Christmas time is here....

Happiness and cheer...



Fun for all that children call
Their favorite time of the year...



Snowflakes in the air
Carols everywhere...



Olden times and ancient rhymes
Of love and dreams to share...



Sleigh bells in the air
Beauty everywhere...



Yuletide by the fireside
And joyful memories there...



Christmas time is here
We'll be drawing near...



Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year...

Merry Christmas, All!!!

House - DONE!!!

Our last pillow arrived this weekend. 6 months after starting our living/dining room design with Ethan Allen, we are done! It took us 6-months to finish the whole living room process, but it is finally DONE, and in time for Thanksgiving!... thanks to Caroline!

I love the bright paint, new puffy couch and the coffee table cubes and ottoman



Here are lots of before and after pics!

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AFTER:


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Thanks for looking!

Washington - day1 & day2

Here is the start of out trip recap... like I said, Jim and Jena left over a week before me. They camped up 395 into Oregon and Washington. Jim found an RV park not too far from SEATAC (Seattle-Tacoma airport). Chris took me to John Wayne after I got off work on Friday, and Jim picked me up on Friday night. He drove me back to the RV park where he had already setup camp. The following morning was bright, warm and sunny.



An RV Park is a large parking lot with RV and trailers all pulled in side by side. This is a very pretty park, even with a lake... hence the name Pleasant Lake, in Bothell, WA.



The following morning we met my long time online friend, BethieJ, and her lovely family. They found us a great little restaurant, Jantee Bistro and Bottle, with an outside patio so Jena could sit out with us. The food the great, as was the company :oD

After breakfast, we set out for Whidbey Island. I don't have any pictures of our first day on Whidbey Island... :o(
Anyway after that we headed for the Coupville-Port Townsend (Beth's son helped us make reservations on his smart phone).



Jena wasn't so sure about the Ferry. She preferred to stay in the car...
Tomorrow I''ll start sharing photos of the Olympic Penninsula!

But for today... Cheryl is going stir crazy, so look what we got into:



The rest might have to wait until next weekend... it's back to work tomorrow!

Adventures in Decorating - week 10

Jim has been painting for the last couple of weeks, and we are having issues with colors. We finally figured out that the paint samples that we got from the store are not the same colors as the actual paint. As a result, we have an aqua color that's brighter than I thought it would be, and a tan that's yellower than I thought it would be.

Jim and I made an appointment with the paint designer at Dunn-Edwards on Thursday. We decided to keep the aqua. I think it won't be so bad once we get some pics up on the walls. The tan has got to go. It is waaay off from the color we thought it should be. Dunn-Edwards gave us store credit for the tan, and we picked out a new color... but Jim is still going to have to repaint the living room.

On Friday, he repainted the window wall because the window treatments were being installed on Saturday. Here is the kitchen before and after:

BEFORE:


AFTER:


I've wanted grass shades in the kitchen since we had the kitchen redone almost 4 years ago. I think it's looks FABULOUS!

I'm going to wait until the curtains come before sharing pics of the living room. We actually thought that the shades and curtains were being installed, but alas it was only the shades. This is exciting though, because it's our first Ethan Allen purchase to arrive in our home!

After Jim finishes painting this week, he's going to arrange for the dining room table and chairs to be delivered! ... Maybe by this weekend!!!

Adventures in Decorating - week 8

Jim and I went camping this weekend. The only decorating thing that went on is that Jim's mom's painting came back from framing...

Here is the before shot:



And here is the after:



The goal here was to make the painting larger by adding a wider frame and mat. Also, to update the frame to give it a more contemporary look. I think we accomplished both!

We also added UV glass to keep the painting from fading and to keep it clean from dust build up.
I think it looks GREAT!

Adventures in Decorating - week 7.5

There is paint going up on the walls this week. So far, Jim has the large accent wall painted. It's a whole lot BRIGHTER!

Here is our dusty blue from before:



And here is the color we have now (from a slightly different angle):



I'll post some more before and after photos when it's done. I like it so far :oD

Adventures in Decorating - week 7

Nothing went on during the week in the decorating department. Jim was gone camping, and it felt good to take a bit of a break. This past weekend Jim took the rail down. I've wanted this down for a long time!





I'm surprised how open the living room feels now! With the rail down, Jim is ready to paint!

Oh, and speaking of paint: My family thinks that I'm so crazy for find this interesting...



Can you see that the post has two colors of paint added to it? A darker one on the bottom called "Thatched Roof" and a lighter one on the top called "Antique Lace"? The "Antique Lace" is very hard to see on the wall because it's so close to the current wall color. Notice the hall wall that's about 4 feet back from the post... what color does that swatch of paint look like? If you said the darker "Thatched Roof," you would be wrong. The color on the hall wall is the lighter "Antique Lace"! The "Thatched Roof" color in the hall is way too dark. So our walls will be two colors of Beige.

That's all for now! I'll post pics when the walls are painted :oD

Adventures in Decorating - week 6

The cleaning and organizing continues... The craft stuff that was in the dining room has been moved:



It looks so much bigger without the stuff in there (and neater too):



So where is all the crafty goodness? Hidden behind the love seat:



I got a sturdy little bookcase from Target. It's much stronger and better made than the Ikea cabinets that the TV is sitting one. That's a good thing because those steal dies, punches, paper and paint are not light.

It's still close to the dining room table where I work. This is what it looks like from the dining room:



And here it is all tucked in behind the love seat... no peeking, no mess ;oD



Other than that the only other house stuff that's gone on is to take Jim's mom's painting in for reframing. I hope it ends up looking good. I am truely clueless when it comes to frames.

That's it for now... I think there is going to be some paint going on next week, YAY!!!

Adventures in Decorating - week 5

I have picked colors... FINALLY!!! Here they are:



In the paint picture on THIS POST, it's the one on top in the center. I LOVE how this color makes my MIL's sunset picture glow!

We got a notice that our dining room table is here! The baskets and behind the sofa shelves should arrive this week... things are happening now!

Adventures in Decorating - week 5.5

Caroline ordered us some new samples. YIKES!!! Look at all those colors! My top three and Cheryl's top three are the same (the ones with the stars), but how to pick which one? This is a tough decision! I don't know how to pick! Oh, the STRESS!!!



The light beiges are so much the same that I don't think we can go wrong with either....



The darker beiges is another story... I don't like either of them. The hunt for dark beige continues.



Want to know a nice thing about this paint from Dunn-Edwards? It cleans up very easy! Want to know how I know that?



When I got home from work, I ran over the poster board... It cleaned right up with a wet cloth, YAY! ;oD

Adventures in Decorating - week 5

We have homework... or I should say that I have homework, but the good kind :oD Caroline gave Jim all these books of paint chips to bring home.



These are not the tiny chips that you get at the hardware store... these are HUGE! Ethan Allen makes it easy for me to pick out some colors that make me SMILE! I went back to the store today. Caroline is going to order samples in my choices and; now that she knows my preference for bright colors, she's going to add a few of her own.

Time to go get some more poster board!

Adventures in Decorating - week 4.5

Jim picked up the paint samples this week. Here are the accent color choices that Caroline picked out.



None of them make me feel happy. They all have a touch of grey. I can see how that tones down the color so that it's not so "in your face" but to me they are all blah... drab and dingy...

And here is the main wall color.



I'm going to ask her for a brighter accent color and the tan color is going to be too dark for the entry way. We'll see what happens next...

Adventures in Decorating - week 4

Back to window dressings... we went to see Caroline today, and I got my first look at the blinds. The one I liked had a yellow/green tinge to it, so I went with my second choice.

Next we picked fabric for the curtains. We were going to do something fancy with a colored panel/runner (in teal) going through the off-white curtains, but since the blinds had a pattern in it, it looked too busy for me. So I just went with a plain off-white.

I thought that would be it, but NO!

What curtain bar do I want? After much deliberation... Dark wood.
What type of top? Grommet, reverse pleat, goblet pleat, french pleat, triple pleat, double pleat, plain? YIKES!!!
What type of finial? Uh, what's a finial?
Lined or unlined? Whew, and easy one... Lined.
What type of finishing on the sides of the grass blinds? Uh.... brown?

{{{WHEW}}} Okay... window dressing is done. Now on to PAINT!

I had to NIX the orange. YIKES! Way too scary! Most of the walls are going to be beige and there are going to be two accent walls. One behind the sofa and one in the dining room. Jim has to pickup the color samples from the paint store. Here is what we decided on today (I greyed all the paint sample colors except the ones that we decided on):




We picked the curtain top on the right (it's less fussy). It was a compromise between my plain top and Jim's triple pleat:



And here is what it all looks like together now:



Other than that, I'm still cleaning out craft stuff this week and the basket hunt continues this weekend...

Adventures in Decorating - Week 3.5

Next up we have blinds....

Here are the choices that the designer pulled together for our collection (checkout those paint colors... they look a little scary to me) :bug eyes:



We want to put the same blinds in the kitchen, since the rooms flow together. Right now the kitchen has no blinds (I've been meaning to get some for the last three years o-O ) Here is what they look like in the kitchen:



And here are what they all look like with the light shining through them.



I think I like the one on the left the best, but I need to see them all in person.
Which one do you like?