GIVEAWAY

Check out the Sassa Lynne blog to sign up for Myfanwy's giveaway celebrating a year on Etsy. You get your choice of your prize if you win.

I am up to my neck in more renovations. DH got the new kitchen lights installed and they work wonderfully. His wallboard patch-job needed some help though. We had a company who had previously taken down about 1/2 of the popcorn ceilings several years ago (all we could afford)
come in and give us an estimate to fix the kitchen ceiling, fix a patch in the laundry room ceiling, and remove the popcorn from the ceiling in our bedroom which has vaulted ceilings. The estimate was reasonable, so 2 days ago they fixed the 2 patch jobs, and retextured the ceilings, and also removed the popcorn in our bedroom. Yesterday they came in and painted our bedroom. I need to paint the laundry room and kitchen ceilings (my job today).

To get to one section in our bedroom, John had to take down my doll case which extended the width of our bedroom along 1 wall, on top of a bookcase, that went up to the ceiling. So that is disassembled now and my doll collection is residing in the spare bedroom for now. Since I planned to remove the wall paper in our bedroom one of these days, and the doll case is already apart, I plan to go ahead and empty the 2 bookcases, move them away from the wall, and at least paint that wall and and then move it back into place. Then John can remake the doll case.

I really had not planned on doing this room this year, but since the ceiling is done, and the doll case apart, I might as well. This is a big job, as our room is wall-to-wall bookcases floor to ceiling, dressers, and a king sized water bed, so to get behind that wall, we are going to have to empty the bed, and then refill it. But that will be the last wall we do. I am going remove the paper and paint in sections. I still need to go over to Lowes and chose my paint color. Our wallpaper was a navy blue floral. The dresser and other doll cabinet John made for me I painted a blue and stenciled with flowers, so I need to chose a color that will go with my painted furniture.

Birds and Bees RR, more home renovation

This is Debbie's block from the Birds and Bees RR I am involved in. I was the first person to work on this block, so this is the naked block, the way it
arrived to me.












This is my part finished, going out in the mail today.

I added the leaves, the lady bug buttons, the hollyhocks, and hummingbird, and those black things are supposed to be ants, which I am thinking of taking off before it goes out of here. They sort of look dumb to me.













Well after we finished my office/craft room, I figured DH would rest up awhile before he started the next thing on his list in our home renovation. We have lived in this house for almost 31 years, and there are things that need to be renovated, such as the kitchen lights.

Well instead of resting, he plowed right into the kitchen lights. We have had 3 fluorescent lights in the kitchen, that worked well for probably about 15 years, but the past 15 there have been nothing but problems, they flickered, or 1 or more didn't work at all. We decided to put in recessed lighting, so DH bought 6 lights. This involved cutting 6 holes in the ceiling to fit these in.
We went up in the attic to try to clear away insulation, but were only partially successful. I was the one doing the clearing, trying to step on the boards and not step through the ceiling. I finally told him I would clean up the mess when it fell through, which I did.

He got the lights up, he got the wallboard up with the 6 holes cut through that, so the ceiling in the kitchen will be flush now. This involved trimming of wallboard and a lot of chalk-like fine dust. (I decided to worry about all this fine dust after he finished, because it is useless of me to clean it up now). Today he is sanding the the whole works and texturing the ceiling to make it match the rest, and then I will be able to paint. I haven't really been able to cook for 4 days now, and am anxious to get everything cleaned up, especially since I am watching the 2 grandsons this Sunday.

He says his next project is the spare bathroom, replacing the floor and the toilet, to a water-sparing one.