The Evolution of a Room

Several years ago, we added on to our house. What had been our deck, became our family room.  I made a critical error when we added on, and that was letting the contractor talk me out of something that I really wanted.  I had requested white trim and windows in the room.  The rest of our house still had oak woodwork everywhere, but I had a vision in my head, and that was to eventually change it all to white.  I love the look of white woodwork. 

Anyway, he thought I was insane, because everything in my house was oak.  So I caved.  Take my advice.  Don't cave.  Hold your ground.

This is how things looked many moons ago.  We don't even have that furniture anymore.  Anyway, I painted the walls AND the ceiling yellow.  Emphasis on the YELL.  It kind of smacked you in the face every time you walked in the room.  And that room has extremely high vaulted ceilings.

Fast forward about seven or eight years and my vision has finally come to fruition.  (Love that word.)  Scott actually suggested we get the woodwork painted, because just like the vision in my head, we had changed all of the woodwork on the rest of the first floor to white.  White windows, white doors, white cabinets...all so clean and bright and happy.  Except the addition.  I would have lived with it, because I'm cheap like that and I was not going to tackle that job myself.  There are twelve huge windows in that room plus a glass door.  It would have taken me years.  It took the painter and his crew two days.  They actually removed all of the windows and wrapped the house in plastic in case it rained.  All of the wood got a nice oil-based paint on it so nothing sticks.  It's the same paint they used on my kitchen cabinets.  I love it.

I chose a nice gray-blue for the walls.  "Tradewind" by Sherwin Williams.  I just like the name, I say it every once in awhile when I walk in the room.  "Tradewind..."  And I had the ceiling painted white.  Ahhhhh.  So much better.

I also switched up my gallery wall.  It used to be mostly floral pictures.  Scott said, "Can we get rid of the flowers?"  Happy to oblige.  I just used things I had on hand.  Now, it's three watercolor prints of old ships that I found in an antique store in California years and years ago (shopping with two of my favorite people to antique with - Mom and Barbara Diamond) and pictures of the kids.  And my homemade stick fish.  I thought ships and fish kind of went with the Tradewind theme...  My kids, well, that's just eye candy right there.

I can actually feel my blood pressure go down when I walk in there - it's a very calming place.  Tradewind, tradewind, tradewind...

My Favorite Footwear & Gainfully Employed

I have always wanted a pair of old, broken-in cowboy boots. Every time I went into a thrift store, I searched. And I always left empty-handed. Well, without cowboy boots, anyway.

A couple of years ago on our epic road trip out west and then up north and then home again, I hit paydirt.  Or cow pies.  However you want to see it.  We were driving through Montana and stopped in a one-horse town (literally) for gas.  On our way to the single gas station, we passed a "Flea Market" of sorts.  It was an empty lot with a bunch of junk strewn about on tables, and a few broken down cattle trailers stuffed to the gills.  Scott dropped the kids and I off to browse while he got gas.

I didn't even have cowboy boots on the mind, and then I climbed into one of the cattle trailers and I heard angels singing.  I swear a shaft of light fell directly onto the boots.  My size.  Complete with crust on the bottoms of them.  I kind of scraped that off on the side of the cattle trailer and asked the proprietor (who was missing a few teeth, but that is neither here nor there) how much they were.  "Eight bucks."  Which, in my opinion was a little spendy for the sort of place it was, but I didn't argue.  I handed over the money and I had my very own pair of kickers.

I actually wear them a lot.  Even to church. (ALWAYS with socks, mind you.  I think used shoes are a little gross - I even sprayed lysol in them before I wore them the first time.)  I always get compliments on them - best eight dollars I've ever spent.  If you ever have the chance to get some, you should.  They look good with everything.  Even jammies, especially if you're wearing your jammies out to the mailbox.

On another note, I have a new job.  I am the new promotions coordinator for the kids' school.  It's something I was doing anyway as a volunteer, but now I'm officially hired for ten hours a week.  I'll work from home mostly and pretty much set my own hours, so it's a great thing for me.  Finally using my college education again after all these years.  And even though I'll now be raking in the dough (haha - not really), I still think eight bucks was too spendy for that place in Montana.