Upgrades

The month of January was home improvement month here at the Mossoff house.  It really started in December and it's continuing into February, but January was basically all-chaos, all-the-time.  I'm proud to say I only flipped out once or twice!

We're nowhere near done yet - this house was a real mess when we moved in - but we did enough that I feel like we live in a mostly nice place now.  And I finally have photos!

We installed new lighting - new fixtures in the dining room and foyer and recessed lights in the kitchen and basement.  These photos were taken before we repaired and painted the ceilings, but isn't that chandelier awesome?

[caption id="attachment_2903" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Before"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2904" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="After"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2905" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Before"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2906" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="After"][/caption]

We moved Sammy to her new bedroom.  (She picked the pretty blue paint color and the girly pink lamp.)  This project included moving Adam's office to the basement bedroom, painting, installing closet shelving, buying and setting up Sam's "big girl bed," and all the little details of setting up a little girl's room.  We also had to do some touch-up painting in the old room, which is going to eventually be the nursery for SS:

[caption id="attachment_2907" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Sam's old room"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2908" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Sam's new room"][/caption]

Since we have two really brightly colored bedrooms right next to each other, we decided to paint the dormer windows the same color as the other bedroom.  This really integrates the two rooms.  I love them both!  And Sammy was totally fine moving to her new room.  She moved to 5 new houses in her first 3 years of life, so change is not a problem for her.

A while back, I moved Sam's playroom from the dining room into the kitchen eating area.  The only problem with that was the hard, tile floor in the kitchen.  To solve that, we installed a large Flor area rug, and now we have a really wonderful playroom:

[caption id="attachment_2911" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="New playroom"][/caption]

And finally, the best improvement of all was the painting.  We painted the whole main level except the powder room, plus the upstairs hall, which was a mess.  You can't see the colors too well in photos, but we're very happy with them.  It's all very clean and modern.  You can see the pumpkin color of the playroom above.  The cooking part of the kitchen is yellow, and the separate colors help to define both rooms nicely:

[caption id="attachment_2914" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Yellow kitchen"][/caption]

Here's a shot that shows the blue of the dining room next to the grey of the living room and hallways.  We picked cool colors to balance out the really warm orange tones of the bookcases and floors:

[caption id="attachment_2912" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Blue and Grey"][/caption]

I really dig the fact that our dining room has warm, orange floors and blue walls, and the playroom has warm, orange walls and a blue floor.  Again, the integration by reverse colors.  It's impossible to get a good photo of it, though.

And then, of course, we replaced the dishwasher and hot water heater, both of which died during this process.  You can see the boring diswasher in the kitchen photo.  I just bought something to last the next 3 years or so, since we'll have to completely update the kitchen at some point.  It's very loud and doesn't clean the dishes well, but I think it will get us through.

Now we just have to get all of our art back up on the walls.  If we get it done by the end of the month, we'll be in good shape!