Remodel Day #3 and Gripes!

Nuuuuuuu, my sweet chicks, no gripes about the remodel; it's coming along just fine. I'll talk about the gripes further down.

Mr. Bob, and his name is Bob Robinson of Nampa, Idaho, if you live nearby give him a call. He's very reasonable and has been recommended for doing nice work. He seems to be right on, or even ahead of, schedule with this tiny remodel. We're thrilled with the progress anyway. Remember, he is doing this "on the side" from his day job. So he starts about 4:30 in the afternoon and quits around 8 - 8:30 pm. Today he will put the "plywood arch" on that header and then maybe sheet rock and tape. If all goes well tonight, he'll then mud/texture(?) tomorrow. But it's looking good and giving us a clearer view of what it'll look like.

One person said they wouldn't like the "closed in" feeling of it and that they liked the openness of a house with several rooms. Well, if I had one of those open log homes up in Sun Valley, so would I!! I love that look where you have huge rooms all open but all defined as the living, dining, kitchen, family/great rooms but in a small house it just doesn't cut it for me. However, if Bruce Willis or Arnold would come down off the mountain and switch with me - straight across switch - I'd be more than happy to take it over and even clean those big houses. I'd be singing a happy tune, let me tell ya!

But for this house it just looks too small to do that so we'll "define" the living room a bit more. I tend to be a bit more "formal" in there also. "Formal" being a highly relative term here! It's in no way "Formal", just a lot less "informal" than the small family room. Remember, my little cherubs, this is our last, scaled down, senior, live in till we die house!! You'll understand this when you retire and are near to 70 years old! :-)

Since I couldn't "clean" house yesterday (it would do absolutely no good!) and couldn't think of too many things I wanted to do, I decided to prime and spray paint this little reading lamp since there was hardly any wind. It was brass and I've had it for many years. Tarnishing was taking over as its primary "color" so I spritzed it white and am quite pleased with it. I'm soooooo loving spray cans of paint now - quick and easy beyond belief! I may become the Miss Spritz Queen! I'm lovin' it that much!!!

~*~

Now the gripes.

Why is it that when we find something we really love - a new found thing or something we've used for a long time - they decide to stop making it or they decide to stop distribution in MY area?!?!?! This has happened to some frozen foods we've loved for years, to a mouth moisturizer, to a shampoo, conditioners and hair sprays, to salad dressings!! WHY?!?!?! I love certain things and don't want to give them up. The vanilla tasting dry mouth moisturizer is now a minty spritzer and not a "open your mouth and put luscious drops of a creamy vanilla taste on your tongue" type moisturizer! I loved it, but not the harsh minty flavor spritz they've forced upon me! I also loved Revlon's Outrageous shampoo. It was so wonderful smelling and great for hair. I'm not even sure they make it anymore. Same with the conditioner. Hair spray? I like a certain one with a level 7 of hold. Nada, zip, zilch........no where to be found anymore. I've even had my daughter and granddaughter check in Calif. and Seattle. Why do they stop making something that is so great and does the job exceptionally well. Not to mention the salad dressings!!!!!!!! Yesssssssssss!!!! I loved a certain lite Italian dressing but can't find it in the stores at all - from Idaho to Calif.; I've checked and it's no where to be found. *Sigh*............ Why don't THEY keep their paws off of MY things?! I tell ya it's enough to make me start a revolution. Viva la revolución!!! But excuse me while I go vacuum up the wood chips and eat breakfast. Revolutions seem to take more outta me these days and those little bits of wood are hurting my tootsies, don't ya know?!?!?!

Remodel Day #2

First of all, I want to show you my Giveaway Win!! I cannot tell you all how thrilled I was to win this little beauty!!!!!!!!! It's one of my favorite things now. I so appreciate this wonderful little cake plate or dessert server and the huge rose that came with it.

Mr. Bob had this done within about 3 to 3 1/2 hours last night. The remodel is coming along just fine! Not much mess at all from this part, but he was very careful to put up plastic sheets to help hold down the "mess" and I appreciated that. Ooops, I see a strip of blue tape stuck to the wall in the pix below this one.

Just thought I'd "throw in" these faux desserts as a bit of "eye candy" for ya chicks!! :-) I spend an entire 2 days just making these things. Ya never know what I'll do with them. ;-)

I heard someone the other day refer to "young wives" of "older men" as "arm candy" and I had to chuckle, I tell ya. I've always told Love Bunny if he did that to me when I die I'll haunt him till the day HE dies!! And I would, too. Trust me on this one! I truly do not even believe he would dishonor me like that though.

I've Been Neglectful. Please Read On!

I have been so neglectful with answering this one award. I received it while away in California and apologize to Gina for not catching it in a respectful time frame. Please go over to her blog and register for her Giveaway, chicks! You don't have much time so goooooo!!!! Gina and I are kindred "spirits" and only she knows what I mean. Now to the award.

I am giving this award to all the sweet bloggers! I've given it much thought and am just so simply stunned that I've gotten any award from anyone! My heart is full with the love I've received from all of you who've left comments. Each one of you deserve an award. I've seen all kinds of blogs: creative, beautiful, shabby, decorating, just plain talking ones, ones from the heart (I've even gotten a "special" invitation from one blogger who wanted me to read a very personal blog which wouldn't let me leave a comment because it wasn't allowed, so I emailed her and asked her if she needed someone to talk to and see if she was "okay"), ones from teens who've said I've made their day(!) if you can imagine that, and then one from her mom who emailed me for giving her such encouragement, blogs where personal feelings are shared, our "arts" are shared, ones that break my heart, ones that lift me up, ones where we learn how to do different skills, even one man left me a comment about wanting his wife to read my blog(!). They've all left me stunned with the sweetness and heart-feltness (Is that a word? If not, I'm making it one!) So my heart is full and I'm truly blessed in more than one way for knowing y'all chicks! Now, go visit my friend, Gina........

The Remodel Is Starting!

The contractor will be over this afternoon to start the remodel. We had him give us the estimate several weeks ago and since then he has taken a job with the state because of insurance so this is going to be a part time project for him. It's not a big project but we've given him our time frame (Hah, as if that makes any difference to contractors! In Calif. we had a second story put on our home there and it was supposed to be a 3 month project. It took 5 months!!!! Hubs was sitting on the toilet one day and the men started coming up from the crawl space while he was .........well, you know. A traumatic experience to say the least!) Anyway, he has to be done before Hubs has to go to Orlando middle of august. Nuuuuuuuu, I ain't goin', chicks, I don't DO airplanes, remember?!?!?! I know, I know, I'm missing this great opportunity to go see Disney World, but I've seen Disneyland! So why would I want to go to a humid place in the middle of summer to see little mice running around mischievously?? Nuuuuuuu, ain't happenin', chicks!

Anyway, I'm seriously digressing here. First off, these are 2 little shelves I got for 99¢, yessssssss, ya heard that correctly, 99¢!! Squeeeeeeallll!!! One was already white but had some black felt pen marks on it so I repainted it and painted the other bigger one and voilà here they are - good as new! I'm so thrilled!! Can'tcha tell, my little doves?!?!?! I'm feelin' like the Spritzing Queen with my little spray can of paint! This is sooooooo easy to do - take cap off of paint can, point to object to be painted and press top tab! I'm loving it! No clean up except maybe for the index finger.

Here is the wall getting the remodel. (Read carefully; you will be given a pop quiz at some point!) I hate pass throughs from living room to kitchen and do NOT like people seeing in my kitchen from a living room. (Yes, we might have been able to get it done when being built but it was beyond that "easy/quick" point, would have taken much more time and we HAD to be out of other house very, very quickly. Thus we knew that someday we'd redo it.) On the photos you see where it says 12" out from existing wall. Well, we've decided it is to go out 30" on each side leaving an archway of about 5 ft. We will then have a little more "defined" living room, no view of my dirty dishes and squeeeeeealing with deeeeeeelight........more WALL space!! I'm so happy I could walk barefoot over pink nails!! THIS means I can move our lovely grandfather clock to that wall along with "other" things getting it out of my family room and put a new fireplace........squeeeeeeeeeeeal again...........in there!!! Get my drift here? More fabulous shabby, chic, frou frou looking stuff in family room!!!

But the downside is we're living like pack rats for a couple of weeks. Unorganized is not one of my favorite states to be in! But I promise "progress" photos daily if you want to travel along this "remodel" with me, my little blogging buddies. So stay tuned!

This was taken last night as we started taking down stuff. It's a mess this morning! *Sighhhhhh*................

We Have A Winner!!!

I'm such a kid!! I get anxious and excited about drawing a name for the winner of the faux desserts giveaway! I just get so excited to be able to make someone happy, if that's the word. I sure hope it makes her happy....... So the winner is:

Theresa@takeasentimentaljourney!

Congratulations, my little sweetpea!!!