I love my house!!!!

This Summer Dave and I had our house painted...it was a headache dealing with the contractor but it did finally get done minus the porch. Dave and I are doing that ourselves...so it went from this white house with ROYAL BLUE trim to this:

It's a butter cream with stark white trim...much better than before. I thought I had a before picture but I can't find it.

I also have been doing alot of renovating to the inside of the house. We have totally redone the smallest bedroom upstairs. It went from an all over mint green with clown linoleum floors to a beautiful little room with mahogany wood floor, lavender textured walls and stark white trim and crown molding. I do have to finish the closet in that room though.

I painted the living room Basil Green (still need to paint the trim)...but I think I'm gonna change the color.

We renovated the foyer. Dave took the nasty carpet out and put in tile laminate...looks and feels JUST like tile. I textured the walls, primed and painted a color called caramelized...it's too dark so I'm going to pick something lighter. And I painted the trim Polar White.

I also did the hallway upstairs...everything where there's an I...yes..just me..Ali whose done those things. Dave did the new floors and a room of molding and I have done all the taking down wallpaper, texturing, priming and painting myself. Dave doesn't like doing that part. He won't even tape for me so I have gotten really good with a trim brush.

I was working on the boys' room and then we were interrupted by a tenant who wanted his room done so Dave and I got the basement room done. Its a light purple grey color with black baseboard and molding...Dave also put in some blond wood looking flooring. I think I have that on a different blog.

So, after that room I was able to get back to the boy's room and I am so proud to say that it's just about finished. I'm too excited to wait till it's completely finished so here's what I've done so far...I will just go through the process:

Here is my dilemma...most of the hideous floral wallpaper came down fine...but most of it was not budging. So after three hours of dousing with DIF and scraping, I got smart and bought a clothes steamer...

This is what you would see if you walked right into their room. See how ugly that wallpaper is? So, I finally got it all off and then started texturing the walls with mud. It's really easy if you want to try this at your house. Take sheet rock mud and add water and mix (alot of mixing) till you get a thicker pancake batter consistency. Then get a texture brush, oval and course bristles all around...and then start putting the mud on the walls. Some people to designs, I just randomly do it because it gives it more personality. Then when the mud's almost dry. Barely scrape it with the same tool you would use to scrape mud over a hole in the wall. This is called the "knock down" method. After the mud dries, you then have to prime the mud with Kilz or something like...Here I am priming the newly texture walls. (This is a great way to minimize the rippled look of lath and plaster walls.)

A little better picture to show the raw mud on the wall.

After priming the mud, when dry, you can add your color. I chose a color called Bleached Wheat from the boy's vintage cowboy room. Here's me and my skills with a trim brush. I hate taping so I just do everything VERY carefully...

Here's another picture of the color I chose in the room: (go back up for a reminder to what it looked like before)

So, after I finished the all over color I painted the trim Polar Whit and added my decorations and here ya go! A room for the boy's almost is done.

Now all that needs to be done is their "nooks" as I call them. They used to be closets but the doors have been taken off and their beds go in there. Each boy has there own "nook." I am going to put their names over the "closets" with altered wood letters and paint something like a fun color or a mural on the inside. Other plans I have to finish off the room is make a couple quilts for their beds out of big 12x12 squares of different thrift store jeans and other cool western fabrics. When they get older I would like to put a sconce in each nook so they can read at night. It's a pretty cool room. Big too. The biggest room in the house. I absolutely LOVE my house. So this was fun...me showing you how I did some of their room. Hope you like it as much as we do!

Strep...

Yup....that is what I'm recovering from. Last Tuesday night what started out as a harmless sore throat developed into me waking up Wednesday morning feeling I had been hit by a car...and I still had the sore throat. 800 mg of Motrin and a gram of Tylenol later I felt a little better, but by night, I was shaking because I was so "cold" (I didn't realize I had a bad fever). Thursday morning I still had the sore throat, felt achy all over, was cold and now was nauseous...throwing up even little sips of water and by noon, I was throwing up bl00d . I went to immediate care and was diagnosed with strep throat. I had a 102.6 fever and they had to give me a IM (butt) shot for the nausia. I have been on antibiotics for three days now and am feeling much better.

Well, I am trying to post before and after pics of the boy's room but the Internet is being retarded. So, I will have to do it tomorrow...I must get some sleep now.

Lots going on...

Well, it's been, as usual, completely nuts in the Brown home...Between working both our jobs, spending quality time with the fam, church, fixing up the house and taking care of this new puppy, I have not put something new on our blog daily...like I thought I would. So, let me just start with these awesome cereal cup things I found at the base shoppette!

They are great for me because now that the kids have to go to Check-a-Child and meals aren't provided for them, I have to make breakfast and pack them a lunch before I go to work. So with these nifty cups, All I have to do is pour the milk in the bottom container and put the cereal in the top and viola! Breakfast that's easy for the kids to take to daycare...the spoon is in the top of the lid. I just thought that this find was just awesome!

I also went to the mall the other day and got these fun shoes:

They were half off and I really liked the pink and brown. They're Vans and so I thought it was a good deal...they're super comfy too...

The weather has been amazing lately. Yes, it's been a bit chilly at times but the trees are getting so gorgeous!

On base, we never had mature trees around our house. Their beauty inspires me. I want to write a poem about it. Something like:

As tender leaves shimmer gold, they await their fate that will behold

another season of bare trees , no more beauty of crimson leaves

the wind gusts and some will fall, but they try to hang on with their all

this time they're safe, their color still blesses, until the elms loose all their tresses

Something like that...that one's kind of elementary sounding but maybe I can pretty it up. Anyhoo, there was a beautiful Vanilla Sky for me the other evening and I had to take a picture...

Isn't it just gorgeous?!?! I love sunsets...God always gives me a yummy sunset for my birthday which is coming up...It's hard to believe that I will be 25. I think that because I had kids so young, I feel like old or something. I'm really not that old. One of the most exciting things that is going to happen for me this year for my birthday is that my car insurance will go down. WAY down! Yay, that's always exciting...

So Dave and I saw some strange thing going on in front of the mall. They were these big statues. My curiosity overcame me and I asked him to pull over so I could look. They were made from recycled aluminum cans and some of them were life-like sizes. The horses were as big as real horses and the Elk was huge too. So I found some really big cowboy boots and asked the man if I could try them on for size...he said "Sure."

Lady Liberty needed some help too...she had a "bear in her cave." Code for: BOOGER!

And then the most adventurous part of our day was when Dave and I went to get tattoos...yes, I got my first tattoo today. After a Flexeril and N0rco, I was ready. It hurt but not like, "I'm gonna die" type of hurt. I think after having babies, nothing really hurts anymore. Mine is Hebrew for, "Woman of Valor." It's small and far enough behind the neck that when I have my hair down you can't even see it. Dave really likes it and I do too...

Dave got a few more tattoos also. Dave really liked my idea of stars on the inside of his arms and that's what he wanted and got. So here's some pics for your viewing pleasure...by the way, Dave was kidding in the pic of him looking like he really is hurting. ;-)

Where's the tickets to the gun show??? Welp, I hope to get lots of stuff accomplished tomorrow. I am trying to get more motivated. It's hard when you're tired all the time. But I have found that if I take a little nap in the middle of the day, then I am more likely to do stuff that I wanted to do. Sleep sounds so good right now. It's been a big day so that is what I am going to do. Good night!