hats!!!!

my latest intrigue has been crocheting hats :)
so much fun!!!
my goal has been to make baby hats, but i'm still learning, and they usually end up being a different size than i was first planning lol




i'm hoping to sell some of them at a craft show this fall :) or if anyone is interested ;)

this time, it's sticking...

we woke up this morning to a light dusting of snow


yes, it is beautiful :) and it's always exciting to see the first snow begin to blanket everything in its pure whiteness...but knowing that white is going to be about all i see for the next 6 months makes this snow a tad less exciting

o how i love and miss my summertime!!!

i was reading in james this morning and he talks about rejoicing in trials because they make you stronger...well friends, i hope to be a lot stronger in 6 months because this is definitely going to be a trial!!!

it's currently 27 degrees outside, and it just keeps dropping :(

such a handyman--my man :)

the island is complete!!!!


before my hubby made me this little island, i had about 4 ft. of counter space, half of which was taken up with a dish drainer!!!
he has done so well with helping to make our little apartment into a home :) thanx baby!


this is the stage that the island was at when i first arrived


my job was to stain it...


...while my baby sanded the top. it's a big wood chopping block :) i love it!

fastening the top and the bottom together

view from the back

view from the front...now all that's missing are the drawers

my baby working on putting the drawers in


i love him :)

the drawers are in, and yesterday i finished staining them :)

mmmmm....i'm such a lucky wifey :)

yes, it is only october, and yes, it really is snowing

snow like this:


calls for a cup of hot chocolate like this:

mmmmm.... :)

to do: paint living room...check!!!!

before we get to the living room, how bout a pic. of us?

i love this man! can't keep my eyes of him :)
and despite the sad faces in this picture, we were having fun :)
it could be that the faces indicate the coming cold...def. not happy about the negative numbers in the forecast!!!
this past weekend we went to winnipeg and my hubby got me all outfitted for the winter...boots, coat, and long underwear :) still not sure i'm quite ready!!!!

anyways, on to the paint job...
basically i'm going to take you on a lil' spin around our kitchen/living room/dining room :)...and now we have a bed in there too, so i guess we could add bedroom as well :)

here we have a shot from the kitchen which shows all 3 of the newly painted walls together. i like it :) especially loving my dark chocolate wall on the right! now i'm on the hunt for some colorful artwork to hang on it...something that will make it pop :)


yes, i know the curtains are different lengths and they need some help...i'll get to it, i promise :)
and as you can see, we now have a bed in our living room :) sometimes ya just gotta make do w/ what ya have :) who says a bed can't be transformed into a chic couch? ok, so maybe chic isn't the right adjective, but we got some oversized pillows (26x26) while we were in winnipeg, and as soon as i get them covered and in position, i'm hoping it will look a little more like a piece of furniture and a little less like a bed lol

loving my lil' posies in the window :)

i want to accent this room w/ maroons and greens...so far, we have the posies :) lil' by lil'!!!
i'm going w/ maroons and greens because we have pink carpet in our living room...yes, i did say pink :( ... so my hope is that by going w/ maroon i can puuullllllllllll that color out and leave the pink behind

this is where the beige/tan and the dark chocolate meet :)
mmmm...so can't wait to get some artwork on that chocolate wall!!!

so here is a shot from the living room into the kitchen...i love the way the dark chocolate wall and the green kitchen interact :)

i now have a moose plate hanging above my stove :) yay moose!!!

so that's it for now on the home improvements :)
and lest any of you think that i'm complaining about our lack of furniture or the fact that we have pink carpet or that we have 4 rooms in one lol...i assure you, i'm not :) i feel so completely blessed and love our lil' home :) new and nice things are always fun, but being creative w/ what you have can be lots of fun too!!!
and here's an open invite to anyone who wants to come check it out first-hand...we'd love to have ya!!! but make sure you bring your winter clothes...it's cold up here!!! lol

moving out of the 70s :) :) :)

my husband calls it cozy...i call it ugly...it's actual name is wood paneling
apparently, whoever built this apartment really really really really liked it. there isn't a single wall that isn't paneling. thankfully, some of it has been painted, but def. not enough of it. my project this week is the living room/dining room...yes, they are one and the same :)

this picture is taken looking into the living room from the kitchen which is now painted green :) the plan is to paint the wall on the right a dark chocolate brown, and the far wall and the wall on the left a beige/tan. so here are the before pics...

can't wait to post the after pics!!! but painting paneling takes some time to say the least.

first order of business was to sand all the wall to give them a bit of texture so that the paint would have something to stick to.


it took a while...you can kind of see the scratches in the above pic.


the next step was to wash it all down to get all the sanded particles out of the cracks and off the walls...that also took a while...but then it was read to be primed :)

ps. the wall is absolutely full of these nail and screw holes...no idea how many people have lived here before us, but if you go by the number of holes in the wall, it's been quite a few...hopefully the paint will help to cover them :)


and then i got distracted by some pretty colors out the window and had to snap a picture...then i got back to work :)


praise the Lord for an amazing husband who got off work and then worked most of the evening with me to get it all primed!!!!

another thing that makes painting paneling a pain is having to paint all the spaces between the panels individually with a brush...we thought about keeping the jail theme, but then decided it prolly wouldn't give our home a very homey feel lol


so here's our currently white living room...it'll look better in the end, i promise :)
more pics to come!!!!!