Slowly but surely...

We have started (FINALLY!) on the upstairs bedrooms, and our first room is the future nursery. On our to do list is:

-floors (about 20% done)

-rip out ugly old mouldings (done!)

-patch up holes that will not be covered by wainscotting (done!)

-paint upper half of wall (done!)

-install wainscotting

-install baseboards and moulding

-install new chandelier

-put up new window coverings

-set up furniture and finish decorating

Here are some befores and our current progress:

Kitchen Creativity

Instead of thinking up tasty recipes to cook, these days my time in the kitchen is spent dreaming about how I long to reconfigure the crazy layout, ditch the grimy old cupboards, and rip out the hideous old light fixtures. I saw this kitchen while casually googling for ideas the other day and I think I truely found our future kitchen. The floor color is the exact shade as ours and the cabinetry is the perfect shade of cream, now I just need to finish the 1,000 other projects that are ongoing at our house...

Eco-Logs

When we purchased our house this summer one of the features we were super excited by was the real wood burning fireplace. After having the convenience of a simply switching a light switch to turn on our gas fireplace at our last house we were perhaps a little unrealistic on all the work that goes along with collecting real wood, kindling, and newspaper and then attempting to get them all lit, and even more importantly to stay lit! Deciding that perhaps those easy to use logs you buy at the grocery store were more in line with our needs, we actually tried a few and were happily on our way to once again using our fireplace several nights a week during the fall and winter. That was until we stumbled across Java Logs at our local hardware store! They are made of recycled coffee grounds and are much safer burning as well as being healthier since they do not give off much creosote or carbon monoxide compared to real logs or other brands of quickstart logs. Definitely check them out if you love an easy, low maintenance fire roaring in your fireplace on a chilly evening!