The living room is my favorite room in this house (at least until my kitchen is done:)
It is so OPEN and there is a sky light.
We bought a new sectional sofa at a furniture store 'Going Out of Business' sale. It was $483.00 with tax (that's exactly how much cash my husband had in his pocket, and what he finally offered them after they tried to sell it to him for $900.00)
I painted the north and west wall teal, as well as the hallway ceiling (omg, popcorn ceilings are SUCH a HUGE pain to paint!! I will never ever ever do that again.)
I LOVE the interesting angles in this room!
Somebody else is going to have to paint that top part, because I hate being up that high! I got ALMOST to the edge. That is our messy kitchen there in the background.
Then it dried REALLY dark.
The room is just not very well lit. When I painted my table top this SAME COLOR, it looks like this in the sun:
I literally went back in the house with the can of paint and held it up to the wall to make sure that I had actually used the right can of paint!
Still, I didn't like the solid dark wall, so I added some lighter paint on the bottom, and slowly worked it up to the darker color on the top. I like this MUCH better!
I'll be hanging our huge mirror on this wall, so it reflects some of the green from the front room.
I really need to work on some artwork for this wall. Patrick is going to build me some custom designed shelves for this big white wall, which will stay white EXCEPT for a cool mural of some sort that we will turn into a giant wall clock and, of course, the shelves.
I'm excited for that! He'll also be building in his speakers/sound system stuff that he collected when he was doing custom home theaters full time. There will be a pull down screen for our projector built in at the top of the shelves.
This is the view from the kitchen.
My obnoxious children kept jumping into every shot I took today. It became a game:)
OH! And the hallway ceiling goes from the living room to the end of the hall where it meets up with our colorful doors! I LOVE IT SO MUCH! *We still have four more doors to paint yet*
If you can't tell, I LOVE lots of bright colors:) What is your decorating style??? Am I the only colorful person out there??? And WHERE can I go to find a very specific shade of pink? I'm not finding the color I want ANYWHERE!!
So this morning, we were sitting around with Sprite and her boyfriend Matt and she decided to show him videos of our family... pretty soon they ended up on the wisdom teeth videos and everyone ended up gathering around. Except Abyni, who apparently wasn't interested.
I thought Sprite was going to pee her pants laughing. Crazy girl.
The wisdom teeth experience was so strange. Kainan, my sarcastic, always joking boy just cried and said things like "Bacon" and "I'm AWESOME". My used to be introvert quiet child was rattling off stuff like he was the biggest entertainer of the year. Go figure.
This is the first room when you enter the house. You probably actually notice the living room first, as there is a big "window" in between the rooms, but this is technically the first room. It is meant to be a dining room, but its kind of our office/all purpose room.
The color did not show at ALL in this photo, but this is the "window" to the living room. Patrick wants to put a saltwater fish tank here at some point.
I wanted it a bright lime green... but when the paint dried, it was more of an apple green. Poo. I am REALLY not thrilled by the color, but I have too much to do to fix it now. Maybe later, or more likely it will grow on me for a year:)
The Teal shade in the door frame is the color of the living room wall and hall ceiling.
Setting up our office:
The computer desk that we got at a garage sale for $10.00!
The Arts & Game table w/4 chairs that we found at a yard sale for $6.00!
The shelving was from Lowes. We bought them last year for our other house to use in the kitchen... they were on sale at the time for I think $60.00. We bought all of the baskets at that time, too, I can't remember how much, but it felt like a LOT to me because I'm fairly cheap:)
Patrick bought me this cool grass plant (no, not that type of grass... some kind of curly grass. I love it:) That sits on some little drawers we got at a second hand furniture store for a few bucks. I will paint them and hang them in the entry way at some point... maybe.
Speaking of THAT type of grass, our front yard has a Chinese Maple tree in it, and the second time we came to look at the house, my daughter Paris came in with a leaf and said, "MOM! Look at what's growing in our front yard!" I almost freaked out at first glance. I mean, come on, I've never actually SEEN pot leaves in real life, so what do I know, but:
ANYway, back to the house... oh, wait, JUST as we were moving, my oldest daughter calls from out of state to tell me that her boyfriend lost his job, and since they were planning on moving down here at the end of the year anyway... can they come and stay for a few weeks or so while they look for a job and apartment for him?
Um... well, Sure. Why not? We bought an inexpensive futon at WalMart for Matt to camp out on. We set it up opposite the art desk. We're still trying to find places to put things, but its going fine. For us, anyway. This poor guy has lived alone for years, and grew up with only one brother. Suddenly he's thrust into this house full of 7 crazy family members that he just met. I guess this is a good test for him to see if he really wants to marry into all of this! Now our shelves are a little bit MORE full...
My 11 year old daughter made this painting for the front room. I LOVE it!!
Someone thought it was a good idea to paint the sidewalk leading to our house with this horribly tacky "Faux Stone" look... big on the faux. Ugh. I will have to repaint this with something soon because it is such an eyesore to me. Plus, I REALLY don't want people thinking I did it on purpose myself!
So, I don't really have any FINISHED projects to show you yet. I did an ombre style wall in the living room that I love, but its too dar now to take photos. I need to get some hardcore lighting for this house.
The fixtures that are already here are horrendous. I mean, seriously... who DOES this?
And there is a dual one in the entry way and there was a single one in the hallway (that one has already gone bye bye!)
And the one in our bedroom is even worse. I know its hard to see, but that shiny fake gold, the horribly tacky fluted glass shades... *shudder* We will be removing the whole thing because we're actually going to build our bed in... kind of an enclosed 'bunk' for us. When we lived in the bus, we LOVED our little enclosed bedroom. I can't wait until that's done!
Our poor kitchen table was SO destroyed with paint spills, burned spots, warped and water stained spots, it needed a new finish. I'm painting the top to match the living room walls, then I'm going to tape off a design and paint it all black and finish it with a glossy clear coat.
We're redoing Paris' floor. This is the third try... and I think this one is going to work! I'll have a blog post up once its finished with all of the process, including what didn't work, and what did!
Wow. Good customer service. Last week Patrick went to Lowes and asked for advice on flooring for Paris' room. (He needed to put down another layer of cement so that we can smooth her floor for glitter). An employee recommended something that turned out to be the wrong thing. Even though he had already opened 2 of the 3 bags, they took them back and refunded his money because he got the wrong advice at their store. Awesome. Thank you, Lowe's Home Improvement for correcting a mistake!
Paris is decoupaging The Avengers comic book pages to the cabinet doors in the kids bathroom. This bathroom is going to be EPIC!!!
I went shopping with my 17 year old son today. He was taking me out for my birthday, but when he saw these hot pink things for his room... he was in love. He shares a room with his brother who doesn't care about color at all, so their room is going to be Kainan's favorite color: Hot Pink (and silver and black)
Here is my little boy painting the first pink wall:
We finally closed on the house after a two week, really expensive delay... and I got sick. All of the stress apparently obliterated my immune system, so here we are, at the new house and I get to sit. And sit. And delegate.
Grandpa came for a visit... just in time to help us move!
He helped Abyni get the hammock set up ($50.00 at Aldi!)
What turned out to be a really nice hammock!
First order of business: Removing ugly wallpaper! All of the kids had a hand in this. There was a lot of wallpaper, and it was very VERY well done because it took a while to get off.
Good friends=Great helpers! The girls' friends love to help with our new house. It is awesome because having a friend around makes my kids more anxious to work, too!
We used the hot water and fabric softener tips from pinterest which helped the under layer come off in sheets.
Paris taking the initiative to create her own custom glitter flooring for her bedroom!
I found this hilarious, my side of the closet is fairly empty thus far, but its all hot pink. Patrick's side is mostly black (mainly because I think he's sexy in black:)
Patrick found a refurbished refrigerator for $250.00 Yay! Under budget!
Kainan has done a large portion of the unloading from the POD. He gets all the heavy work because he was down with a fractured ankle for the first part of the move. Plus, he's buff enough to handle it. Jaedin is helping, too, but he did most of the packing and loading before.
Filling up our new garage. We're waiting to take most everything in until the walls are painted and the floors are done. Especially since we would like to rip up carpets in a good portion of the house. The blue carpets throughout the house are filthy and fairly gross to even look at.
Inadvertent funny. I was in a big hurry to get this load done before it really started raining, so I didn't notice that Kainan's childhood "Sleepyhead" was hanging out of the trunk the whole way here. I'm surprised no one pulled me over!
The first morning at our new house. My little boy sleeping on the floor (Yeah, we weren't even going to wait for beds!)
Stay tuned! We have a lot of decorating come up including:
Happy, colorful tiles for my soon to be new kitchen!
I've been keeping myself somewhat occupied with home decor projects for the new house, garage sale shopping and whatnot, but this closing process has been an emotional rollercoaster, including the somewhat nauseating feeling that I always get when I reach the very top of a really big hill. Being bipolar already, these major spikes of endorphins or whatever you want to call it are scary as hell.
After weeks of stress and delays caused mostly by our woefully inept mortgage company, run, presumably by poorly trained monkeys, we are scheduled to close today at 2:00. (On that note: I do NOT recommend finding a lender on lendingtree.com)
The accumulated stress had me literally in a sobbing mess for a couple of hours yesterday... and the rest of the day resulted in me feeling shaky and sick from the major adrenaline crash. I couldn't sleep last night and my nose is alternating between stuffy/runny this morning, with major waves of nausea from no sleep.
My dad is here visiting. In theory, he was here to help us build custom bunks for our girls, but since we closed almost two weeks late, he was just here for a visit where we had a bunch of stressed out people and nearly everything packed away. I'm hoping that this visit doesn't scare him away for good!
It's ALMOST here! We'll have our new home, our glorious yard, and perhaps even a pool soon for the kids. By September we hope to have a full out raised puppet stage built in our garage, where we can film new episodes of Bean's Monkey Business Children's Web Series and hopefully start generating some real interest.
I printed out a list with the kids' assignments for the day, so hopefully, by this time tomorrow, we will all be up and unpacking sleeping soundly in our new home!
For the record, our kids are 11, 14, 16 & 17. We're pretty lax about what our kids watch with us when it comes to TV & movies (especially now that they're older), mainly because we have yet to see any negative impact on their behavior/language/respect, etc and in part because we find that it often leads to great conversations. HOWEVER, just because I let my kids watch certain movies, does not in any way mean that I'm saying that it would be fine for your children. You can get some pretty detailed reviews at Screen It and Parent Reviews, if you are leery of letting your children watch something in particular.
Anyway, family friendly? I thought it was okay. There wasn't anything horrible that I noticed, other than a couple making out on the hood of a car, a couple coming out of the woods with their clothes undone and JLo makes an offer to her husband that my girls probably didn't get and the boys probably did, but they cut from that scene pretty much instantly after she made the comment. My daughter pretty much hides her eyes, anyway, even if people are just getting close to the point of kissing:)
We saw What to Expect When You're Expecting last night. It seemed poorly edited, although not as bad and dragging as I found Bridesmaids (don't burn me at the stake, but I really didn't care for that movie). It was kind of slow in parts when I think it could have clipped along a little bit.
DO NOT WATCH THE TRAILER IF YOU'RE LIKE ME!
This was another movie that I would have enjoyed FAR more if I hadn't already seen the trailer several times. A lot of the "funny" is spoiled by watching the trailers in my opinion.
I enjoyed the female characters and the mostly realistic portrayal of pregnancy. I liked it a lot that they were varied and... relatable (I can not get that word to look right, hopefully you know what I mean:), I guess is the word I'm looking for.
Although I LOVED the fact that the dads were involved with their kids on a regular basis (especially Awwww at the baby carriers on the dads!), some of the male actors were distracting OR maybe they just had such poor characters to portray, what's your take on that? I wonder if the scriptwriter just doesn't know many married men/fathers because the male characters seemed, for the most part, INCREDIBLY one dimensional and just... awkward, stilted and not believable.
The births weren't as bad as some I've seen portrayed. I know that my experience is probably different from a lot of people, but I hate it in movies when EVERY SINGLE BIRTH has to be a woman SCREAMING bloody murder the entire labor. I do wish they'd have shown a home birth or even just a water birth, but I'm not at all surprised that they didn't. One of the birthing results surprised me a lot for several reasons... but since it involves a SPOILER, you'll have to select the white text to read it!
I was very surprised when one of the moms who had a birth plan and said she didn't want an epidural begged for one and got it (that wasn't the part that surprised me, I know that people can change their minds in labor), it really shocked me when she was the only one of the laboring moms who then had complications and had to have a c-section. I wonder if they got a lot of flack from that because at least to me, it implied that using the epidural can cause problems (which, I think, it can... but I was surprised to see it portrayed that way in the movie.)
Oh, and ANOTHER SPOILER: When the woman had her miscarriage, it was a slightly funny moment when my 11 year old daughter said, "What does it mean if you're bleeding when you're pregnant?" And I said, "Well, it means that something might be wrong with the baby." Then she said, all in awe, "What? You mean you can't BLEED when you're pregnant???" and I said, "Just like period bleeding, not ALL bleeding." She was so disappointed! She thought for a second that you got some sort of superpowers of not being able to bleed when you were pregnant.
I liked the way it dealt with some of the relationships and that everything wasn't all perfectly planned and instead some of them were really unexpected and caused strain just like in real life. I love that one of the couples were adopting and even that someone lost their job... because that is reality. I like just a touch of reality in my comedies:)
Verdict:All in all, it was a good movie, worth seeing in the cheap theater, but definitely not worth shelling out the big bucks for a top theater. I'd wait to rent it until its on the cheap rack, personally, but then again, I am really cheap when it comes to movies. As it is, our family of 6 had a night out in the A/C with a big popcorn (with a free refill) and a large soda for a total of $16.00. Not too shabby.
The kids and my husband kind of thought "eh", but they enjoy a night out, and honestly, I don't think any of them are half as picky about movies as I am:)
It also led to some interesting conversations on the way home with the kids asking if that was "really how being pregnant/giving birth is?" Something that you generally don't just have brought up... well, we kind of do sometimes, but not quite in the same way. It was also good to discuss different ways to go about having children that they've not encountered before (adoption, how hard it is for some people to conceive, etc)
So there is that. My first movie review. Have you seen What to Expect When You're Expecting? What did you think?
