:)

The first holes

Please look past the clutter, but I am proud of myself for hanging my new curtains by myself. This pic is from my phone so it's a bit grainy. The colors are blue, rust and dark chocolate brown. I only made one extra hole and that was because the first one there was something like steel preventing the drill/screw going all the way in - so not my fault! It took my a long time...lots of measuring and I am very happy with the results. Now as I have had time to stare at them more I see a section that is higher than the others, but I am NOT taking them down to do anything about it!!!

Next comes more cleaning (I've moved back into the kitchen and found the cleaning products I need for the floors) and then hopefully next week beginning to think about pictures on the walls. I was disappointed that when I ran into the wall by mistake with a (I shouldn't have been trying to lift it by myself 'cuz it was too heavy) box, the smooth finish scraped off! So I'll have to figure out what I need to do to fix it-was hoping the walls would be a bit more resilient to wear and tear by not so much. :(

But at least I'm not staring at painters' paper that says "please do not remove paper from windows" hung up by Scotch blue tape anymore!!

A Work in Progress - Day 9 Pic

Houston, we have white cabinets! And blue walls! No more faux-finished-with-orange-and-black-paint-cabinets and dirty yellow walls! Hooray! :)

A Work in Progress - Day 7 pics

[I cannot for the life of me get blogger to put spaces between the paragraphs. Sorry.]

So when I first saw the "wet paint" sign, I figured, "eh, I'll just be careful" - I didn't want to 1) walk all the way up the alley and then all the way back down the street to get to the front of the house or 2) get back in the car and drive around to the front. However, as you can see, they partitioned off the kitchen with the plastic and gave me no choice. OK, so I guess I could have waded through the most toxic smell known to mankind and wet paint just to park in the carport and go through the back door but...yeah, I didn't.

I just keep reminding myself just how ugly those kitchen cabinets were and how much I've depised them ever since I saw them in July 2011. Faux finished/antiqued - look like someone took orange and black paint to make wood-like. WHY?!? It will be (and is from what I can see) sooooo much better white to match appliances.

So since I didn't know before I got home that I had no access to my kitchen, my gourmet meal of cereal was eaten without milk. I know you're jealous. Breakfast tomorrow will be surprisely similar since I can't get to the bread in the frig to make the typical PB&J toast.

On the plus side, the rest of the house that they painted I like and except for a few places they need to touch up, it looks pretty good. They made scratches in one of the tubs that irks me a bit, but what are you going to do. I hope I can scrub them away.

It will be a week tomorrow that they've been here. I don't know how people do major remodels. I am so ready to have my house back! :)

A Work in Progress: Day 3 Pics

I'm sorry I can't figure out how to turn these pics. You can't tell, but the walls are now perfectly smooth. Paint is "practical beige" as I selected for everywhere but kitchen, where it will be "bluebell". They are painting the kitchen cabinets white but only primed one or two. I guess they were waiting for me to empty them because they'll be painting the inside of them as well, but no one told me so I hadn't emptied them! My painter's ESP must be malfunctioning! :)

The first pic is the guest (bigger) bath where they stashed all their stuff for the weekend. I told them no working this weekend as I wanted the house to myself. They finished the living room/dining room and as you can see, unwrapped the furniture and put it (roughly) back in place. There are some imperfections that I can see that I will need to point out to the head guy, but the good news is that I am happy with the color and I have my sofa and comfy chair back to enjoy for the weekend.

I am currently sitting here with all the doors propped open to air out the paint fumes. I'm glad it's not in the 90's or 100's, good call on my part doing this in January instead of July. What a mess everything is - thick layer of dust (in addition to normal dust that was there before the project) - on top of everything. No sense of cleaning now since they're not done. It will be worth it though to have smooth, freshly repaired and painted walls in my color, not the multi faceted ones of the former owner. It will really feel like home when I can hang pictures on the walls - which I will be able to do soon! :)

A Work in Progress: Day 1 and 2 Pics

Here are some pics of the progress (and mess!) the painters made on day 1. What my cell phone couldn't capture was the eye-stinging, throat-burning fumes of the wall re-finishing stuff. This house was built around 1970 and at the time textured (crow's foot is the term) walls were the "in" thing. Not so much any more. So I'm having them smoothed out. I had no idea what that entailed other than it would help resale value somewhere down the road.

Wednesday and Thursday nights I camped out in my bedroom with the patio door open to breathe some fresh air (my bedroom was not being refinished/painted because my Dad had already painted it). This is what the house looked like both Wed & Thurs nights when I got home from work.