Transformations

So here they are at last (Mindie and Val!) - some pics of our loving changes to the downstairs.

For those of you who haven't seen or can't remember our living/dining room, the walls were plain white and the floor was a beige/natural looking berber carpet. A carpet that had seen more than a decade of pet living and hiking boots and general frolicking. This new laminate is fabulous! It's tough, attractive, easy to clean, easy to move furniture on and not really all that cold to my bare feet even though it's winter.

Although they look different in this picture, the red wall in the dining room is a spot-on match for the red in the sofa.

The green on the other walls is very chameleon-like. It changes throughout the day, depending upon the light in the room, from a buttery yellow to a soothing green. We are really digging the colors.

Yes, my sofa looks like it's having a bad cushion day. I didn't take time to try to plump them up. Our two enormous cats like nothing better than hollowing out a spot to lay their walrus bodies for naptime.

And we rearranged the furniture so that there are no tall items to impede the view from one end of the room to the other. Previously the liquor cabinet/wine rack and the entertainment armoire kind of divided the living room from the dining room area.

Here's the wall looking more like a mellow yellow.

And we also painted the fireplace liner and the heat exchanger black to match the woodstove. It made the fireplace look more unified. We'll be finishing the stonework next week, I believe (we've got a rough schedule of things). That will include steel doors on the square vents, completing the mortar between the stones, and finishing the edges around the fireplace opening.

You can see that the end of the room where Kent is is still cluttered. We'll be moving my looms out soon to storage along with some of the books.

Here we have the dining "room". We love the way our furniture goes with the floor and the colors we chose. I'm not sure what the crazy reflection is by the wine rack that looks like cream colored paint schmeared around. The wall is a solid color.

And here's the magic place where it all happens... feet up in front of the woodstove, knitting, reading or quilting in hand (or these days, cruising the internet on our laptops with wi-fi)

So there you have it. It may not be fancy but it''s our castle. We do love this place. If only we could just pick up the whole thing and move it to a different climate.

I still have some painting projects and we will be replacing the bathroom lighting. Then as the weather warms up it's on to the exterior and I'll be laying pavers for walkways and such.