no words for that: Sweet December

Hello all! I must say it's been a while! Life has been pretty crazy for the past month or so! I had a birthday- 27th ride around the sun! The same week we packed up our apartment and then I headed to a conference at the Lake of the Ozarks Wed-Fri. I got back to town on Friday afternoon just in time to close on our new house! The next day we moved (in the rain). Thank you to Marty, Candice, Mike, and Tiffany- you guys were such a big help! We dove right into unpacking and doing house projects. I painted our bedroom that first night. I was so excited- I was painting until 1 in the morning! The next work week was crazy because the semester was wrapping up. But we got more work done on the house each night. We ordered pretty much all of our furniture on-line- so we came home almost every day to huge packages on the front porch. Between couches and Christmas cards- I feel as if the mail fairies have truly blessed us recently. Next we headed down to South Carolina to spend Christmas with Joe's family. We had a great time and we even got an unexpected white Christmas. Now were back in Rolla and things are slowing down just a bit. My family was planning to come down this past weekend, but they didn't make it due to the blizzards up North. I'm sure something else will pan out for us soon though! Now for a list of everything we've accomplished so far and some pictures!

1.Painted the bedroom- Valspar "Bear Claw" (Terracotta Orange)
2.Put shelf paper in the antique bedroom furniture I refinished this past fall
3.Painted the basement Valspar "Porcelain Shale" (Charcoal Gray)
4.Insulated the attic
5.Created electric outlets in the basement (so we could hang the tv on the wall without all the cords showing)
6.Installed a porch light- there wasn't one before- just naked light bulbs, hanging out
7.Installed a new kitchen faucet- our old one was was installed backwards and it drove us crazy. We figured if we were going to reinstall something, it might as well be something we liked.
8.Made, painted, installed custom shelving in the basement for all the stereo/video game stuff
9.Refinished a coffee table for the basement (we brought this back inside a LITTLE too soon- it has little kitty footprints on it now- opps. I think it adds character. But- maybe we'll fix it in the Spring)
10.Painted the living room Valspar Gourd. The shade was a lot darker than I thought it would be. I was not happy. So- my smart husband asked the Google gods "how to lighten paint" and I ended up following their advice:) More about that later.
11Textured the ceiling in the basement and painted it white.
12.Cleaned. A lot. The last owners had 3 dogs, one of which shed a lot of black hair. All over the place.

I think that's it. A home is a lot of work! But- we love working- ergo, so far, so wonderful!

Alrighty- what to do when you paint your walls and you're not happy... Here's my before shot. I wanted gold... it seems I made a stop over at orange juice...

My remedy involved a trip to Lowe's. I am starting to feel like some sort of regular in that store- they're getting to know me there! Anyway... I purchased a can of interior faux finish... same stuff I used for the bedroom set redo:

This time I had it tinted "Gypsy Gold". This color is about 10 shades lighter that my base coat "Gourd". I also got a special paint brush that is used for Tuscan faux finishing. You can find these by all the faux finish pamphlets at Lowes. Next, I taped off all the trim just as if I was going to repaint the room. Then, the fun part, painting random X's all over the walls, working side to side, overlapping as I went. When each wall was complete, I went back and blended the X's with a wet flour sack dish towel. The results...