House Happenings

It seems like any time Joe and I get a weekend where we stay in town, we try and do projects to fix up the house. This weekend will be no different. But over the past few, we've made a little progress in the house so I thought I would give a little update to our Lombardo Home Journal that I wrote up several months ago. There have only been a few changes, but most of them were things that were pretty high on my list (except for new couches, still don't have those). When I wrote that original post, I had just started painting over the black square above our front door. The previous owners had a clock centered in that square and the saying "Return with Honor" in vinyl stick on letters under it. I removed the letters right after moving in, but the square remained until this spring.

Before painting the square, I had to fill a few holes and I went ahead and filled a few more holes in the foyer. We had to get a new gallon of paint mixed and luckily the color match was almost perfect.  I primed and painted the square (and some other foyer walls), and with it gone, my attention turned to the "stained glass" on the windows over the door. When Joe bought the house, the faux stained glass was in a few places in the house.  It didn't take long for me to scrape it off the glass shower doors in the master bathroom and the side windows around the front door. But the the windows that were 2 stories up proved to be a bit more of a challenge. Two weekends ago we finally borrowed an extension ladder from our neighbor and I got to work scraping. It was pretty rough at the start and the paint did not want to come off, until I finally realized that I just need to switch out the blade on the razor scraper I was using. It made ALL the difference in the world! After that realization I didn't hesitate to switch the blades out anytime I was having trouble.

That dripping paint was soooo gross looking.

No more square or stained glass!

The windows are all scraped now and it's surprising how much more light is let in!

The next "update" is more of a sad story. Remember the tree we planted in the Landscaping Updates post? Well, the hot, dry summer was not kind to it. And despite our consistent watering, the tree died :( We had such high hopes for it too! So Joe dug the tree up and returned it to Home Depot for a full refund. It was nice that we at least got our money back. We plan on finding another tree to replace it soon.

Poor tree.

Another little behind the scenes update is the extra insulation that Joe added in the attic. We're hoping to see a significant change in our electricity bill this winter.

I also have an update on the dining room, but I'll probably dedicate an entire post to the re-design of that room. The other small projects I've done around here are mostly decorating for fall/Halloween but those will most likely get their own post as well. Tomorrow I'm going to work on a project that should result in a little giveaway for one lucky blog reader haha. So look forward to that! Oh, and my cousin Robyn and her husband Lance welcomed their baby girl, Myla, into the world today, so congratulations to them!  I can't wait to meet her :)

Are you all doing any house updates or projects?  Maybe if I hear about your I'll be more inspired to finish mine!  I hope you all have a great weekend, talk to you later!