I told you yesterday that I would be back today, with this weeks update on my self imposed challenge.

So, I am here this morning to follow through on that promise. Like I said, this challenge has really helped me to get the ball rolling on a lot of projects that I have been putting off. It's sort of ironic to me how much of a procrastinator I am. I do love to clean, organize, and declutter and to me, my home is at its best when things are simplified. For instance, the less stuff hidden in the closet--the better, the less papers on our desk waiting to be taken care of--the better, and the less hanging over my head waiting to be finished--the better. For me, this goes as far as the more organized and concise my files are on my computer--the better.

Yea, I know, I know. I'm weird. But, this is me. :)

So, when it comes to getting something accomplished, you would think that I'm all about jumping on 'it,' whatever 'it' may be. Wellll, see that's where it becomes ironic to me. I tend to push things to the side and declare that they can wait till later. Often later is the last possible minute. Sometimes later is even too late. I think it has something to do with being-overwhelmed-by-all-that-my-mind-perceives-needs-to-be-done-so-I-just-keep-putting-it-off type of thing. Yet again, weird, but...its me. At least I realize my flaws here people!

Oh you have flaws too?

Great!

Let's form a club. Then we can be BFFs. FOREVA!

Something like Flawed Persons Anonymous?

OK. OK. Too far.

So, lets talk about this weeks results.

I set out this week to accomplish this idea found on Pinterest, decide which bed we want to use in our new master bedroom, and finish putting one coat of primer on the entire kitchen in our house.

The Pinterest project that I picked this week took all of two minutes for me to accomplish. I thought that a short project was in order after my experience with last weeks. Also, since our computer will be in our living room in the new house, I wanted to pretty it up a bit. Right now it looks so electronic. So after finding the project on Pinterest and the tutorial from anamu I went for it. The whole easy and pretty thing had me convinced.

So, I grabbed an old book, I had laying around, and a kitchen knife. The tutorial called for a utility knife, but I didn't have one..so this did the job:

I then proceeded to cut along the inside of the front and back cover. Basically, you just cut the binding that is attaching the cover to the pages of the book:

After all of the separation anxiety dissipates, you should have a cover and then a chuck o' pages. This is the point where I tried it on for size. Here is a before picture of the current set up on our computer desk:

Here is an after with the two options that I wanted to try. I figured it could cover either piece of equipment. 

What do you think? I don't know, I'm not completely sold. It does make the area look pretty, but I want something more. It would be awesome if I could cover up more than one piece of equipment at a time. I do have a few other ideas whirring around in my head, though. So, I will let you know if I decide to try something else!

On to the bed decision. Not really a big deal, but something that I had been procrastinating on for awhile. Basically, we have two beautiful queen bed frames and I just didn't know what one I wanted in our master bedroom. I also purchased a new rug for our house and had to decide which one matched better. So, on Monday, I decided to figure it all out.

As you can see, I rolled out the new carpet in our (now empty) dining room and set up the bed that we had sitting on our porch all winter. See more pictures here.  Originally we didn't think that option two was going to be able to fit in our new master bedroom. With the slanted ceilings it was just too tall (option one is about three inches shorter than option two.) I was a little upset about this because I thought that option two matched our new rug the best.

But after setting up the bed I realized this:

What a wonderful surprise! Because of this, the bed will have to stick out about four inches from the wall. I excitedly called Jonathan and asked if this would make a difference. His response was 'Yes!' Because of this, the bed can be about three inches taller!! Wahoo! Option two it is! Definitely a wonderful and unexpected surprise.

Oh and as for the kitchen. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. The before pictures:

and the wonderful after pictures! Oh first, here is a close up of our wonderful paneling compared to the white paint. Don't you just love the early 1800's theme?

And without further ado!

So, what do you have on your weekend to do list? Stay tuned to see what we accomplish next week!

Git R Done: Week 1

I have been waiting to write this post aaaallll week. I know, I know. I left you guys high and dry last week. Sorry. This whole spring-coming-early thing has left my allergies very confused. I woke up last Friday with a migraine so I decided to put off last weeks post and just do two this week. One today and one tomorrow. SO, lucky you! You get a Saturday post!!! 

Have you forgiven me? Yay! Thanks! :)

I have to say, the first two weeks of this 'git r done' challenge have been really great. I have been super productive and I have the blog (and you guys) to thank for that. Every time I feel like putting something off, I remind myself that you are all watching--er reading? --and waiting for me to show you the progress I have made. So, instead of putting stuff off, I have been tackling things with a vengeance! Let's dig in. 

Last week I decided that I wanted to accomplish three things. I was going to make this project I found on Pinterest, clean/organize our front porch in preparation for moving, and I was going to finish sanding our kitchen cabinets. 

 {coffee filter wreath picture and tutorial via lovely crafty home}

Well it happened! The kitchen is completely sanded and then some (did you see my post yesterday?) , the porch has been spruced up and packed away, and the coffee filter wreath is pretty much done. I will get to the coffee filter wreath in a minute. But up first, the porch. 

Here is a before of the porch: 

There were so many things that were just sitting on the porch that needed to be taken care of. The stack of tan chairs needed to be returned to my grandparent's house (left over from Christmas!). There were also a bunch of things that needed to be taken to Sal Val and then there were a few things that just needed to be thrown away. I stacked, sorted, and took care of things that had been sitting on the porch for months. Now, here is our clean porch! 

The black chair is patiently waiting to be sold (update: the chair is going to its new owners today!) and the whole area to the left has been completely cleared out.

Now, we can begin to move things to the house. For the past year and a half this porch has acted as our garage. We have all of Jonathan's car things, our outdoor furniture, and our camping equipment on the porch. So, once I can hijack Jonathan's truck, I will move everything from here to the garden shed that is off the side of our garage. Maybe on the list for next week? Who knows...

Now, onto the coffee filter wreath. I picked this project because I had all of the supplies on hand. I must say, I was a bit disappointed by how it turned out. It was a lot of work, for a very small project. 

I started in the morning and spent the whole day steadily working on it. I would dye the filters and hang them up to dry while I did other things around the house. Around 4:00 I decided that it was time to clean up before Jonathan got home from work, so I quickly dyed what I thought was enough coffee filters to finish the job and let them dry while I cleaned up my mess. Well, long story short, it wasn't enough. Here is my finished product. 

It looks nice from that angle. But just take a look from the other side. Can you see where the green is exposed in the picture below? Well I need to make some more flowers to fill in that spot. 

I'm not so sure I will end up finishing it though. I like the idea of having a fun, summery wreath but I'm not crazy about this one. I may have to try another one...

      1.) {source unknown}                                 2.) {source}                                       3.) {source}

Which one do you like best?!

A Coat of Paint.

I'm starting to believe that paint can fix anything. Seriously. Believe me on this one. It transforms the ugly into the beautiful. After looking at all the walls at our house, I realized that paint was going to become my best friend.

The plaster and lathe have created this wonderful wave effect on the wall. It looks like its intentional, but let me assure you it isn't. I can't wait until the day that we rip it all down, but until then, we are going to try to remedy it. Paint might not cover the wonderful undulating walls, but it will definitely cover the hideous wallpaper:

It will also cover the smell that seems to linger in this house. There is just a slight musty smell. I think it comes from the old carpet, window coverings, and absorbent wallpaper. Hopefully the paint will take care of the wall aspect and removing the window coverings and carpet will take care of the rest.

Speaking of paint, we just purchased half of the paint we will need for the house. I never knew how expensive paint could be. Oh. my. goodness.

The cost breakdown:

5 Gallons of Aqua Lock Primer: $144.95 (This is going on EVERYTHING in the house. Trim, doors, radiators, walls, ceilings, etc.So we will probably need to purchase more.) 
1 Gallon of Floor Paint: $39.99 (We are painting the floor in our master bedroom. We will need another gallon of this, but our local hardware store only had one in stock.)
3 Gallons of Benjamin Moore Ceiling White Paint: $80.97 (We might end up needing more of this, but this is a good start for now.)
4 Gallons of Benjamin Moore Green Wall Paint: $131.96 ( We purchased the paint for the walls in our master bedroom and living room. We still need the wall color for the bathroom, dining room, guest bedroom, and kitchen.)

Total: $397.87


Add in tax and then a few painting supplies and we were over $430 by the time it was all said and done. Reminder, this is just for HALF of the paint that we need. This also doesn't include the few gallons of primer and ceiling white that we have already purchased. Yea. It was a reality check for me. All part of the learning curve! :)

But, like I said, paint changes everything and this investment is well worth it, in my opinion. I think the wall colors are going to brighten up the space and transform it to our style. So, you may be wondering which color is which in the above picture...well let's talk.

The blue color is for our bedroom. Jonathan was excited about the prospect of having blue walls and I can't wait to see what it looks like with the carpet that we purchased (more on that in a future post). The tan color is for our living room. It may seem very calm and bland but wait, just wait, until you see the colors for the rest of the house. I think you will get my vision when all the colors come together! :) Don't worry, there is not going to be anything bland or lackluster about this house. Think color baby, LOTS of color.


I have something else to show you though. Something that speaks volumes about the miracles that paint can do. Behold our kitchen cabinets with one coat of primer on them! Here is the before:

and after:

Ahh!! Can I get a fist pump and a cheer?! We are getting there! I can totally see how its all going to come together. After a few coats of white paint on the cabinets and a pretty gray color on the walls, these cabinets are going to be beautiful. My cute, country kitchen is coming together.

Can you see the final results?  I'm itching to paint the rest of the kitchen and see how it all looks. Hmm maybe I will get it all finished by the end of next week. Stay tuned!

Now, I need to know, what is your favorite thing to cover in paint?

An Apology

I need to apologize. I realized last night that my post yesterday, may have offended some people. In our culture it is very common to keep one's financial situation quiet. Not often do strangers or even friends share their hearts when it comes to finances. Money is also the leading cause of arguments in a marriage and is usually just considered a taboo topic. And I did the exact opposite.

I spoke my heart yesterday because I don't have a hard time sharing who we are. I want to be transparent. I want people to know me for me. And that means that on this blog you will get all of who I am. You will get my quirky-non-humor, my sarcasm, my horrible grammar, and everything in between. My goal is never to offend anyone, but is more to allow any person who reads this blog to see the real me.

This blog is also a journal of sorts. I want Jonathan and I to remember these days ten years from now. I want to look back at these posts and see where we have come from. Maybe my future self will shake my head at yesterday's post and brush it off as immature, but for now, this is me...and that is what you are going to get :)

So, I want to apologize if I have personally offended or hurt you. Please know that was never my intention. I wasn't trying to brag, get your pity, or show off. I was just informing you and my future self. These days of hard work are so precious to me and I am afraid that they will slip right by only to be completely forgotten. I want to remember the late nights we spend at the house, the days that it seems like Jonathan and I never see each other, and the exact place we started from. I don't want to forget. I want to enjoy and cherish.

So, please forgive me and my bluntness. It's just who I am. :)

Sincerely,
Liz

Doing the Moon Walk.

Today, we're doing a little back tracking. So...moon walk...going backward...get it? Good.

Let's talk about the whole how-we-actually-purchased-this-house thing and I'm also going to give you a bit of a run down on our financial situation. For us, it was a long process that involved a year of looking, changing of expectations, and finally figuring out exactly what we were interested in. Our hearts were broken many times along the way, but we finally were able to let a house back-in-our-heart (see what I did there? ha.)

{our very first picture together as a couple}

Actually, the whole thing started in the summer of 2008. Jonathan and I had been dating for a year and for some crazy reason, we thought it would be a good idea to buy a house. Our idea was that Jonathan would live in it and fix it up while I finished college six hours away. Well our vision was short lived--you saw that coming didn't you? Yeaaa.  They tried to tell us we're too young, too young to really be in love. 

{source}

We saw approximately ten houses by the time we realized, purchasing a house was very financially irresponsible. We also noticed that our idea of what we wanted in a house was way unrealistic. A fixer upper in our price range was very thriller-esc to say the least. So, I headed back to school in the fall with much lower expectations and a mind set that a house was not in the near future.

*  *  *  *

Fast forward to December 2010. We had been married for 5 months and were itching to purchase a house. Armed with our previous experience we were ready to brave the housing market again. We started by doing a lot of research. I spent many hours looking at houses online and researching the housing market where we live. I really wanted to make sure I understood what was a good value house-wise. We also tried to figure out what we could afford without becoming completely house poor. Enter pre-approval here.

From December until June of 2011 we did our own thing. We would look at a house online and then proceed to drive by it, to catch a glimpse in person.  If we were still interested, we would call up the listing realtor. We visited ten houses and looked at 30+ online before we decided that this approach wasn't working for us. So, we made the decision to ask a friend of ours to be our realtor. He stepped in and we looked at another ten houses or so.

At one point we found "the" house. It was in great condition and had a fantastic back yard. It needed minimal work before we moved in, but we knew we could work on it over time and it would be a fantastic investment. Problem was, they wanted $80,000 for it. So we outlined all the the work that needed to be done and decided to offer them $50,000. They came back with a counter offer at $70,000. So, it was a Billie Jean is not my lover moment on the houses part-- it just wasn't meant to be. We kept claiming he was the one, but he kept saying we were just a girl. So we did the Billie Jean Shuffle on outta there.

We kept looking and looking. Another ten houses visited, another ten disappointments. Finally, in December, around Christmas, a listing popped up that I had never seen before.

Apparently, our realtor was looking at the same listing around the same time too, because he contacted us right away about the house. We agreed to meet a couple days later to see the house. When we visited we instantly fell in love. This was it. It felt as though we had seen her face a thousand times. It was familiar. So, we put in an offer.

Mind you, we saw the house three days after it had been put on the market. Our offer of $49,000 went in two days later. They countered us at $51,600 and we yelled 'SOLD!' It was the best feeling ever. So, the house was on the market less then a week by the time she became ours. I have to say, I knew this was the one by the reaction Jonathan had. Sure I had been excited by houses before, but he had never shown this much excitement. Usually it took convincing on my part for him to even consider a place. We just knew.

So here is where we ended up. Thanks to my awesome father who has allowed us to live in one of his apartments, we were able to save up a down payment of $10,000. So we ended up taking out a mortgage for $41,600. At this point I have to say that this is another reason why we knew this house was 'the one' -- it wasn't going to make us house poor. We would have enough money to fix 'er up and to pay the mortgage. Plus there would be enough left over to comfortably live off of.

So, we mortgaged $41,600 at a 15-year-fixed rate of 4.125%. By doing a 15 year mortgage, as compared to a 30 year mortgage, we are saving approximately $15,000 on interest in the long run. We also opted to do bi-weekly payments as well. This has made our loan go down to a 13 year loan and also saved us another $2,000 + in interest.

Our bi-weekly payments add up to the same amount as doing monthly payments, the only difference is that two months out of the year, there is an extra payment we owe. In essence, we are paying 13 months of payments in 12 months. So, to the tune of about $550 extra a year, we are saving two years on our mortgage and thus a lot of money in interest payments. We think it works out pretty well.

So, in honor of this Michael Jackson inspired post I now present you with this wedding rendition of 'Thriller'

So please share! What are your money-saving tips for owning a house? We would love some more input!

Keepin' it Real

I like to keep it real around these here parts. I don't want ya'll to think that everything is going along smoothly and we are accomplishing things at lightning speed. It seems, for everything that we have done, there are at least five things that we haven't done. Trust me when I say, there is SO much more we still need to do.

I have been steadily updating you on the bathroom and master bedroom as those are the exciting projects in our house. They are the places that have been totally gutted and built back up. But the rest of the rooms, i.e. the dining room, guest room, living room, and kitchen, will all be getting their own makeovers in due time. Right now, they are just the last ones on our 'to do' list.

So today's post is going to be about the progress (or lack there of) in those rooms. I just want to keep it realz- yo. Sorry, I seem to have an identity crisis going on--southern rapper anyone? :)

So, here is the progress in the living room. We started off with this:

and went to this: 

Yea, nothing really has happened--though we have ripped up the gross carpet that was in here. Right now it is acting as a storage/work area. It's where I have been sanding our clawfoot tub and sink, in preparation for the coat of paint I will be putting on them.  I will also be using this room as a place to sand and paint our cabinet doors for the kitchen and the molding for our bedroom--this way I can work rain or shine! We also have housed all the doors from upstairs in this room for the time being.

On to the dining room. It looks 100% the same. The before:

and how it looks now:

Now, it is just holding all of the things Jonathan needs for our bathroom project. The dining room has basically turned into our tool (and toilet ;) ) storage area. It is a convenient location for all of the tools to congregate because it is right off the bathroom and is the only room downstairs (besides the kitchen) that has an overhead light!

We haven't even taken up the carpet yet! We figured it would be good to leave it down in here--though I can't really remember why? Who knows! It probably made sense to us at that point and I know we were really tired of ripping up carpet by the time we got to the dining room. Oh! Plus it is the only carpet in the house that was professionally laid, meaning we couldn't just roll it up and carry it out. It actually covers the entire floor and wasn't just an area rug - like the rest of the house had.

Side note: this carpet used to be a mint green color. In person, you can see the original color around the edges. But over time it has faded so much and is so dirty that it looks like it was a light beige color--nope, think mint green!

Now let's talk about the guest bedroom. We still need to do a lot of work in that room. But right now it looks like this:

Yup, its housing all of the things that we don't want to get damaged and covered in dust. The stove, bed frame, and dresser are all under that tarp. After we went through all of the things that the previous owners left behind, we put all of the stuff we wanted to keep into this room and covered it all up. We are able to close the door and keep the dust from the house projects away from it all. Plus, this is the room with the most cigarette smoke damage (see those spots on the wall?), so it is nice to close the door and make the nastiness disappear.

We also have moved all of our purchased light fixtures and window blinds in here. Like I said, it basically holds all of the finishing materials that we don't want to be shrouded in glorious drywall dust--that stuff gets everywhere! So far, so good!

Finally!!! We reach the best part of the post. Thanks for sticking around through the boring-ness of the rest of it-ha! So, onto the kitchen-the room that has shown the most progress out of all of these, but still needs tons of work. Good news is, this past weekend I painted everything in a glorious coat of eco friendly, water based Aqua Lock. This is what our local hardware store recommended as an alternative to Kilz/Bin since I wasn't interested in inhaling all of those chemicals. Anyways, here is a look at the cabinets freshly sanded:

After I sanded everything so that it was smooth, I then filled all of the holes. There were SO many. I'm not talking about holes left from the hinges--those I left because we are going to put the doors back on--I'm talking about the ones left from push pins! They. were. everywhere. All over the window molding, the side of the cabinets, and on the back of the kitchen door. So many. The woodwork was starting to look like it was chewed to death. So, I filled all of those and then made sure to clean up all the dust, left from sanding the cabinets, before I started to paint.

I couldn't wait to start painting! Here is the finished project after one coat of primer.

So, I know you are probably thinking, "Man they got a lot of work done this weekend!" Just kidding! I didn't really get the whole kitchen painted. This is just a test spot to see what it will look like:

Jonathan and I were using the primer upstairs in the MB and I was so anxious to start the kitchen cabinets that I decided to take some of it and start painting them to see what it would look like. I am getting really excited about painting the rest of the kitchen! It is going to look so different and fresh! Our plan is to paint all of the cabinetry white and then the walls will be getting a healthy dose of color. Not sure which color, but something bold!

I have been taking my time on this space because I know how much time I will be spending in the kitchen, in the future. One of my favorite spaces in a house is the kitchen. To me, it is the hub of the home. On Saturday, Jonathan asked why I was taking so much time to fill the holes and what not. My response was, if I had to live with these cabinets for at least two or three years, before we are able to afford the renovations we are planning, then I wanted to make sure that the kitchen looked as good as possible. I figure the more work I put in now, the longer the paint job will last.

So that is the progress on the rest of the house. Our plan is to coat and seal all of the walls, trim, and molding with primer to lock in the smoke stains. We plan on just painting right over the wallpaper to save time and money. Eventually, we will gut the rest of the rooms so we aren't going to waste our time trying to take off the wallpaper now. Our fear is that it will pull down the plaster with it and Jonathan will have to spend too much time skim coating the wall so that it will be nice enough to paint. Just not worth it in our opinion.

As far as the floors go, we are planning on leaving the wood as is and just putting down area rugs for the time being. The wood floors are all technically sub floors but, they seem in decent enough condition that we can get away with them for the time being. Eventually we will probably put down hardwood throughout the first floor and carpet the upstairs. For now, think area rugs!

So that is the progress in the rest of the house. Anyone have any questions? I'm dying to know what you guys are wondering about...please let me know!

Happy Monday!

A Fresh Perspective

As promised, I am back today with pictures of my painting job!

Yesterday, after posting about our new molding, I headed over to our house to put the first coat of primer on the entire upstairs and the lower half of the bathroom downstairs.

Now, let me tell you, I never anticipated how long it would take me to do this. I was planning on heading over and being there for a couple of hours and then coming home to finish the rest of my to-do list. Ohh--no. No, no, no, no, no! I was very wrong.

Let's just say that seven hours later I was walking out of our house aching like I had just completed a full body workout. I arrived at 10:30 am all chipper and ready to go and left at 5:30 pm a walking zombie. Jonathan came to check on me as I was leaving and kept asking me if I was ok--yea, it was that bad. Apparently, I looked exhausted. Not to mention, I was also covered in little splatters of paint from head to toe.

 {source}

Except, I was exceedingly less excited and colorful. :) But, without further ado, her is our bedroom all decked out in a coat of primer. She is looking exceptionally bright, wouldn't you say? 

You know how I mentioned that Jonathan was really excited, when I told him about the trim option for our master bedroom? Well he was excited, because it would save him a lot of time. Yea, all that time I saved him? Well, it was added to my painting time. The first step in painting a room is always to paint whatever trim work there is. You have to make sure to also paint the corners as well. Basically, you take a paint brush and cover whatever you won't be able to use a roller on. It took forever to do this first step. 

I have to say, it felt great to accomplish the upstairs though. Jonathan said that it was very important to get the primer on asap because it will help him notice any flaws in the drywall. Now, he can go back through and repair anything that may showed up, as a glaring mistake, before we paint the final color. 

As far as the bathroom goes, Jonathan asked me to also throw a quick coat of primer on the lower half of the wall. The paneling that we ordered will be adhered to the wall using some kind of glue. Apparently, the glue attaches better to paint than it does to drywall. So that was on my priming list as well. Thankfully, all I had to do was spend five minutes throwing a quick, imperfect coat of primer up. No trimming involved here!

That felt like two seconds compared to all the work I had to do upstairs. 

Overall, I felt very accomplished yesterday. I also feel like everything is finally starting to come together! I am starting to really envision what the bathroom and master bedroom are going to look like when they are done. I can't wait. I also have decided that I am enjoying all of this work. Where some people may get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work that needs to be done, I truly enjoy putting so much time into our future house.

As I was painting yesterday, this song by Miranda Lambert,  just kept playing over and over in my head. 

I kept thinking,  "Our children will probably grow up in this house. There will be so many memories and firsts for us in this place." So, as I worked, I focused on that thought. I want to put all of my love into our house because of what it means to us now and what it will mean in the future.

God has blessed us with so much and I am so thankful that I have this opportunity. Jonathan and I are in a very special place in our lives and I don't want to miss a day of it. So, instead of being overwhelmed and stressed, I am soaking it in. I wouldn't trade these days for anything. 

Another Option

Man do I have some progress pictures to show you! Let's just say that our master bedroom is coming along prehhhtttty smoothly. It is slowly becoming that rustic-shabby chic retreat that I have been looking forward to. Our plan is to make our bedroom our sanctuary. Yes, most people view their bedroom as this, but ours will be a little more special, as it will also be our place away from all the other work that is going on in our house. It will be the only room (other than the bathroom--but who just chills in their bathroom?) that is 100% done. So while the rest of the house is in varying states of chaos, our bedroom will offer a nice retreat. That's the plan anyway.

So, like I said, I am going for a rustic-shabby chic look. To me, that means a lot of wood - painted wood. The room should also look like it took years to put together-as if one collected all the perfect pieces and seamlessly combined them to form the perfect room. So, while I am spending 'years' figuring out the perfect room combinations, Jonathan was working on defining the space in another way.

In this post I mentioned that I was trying to convince Jonathan to leave the ceiling open and let the beams be exposed. I love me some rustic wood beams. Well that was a 'no' because of the impracticality of it all. But I was determined to get my "wood beams." So I casually mentioned this other option to Jonathan:

{source}

I had fallen in love with the wood accents on the ceiling. It was a simple touch that I have seen done before and it just adds a little something without being too intrusive to the eye-this was important to me since our ceiling is relatively low.

Anyway, I mentioned it to him and he became all excited about it. Apparently, this idea was going to save him a lot of time! Instead of finishing the corners of the ceiling, after he drywalled, he would be able to cover them with the wood. Apparently, it is a lot more work to finish a forty-five degree angle (where our ceiling meets the wall) then a ninety degree angle (where two walls meet). The margin of error for getting a straight line is significantly higher in that situation.

So after the drywall went up:

Up went the wood:

Thankfully, Jonathan was able to purchase some pre-used wood from a local store. This cut the bill for the job in half. Plus, with a coat of white paint, you won't even be able to tell the color differences in the wood.

We decided to outline the entire ceiling in the 2 1/4" wood and then decided to add some strips down the walls as well. When planning our layout, we opted to follow the piece of wood that was at the end of the closet, all the way over to the other side of the room.  This just seemed like a natural place to do it.

Then Jonathan measured the distance between that piece of wood and the outside wall, to the right of it, and installed a piece of wood the same distance on the left (the side closest to the windows in the above picture). So basically there are three "panels" that are being formed by the wood trim. Plus, its also very symmetrical and I like symmetry :)

Our plan is to position our bed below the middle panel in the room. Something like this (sans the people coming out of the bed...really clipart??):

I think the trim will add a little visual interest and something special to the room. Today I am headed over to the house to put the first coat of primer on the upstairs! I cannot wait to see what it looks like!!! I promise pictures very soon.

What are you up to on this beautiful Wednesday? I hope the weather man upstairs has been as nice to you as he has been to us! :)