The Living Room

Notice the sweet puppy in the corner laying in the sun. Darby is finally settling in well. Again, the only thing done in this room was paint and carpet cleaning. If you are looking for good carpet cleaning check out Christian Brothers. They are great!

The Bathroom

The reason why I am super excited about this one is because the medicine cabinet in the "after" picture is actually the medicine cabinet from the downstairs bathroom. This is my rendition of TLC's "Design on a Dime." My show is called, "Design with just a quart of paint."

The Dining Room

I love the difference paint can make. The color on these walls is "Thunder Bay." We are very thankful that the furniture we already had fits perfectly. We will be looking at window treatments in the next couple of weeks.

The Kitchen

This is our first before and after series. The kitchen wall color is "Bagel" and put on with a ragging technique. The ceiling color is "Cherry Cobbler" and took about two gallons! The color of the beam across the top is "Chocolate Sprinkles." The paint colors were picked out before we realized the names all had to do with food. So there it is: our very own Mediterranean Kitchen.

Things learned:
1. If you are painting with a dark color on a white wall/ceiling use color primer.
2. A thicker roller carries more paint and puts the paint on thicker.
3. Carry a wet rag with you as you paint to wipe those pesky drips.
4. Painting is always more fun with a friend (thanks Louise!!)

Things I find while unpacking boxes...

After a few surprising finds, I have decided to post the things I would not expect to find (but did) while unpacking in our new home.

Here is the first:



Nunchucks! They may be plastic but who knew we owned nunchucks? Apparently, when confronting Ian, I learned these were from a "Ninja Party" we went to a few years ago. My only question is "how did I miss these when packing up the boxes?"

Sacramento or Bust!

After spending three nights in our new home, we headed out of town to a Hyatt in Sacramento for a week. Youth Specialties Convention Season is here! I got to attend the convention as a volunteer while Ian, well, it's his job. Besides a great convention, a few of the highlights included:

1. The view from our room.


2. A great visit with Ian's aunt, uncle, and cousins at their home, also known as the Double Decker Ranch.


3. A visit to the California Capitol Building.


No Governor sightings on this trip, but our attempts took us to his office where we met a security officer who let us know he was out of town.

A fantastic trip, but we are so glad to be back in our home!!

A new home...the adventure begins!

Thanks to so many gracious people, we were able to move our entire apartment into our new home on Saturday. We are seriously so thankful for each person because the move itself only took three and half hours!! I would say that is a record.

We absolutely love the house! Darby still has some getting used to it, but that will come with time.

Although we have only been in the house for three nights, I have already learned a few things about being a new homeowner:

1. There needs to be an understanding with the current tenants.
For the first two days, when I walked into the front door, I also walked through a thick spider web. The spider finally realized that is was the door I preferred to walk through so if it wanted to keep it's masterpieces, it needed find another door.
Also, the Praying Mantis that I have named "Pete" (not Peetie, or Peter, just Pete) likes to be left alone as he perches on our porch light in the mornings.


When taking this picture, he did a hissing/chirp thing that made me believe he wasn't going to move and so I needed to accept that.

2. It's going to take time to get to know each other.
When in a new relationship everything is a new discovery. I have made a few discoveries already. There are switches that when turned on, don't appear to do anything, although they are doing something somewhere. There are creeks under certain stairs and not others. What may appear to be secure, might fall off with the wrong amount of pressure is applied.

As we get to know this house, it will get to know us and we are so excited for it to become a wonderful home. I can already tell it is going to a fantastic adventure!!!