Ferris and Simone

FINALLY!! WE HAVE CARPET!! AAAAAAAAHHH!!!!

OK, sorry for yelling, but I am REALLY excited.

Want a peek?

Eeeeeeek!! I love it! Obviously, the room still needs trim and the baseboards need to be installed, which will look really cool. But for now, we have carpet!

The cats were hilarious. After about two years of pining at the closed doorway, Ferris was finally allowed to venture into the promise land. He was pretty funny. He cased the joint by walking the perimeter.

He would take a couple of steps, and then look back at the stairs, then a couple more steps, and a glance back at the stairs. Cats always need to know they have an exit.

And just as he was finished checking out the room perimeter, Simone peeked her head around the corner. She’s more timid than Ferris.

Simone was very skittish. She walked with her tail practically between her legs and always had at least one eye on the stairs, so that she could run away at a moment’s notice.

And just when I thought she was through, our little climber monkey spotted Neal’s pride and joy - the half wall.

And then Neal got home, and the cats seemed to be completely comfortable in the new room. Simone christened the room with a patented back jump.

HAHA.

So the first thing Neal and I did was take apart the bed and carry each piece upstairs. I have no pictures of this, as we were kind of preoccupied. I will tell you that the cats were NO help at all. Simone kept jumping up on the mattress and box spring while it was on its end in the hallway. Grrr.

I’ll also tell you that Neal and I claimed  MAJOR victory, as we were able to get all parts of the bed upstairs. That’s a pretty big deal, because due to the curve of the landing, it’s very hard to get large pieces of furniture to fit up there. We were not terribly optimistic, but we got it!

However, the box spring was definitely a challenge. For a couple of minutes, we weren’t sure it was going to fit. But with several very strong pulls (Neal) and one smashed finger (Megan), we were successful. For now, we’ll just have to ignore the large gashes on the wall. Ooops!

We set up the bed. Again, the cats were no help, haha.

Simone thought the box spring was the PERFECT place to give herself a bath.

And finally, we have a bedroom!

Simone made a home under the bed.

And Ferris hid under the covers. I think it’s hilarious because he had his paw poking out from under the comforter.

HAHA!

So, anyway, that’s that! Neal’s parents and brother are coming up Friday to help us move our dressers, since Neal and I are unable to do that ourselves. We still have to hang the curtain rods in the closets. But we are able to sleep up there now and enjoy the AC, so that’s pretty exciting! I love the room to pieces and am so excited it’s finished. There were times I thought it’d never be done!

I’ll post more pics of the room as we finish it up. Thanks to everyone who’s been following this home improvement project with me on the blog. I appreciate all the blog and facebook comments of encouragement. I’ve needed it!

And obviously, thanks to Neal’s parents for their blood, sweat and tears on helping us finish this room. We could NEVER have done it without them!

So, I went to a wedding last night as Andi’s date, and boy, did we have FUN!! I’m definitely recovering today, hahaha. I’ll post some pics later once I’m able to go through them.

I did want to post the results of the painting of the bedroom Friday night. I’m SOOOO happy with the color we chose, Ivory Coast. It’s perfect and really is the color I had in my mind.

It is a light color, so I’m not sure how well it’s going to show up in pictures. But I’m so excited it’s painted We’re almost there!

Carpet will be installed this week and then we can finally move in! I also can’t wait until the cats are able to investigate, haha. Ferris has been trying to get up there for months, so I know he’s anxious to case the joint.

I’ll post pics as soon as I can. I hope you all had a good weekend!

I’m really sad to hear about the passing of Michael Jackson.

I was at dinner tonight with my friend, Laura, at a local sports bar and our waitress came up to our table. “I just heard Michael Jackson died. Did you guys hear that? Do you think it’s true?” Laura, the entertainment editor at our local newspaper, called into work, and another editor said there were reports he was taken to hospital. We didn’t think it was anything serious.

We kept eating and chatting, and then the TVs in the sportsbar flashed photos of Michael Jackson. We turned the channel on the TV at our table to a news station and turned up the volume. And then I watched with incredible sadness as they announced his passing.

I’m not gonna lie, I know he was a weird guy. But I think he was a guy that never grew up, and tried to surround himself with youth so he could relive the childhood he missed. Could I be wrong and could he really have exploited children? Sure, but that’s not what I believe.

I had a disk cassette player when I was little, and I had this purple case to hold all my cassette tapes. It was full of Michael Jackson albums. I LOVED the “Dangerous” album (released in 1991). I’m sort of obsessive when it comes to music. When I find an artist I like, I try to get my hands on everything they’ve ever done and read everything I can about them (example: my Avenged Sevenfold obsession right now). Anyway, I used my allowance money or cried to my parents until they bought me “Bad,” “Thriller” and others.

We took a lot of trips when I was little, because my brother played for a traveling soccer team. Most weekends involved car rides to some tournament. Michael Jackson came with me on all those trips (along with animated Disney movie soundtracks, haha). On American Idol this year, Allison Iraheta sang “Give in to Me” from the “Dangerous” album, and she was sort of criticized for picking an obscure song. What?!?! I didn’t consider it obscure; I loved that song!

Anyway, Michael Jackson opened me up to music that wasn’t Disney movie theme songs. He told me it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white. He influenced countless musicians whose music we can enjoy today. And he gave the world “Thriller.” ‘Nuff said.

Thanks MJ. RIP.

So, I’m rather anal about the paint colors in my house.

There are a couple of reasons for this. First, I usually know what color I’m going for when I decide to paint a room. Second, paint is expensive, so I don’t want to buy a non-refundable color. And third, it’s a lot of work to set up, paint and clean up. I don’t want to do it more than once because I changed my mind on the color.

So far in our house, we’ve painted our living room, stair hallway and upstairs hallway one color, and we’ve painted the kitchen another color. Both times, I purchased no less than three samples. Those paper swatches? Yeah, to me, they only narrow down the selections. But I think that it’s important to purchase the paint samples, as sometimes the paper swatches just aren’t accurate. Trust me on this. I know these things.

So, I take my samples, paint them on the walls in 2×2′ swatches, and then live with them for a week. I need to see what the colors look like during the day, and then also at night in artificial light. Anal and ridiculous? Yes, but I love the paint colors I’ve used so far, and I credit it with purchasing samples.

So, this is my deal with the bedroom. As if I didn’t learn my lesson, I picked up a paper sample at Home Depot of “Oatmeal.” For the bedroom, I knew I wanted a light, warm tan or off-white.

On a side note, I use Ralph Lauren paint, on recommendation from my mother-in-law. I think it’s important to use high quality paint. We have RL paint in the majority of our house at this point. It goes on well, and doesn’t need two coats. I also think the colors in cheaper paint look… well… cheap. We used Behr paint for the kitchen, and while it was nice paint, it definitely did not cover as well as RL paint. OK, end of tangent.

OK, so I thought the paper sample of Oatmeal was great. I bought a paint sample, but wasn’t even sure if I was going to put it on the walls. The paper sample looked perfect! See, I don’t even follow my own advice. Well, Neal told me to put the paint sample on the walls, just to make sure. Thank God he did. It was too dark and just didn’t look good in the room. A light color is rather important, because with the slanted walls, I think a dark color will really make the room look small. And I like warm colors, rather than cool colors.

So, I went out and purchased two other colors, Ivory Coast and Victoriana. In the picture below, from left to right, is Oatmeal, Ivory Coast and Victoriana.

Oatmeal, on the left, is too dark. Victoriana, on the right is too yellow/orange. Ivory Coast, in the middle, is JUST RIGHT!! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! Whew! Not sure how the color looks on your computer, but it is a really nice, warm…. ivory, haha.

So I’m happy now. Paint colors are set and we are good to go to paint this weekend! Whoo hoo!

And just a parting word - Buy paint samples and use them! Samples can run $5 per color, but you’ll save money using the right color the first time! Do not go by the paper samples alone. Trust me!

And remind me to follow my own advice next time I paint….

So, we’re a mean family and made my dad cook us all breakfast on Sunday morning for Father’s Day.

I kid. Well, sort of. He did cook for us, but my dad LOVES to cook in his kitchen and entertain, so I know he loved it. My mom is  a perfectly fine cook, but it’s really not her favorite thing to do. I got the cooking bug from my dad (and my grandmother).

Sunday morning, we had blueberry pancakes, eggs, home fries, bacon, and more. It was all delicious and wonderful.

It was Neal and I, my parents, Tad and Amanda and my mom’s parents.

Here are my too-cute Nanny and Papa.

And this is the part where Tad hijacks my camera because he likes to make fun of me and snap pictures of unsuspecting family members.

Mom did such a nice job setting the table.

My mom had a dish in the center of table with lemons and limes for decoration. Did any of you ever see “The Breakup” with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn? At the beginning of the movie, they fight over her “lemon centerpiece” because Vince’s character only got like three lemons and Jennifer’s characer needed 12, for her “twelve lemon centerpiece.”

“No, I need 12. Baby wanted 12.”

HAHA, great scene.

Tad, Neal and Amanda and I cracked jokes about my mom’s lemon and lime centerpiece all morning. We like to be annoying like that.

Anyway, it was a nice morning. I’m bummed I didn’t break out the camera at Neal’s parents’ house. Neal and I took two London broils and some side salads for dinner and hung out with his parents and brother.

All in all, a great day. Glad we were able to spend it with our Dads.