RJO Performance

The whole reason we only had a week to get our house painted, carpeted and put back together was because the Rossville Jazz band and choir would be coming to our house for dinner on Saturday night. No pressure to renovate your entire main floor in one week, right?! This has been a yearly tradition since Scott started bringing the jazz band to Brownsburg for competition and the kids look forward to "playing at Abbott's" all year. The Wii, PS3, and grill all get lots of use on this day!

Here the Rossville Jazz Orchestra is performing for ISSMA Jazz contest at Brownsburg MS
Cara took this picture since I had the camera on manual focus and I thought it came out pretty neat
Congrats to the band for earning a "Gold" rating! Way to go!!

Kitchen Paint Redo

I found this picture in which you can see the color of yellow that was previously in the kitchen which Scott termed "obnoxious yellow"

The new yellow is much softer is is called "melted butter"
Next project to work on is a tile back splash, it should keep Scott busy over his Spring Break

Dining Room Redo

I found some pictures of the dining room from earlier this year...

Beige sheers with gold accents and shiny brass chandelier

Now for the post redo pics...here is the china cabinet...it is in the same place
We turned the table the other way which makes the room seem much bigger (why didn't we do this before?)
The new stripes are a very soft bluish green color alternating with "candlelight" color
I painted the frame of the picture, it was gold in color

We look forward to many dinners to come in our new dining room (once we have the energy to cook again!)

Foyer Redo

I was looking real quick at old pictures to find one with the half table and mirror, this was the best I could do for now.



Old mirror, lamp and table in a brushed brass look
Newly repainted in oil rubbed bronze!

Office Redo

This whirlwind redo of the first floor of our house happened so fast I didn't really take the time to take "before" pictures in all of the rooms. We ordered new carpet and set an install date for a week later so we knew we needed to paint everything before the new carpet came, especially if we had to move all the furniture anyway.

On Monday they installed the carpet in the dining room and family room and we asked them to split it between two days because we had way too much furniture to move it all for a one day install.

The walls were already red, we just added a fresh coat of paint and painted the ceiling. When I say we I should say my dad because the new carpet for this room was being delivered on Tuesday so we had only a few hours to get the old furniture out, the walls and ceiling painted before the carpet installers came.
We found a great deal on new office furniture that we both love! It came with 2 desks, a legal bookcase, a lateral filing cabinet and a new lamp (thrown in by the owner!)

We love the look with all the matching furniture!

New carpet

Old cheap builder grade carpet....bye bye
Hello new carpet...super plush and lovely stain hiding color!

Chandelier Redo

Shiny brass one minute
Then painted with oil rubbed bronze the next. Yes I painted it still hanging up because we were already planning to paint the ceiling and walls if overspray got on them


And thank goodness we were getting new carpet since the overspray went farther than the sheet

Old dining room stripes....

When we moved into our house we painted polyurethane stripes in the dining room. The dark yellow one was behind our large picture in the room. Bye bye poly.....new stripes coming!

Our little helper!

Cara is such a little helper. Here she is spackling the wall!

Half Bath Redo!

After living in our house almost 8 years it has come a time to make some updates! Our half bath was selected as our starting point!

I had originally painted the half bath a lavender color (it was a mis-tint gallon at Lowe's s the price was right at the time)
Notice the lovely builder grade lighting, faucet and other fixtures.
New paint color, new toilet paper holder, new chocolate brown rug
New faucet in old rubbed bronze, new towel ring with new towels. I had to go to about 6 stores to find new towels to match the green paint (note to others wanting to redo a bathroom buy towels you like first and then match the paint)
New lighting, new medicine cabinet

We love the new bathroom!

Nosy Things

Our curious cats are exploring everyday, they are especially curious about the washer and dryer and take every opportunity to jump in and explore!

Valentine's Day 2011

After going out to eat several times the week before for my birthday dinners we decided to have a nice intimate dinner at home for valentine's day this year!

Little did we know when we planned this that Cara would be sick and we would have to stay home anyway. Scott had been up with Cara several times during the night while I was at work so we was exhausted when he got home from work, so I told him to go take a nap while I cooked and I would wake him for dinner. (for those that know me well know this is shocking..I usually leave the cooking to him if I can!)

Our beautiful table set for dinner!
We devoured salads, filet mignon, fresh green beans, and au gratin potatoes!
Cara's fever broke a bit before dinner so she had perked up enough to sit at the table with us. She got a new Zhu Zhu pet, Minnie mouse glass, puzzle and candy for valentine's day!
I got Scott a new wine aerator so we could really enjoy our bottle of red from Cooper's Hawk
I made chocolate covered strawberries
Scott got me the new Monopoly City game which we tried to play after dinner but it was a bit challenging to figure out since you build cities and not just buy homes and hotels
Dessert included a rich chocolate brownie with raspberry sauce (one of my fav's) and creme brulee (Scott's fave)!

Every day is Valentine's day for us but we did enjoy making it a special occasion!

Finally a snowman!

Every time it snowed this season we were disappointed that it was dry and flaky snow and not snowman worthy. Well the recent warmer temperatures warmed up the snow in the front yard enough to pack for a snowman.

Scott and Cara busy rolling snow balls
She paused to make a snow angel


Daddy made a hat out of snow and arms too!
We used hershey kisses for the eyes, a baby carrot for the nose and a twizzler for the mouth!
Ta da! Our first snowman of the season!
She named him Frosty of course.

Frosty only lasted about 30 hours with our increasing temps this week but he was fun while he lasted!