Guest Room/Craft Room Makeover

As promised, here are the pics of the guest room which is now the guest room/craft room. It's not completely finished - I want roman shades on the windows but am probably going to have to make them as we can't find cheap/reasonable ones that we like AND that make the room dark.

Here are the before pics:



And this is the table that I got from my in-laws before I painted it:




And the after pics:

There's the painted table...it's black w/stripes around the top in the same teal blue that's on the walls.






Here's the light fixture which I just LOVE! I told Nathan he better save all the stuff that goes with it because I am taking it with us if/when we ever move!


So, we'll play a little game. Can anyone guess how much it cost to re-do this room? (This is not an original idea - Nester Girl does this often.) Just post your guess in the comments. I'll either update this post or do a new one w/the breakdown.

Halleluiah!

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a dishwasher!



Isn't it pretty? And it works! As I write this, Nathan is reading up on how to load it. He is doing this because he has a gift. He can fit every dish in our house in the dishwasher. He just has to learn how to do that in this dishwasher. :) Next post - the (mostly) finished guest room makeover.

Kitchen Disaster

Just a quick update on the kitchen - Nathan spent last night working on the "situation" and was able to pull up the tile (a little too easily) under where the dishwasher goes, and then we went to Lowe's to purchase a saw and he took off a little of the top board that was stopping progress. Then, after removing one of the legs on the front of the washer (used to level it) he was FINALLY able to fit it into the space. Of course it took him about 20 minutes to get it back out because it's so tight but we're keeping our fingers crossed that the installer guy will be able to hook everything up and make it fit right. Pictures to follow if/when that happens. :)

And if I can ever finish painting my craft table (which will take about 5 minutes) I will post pics of the guest room redo. I am really pleased w/how the room has turned out, especially w/the light fixture in there...kinda wish it was my room! One other project we have going is scraping and painting the Adirondack chair that was left here at the house when we moved in. We found a pretty color of red (that's pretty close to the color of our doors) in the "mis-tint" area of the paint section at Lowe's so for $1 we are refinishing this chair. Can't wait to show you how it turns out! Finally, the patio is pretty well done HOWEVER the yard around it is kind of a catastrophe so I'm putting off posting pics of that until maybe the fall so that we can get some things planted and it won't look quite so scary.

With that, I'm off to get ready for work. Hope everyone has a good Wednesday!

Health Care "Reform" Part II

So I'm sitting here watching the Early Show (mistake #1) and Harry Smith is talking with Arlen Specter about the town hall meetings that have been going on. Mr. Specter said that he has been impressed with how well prepared the opponents of government run healthcare have been...and then he said "there's no doubt those materials have been supplied to them" as if no one who opposes what (edited by me because I am trying REALLY hard to respect our President since he is our elected leader but understand that as an individual separate from that office, I have ZERO respect for him) Obama says is not intelligent enough to do their own research or print a copy of the pending legislation and read it. As someone who does not like the idea of having my healthcare chosen for me, and as someone who (I think) is considered fairly intelligent, this really offends me. Sorry for the political rant two days in a row. I'm just feeling helpless these days as I watch the country go down the toilet. And I fear that in the days to come, my voicing my opinion like this will become something that is not allowed.

As an aside, does anyone else find it amusing that the other anchors call a man who is mostly bald "Hair"?

Health Care "Reform"

First of all, let me say right up front that I have not read "page 16" of this bill so I don't know what it says (not that I think I'd actually understand what it said if I did read it). But, if this guy is right, I'm less happy about the path our current President is going down than I was before. Read, research, make your own judgement, but frankly this scares me.

Money Pit

Do you know what this is?

If you said "a hole NOT large enough for this dishwasher..."


...you would be correct. The above pictures are exactly what my kitchen looks like now. And some would say "why don't you just put the old one back in, it fit didn't it?" Well, that would be my answer except that the fine people from Lowe's HAULED IT OFF after finding that the new one wouldn't fit. And apparently the new dishwasher is standard size - meaning there isn't one out there (other than the one that just left our house) that will fit here. What that means is that either we have to somehow tear out the tile that's back in there and/or we have to modify the cabinets/countertops somehow and/or get all new countertops and/or cabinets. SERIOUSLY?!?!?! For crying out loud.

So, we are currently worse off than what we were in that we have no dishwasher (at least not a working one) AND we can't use the garbage disposal AND we had to relocate Kona's food and water bowls, and for those of you that know him, you'll recall that he likes change about as much as I do...here's what he thinks about the whole situation...



In other news, I took quite a fall on Saturday morning (WARNING: if you have a weak stomach, you might not want to see this). I got tangled up in my own feet (don't ask how because I don't know this time any more than I do any other time this happens). I fell over and hit my head on the corner of our house and then bounced into a pile of flagstone we have sitting on our patio and got this:

This is actually before it got worse. It's pretty much all solid black now. Really attractive. And in case you were scared about what body part that is, it's my back.

I promise, pics of the new and improved guest room coming soon. It'll be worth the wait (I hope). Now I'm off to soak in the tub and see if that will take away some of the aches and pains from the fall...getting old is not fun.