Paint {and how to paint} or not to paint?

So, how do you all like the house? Did you notice a trend in all of the before photos? Some form of gold or yellow everywhere! I’m not opposed to people painting their walls that, but if you have viewed my pins on Pinterest then you know that I love light and airy….and white! Sorry, Mom! I do love that white! And not just any white! I love bright white….like Benjamin Moore White Diamond kind of white. Just like the white trim, I want to paint our built in cabinets in the den to match.

Of course, like any man would, my husband loves the cabinets just they way they are, and he would prefer to just leave them alone. Plus, it is something else he sees himself having to paint. To be quite honest, I don’t blame him at all because painting is better in theory than in the actual act of doing it.

So, here’s the question….do I paint the cabinets or leave them alone? Or, the better question is how do I paint the cabinets? I am loving cabinets that are painted mainly one color but have the back of the cabinets painted a different color. Do you agree? Does it give it that little extra pop of character? What do you think? Weigh in on what you think. These are some inspirational photos that I found on Pinterest, and they are pinned on my ‘The Living Area’ board. The background colors of these are not exactly my choice on a few, but it gives you the idea.

Let’s start off with white on white….

And now for white and a color background…

And our current cabinet in its current state of plain old stained wood….

So, what do you think? Comment and let me know what you think I should do!

Our House…..before we moved in!

Many of you have been asking me to post pictures of our house, but I’m not quite ready to post pictures of the house in its current state. As of today, it is probably as close to normal as possible. There are only a few boxes still hanging around. As of today, I organized our dining room and made the china cabinet all pretty. Just like the old house, I have a ton of future projects for this house, but I think in my future list of things to do, it will be more painting and material objects.

We are loving living in our new house! I honestly can say that I do not miss our old house at all. Since I had started packing the house up before we officially moved, it was beginning to feel less and less like home. Now, we are all cozy in this house, and it is like we haven’t missed a beat. Plus, you know I love a good project, and buying this house really gave me something to do after finishing up my Master’s degree and decorating my classroom.

Phew! It has been one busy summer. I finished my school, gave my classroom a complete makeover, and moved to the other side of town. Since {work} school is beginning back this week, I think the only thing I’ll miss about living in the old house is my two minute drive to work.

Enough about me though….let’s get on to the house. These are the photos I made the day we walked through the house. I was in a bit of a hurry to snap some photos, so they are really not the best quality, but it will give you the idea of how the house appeared until August  1st when we began the painting and moving in.

The foyer

The kitchen

The breakfast room

The lovely brick den

The Hall to the Laundry Room

The Dining Room

The Living Room

Bedroom One

Bedroom Two

Guest Bathroom

Master Bedroom

Master Bath- One

Master Bath- Two

Master Closet

The Backyard

So far, paint has met almost every surface, and you all know that my taste in furniture is a good bit different than what was in here before. It has certainly changed in looks. I’ll be sharing bits and pieces in the weeks to come {as I have time}. I can’t wait for you all to see what we’ve done.

An explosion of Dots, Stripes, and Paisley on Turquoise!

It has been a busy kind of a week! This week was the first week back to work, and even though it was a four day week, I was there all five days making sure everything was in order. This week was filled with teacher institute, professional development, and nonstop work on the classroom. On Tuesday, the county kicked off the beginning of the school year with the annual teacher institute, and we had a fine speaker come to us and share a powerful message. When I was told that he was going to speak for an hour, I immediately thought that an hour was hopeless because my attention span would end in about 20 minutes. Luckily, I was wrong, and he had my undivided attention the entire time. Especially if you are a teacher, I encourage you to watch this clip. It’s the exact same thing that we saw more or less.

Dr. John W. Hodge

Since we were appropriately motivated, I was now ready to get busy and take on what remained in my classroom. Ya’ll, I can’t explain to you how much time, money, and effort is in this room all for the love of my children. Plus, if I have to be in there for 8 hours or more of the day, I figure that I might as well make it as pleasant to be in as possible.

Without further ado, welcome to my classroom!

All décor for the door came from Creative Teaching Press, except for the customized door sign, which was made by one of our own teachers. How cute is that? I still can’t get over how amazing it looks!

And now, for the details!

I used my closet door as a space for students to add popsicle sticks in to display how many Accelerated Reader tests the students have each passed. This is a terrific way for me to easily glance and tell who is doing what is expected and who might need that extra little push.

An easy way for students to track their progress in Math Facts in a Flash and Accelerated Reader!

There are always students that ask what they should do when they get done or what the assignment was again. Now, it is all in one place, so students should be able to easily locate what is expected of them.

The next two photos are of how I welcome my students and parents. By putting all of the forms in a folder, the parents immediately know what to read and what to fill out and send back to school on the the first day. Thank the Lord for open house!

That’s it! I hope the kids of Room 30 enjoy the classroom as much as I will. Everyone send a prayer up for the first day of school. It’s a hard day for teachers, kids, and parents. With a little love and care though, we’ll get right through the day with ease!

A Little Inspiration

Since I’m waiting on my trim guy {aka Colby} to come and fix all of my painting mishaps, I’m not going to share any of my before and afters thus far in the new house project that has all taken place within a little bit over a week. Let me just tell you all that I have been busting it around here to get as much necessary things done before school starts. Everything is not completed, but that majority of our stuff is put away and organized. Don’t get me wrong though…there’s lots more to be done.

You have no idea how much stuff you actually have until you have to pack it all up and transport it to a new location and find new spots for everything! Good Lord! I’m not sure how we even fit all of this stuff in our little bitty house. Watch out for future Facebook posts because I might be selling things for cheap or just giving stuff away. You never know!

So, just to tease you a bit and give you an idea of what inspired my color choices for the house, I will leave you with these pictures. All paint colors that have been chosen so far have been by Benjamin Moore. Let the inspiration begin!

I can’t wait to show you our progress so far! There is so much more that I want to eventually do to this house, but what I share with you coming up will just be a “in progress” post. But, what house is never a work in progress? Wouldn’t it be boring if you got everything just perfect? Is that even possible?

Hope you all have a terrific weekend! This is my last weekend of summer break! It goes by WAYYYYYYY too fast!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that if you want the sources of these photos, just click on them. They are all linked up!

We Moved!

At the beginning of July we went house looking amongst all of the school work I had going on. I had picked out a few houses from a realty app that I thought might be good options for us. I just thought that I would go look at those and if they weren’t a fit for us, then we would move on with life living in our current house. Little did I know that our realtor would show us a house that wasn’t on our list, and we would fall in love with it! There was no need in seeing any more houses after this one. It was love at first sight!

Because I haven’t had time to take any new pictures. I’m just going to share with you a few pictures that I took the day that we looked at the house twice.

Colby and I had driven by this house multiple times in our days of house and land searching. I loved everything about this house’s presence. I was sold on curb appeal! And I promise Colby wasn’t posing for me…he just happened to be standing there waiting for me.

The lovely back porch was also a seller for me. It had plenty of room to sit out and relax, and the huge windows really made a difference inside the house.

This room gives the house so much character. It has all of the nice brick walls, fireplace, and floors. I absolutely adore the ceilings as well. I’m not sure whose idea it was to enclose this and make it a usable room, but I’m so glad they did.

Well, that’s all I’m sharing for now. I’ve got to go solve satellite and internet problems. Got to love having a puppy! Last night he decided to chew through our satellite cable that was just connected two days ago. Thanks a lot, right? Lord, help me!