Separated

We can't seem to leave well enough alone when it comes to house projects.  No sooner are the stairs done and we are jumping into the next thing.  In my never ending quest to get the boys to clean up their toys I decided that we should rearrange some things in the house, making it either easier for them to keep things clean or easier for me to close a door and ignore the kid mess. We've been talking about this for awhile, but figured it would, in all honesty wait until the fall or the very least after vacation. Nope, just days after the steps are done, we're at it again.

The playroom no longer exists. Instead, Alex and Ben each have their own rooms now. We didn't set out for this to happen, it just sort of did.  We planned on having the boys do a long overdue purge of toys and things and then move the remaining things upstairs, either to their shared room or to the art room.  I think we figured that the art room/office would cease to be an office and maybe become an area for Alex to work on his models, or maybe move my sewing room in their or toy storage or something.  Point being, lots of shifting of stuff was in the works. Anyway, what ended up happening was the big purge followed by the separation of rooms. We polled both the boys, they both wanted the new room, ultimately Ben was given the choice.  In the end, he chose to stay where he was.  I was skeptical that it would work.  Not only has it worked, it's been amazing for them both. They love it.

As for the playroom.  It's now sporting a brand new coat of paint and furniture will be moved accordingly tonight.

I think that really is it for the projects... except for the fence. Which we paid someone to do, and he did a horrible job. So now one side needs to be redone. Sigh. That's a topic for another day.

But, in the last year we have...

• Updated the living room (new floors, new paint)
• Updated the library - new built-in book shelves
• Went from carpet to wood on the steps
• Converted playroom to dining room
• converted office/art room to bedroom
• rearranged master bedroom
• re-mulched the front yard
• new fence around the back yard
• had the trees pruned (yes, it's a noteworthy thing. They are huge, have to be pruned here in TX for several reasons).

Anyway, lots of love for the old homestead lately.

The Stairs

I finally finished the stair project yesterday.  What was supposed to take just a couple of weeks ended up taking 3+ months.  Yes, a large part of that was time spent waiting for wood to be delivered and then taking the time to properly finish said wood.  But still, there was just a crazy amount of work on the installation, namely those bottom 3 angled steps.  No part of those bottom steps was easy, at all, ever.  Every time we had something figured out, we would have to tweak it. Every. Single. Time. Happily I only miscut one 99 cent piece of wood. Better to have the mistake there than on the much more expensive tread.  Anyway, it's done, they look fabulous. It's time to move onto the next project.