Dining Room Lighting...

The previous lighting fixture in the dining room was this:It was bulky and gross and we kept hitting our heads on it.

Now we have this nice, clean, silvery, pretty lighting fixture.

I'm much happier now.

Dining Room Gallery Wall... The start:

Previously our Dining Room wall was bare...But now we have some art there!
We started by framing our "area" with painters tape. Then I cut out magazines and paper in the size of the frames we had to hang. Then with some tape we were able to manipulate the paper until we had things where we wanted them. This saved a lot of unneeded nail holes!
Then all you do is put your nail where you want it and pull off the paper and hang the photos!
A partially finished product:
We still have some frames to buy and photos to print, but it is nice to see something there when we walk by!

Steven's Closet- Renovation!

I woke up last weekend and decided that it was time to fix Steven's Closet. Mostly this is because I started a new job this week and I wanted it to be easier for me to get dressed in the morning.

So we started bright and early Saturday morning with trips to Home Depot (Steven) and IKEA (Me). When I got home from IKEA Steven was already painting. We decided to use the Parisian Taupe color that we've kind of made standard throughout the rest of the house. We just keep buying it by the gallon...After he painted I followed with trim work and then I worked on the spots on the carpeting. Meanwhile the rest of the room looked like this:
After painting and cleaning and vacuuming we were finally ready to install the curtains (instead of the loud, obnoxious doors that were previously there). I actually climbed up inside there and used the power tools myself, because Steven wouldn't fit. We also touched up some of the white trim.

Then we moved his clothes in and they look so nice now! Everything of his in now in the one area. He has a small dresser to the left of this photo (Out of view).
One side has shelving and the other has a bar for hanging items.
We've since pinned the curtains up. They will get sewn so that they skim the trim below them. Actually I'm quite happy with how it turned out. I was even able to line his shelves with paper so his clothes would stored nicely. We also go some bins for organizing that you can't see in the photos properly.

The next closet task will be where my clothes are... dun dun dun! That's going to be a comprehensive project.

Surprise!

Yesterday I spent some time out of the house watching my little nephew. I didn't get home until around 3, which is when Steven gets off work. I had some how managed to get myself locked out of the house down in the garage (I just couldn't figure out how to work my key...) and so when I finally walked in the front door I was all kinds of flustered. Steven was standing at the door when I walked in.

I explained the garage and we talked about my key and then I noticed the mail on the counter. There was a big package.

Me: "Oh what did you order??"

Steven: " Open it."

Me: "No, seriously, what did you order..." (I was thinking it was one of two or three things we'd talked about ordering online...)

Steven: "Just open it!"

Once I did I saw the Kate Spade tissue paper inside I started squealing!! My Husband bought me a "Just because I love you" gift:
I picked this wallet out before Christmas time and was going to buy it as my 'present to myself' but ended up buying stuff for the house instead. So a few weeks ago when I saw it on sale I sent him an email with the link, but I didn't hear anything and I forgot about it.

Until I opened it yesterday. I love my red accessories! And it has polka dots on it which I love too. But mostly, I'm pretty excited that my Husband bought me something "just because"... I couldn't stop smiling all day after that.

THANK YOU SWEETIE!