Home Tour.....Part 1

I didn't have to talk to a single person today.  I can't tell y'all how happy I am about that after the week I had.  Some people do yard work when they are stressed because they say it chills them out.  I don't understand those people.  Sometimes when I'm stressed out I paint.  Sometimes I don't get off the couch.  Sometimes I clean.  Today I cleaned.  Partly because I'm stressed out from my job, and partly because I'm stressed out about something else.  Remember I told y'all I was going to rent out my guest room to a nursing grad student from September thru November?  Well, she called one night this week and said her entire schedule had changed and it turns out she needs a place to stay starting this Tuesday.  July 30.  So I cleaned because of stress and also so that poor girl wouldn't catch something from the disgustingness of my house.  And I figured that would be a good time to take photos for y'all to see my house.  You know, when it's fairly clean.  If I had taken them abut 7:00 this morning, y'all would have died.  It was a disaster.  The kitchen looked like a tornado had been through it because I had not done much straightening up last week.

My internet is making me insane.  Well, my internet along with a lot of other things are making me insane.  Like the fact that my insurance company has decided to cut me off from any further physical therapy sessions.  My doctor has written another prescription and my therapist is begging them and telling them I need more help.  But since they have never laid eyes on me and apparently don't care that I still cannot even sleep in a bed, they think they know best and have cut me off.  And oh, by the way, my insurance policy gives us UNLIMITED physical therapy each year.  And they have still cut me off.  So now my benefits manager is trying to help me out, my therapist and her office manager are trying to help me out, and this all happened this week while I was also trying to send out 600 overnight packages.  Did I mention how happy I was not to speak to one single person all day?

But back to my internet.  If I shut down my laptop, unplug my modem, unplug my router, plug my modem back in, wait 2 minutes, plug my router back in, wait two minutes, and then turn my laptop back on, the internet will work for a couple of hours.  Then it goes back out.  Does my internet not understand I don't want to do that every single time I need to consult Facebook for the latest important information about who just ate a chicken sandwich, and who is going to vote for which candidate, etc. and guess who wishes politics and religion were banned from Facebook completely?

Apparently I am still stressed and it has made me grumpy in this post.

Okay, onward to the home tour before my internet goes out again.  Y'all remember I am not a photographer, right?  I'm going to show y'all some before photos and some after so you can see what all I have done since moving in 8 months ago while hosting house guests the entire time.  I have had a total of 5 weeks in the past 8 months without a house guest, which is fine, but it limits how much you can get done.  (I guess college girl will be here through the end of November, then a couple of weeks later my mom and her husband will probably be here for a week or more at Christmas, then Hot Brazilian is supposed to be back the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve (fingers crossed that all goes as planned).  So apparently I will have about 7 or 8 weeks total in a year without a house guest.)  And I spent three and a half months in a cast and slings with a broken arm.  So I still have many projects to do as you will see.  But this is what I've gotten done so far.  I think if you click on the photos you can see them bigger if you want to.  But maybe not.  I'm no expert on this kind of stuff.

The kitchen is where the most work was done.  When I moved in there were no counter tops, no back splash, some of the flooring was missing, a lot of wood trim work needed completion, there were no appliances, and I didn't care so much for the paint color.   

BEFORE:

And here are some AFTER shots:

From the living room looking into the kitchen:

From the reading nook looking into the kitchen:

Letha said she liked my back splash, so here is a close-up for her.  I don't even know if she reads this blog regularly so she may not see this.  And my photography skills are horrid.  The back splash is actually darker than this in real life.  And hello sugar and flour.....

And here is the dining room/reading nook BEFORE.  This is a fairly large room with a double sided fireplace in the middle.  But the fireplace is not functioning.  Dang.

Reading nook:

Dining room:

Facing the front door.  And this stair case goes up to my bedroom, bathroom, my walk-in closet room, and the laundry.

There wasn't anything particularly wrong with the paint colors, but they weren't my preference.  I wanted to lighten everything up so here are the AFTER:

The reading nook as it looks today.  This chair and ottoman was also my bed for 3 months when I was in the body brace/cast/sling situation.  I've now graduated to the sofa which is coming up below.

And on the other side of the fireplace, the dining room after:

And I started this post Saturday night, but 20 minutes in, my internet went out again and didn't come back on until this morning.  HATE!  So now it's Sunday and let's see if I can finish before it goes kaput again.  I guess I am going to have to take 1/2 a day off work to have the cable people come out and see what the heck is going on.  Which is awesome because I really have time for that right now.  I already know of at least 110 packages we're sending out this week.  I can only imagine that number is going to keep growing.  I don't know what's going on.  We normally have 55 a week and sometimes we go a couple of weeks without any.  600 last week?  And already 110 this week coming up that we know about?  What the heck?!  And who needs to let this go since it's Sunday and just be grateful she has a job?

I really did absolutely nothing to my living room other than move my furniture in.

BEFORE:

My painter was really pushing me to repaint this room too, but I was fine with the color and dudes, I paid him a fortune as it was.  I had to draw the line somewhere!

AFTER:
This staircase goes up to my art studio.  I have two staircases and when you get upstairs, the two sides of the house do not connect.  Weird, but that's how it is.  Maybe one day I'll cut out a doorway between the two sides of the upstairs, but I'm going to have to win the lottery first.

Okay, that's enough photos for one post, don't you think?  I'll show y'all the bedrooms and stuff in the future.  

I need to go mow the grass, but I'm stressed enough already.  I think I have a day long date planned with my sofa, a pillow, my pj's and the remote instead.