Not the professional pictures, but...

I couldn't decide if I wanted to wait until I had the professional pictures, or post some of what we have so far. It's not done, but getting SO SO close. I decided to give you a sneak peek, so here is a taste of the living and dining room:


Here is my mirror project all finished and put up on the wall. Still would have been nicer with the dowels, but I like the effect of the lamp in the mirror. You can't tell in the picture, but it being across from the window opens up the space. I like the way it casts little rainbows when light hits the bevels in the mirrors too. Gives it a "sparkly" feel.

I haven't finished "prettying" up the TV stand yet, so ignore that :-)

Since we first bought the house, I knew I wanted to hang our vertical mirror horizontally on one wall, and get something to put two lamps flanking the mirror. If I was designing this for a client with someone elses' money, I would have put some sort of sideboard or console table under the mirror. But there happened to be a floating shelf the exact same width as the mirror, and I love the way it turned out. I really pictured it being much bigger in my mind, but I still like it.

We spent the first night in our house last night. The last few times we've moved, my body has not been able to adjust to facing a new direction right away. Those of you who know me know that I have ZERO sense of direction, so this is kind of odd. This time, my feet were facing the door, but I felt like my feet should have been facing the bathroom. Jarrod said "that makes sense, because that's West, and that's where your feet pointed at the apartment." How does my body know that, and my brain doesn't? Ask me what direction my feet face in the apartment, give me a map and a few minutes and I might be able to figure it out. Anyway, that to say that I have a hard time sleeping in new places, and did not get a lot of sleep last night.

Here is a mini tour of the dining / living:

These last few days have been the most fun part of this process. I get to do what I love which is decorate and see my ideas come to life. Sometimes I love them, sometimes I hate them (usually I hate them at first, and then they grow on me.) I was walking into Bed Bath and Beyond on Friday, and while I was walking from the parking lot, I took a deep breath in and couldn't believe that this is my JOB. I get to go shopping at 2:00 in the afternoon on Friday to look for things for the house. (sometimes it's not an easy job though, when your accounting manager AKA Jarrod gives you a $20 budget for draperies). It can be frusterating trying to come to an agreement with him on what is important to spend money on, but somehow we always manage to come up with a compromise that makes both of us happy. (I got the only drapes in the store that were $20 by the way, and they are UGLY... I can't find ANYTHING in my budget. I guess I'll have to get creative.)

Now that the "grunt" work is mostly over, we can sit back and look at what we've done and feel really good about it. We're not going to know what to do with ourselves after this week when we won't be working on the house anymore. I guess we'll reintroduce ourselves to the art of sitting on the couch and watching TV. We literally have not eaten at home ( I have not cooked ) since December, and I'm really looking forward to cooking some nice meals again. NO MORE TACO BUENO!!!!!!! That and starbucks have been some of the biggest unexpected expenses is this project.

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Here's a cute video of Phoebe, she discovered little moths that fly and land on our dining room window (outside of the house). She was trying to catch them for HOURS. The funniest thing is when she jumps into the window with her face to try to catch them in her mouth... didn't catch that on video though. I guess she figures if she tries hard enough she'll get through the glass to one of these bugs.