Casualties

Although there are many benefits to having two rambunctious puppies, there are a few downsides as well.  For example, casualties.  

Sadly, this was my favorite lamp (granted, we only have two lamps in the living room but this was by far the cooler of the two).  And yes, you can see the two culprits of the crime in the background.

But how can you be angry with a face this cute?

Sorry, sorry, sorry

So its been a month since I wrote anything. I apologize. I'm sure you weren't holding you're breathe, though. You're probably getting used to it.

Anyway, things have been very busy around here, as you can imagine, so I only have a few pictures to share.

First, we had all of our ceiling lights installed (yeah!). They look something like this:

Next, I've been working a lot, including at home on the weekends. When she can, Riley likes to help.

And finally, we put up this year's Christmas decorations yesterday (please excuse the pictures from here on out--Duff took them this morning and he wasn't too happy about it).

Which was just in time for our first snowfall.

If only Riley were here to enjoy it. But instead, she's visiting the grandparents for a few weeks and it looks like she's fitting right in.

its that time of year

Well, the time of year has come when the dusty boxes of decorations in the basement need to be brushed off and opened up. And that's just what I did a few weeks ago.--I began decorating the house for Halloween. Our decorations consist of mostly a wonderfully spooky mantel.


Some close ups.



Originally, I had placed two of the small pumpkin candle holders on the window sill, but Riley decided that they looked like toys...and tried to carry one around the living room. She soon discovered, however, that ceramic is not as easy to carry in one's mouth as rubber, so the little pumpkin had an unfortunate demise.
The other pumpkin was swiftly moved to safety. Oh, puppies!

Light, finally

Another house update--this time on the dining room. When we first moved in, the dining room had a fan in it with no light. This meant no meals after dark and no dinner parties, unless we put a lamp smack dab in the middle of the table. Not too appetizing.

The before:
The woman in this picture was our buyer's agent, Linda. She's amazing. :)

The after:

There were a few mishaps along the way. Like when I blew out the circuit and we had to call an electrician. But now everything is lovely. :)

Our living room so far

Since we are constantly doing projects or adding things to the house, I thought it would be nice to give people an idea of what we've done so far. Here are some before and after shots of the living room. This is one of the areas of the house that is the most complete when it comes to decoration and projects.

The living room before (no, that's not our furniture-the house was staged):


As you can see, the house had bare white walls and really light carpets. It was very bright, but that's about all it had going for it. After we bought the house, we tore up the carpet, refinished the floors and painted the walls. These projects also brought about the need for other projects, like filing in the small, dime sized holes in the floors (why these holes were there in the first place we have no idea) and putting in quarter round. The end result now looks like this:


A much better angle of the room:


The newest addition to the living room is the circle rug. It brand new and we love it. It matches well with the runner (behind the couch) that Mom just gave us, too. Now, for a ceiling fan/light and painting that pesky quarter round...