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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Before and After: Our House

OK peeps, here's what you've all been waiting for - HOUSE PICTURES! Because I am lazy and blogger is acting weird right now, I'm just putting them all on here in no particular order. The "Before's" are first. Also, I didn't edit anything. Again, because I am lazy and it already took me 2 days to get this post ready.


Back of the house
Kitchen looking towards Master Bath

Kitchen looking towards dining room and garage

Kitchen - notice the weird counter top piece hiding the back of the stove

Kitchen

Kitchen

Water heater in Garage




Back of house

Wallpaper in Master Bath


That's all the "before" pictures we have. We started working on the house before it occurred to me that I might want "before" pictures of everything. Oh well.


Here's what it looks like now:
Dining Room
Stone plates from Hobby Lobby
Kitchen - We removed the cabinets from above the stove and replaced the weird counter top piece hiding the stove with a larger piece of wood and shelving

The little shelving unit is from IKEA

New flooring and lighting in the kitchen and dining room

We painted the kitchen cabinets a dark brown. The actual color is Sarasparillo. The turtle in the window is from Senegal, West Africa. Zach thought he needed to look out the window and that is where he's staying. :)

New French Door refrigerator. The wall color in the kitchen is Vanilla Brandy.

Living Room - wall color is Martha Stewart Brick Hearth

There will eventually be more things on the walls.

I love our fireplace. The mantle was natural cedar when we bought it - we painted it dark brown.

The window on the mantle is from my paternal grandparents house - the house my dad grew up in. They still live there, but they replaced the windows a while back and DD let me have them.

The djembe (drum) is from Senegal, West Africa too.

Master Bath - I made the curtain. That fabric was $46 a yard at JoAnns and I found it for $5.99 a yard at OHCO in Covington. That was a good day.



We painted the vanity the same color as the kitchen cabinets and bought a new counter top, new sinks, and new faucets. We got new lighting too from Lithonia Lighting.

Justin installed a shower door.

And he did a little landscaping in the backyard.

He and Daddy built a cover for the water heater.

Justin added shelves to the side for shoe storage. Since living in Korea, both of us are in the habit of removing our shoes when we get home.

These are the cabinets that we took out of the kitchen. Now we have excellent storage in the garage.

Well that's it for now folks. We haven't done anything at all to the upstairs yet, and our Master Bedroom is next on the project list.

I want to know what you think so PRETTY PRETTY PLEASE leave me some comments!

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The paint on the kitchen cabinets is Sarsaparilla by Olympic and the finish is gloss. We sanded the cabinets, did 2 coats of primer, and then 2 coats of paint.

If you have any questions please email me at moonpie.designs@yahoo.com



Saturday, October 18, 2008

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Writing Prompt - A Time I Hid from Someone

This is a writing assignment given by Mama Kat. Want to participate? Head on over there and check out the other prompts!

*I apologize in advance for the lack of paragraphs and any run-on sentences. I tend to write how I talk. :)

One of my favorite memories of my college days has to do with hiding - and breaking and entering, but does it really count as breaking if you just opened a door that was already broken?

Several friends and I decided it would be fun to break into the old barn at the insane asylum a few miles from my college. (This is what happens when you go to a Christian school - you have to find unconventional ways to have fun and/or get in trouble. But that's another post for another time.) The "barn" (we're aren't really sure what it was exactly) sat atop a steep hill and looked like something out of a horror movie. We parked at the bottom of the hill, off the main road, but still under a street lamp. After climbing the hill, we found a door that was off its hinges and snuck inside. Of course we didn't plan ahead and bring a flashlight, so the only light source we had was one of those little red LED lights you can keep on your key chain. Yeah. Think creepy place, the middle of the night, and one tiny little red light. Red lights make everything scarier. So we are walking around and the place is pretty much empty except for a bunch of boxes all stacked up and the occasional bed frame. So naturally, we open the boxes. Well, the first one we open just has like old calenders and some paperwork and stuff. Bor-ing! So we open another. And another. Then we each start opening our own boxes because up to this point we have all been moving as one big blob -- everyone holding on to someone else. So I open my box and pull out what looks like a cloth rag of some sort. Excited that we found something other than paper, everyone gathers around my box with the light. I hold up the rag thing and for a beat there is silence. And then there is screaming. And then there is mass chaos as the guys try to hush the screaming. I finally get a chance to look at what is causing the commotion and I realize that I am not holding a cleaning rag, I am holding a white t-shirt with what appears to be huge bloodstains on it. Bloodstains! Suddenly I hear everyone saying "shhh shhh" and we hear voices coming from outside near the door. Not good. So quiet mass chaos ensues again as we try to find a way out without going back through the door. There's no other way out (all the windows are nailed shut) so we end up sneaking up to the door and then running full speed to the other side of the building - the side nearest where we parked the car. When we look down the hill to where the car is, we see a cop walking around the car and writing down the license plate number. We had already made it half way down the hill when we saw the cop so now we are all hiding behind a big oak tree - the only tree on the whole hill. Before the cop gets back in his car, he walks to the base of the hill and picks up my friends shoes (moccasin slippers) that he left there because he didn't want them to get wet. The cop takes the shoes with him, gets in his car, and leaves. As soon as he's gone we jet to the car (because the whole time we can still hear voices up the hill and it sounds like the groundskeepers or whoever are looking for us) and drive to the river and park under the bridge. Jaimi (the only other girl and the owner of the car) starts freaking out because she thinks the cops are going to be waiting for her when she gets back on campus, so we sat under the bridge for most of the night, scared out of our minds, pumped with adrenaline, and starving. We eventually ended up at a friend's apartment to crash for the remainder of the night. The cops never contacted Jaimi and we never heard anything else about it.

What I can't figure out is, why did the cop take the shoes?