Monday, November 29, 2010

Living Room Makeover Reveal

Finally, finally I am DONE!! I am so excited with the way my room turned out! So I'm ready to make my big reveal to you all!!

Here's a reminder of the before...


And a little recap of everything I did! New paint on on the walls and ceiling, new carpet, new furniture, new lighting/ceiling fans, new curtains...Basically the only thing that remained the same were most of the wall hangings, TV, and the curtain rods!

And AFTER!!!










My beautiful Wing back Peacock chairs!

LOVE my new ceiling fans!

This chair created my chosen accent colors!

The back of the chairs are an ivory satin with this gold embroidery...So beautiful!!



Probably my favorite accent piece to the room!





Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Midst Of The Makeover!!

....Part 2....

I literally spent DAYS shopping for things to put in my *new* living room but let me tell ya I am NOT complaining because I am a girl who LOVES her shopping! I basically decided that the only things that would remain in the living room from before is most of my wall pictures and my TV. Other than that pretty much everything was being changed!


I started first with the painting, I did a "brushed suede" on all of the walls in the living room and the stairwell. My living room is 29 x 15 so I knew this would be some work using this textured paint! I had to roll on 2 coats of the paint then after that was good and dry I had to go back and do an "X'ing pattern over the entire surface of the walls...Talk about tiring! I did most of it before my weekend getaway and finished when I got home. Then my next job was painting the ceiling, I thought the walls were hard...well...the ceiling was worse! My ceilings are around 9 ft tall so I had a pretty hard time rolling it on there. I bought an extension for my roller and well I'm sad to say that it didn't last very long before I bent it and it was no longer any help to me! So I drug a chair all around the room to get the job done! The next morning I quickly figured out that my painting was not good enough on the ceiling and I was going to have to do another coat. I should have expected that with as many coats as the walls took but a girl can hope, right?! I decided I could not handle another 4 hours of rolling it on so I would just skip that step and go straight into the "X'ing and do it heavy so it would cover good. Well needless to say it was taking me twice as long and I had a deadline of the next morning because my new carpet was being put in and my new furniture was coming so when it hit close to midnight that night I decided to finish the ceiling off by rolling the rest...UGH!! I was devastated the next morning when I awoke and went into see the ceiling in the daylight to find that the paint was not even and you can see splotches in places...Needs another coat! But nothing I could do about it at this point so it will get done sometime...Maybe...


At one point and time we had talked about ripping out the carpet and maybe going with the original hardwood under the carpet but the Hubby and I both agreed that we wanted carpet in there as that room can get kind of chilly and we just wanted a *homey* feeling. The Hubby and J ripped out the carpet the night before the new carpet was installed and we were SHOCKED at what we found under the carpet! There were patches in the floor where there had been half walls and patches for damaged spots so we were really thankful we'd chosen the route of carpet! I was also shocked to find out that the carpet that we were ripping out was date stamped on the back 1992!! That ugly carpet was 18 years old! HOLY COW!!! The pad that was under the carpet was leaving this disgusting sticky stuff all over the floor, you know those black spongy spots in the pad?! Well it had turned into some kind of gooey stuff! EWW!!




Finally the carpet was out, the walls were done and I was ready to get the new in! We'd scheduled the carpet to be installed in the morning and the furniture to come in the afternoon and I'll be darned if it didn't freaking rain and even SNOW most of the day! Luckily the snow wasn't sticking but I was sure praying that furniture truck would make it down our road! And it sure did! Unfortunately they could not get down our driveway because of our Cedar trees so they had to back about 1/4 of the way down and carry it ALL the way to the house! Which is a pretty good distance!


We finally got that all in and set up where we wanted and our next task was putting in the additional entertainment center and sofa table we bought. Then we put in all of the new pretty's that I bought! I was chomping at the bit for the Hubby to get my new ceiling fans in but that took a couple of days beings DD had rodeo for 2 days during this time! Finally the fans are in and everything is done EXCEPT for the last addition of a little table I am envisioning to put between 2 chairs I have in the *back* half of the room! Once I get that in I will be ready for the big reveal!

My *Brushed Suede* walls!!

I have had a ton of fun redoing this room and I am SO very thrilled with the results! I just LOVE sitting in there being amazed that this is even the same room LOL!!


Monday, November 22, 2010

Extreme Home Makeover~ My Edition....Part 1

SO a couple of weeks ago I must have gone crazy for a few minutes and concocted this plan to *redo* my living room! I'm not even really sure what I started out wanting and how I got to where I am now LOL!!


When we bought this house 4 years ago it came it ghastly white walls and the most hideous baby blue carpet I have EVER seen! Well I fixed the wall problems with paint of course! I chose a color called "Gold Coin" which is really just glorified mustard in my opinion. But I loved it and went with it. I have always liked the color in my living room but then one day I just didn't!



I think...(remember I'm drawing a blank here on the series of events that happened in this house)...I told the Hubby I was thinking of redoing the room meaning like repainting...Then all of the sudden I started fantasizing about new furniture and new carpet and new lighting and new this and new that etc etc etc forever and ever, Amen!




And yes I did have 2 sets of furniture in my living room before...See I bought the tan set thinking I would replace the green with this but then when I got it home it was absolutely uncomfortable and WAY to shallow of seats! I am so spoiled with my green DEEP seated couches! So then my "living room/family room" was created!!

I of course picked out the color that I wanted to paint the room and decided on a special paint with a texture to create the look of *brushed suede*, a brown color on the walls and a sandstone on the ceiling. Then we headed out furniture shopping, we looked at a few different stores before we found the set that the Hubby really loved and I liked it too! Then we headed over to the carpet store and picked out carpet and pad, it was easy enough because I already I had an idea of what I wanted so it took me all of 5 minutes to find JUST what I wanted!! Then I went on to finish up some other shopping while the Hubby had to go to work that day, my goal was new lighting. We had picked out the ceiling fans we wanted so all's I had to do was go back and buy them, good thing I went that day because I needed 2 and they had 2 left!



So I spent a few days painting, painting, and more painting....I was hurting! It was so painful for me to do all of this painting and everytime I do it I say I'll never do it again?! LOL!! Luckily our 13th Wedding Anniversary was coming up on November 15, so the Hubby decided to take me on a weekend getaway and I got me 2 1/2 days of rest before I was back to work!!

The Ugliest Ceiling Fans EVER~!!!


So that was the preview of my room BEFORE....

Monday, November 15, 2010

I Heart Faces Photography Contest - Silhouette

I LOVE Silhouette Photography!! It is one of my *must* haves in all of the shoots I do, most recently I took my most favorite one yet! It was a senior session and I LOVE this shot!! So thank you I Heart Photography for choosing Silhouette's this week!!!








Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Lot's of Good~!!

My time lately has been comprised with LOTS of pictures!! I am absolutely having a blast doing them and am so ready to get busier!! Of course this cold season coming could hinder that a little...Hmm...

So last Thursday night J's team played their biggest arch rival in their football history and I am SO very pleased to say that they WON!! So not only are we celebrating an awesome win over these guys and gloating a little because they do a lot of trash talking to our kids but they have also made it into the State Playoff's!! WOW what a year for these guys!! They have gone from having a 2-7 record to a 7-2 record! This will be the first time in 8 years that J's high school has made it to the playoff's! Not only did they achieve that they have also been shattering school records like CRAZY!!! Wish I had all of the numbers but I don't yet...Maybe soon...So Tuesday night marks their first playoff game and while we are stoked to be there and playing we've got a little hitch in our giddy-up. You see we had a couple of *good* players make a bad decision over the weekend and got caught with some chewing tobacco in their mouths so per contracts they signed to play football they will not be allowed to play :( They are very upset with themselves but they must deal with the consequences. The coach has changed game play a bit so we'll see how it goes!

Breaking up a pass!!

Catch is good for a run!!




State Playoff's BABY~!!

Does that smile not say it all?!

J and his beautiful Girlfriend!!

This past weekend I had the pleasure of shooting Senior pics for J's Best Friend Russ, it was such a blast! We were out for hours and took a ton of pictures and I am SO very thrilled with the results!!

Yes...Yes this is ALOT of pictures...I just can't pick a few favorites!! Literally I have 176 good ones LOL!!!!




















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