silhouette

Benjamin Moore’s Silhouette went up on the curved wall in our family room today. Jeff sent me this first picture at work. We love it!

What you can’t see is that the color we did around the dining area and kitchen (BM’s Weimeraner) appears to be having a bad reaction with our floor and the “red” in the room because it took on a very mauve/pink tone that we are just not digging. Luckily, Karl the Painter rocks and has offered to repaint it for us, so we spent part of yesterday trying out some new samples and have narrowed it down to one or two we think will work really well. For the time being, tomorrow he’s on to the garage entry/mudroom area and bathroom just off this room, which will both be painted the same two colors you see here (Cotswald in the mudroom; Silhouette on walls and ceiling of the bathroom).

Benjamin Moore’s Silhouette (main wall) and Cotswald (upper wall)

BM's Silhouette at night (with Spurs game on, of course)

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nightmare on 96th avenue

They’re baaaaack! Yep, we thought we had heard the last of our home buyer friend, Doug Kienzle, when I had asked him for written proof of his right to take $310 out of our security deposit to help pay the cost of his mortgage above and beyond our agreed-upon rent payment during the 60 days we were there (not to mention the rest of it for random cleaning costs) and heard nothing back from him. Of course, this is pretty much par for the course of how he handles matters, so we let it be and assumed we had heard the last of him. And we might have. Until, in late January, he contacted the title company to request the payout of the $500 deposit that had been sitting in escrow and undoubtedly, much to his disappointment, they contacted us to double-check that we were in agreement with dispersing the funds to the Kienzles. As a matter of fact, no we’re not in agreement. Not at all.

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let the transformation begin

Loving our new house as I do, I don’t love everything about its current state. Which is, of course, one of the things that made it appealing. There was an opportunity to tackle all sorts of “little” projects. Right after we win the lottery.

But like I mentioned recently, one of the super duper priorities – vs. just the super priorities – is getting rid of the numerous yellowish/creamish walls. After getting a few estimates, last night we finalized an agreement with Karl the Painter. We can’t afford to have him do the whole house, but he’s handling a good chunk of it for us. I met with him this morning to review some specifics (you know, little things like which color goes where) and after that, he was off and running. Stay tuned.

Formal living area

the best $300 I ever spent

Okay, well maybe not EVER. And, maybe it ended up being a little more than $300. Still, it was pretty darn worthwhile.

One of our little “top priority” house projects is painting. As in, pretty much every surface of the entire house is in need of a redo. Which is a lot of paint. Along with a lot of sore muscles. But first up is, of course, the dreaded selection of paint colors. It wasn’t all bad – at least I knew one thing: I definitely want a gray-ish theme for the house. (And let me mention that I’ve been a fan of gray tones before gray became the “it” color for paint, shoes, shirts and everything else.) Beyond that, I was clueless.

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lemons to lemonade

I started yoga again last Tuesday night as part of my return to normal life. I had taken a hiatus when everything else took over, so it was really wonderful to get back to it. As time passes I recognize more and more the benefits of taking an hour and a half of my week to take deep breaths, stretch my body and focus on just being in the moment. Or, that’s the idea at least. It doesn’t always work but hey, at least I’m trying!

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