First up is something I have hated for a long time: our carpeted stairs.
In fact, I hated them so much, I apparently did not include them in photos unless I had no choice, so incidentally modeling several of the stairs in this shot from last summer are Ethan and his first marionette, Zucchini Man,
And the whole staircase, newly without carpet (but with a fresh coat of paint on the risers),
Lydia, doing her best Vanna, wanted us to see every luxurious, shaggy detail in this months-old photo,
And now mercifully bare, you can see where there was once a runner down the center, but that will be easy enough to even out (I'm waiting for Spring though, so I don't poison us all with varnish fumes).
So that's one unfinished project. You should have SEEN the dust under the padding. Horrifying. So glad it's gone.
Next up is the dining room I've never been happy with. When we bought the house four years ago, the dining room was a really interesting combination of avocado green on top, and sage green on the bottom, as seen in the before part of this "old" before&after thinger:
The colors looked nice after that, even though pinky curtains aren't really my thing...
But the sage green is also the color of the entire living room, and it seemed sort of redundant to have it in two rooms right next to each other. So when I scored some exciting red paint on super clearance on a rare trip to a certain W word store, I was beyond thrilled!
It actually looked really nice at first,
And when I was able to afford new curtains, it looked even nicer,
... in photos. In real life, it was dark and small, and the red paint got this weird faded look/possible film on it in places, and the upper half of the walls always had a greenish cast to them, as if the avocado was peeking through. CRAZY MAKING, especially sitting in there in the evenings in the artificial light, but I couldn't bring myself to paint again so soon, you know?
Until recently, when inspiration (and free white paint) struck, and my hand was forced,
After three freaking coats of primer and two coats of actual white wall paint (all on the bottom half), the weirdo red was gone for good. Then the yellow began to transform the top. I was scared, because yellow paint sometimes can be so awful and go so very wrong(scroll down for the yellow story), but hey, guess what? It turned out beautifully, and is exactly what we were going for.
I have since hung the curtains and some of the stuff is back on the walls, but I still have some putting away to do and finished pictures to take. But we are very happy with it. Much warmer and cozier, and no longer so dark and dingy looking.
NOW THEN. That project inspired the next thing I am going to share, because while this is something I have wanted to make for a long time, it probably would not have been started today had I not glanced at a bare part of the dining room wall and had an "Aha!" moment.
DIY silhouette bandwagon, I am on you!
Ethan:
Noah:
I should perhaps pause here to explain that Lydia's picture (next up) is a composite of three images, simply because she is 19 months old and incapable of sitting still long enough for my increasingly slow camera to capture her correctly. It looks creepy like this, but it looked creepier with my severed fingers all over her neck and head, trust me on that one.
And because it is always interesting to compare the appearances of siblings and search for similarities, here they are together:
As soon as I have the money for three 11 x 14 black frames probably matted to 8 x 10 openings (unless I change my mind at some point), I plan on having these digital templates printed and having a go at cutting. I hope I can make it through all three kids without losing patience. I am not, uh, the best at paper cutting, so we'll see how it goes... But if I succeed, they will be framed individually and hung side by side in the dining room, and I can't wait!
But because I can't ever do anything nice and leave it that way, here is the silhouette I've done of myself.
I can't wait to hang this one up somewhere special.
