Santa's Coming!!!!

Our new decorations inside and outside the house, were all done in the spirit of the Christmas season and in honor of the 4 food groups of the elves: candy, candy canes, candy corn, and maple syrup.

Christmas wreath on the front door

A lil charlie brown tree with a santa hat

The color "terracotta pot" or red/orangish walls with maple cognac color cabinets

Upper and lower cabinets

"Terracotta" arch

Set of kitchen chandeliers

I'm all jacked up on Mountain Dew!!!

Yesterday Kade cut a hole in the nice drywalled and painted closet ceiling. No, he wasn't all jacked up on Mountain Dew!! It wasn't a mistake-he was cutting the closet access to the "attic" area. This past weekend, after GMan and Kade drywalled the back bedroom, we worked on our random to-do list. You know, those not too exciting, but very important tasks that need to be tackled. Projects like more drywall in the master bath, cement board around the tub, a coat of mud and tape, spending a couple of hours in Home Depot, getting blown-in insulation in the attic, returning a few things to Home Depot, and cutting insulation for under the house. You know, we just might need to be jacked up on Mountain Dew for us to finish all of this so we can finally start on the kitchen. Cause you know, "If you ain't first, you're last."

Angles

A look at our freshly painted dining room in a color named, "Cultured Pearl." From some angles it looks more like a cream color, from other areas it looks more yellow. It's a tricky color-so put your glasses on! The finished hallway floor complements this wall color nicely and it looks so nice! I bravely put aside my fear of blades and let Kade show me how to use the saw yesterday. So I helped him make the straight cuts for the hallway floor--don't mind if I do. Now the angle cuts, ummm yeah, Kade still cut those.

Wall color with chandelier

Wall color in the sunlight

Looks like two different colors here, but we promise it's just one!

The wall color at night

Gorgeous Japanese Maple out front in its fall color

Lies the size of Texas

My flight to San Antonio left Charlotte on Halloween at 6 p.m. Earlier that afternoon, I said bye to Kade and Galloway at Home Depot eating KFC and playing a bunch of carnival games (literally) with the staff as part of Home Depot's "contractor appreciation day." Kade told me before I left that he might buy some paint for the dining room and the master bedroom and that he'd just be piddling around the house while I was gone. I talked to Kade throughout the weekend in between baby showers and football games, the Riverwalk and the Alamo, shopping and eating chips and salsa, and his response to my question of "what's up" received the response, "oh, you know, just fiddle farting around." Which made me happy-I was hoping he'd take the weekend to relax. But when I got home late last night, I realized that the stories he'd told me over the weekend were lies the size of Texas. Or, the size of Bee's orange hat!!

While Bee and I posed in Texas, Kade was at home finishing the master bedroom, which I knew nothing about.

Kade painted the entire master bedroom in a soothing green shade and finished laying all of the wood floors (with Galloway's help) and it looks GORGEOUS!! I was soooo surprised!! He says he didn't, but from the looks of things, he worked very hard over the weekend. I think he deserves a big Texas, "yee-haw!!" What a sweetie!

Lucille

Our water heater, who will forever be known as Lucille, has picked a fine time to leave us with no hot water. We had had heat in the house yesterday for maybe 9 hours and last night was the coldest night yet--39 degrees. Are you singing in tune with me to those the piano bar chants as they're shouted after that famous Kenny Rogers lyric?? So with heat flowing quite nicely through the house, Lucille decided a lil heat wasn't going to trump her cold shoulder exit. Her exit was cold but they say you get used to the pain when you're numb. It's true-after the first cup of ice cold water went over my head this morning I lost all sensation and completely forgot about Lucille. I was too worried about my ghost white hands returning back to their original color.

"LUCILLE"

Our nice new thermostat controller works great, but the elation over this was quickly smashed by Lucille's antics.

Cold Snap

It got really cold here last weekend and most nights this week. It is normally not this cold in S.C. in October! But at 6:30 a.m. the average temperature in the house has been about 56 degrees. brrrrrrr cold! Makes me wish I still wore footed pajamas. And since Old Man Winter is traveling fast, the master bath and back bedroom need to be closed up-ASAP! Which means a weekend of insulation and drywall trump putting down more living room floor. However, Kade's gotten about halfway installing the living room floors and they look fantastic!

Front bedroom furniture-not in its final spot, but its something. Like the shower curtain posing as a window curtain??

The third bedroom--One last reminder for you of what the walls look like before insulation and drywall.

Lil' by lil'

Kade's master plan of "to-do work" takes him from room to room, sometimes at lightning speed, working a little bit here, a little bit there, and of course making lil quick trips to Home Depot every 3 hours or so. In his fits of A.D.D, I take refuge on the porch with my paintbrush or hide in a random Home Depot aisle while he buys & returns the same faucet three times. (Not exaggerating, that actually happened.) But here, in pictures, is this weeks master plan, which I think looks beautiful!!

The painted living room in the color of 30YY/53/125. Or if you go by it's make believe name, which I do, it's called "Summer Sand."

A newly installed fan in the "dive tank."

And...GROUT!!!! And a shower! And a faucet! yay!!

Carving Time!!

On Saturday we decided to quit chipping away on the house and found a few pumpkins at a little produce stand to carve on at Anna's pumpkin carving party instead!

Kade punched out teeny tiny holes (which took about 20 minutes) to make "Buckeyes" only to discover he needed to make the holes bigger for the light to shine through. This extra effort assured that his pumpkin didn't say "uckeye" over a giant "O". Rob's meticulosly carved and scary looking pumpkin lurks in the background.

My tiger paw--we might have a lackluster season but we still have a cute logo.

And here's where Kade carved out the rest of his weekend--beautiful tile in the tub surround!! We made an executive decision to find another tile to use over the previously purchased blue tile due to an estimated delivery date of November 5. Neither one of us wanted to wait that long to shower. We still bathe folks, we just can't use the shower portion of the tub right now.

The little "t" things you see are tile spacers. Not some modern form of tile work Kade wanted to try.

Kade and Elliot are carving out time on Columbus Day to enjoy a few "American" cold ones and some alabaster grout!

Minor variations

Kade and I are both annoying to be around choosing paint--simply ask the Home Depot paint man named Robert. I love a lot of colors and I pour over sample after sample of the slightest color variations and hold them all up to the wall to see what looks the best. Kade, on the other hand, chooses 2 colors. The 2 colors he chooses he "likes" and the others are "fine" which I take to mean he doesn't particularly like them.

Well we needed to choose a living room color and this time we agreed on one! "Nantucket Dune" was the name. Yet our 5 gallon bucket order caused problems last night at Home Depot & what they could or could not match. So, our new living room color has no name-just a code.

30YY/53/125
Whatcha think of our selection?

No CU game = Weekend Work

You're looking at the results of Kade's weekend of hard work installing our new floors in the front bedroom!! Installation commenced only after Kade gathered all of his tools scattered around Pickens county. I was delegated to painting the fascia on the porch and to cutting insulation, both tasks meant I wouldn't be in Kade's way and I could listen to my headphones as loud as I wanted to, drowning out the nail gun and air compressor.

I think the "dots" in my picture are friendly ghosts.

The "dots" in this one are just dust.

furniture!!!!!

Our granite countertop for the guest bath on a make shift base until we find a cool vanity.

The faucet isn't hooked up yet so we're still brushing our teeth over the bath tub...

High hopes or high dive???

What the front bedroom is supposed to look like and does look like in my dreams with my white, fluffy down comforter and white furniture. Please do not be fooled...this is from the October issue of Real Simple, but its a nice preview of the front bedroom, so I ask that you join me in my world of imagination.

Welcome to Kade and Galloway's "Dive Tank"--12 ft of "Lakeshore" blue walls large enough to be a diving well. "Lakeshore" photographs a little brighter than it appears in person, but it is bold.

Behold the new oak hardwood floors floors!!!!! oooohhhhh, aaaaaahhhhh

And a new 6 light dining room chandelier!! Don't worry, the chandelier is sideways, it is not your computer.

They call it progress

"Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow." -Plato

Changes to the house are there--you just have to look really close or you might miss them. The guest bath is primed and one wall is painted. The cement board is also up along the bathtub so we can add the nice new tile we bought. The fridge and washer & dryer are hooked up and working!! The subfloor in the hallway, dining room, living room and front bedroom have all been vacuumed in 4 inch strips with the shop vac, which means the drywall dust is gone. And, the front bedroom is primed and the ceiling is painted. Its almost time for a new paint color! I wanted a color for the front bedroom that would match some of my art that was bold but not too dark. Kade looked through the entire paint sample book thing last night and made fun of 92% of the color names, but I think "Lakeshore" is the front runner for the front bedroom wall color. The living room color is up next...

"Lakeshore"

What are the colors of happiness???

Is it the tile shade called "Himalaya Noche" that Kade installed in the guest bath on Friday night?? Or is it the "Alabaster" colored grout he added yesterday?? (Pics are pre-grout.)

"Himalaya Noche" tile

Or is it the soothing color called "Whistler" added to the primed over purple drywall in the bathroom?? But it might be the pretty iridescent specks in in our Caffe Rocca granite countertop that we hope our green/gray/bluish wall color will accent...