Dining Room Reveal

It's been a busy, busy time but things are finally slowing down for us.

I've shown in my last posting our living room, we added 

curtains for a little more privacy

I need to do something though with the bottom of the curtains, I like curtains to touch the floor but the end of those are a scalloped finish  so not sure how I can change them, maybe add fabric to the top, hmm? That's another post.

So the dining room space, which is off the living room.

I will start with before and the after:

Before:

Beautiful hardwoods that just needed freshening up, dirty ceiling and a light fixture that was ripped out.

After:

Smooth clean white ceilings with a new light fixture.

I want to make a tablecloth out of the drop cloths you can get at the home improvement stores and make a runner for the buffet we're using as a TV stand as well. (winter project)

Before:

This is during the renovations. UGH! Every time I see the ceiling before it grosses me how dirty it was and shiny it was. 

After:

Before:

After:

So that's our dining room. 

Our table used to open for an eight seat dinner party, but we had to remove the center piece. There's room to extend it when we need to but for everyday it's best to have it as a six seat.

Next posting will be bathrooms. 

We're so close to being done with the inside, still need to finish the guest suite downstairs, 

our bedroom needs to be touched up and some other little projects.

Thanks for visiting!

Lemon Bundt Cake Gluten Free

Today was a baking day.

I searched through my Gluten Free cookbooks and saw this recipe.

It's from The Allergen-Free Baker's Handbook and there are some

delicious recipes that I can't wait to try.

The recipe for Lemon Poppy Seed Bundt Cake is so delicious and the glaze is tangy.

Great with a hot cup of tea, of course you're wondering who is drinking tea when it's 98 degrees out?
Well, I am, especially since it's quite comfortable in my house so I enjoy a cup of afternoon tea with a piece of this wonderful, 

delicious beauty.

Things around here are still moving along, hubby tiled the laundry room floor,

I can't wait to show this room before we did this, it was dark, dirty, exposed and it smelled horrendous.

In fact, this whole house stunk, a smell that you can't forget. They had carpet in this room, yes in the laundry room and on the stairwell that I think their dog peed on occasionally.

Plus the fact that it was empty over a year and closed up didn't help things.

As soon as hubby took out the carpet tiles and tossed them out, the smell is practically gone,

I hope after painting it'll vanish completely.

So, he has to grout tonight, 

the contractor is adding doors to hide the AC and water heater units, then I can prime and paint.

So, I've yet need to paint this room, the bathroom down here, the basement, then the master bath, and hall bath upstairs, also have some painting to do on the stairwell, then some touch up painting throughout the house.

It's coming along.


I thoroughly enjoy the fact that I can actually live in this house. 
When we put our home on the market, 
it was as if it really wasn't ours any longer.
It was decorated for people to see, for them to see how their stuff would look in that space.
I felt like I was house sitting instead. 
But now, I can do what I want, decorate they way I like
I can even put the magnets back on my fridge!

When I opened the box that contained these, I was so excited!
I know, stupid, but not if you've been 
through selling a home.
These little things mean a lot. 
Putting out family pictures was also so much fun

Having to pack them away because the possible buyer may be distracted by seeing your pictures and may not be able to visualize themselves in the space.
Seriously! 
It's called imagination. 
Well, whatever, it's nice to open the boxes and put things in their place.
There's still some unpacking to do, but hopefully before this month is over we'll have the majority of it done.

Moving Forward

Where to start?

It's been so long since my last post,

so much has happend since then.

If you remember we put our home on the market

last year March, it stayed on for

six and a half months with tons of showings,

a few interests, even one that was serious but

couldn't get a loan.

After much frustration we removed our home from the market in October.

Then after a two month break we put the house

on the market end of December,

we thought we'd try to sell it ourselves

this time.

Well, two weeks after putting it back on

it

SOLD!

We couldn't believe it. The buyer loved the house,

drives by our home everyday and

NEVER

saw it for sale until one day he said the sign

jumped out at him and he called

the number.

Well that same day they came over, walked

through and asked us when we

wanted to close.

So, we closed Febuary 27th.

Our home went from this crazy caos and overwhelming

craziness for several weeks then on Monday

it looked like this

It was very hard for me.

I cried for two weeks.

Yes, this is what we wanted to do, it was our choice,

but it was still very hard.

This was our first house, we put a lot blood, sweat and tears

into this home.

Renovated this home, each and every room, we had

a lot of memories here.

But now, we'll make new memories.

We're in Maryland now, renting a small apartment

with our belongings in a storage unit.

We hope to buy a home here now.

But I would like a break for a while, the last six weeks

have been insane

so it'll be nice to just take it easy before starting to

fix up another home.

We made it, we survived the first phase of new

beginnings.