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!