Fall is here in Colorado. The temps are low, the heater is on, the coats are out, and we are scraping ice in the morning. The house is coming together as far as unpacking and arranging furniture but along with fall comes the cold season and it has hit our household. Cody sounds like an asthmatic consumptive, and Morgan and I keep flip-flopping between feeling great and having the full blown sniffles. Due to this we have, yet again, not completed the stuff we had planned and we are still in the middle of chaos. I do hope you can look past the poor framing of the photos, I was trying to avoid the piles of... stuff... and boxes still strewn throughout the rooms.
Now on to the pictures!!
Cody's office is one of the few rooms that is fairly well done as far as unpacking and updating. Most of the animals in cages are situated in the office including the birds and snakes.
Cody built a lovely three tiered cage rack. It is made out of two by fours but he, being the artisan he is, made it heirloom quality with cut-outs, recessed and angled fasteners, and he sanded and rounded everything flush. He also took the time to decorate the cages for fall.
His office is in the closet cut-out and fits very well. His table that has been his office desk for years fits in with about 1/2" clearance. Sweet!
And we still like the living room arrangement. Cody has mounted a lot of our pictures throughout the house. It really makes it feel like home. Pardon the mess, we have been a bit under the weather, working like mad, and I've got a pretty full school schedule so the cleaning has unfortunately fallen back on the priority list.
The dog beds have respective places in the living room and fit in with the decor pretty well. Brigs and Stratton crack us up as they both argue over who's bed is who's. Stratton can wedge himself in that little cup of Brigs and Brigs will run Stratton off of the big pillow.
The hallway showcases my parapluie print and Annie's oil painting. The dogs like to skate up and down it while wrestling, and Morgan has mastered the art of running and sliding on her socks into her room. =)
Our bedroom got rearranged this week. It flows a little better but we are going to have to build a corner headboard to keep the pillows from falling off the bed. Stratton has been arguing with us about him not being on the bed. He is sneaky about getting up and then acting all surprised when we make him get down. He's sure a smart little bugger!
The bed faces the window and Cody's jungle of plants. It will be very nice when the backyard is in better shape giving us something to look at but at this point we are just glad that we get a lot of natural light.
The kitchen has been thoroughly cleaned and Cody got the dishwasher working. We are extremely happy about the dishwasher!
With the freezing temps the paint had to be brought inside. The unfinished shelf off of the stairs is now the paint storage area. Whatever works!
This little gem was found when Cody dug everything out of the garage. We are going to use it to decorate downstairs...
Speaking of downstairs... Cody and Kieth got the trim in!
And Cody replaced the thousand different shades and fixtures with one fixture that matches the one in the hall. There is another mount that is still open but as we are out of money and have no idea what we would do with it anyway, it will stay open for a while.
Cody was surprised with how well the paint turned out in the basement. We couldn't afford to strip the cheesy paneling so we Kilzed it and then I suggested using a flat roller to bring out the texture. Now Cody has dubbed the basement the "Nickelodeon Room". The brick wall turned out great and we have plans for dressing it up quite a bit.
The boys did a great job and took a little rest before starting to bring in the furniture and toys.
The laundry room has come along a little also. This is our "super sixties" hutch that is temporary home to Critter's food and water. He has been in the basement since Stratton moved in. Stratton has been a perfect gentleman but Critter has stated that one dog was bad enough. Two is just too much.
Next to the hutch is a tiny closet under the stairs. It had to be Kilzed thoroughly as there was a lot of previous animal damage under the stairs. It is now a storage closet for many of the little planes.
One of my major accomplishments was getting the laundry completely done this week. We were left an 8' long old library table by the previous owners. We liked it, it was beautiful, but we had nowhere to put it, or so Cody thought. I had him and Kieth drag it downstairs and put it against the back wall so it could be my folding table. As you can see the laundry had backed up a little when this was the storage room.
The rest of the furniture and toys are being moved in and we assembled the dollhouse. We have since learned that if you ask a 7 year old to unpack her toys that a ginormous mess will soon take over a room. One would think that we could have known this before hand... I am claiming insanity from exhaustion!
As you can see the basement is a bit of a cluster right now... the colds have slowed down the cleaning and arranging. Hopefully by this weekend. Or next week.
This room was going to be a living area but we decided to let it just be a toy room and put the guest bed in for sleepovers and company. Well, maybe someday!
Cody and Kieth came home with pumpkins and Morgan has been aggravating us ever since about carving. She did manage to find the witch hats and dress them up, and has been satisfied with that for the last week.
The last detail was a coat rack. Cody slapped one together after being tired of having the coats and dog leashes either being "lost" or hanging on chairs/piled on floors.
And here is a detail shot of the coat rack. It makes us all laugh. Definitely not a high dollar item, but very functional! The blue rolls are the dog bags for cleaning up after them on walks. It is a convenient place to keep them. As you can see this rack is packed full so a second, larger rack is being planned.
Well, this is the end of this update. We are all surviving the cold weather well, but the cold viruses not so well. We will be very happy once our budget returns to normal parameters and also once the stupid election is over. We all agree that election years suck. Just another month... =)