Area Rug Issues

 This post is mostly for my Mom.  Anyone else can put in their two cents, if they would like.  HELP!  What should I do?  Mom gave me this beautiful area rug that was in my great-grandmother's bedroom beside her bed.  It's too small to put in the center of the room.  But does it look ok just pushed to the side in front of the book shelf?  Here's a few different angles...

Hate the vertical blinds.  I hope they will be gone after we paint this weekend.  Not digging the green swag curtain thing too.

 Love the floors!  We'll also be painting and re-staining the stair banister.  Probably not this weekend.  That might have to be another project.

 So below, I moved it in front of the piano.  I don't think that will work because we actually use the piano and will be moving the bench all of the time.

 I then (see picture below) moved it in front of the chair and tried to pretend that I had a little table next to the chair.... But I don't think I like where the rug is.

 I slid it back in front of the book shelf and then moved the chair too (see below pictures).

But now is the room too lopsided with just a piano on a huge wall and the bookcase and chair on the smaller wall?

 Ok, so I decided to purchase an inexpensive 5x7 rug that I liked pretty well...

 just to see what it looked like in the space.  I could always save grandma's rug for a girls room...

 Moved the chair back by the piano..... What am I doing!?! 

 I like this rug.  I hesitate keeping it because it ties me to this bright blue and green and grey.  Do I want more colors in a rug so I can change my color scheme easier?  We all know how much I love yellow...  Will I be happy with this next year, or will I want yellow?  Or will yellow in the kitchen and family room be enough?  Maybe it will be good to break out of the yellow?

Dang it!  I should've taken a picture with the chair on the other side of the piano, so you could tell me where to put it! Ah well, this will have to be enough for now.

Sooooo, is this rug even too small?  Because an 8x10 is significantly more expensive.  Please let me know what you all think!

September Fun

 Emily and Audrey decided to run cross country this fall.  This was after their first race with their cousins.  The family is taking over the team!  They have had so much fun!

Olivia got braces!!  She was a trooper putting up with the normal aches and pains the first few days.  And she is soooo diligent about eating only the right foods.  What a good girl!  She's really looking like a teenager now!

First Day of School

 Olivia began 7th grade

 Emily's in 5th.  Last year of Elementary School!

4th grade, watch out for Audrey!

 Marcella started 1st!

 So cute and I'm loving the uniform thing.  Sooo much easier!

 A week later, Rylee Jo started pre-school.

 How do you like Meg and I's reflection in these next few pictures?  We were running late (of course), and I didn't even realize it.  I love that Meg is smiling too!

 These next few pictures are her modeling a posing.  So Fun!

Home Sweet Home!

 Our New House!

I know this post is way past due!  Between moving, kids starting school, unpacking, actually getting internet service (that finally happened about 2 weeks ago), and just life in general... I'm finally blogging again.

So, I haven't taken a picture of the outside yet.  I forgot to when we bought it, and right now our lawn desperately needs to be mowed.  You'll just have to check back later for a picture of that.  These pictures were taken when we put a contract on our home. 

 Our Front Living Room that we've turned into the music room.

 You walk in the front door and the music room is behind you to the right and the stairs are immediately to the right.

 This view is from the music room.  The wood area is the front entrance  and past that is the dinning room.  You can see the hall to the kitchen/family room area.

 As you walk through the dining room, there's a hallway to the right that goes the basement (door on right), a coat closet (right), the garage (past closet on right), bathroom (straight ahead), 

and study (on left).

The study.  Todd has already agreed that this can be my craft room!  Oh, the fun I'll have here!

The down stairs bathroom

 This is the family room. 

 A fireplace! Yay, for Christmas stockings!

 My kitchen.  I love having stainless steel and I love that it's granite.  Although, I would've have picked a granite with more grey/white instead of browns.  Oh well, I'll make it work.  I've already warned Todd that with our new flooring we're going to need to paint all those cupboards white.  I love white kitchens!!

 The desk area in my kitchen.  We may turned this into a pantry someday.  See that skinny cupboard next to it?  That's the existing pantry.  Not the biggest for a family of 8.

 Our back-side yard.  I'm thinking a garden would be perfect here.

 Back patio.  Maybe I'll have patio furniture someday.

 Back yard.  Swing set needed next spring.  Although my older girls are putting in requests for a trampoline.

 The upstairs loft.  This will be another bedroom, eventually.  We're also looking into having a 5th bedroom added to where the vaulted area is in the family room....

 Upstairs kids bathroom

 The tub and toilet are behind a separate door.  Love this!  That way hair can still be done while the tub/shower/toilet are being used.

 Upstairs laundry!!!

 Kids room

 Kids walk-in closet.  What!?

 3rd bedroom

 The closet

 Master bedroom.  I'm thinking window seat?!!!

 Master Bath

So, since we've moved in, we've ripped most of the carpet out of the downstairs.  We replaced the kitchen, music room, dining room, entrance and hallway floors with dark bamboo.  It's beautiful!!!  Don't worry, I'll be posting pictures soon.  This Monday is Columbus Day and Todd and I have plans to paint the music and dining room!

Attic Bedroom

Like December isn't a busy enough month with 2 birthdays and Christmas.... Todd and I decided to renovate!!  Our hundred year old home has a third story attic.  It's fantastic!  When we bought this house with only 3 bedrooms, we definitely had our minds set to finish this story.  So here are our before pictures.  

 I really should've taken pictures before we even started anything.  This space was chuck full of storage stuff.  Todd worked on knocking down the unused chimney.  This is what you saw as soon as you walked up the steps.

 Above is a picture of at the top of the steps directly to the left.

Below is a picture from standing in that gable above and taking a picture of the stair area.

 Below is the gable sort of in front of the stairs, to the left of the chimney.

 

 Below is the picture of the roof looking down into the chimney.  Todd used a mortar chisel to knock off the top part of the chimney, but the chimney inside of the house was so old that he could just pull the bricks off!

 Half the chimney gone... look at all that dust in the air!

 No chimney (picture taken from stairs)!  It really opened up the area.  And as for those bricks... they're sitting in my backyard waiting to be used this spring to pave a path in my garden!

 Luckily when we bought this home, there was already sub-flooring, heating and airconditioning in the attic.  We hired a contractor that framed, dry-walled, taped, mudded, replaced windows, installed carpet and adjusted the heating/air vents just a bit.  This is after framing the second day.

 Above is the gable directly left of the stairs.  This is just the view from where the chimney used to be.

 This is looking down the stairs.  We ended up taking that right side of the steps wall down to a half wall.

Above is the gable in front of the stairs.

 Above is after framing is completed and they started windows.  That's the gable to the left of the stairs.  We put in a larger window to meet code for fire safety.

 This is the gable in front of the stairs.  We ended up replacing that window with a crank window so that we could keep the old look of a full window.  That was expensive miscommunication!

 These are looking from the one gable at the stairs and the framed in closest and door to storage!

 Ta-dah!  A finished room.  It took us until this past weekend, but we did all the trim work and painting ourselves.  What a job.

Up the stairs and then looking to the left.

 

I love the gable to the left.  I have plans of built in bookshelves and a pillows on the window seat!

Here's a close up on the wood work.  Todd did a beautiful job.

 This is standing in that gable looking at our double closet doors and the door into our storage area.

 Looking towards the stairs...

 This is the gable in front of the stairs.  Just enough room for a single bed.

 Our small, beautiful, crank-out window.

And down the stairs!

We moved beds in on Saturday, but I don't have their new bedding yet.  So, stay tuned for more pictures!