Painting It Up

Kitchen - Before - Brown

Living Room - Before - Brown

I love painting.  It makes me feel like I can transform a space from nothing special to something wonderful.  The house is definitely starting to feel a lot more like home now.  Though there's still a lot of work left to do, the main floor is coming together nicely.  When we moved in, the walls were my least favorite color - a non-descript brown with patches of slightly different colored paint from the previous owners who fixed a few holes in the walls.  The main floor was a priority for us; not just because we wanted to decorate that area first, but also because the bonus room upstairs is going to be a much longer and more frustrating job!  As a lover of greyscale, I went for light and dark grey.  It has changed the feel of the whole place, and I love it.  My original intention was to just complete the paint in the kitchen and living room, but we had leftover paint and I was in the mood, so I finished the entire main floor (even including the bathroom) in just one more day.  Here are a couple of shots!

Kitchen - Painted - Light & Dark Grey

Living Room - Painted - Light & Dark Grey

Front Entry



It took us a while to find the right furniture for the living room; we needed to get something that was our kind of style, comfortable, but a little firmer for our older guests.  We're planning to add a coffee table in the middle as well as pictures on the walls, but here it is so far.  We really enjoy the furniture we chose and it's so great to have a separate "adult" sitting area without a TV.

Living Room - Now With Furniture!

New Normal

The first day of school has now come and gone, with Zack now in grade 4 and Nathan in grade 3.  In all the excitement/craziness of our move, the summer flew by.

What grade are you going into?

 

 

With all of our money going to house savings over the past few years, this fall the kids are finally able to be involved in extra-curricular activities for the first time.  They are super excited to take lessons.  Zack chose to take piano lessons, which he is really enjoying, and Nathan chose karate.  Piano is on Monday evenings, and karate is on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings.  It's taking some getting used to, especially with karate being at 5pm in St. Albert.  It makes things a little tough with dinner and rush-hour driving, but we're making things up as we go.  Karate is really fun to watch, and the Sensei is great with the kids.  It is already a tough workout, both physically and mentally.  The kids not only physically work for 45 minutes straight but they also involve their minds, memorizing the moves as well as memorizing their 3-point student creed for their yellow belt test, which is quite long and has difficult words.  Zack has been settling into practicing piano each day for half an hour, although sometimes he is unimpressed with how slowly the time passes when he has such short songs to go through.  Both boys are excited to learn more and they are having a great time with it so far.



At the dojo!