A NEW SEASON & A NEW COLOR

This is our living room.  We've painted every room in the house but this.  Think we have been putting it off because it just seemed too big a project.  Well, after  9 years in this house, yes...NINE, I couldn't stand it another day.

My mom brought paint chips over and after looking, studying, imagining, picturing every possible color for hours and hours, I finally decided.  Mom went to Cabiness for me so I didn't have to wake/load up three kiddos.  My wonderful husband told me when he left for work, "Whatever you decide, I'm behind you."

And this was our stark white mantle.  This was taken in the Spring, hence the Easter egg.

Mom insisted on the first stroke because she likes to see the color change.  Growing up, whenever we painted a wall, a rabbit went on first.  There are at least 7 in this house.

Mag would have no part in listening to "this is an adult job."

My dad was entertaining Mag with tossing socks in the ceiling fan.  See Mary curled up on Brett's lap?  Not only did we paint our family's hang out area with 3 little ones but I decided to up the difficulty value by tackling this when the two babies had a throat virus and 103 temps.  Yep.  Kids burning up, whining, crying, etc.  Mary climbing up ladders once her Motrin kicked in then wailing when it wore off.

Sickly little man wanted to snuggle with his Maggie this night.

Every night that week, I believe.

Lining up to check temps.

Sweet Mary's got such a sad face.  And her shirt is covered in drool because her throat hurt so badly.

The dust probably didn't help matters.  Brett had to do some sanding on the walls so everything was covered in this mess.

We called it quits that night.  We knew we had a sleepless night ahead of us so we decided to catch an hour or two of sleep.

TA DA!  The next night, Brett and I stayed up until 1am doing the other three walls.  BTW, those ceilings are really high.  I climbed up and painted those bad boys too.  Brett was my assistant but I painted the entire thing by myself.  Yes, I'm proud.  ;)  And now, all furniture is vacuumed under, walls washed, etc.  Ahhh, feels nice to have everything deep cleaned.  The carpet cleaning comes next.

Brett rubbed some dark mahogany stain on the mantle to tone down that bright white.  Doesn't make that big of a differnce according to the camera but it's really so much better.  He did a fabulous job.  And no, my Fall mantle is not complete just yet.  And, when a room is newly painted, you automatically want all new pictures, etc.  We still have naked walls for that reason.  That and who wants to poke nails holes in pretty walls?

Here are a few Fall projects I/we have been working on.

Got this idea on Pinterest.  Which I'm highly addicted too, btw.  Maggie gathered acorns for me and we dropped them along with the chocolate candy corns in the bottom of the vase.

She started her a project tonight.  Also found on Pinterest.

Such cute pumpkins.  Those are rolls of toilet paper in there.  I was really impressed.  She tucked, glued the stems, cut the leaves, and twisted the vines all on her own.  When picking out fabric at Walmart, I tried to steer her away from the blue.  She said, "Well, not all pumpkins are alike."  A lady stopped and asked me how old she was.  She was shocked by the grown up convo we were having.

These were easy as pie and I love them.

Burlap. Is. Messy.  I made my first fabric rosette tonight.  I know.  I'm way behind.  I glued the second one I made on my wreath.  Can't really see it but it's on the top left.  I also attached a button that belonged to my grandmother to the middle.  Brett spray painted the "S" with black then covered it with glitter paint.

I need to go clean up all the mess with made tonight but I think it just may wait until the morning.