It starts as one project and then....

Well we're in the midst of a huge project at home - but one I am pretty excited about and therefore am motivated to get it done as soon as possible. As I mentioned we started painting the living room finally. Well, the interior designer in me just couldn't hold back any longer and now I have a grand plan for some simple redecorating ideas as well, while still maintaining things we like about the room.

All of our wall hangings will be redone/placed differently once the paint is done. I'm also finally getting an AWESOME piece of Muppet art framed I bought from a friend of mine who is extremely talented. It's going to hang over our piano and I think it's going to look awesome. We'll use some of our existing artwork and hopefully frame a couple of other things to hang as well.

Then we're going to get new curtains. The curtains we have were Aunt Helen's and while they are not terrible or anything, little Miss Taylor kind of snagged them quite a bit in our early days before she was declawed and I'm also just ready for a new look. These curtains just don't reflect our style. So we're going to try to go with the existing rod, and then get new sheers and new curtains and I think we've compromised on a concept.

The next part Nate's not terribly sure on, but I'm hoping to convince him - I want to rearrange our furniture a bit. We have one couch that was free to us but I don't like it. It's cushions are flat and never stay in place. The other couch was free to us too - it was Helen's as well, but I like that one. I'd like to keep that couch, but move it from the windows to the big wall. By the windows, I want to put these red chairs we have - with new covers on them that I'm hoping to purchase at Ikea, no sewing required! Then get rid of the couch I don't like and instead get a loveseat to put on the smaller wall.

I'm trying to do as much as this as I can for cheap. I'm going to scour some places that I know have good deals like Tuesday Morning and even thrift shops and I think I can turn the room into something quite lovely!

One minor set back - we discovered mold under one of our windows. We'd pulled back the curtains when working on another piece of wall and I saw the crack in the plaster and pulling it back a bit exposed a nasty little mess. We must have had some water damage at some point that we didn't know about (old windows, old house, bad seal). But, it sounds like Nate and my dad will be able to cut out the wall, spray bleach on the mold, put up new drywall, we'll paint some Killz over the area and then paint. Just a little more work than we'd like, but that's the last wall to paint anyway.

Here's the kicker - I want this all (redecorating included) done by late September when we plan to have our Oktoberfest this year. Nate's also in the midst of building his bar and we hope that will be done too.

So, we may not do as much outdoor work as I had planned this year - though there may be time for some of that this fall. I would rather paint the outside of the house when it's cooler anyway. Actually I'd love to just pay someone to do that, but it might be kind of spendy.

Anyway, one step at a time! I'm working on my patience with all of this and I'm pleased with where it's going.