Is that the floor I see???

For the past few months, the dining room has been the staging/storage area for Robyn's thrift store and Craigslist finds.  With the 3rd bedroom finished up, we were finally able to organize the dining room.

... and utilize the plate shelf

...and not worry about knocking off our thrift store plate collection.  Most of the pictures I take of the house are taken with my cell phone camera.  Focus and contrast can be a bit challenging as you can see by this photo.

...and to prove it is just as possible to take a video with a cell phone that will give you motion sickness as with a regular video camera.

...and I forgot to include the last posting a picture of the rug we put in 3rd bedroom.







Under the wire...

With my mom coming in this weekend to stay before we head south to Nebraska for Kyle's wedding, Robyn and I were down to the wire to finish up the bedroom we were getting ready for her stay. 

Friday, we finished putting up the ceiling paneling.  We were delayed a day because I didn't want to go back into the house to get my tape measure to measure a piece 7' 7 1/2" long so  instead I used the t-square to measure off a 16 1/2 inches to cut off the short end.  Of course, it was a foot too short.  Tino helped us get the new mattresses up the stairs.  Because of the two 90 degree turns and narrow widths, carrying larger items can be a bit of a challenge.

Using the wall paneling to create a beaded board look on the ceiling didn't come out quite as good appearance-wise as we hoped...

But with the new light fixture, was still a significant improvement over the old ceiling treatment.

Saturday, we volunteered from 9:30am to 2:30 pm at the Irish Fest.  Here's a shot from Harriet Island, on the south side of the Mississippi, across the river looking on to the Cathedral of St. Paul.

Once we finished up there, back to the house to move start putting the bed together and replace some defective wall outlets with newer, safer one. 

Saturday evening, we headed out to the drive-in for a couple of movies.  I'm glad I had just stuffed my jackets behind the seat because they were definitely needed for a night in the low-60's.  Robyn was even smarter and had brought a small quilt.

Sunday, we headed off to the Mall of America for some shopping for a dress for Robyn to wear to the wedding.  If we hadn't gotten our workout already for the weekend, we definitely did during that trip.  After a short stop at Wally World to pick up blinds and bolts to bolt the headboard to the bed frame (a Craigslist find), we stopped by our storage unit to pick up a few items to complete the room furnishings.  With the finishing up of this bedroom, it looks like we'll be able to get all of our items out of storage finally.

Sunday around 7:00 pm, we finally finished up.  Here are the results for the 3rd bedroom.

As soon as the bed was made, Angel and Lucy were giving it a test.  (Angel is between and underneath the pillows. 

In addition to the found headboard we distressed and the thrift store lamp and found cabinet, You can recognize some of our other finds in the next few photos.

Everything appears to have met with Angel's approval.













Company's coming

There is nothing like the prospect of company arriving for a visit to focus you on finishing up things.  With my son's wedding coming on August 20, my mom is flying in from Mississippi on August 17 and then driving with us to southeast Nebraska for the wedding.

The first weekend after we found out that my mom was coming for a visit, our day was brightened up by a cardinal in the blue spruce outside our bedroom window.

Although we have one guest bedroom complete, we want to finish up the larger of the two where we are putting a queen bed.

This is the room we're putting the queen headboard that we "adopted" from the abandoned furniture area at the apartment we used to live in.  Robyn's vision for the headboard is a distressed look and I found some spray paint at Home Depot which matched the room colors.

After a light sanding, Robyn got down to business spraypainting the headboard.

To get the distressed look, I smeared the "high wear" areas with petroleum jelly.

Here's what the headboard looked like after a second coat...

We let the headboard dry for 24 hours, hit it with a light sanding again and then clear-coated it.

Robyn also continued with her thrift store finds which will be used to furnish this bedroom.  Starting with an art deco style vanity chair...



An antique dining room chair....

And a coffee table with a marble composite top...

...along with a mirror and a small box which will be used for potpurri.

While I was patching...

...Robyn was pulling staples out the ceiling. 

Then it was time to mop...



After a trip to Sherwin Williams for a gallon of gray primer, the transformation process began.

We were about a half gallon short in the stairway...

...but this gives you an idea about how grimey the walls were.



We also explored several options for the ceiling, considering a tin-look acoustic tile, paintable sheets of ceiling panels, pine siding.  The paintable sheets were too expensive, the tin-look acoustic tile had to be special ordered, the lengths of pine siding didn't match the room dimesions closely enough.

We decided to go with beaded-board look panels.  Here they are laid out in the yard getting a coat of primer.

Probably not one of my brighter ideas.  Although it was easy to roll the primer on, they panels attracted insects and blades of grass.  Robyn and I have to scrap that off before the final coats of paint.

We wrapped up our painting (Blackberry) on the bedroom last weekend and were able to get started on the flooring early Saturday morning.  Two long, hard days later, it was in...

We were even able to get one sheet of paneling up on the ceiling.

The small air compressor with the brad nailer sure made it a lot easier... Only 4 more sheets to go and we can start moving in furniture.