Living Room ceiling done!

Many thanks to my cheap labor and good friend James for his 40-some hours of work sanding, caulking, priming and painting my living room ceiling. I have been criticized by some people for not keeping the wood stained, but it wasn't that nice in the first place and that's so not my taste anyway. It looks so much better now, it really opens up the room. It looked a ski lodge before, and that's fine for some people, but it's not what I am going for here at all. Now I just need to get the new lights up to see if they work in the space, and I can get started on the rest of this room.

No more ugly wall!

I'm finally making some progress on the dining room. You might remember the before picture:



Since then I've repaired the plaster above the window, skim coated some of the bigger spots where the first layer of wallpaper actually came off, and painted over it with an oil based primer. All that's left is to prime and paint the trim, paint the window and put up the new wallpaper! Here's how it looks so far. Already a huge improvement.

My contaminated yard.

This was supposed to be the "second of all" in my last post, but I didn't have time to finish.

Yesterday I was talking with my neighbor about her yard and she told me that the EPA had replaced her whole yard because it was contaminated with arsenic. I did some checking around the internet and found out that mine is too! In fact, she and I are 2 of only 3 lots on our block that had levels of arsenic that were too high. I do wonder why this was not disclosed to me in the buying process. The good news is that I should be getting a new yard. The back yard should be done this year. The bad news is the front yard could take up 5 years to be done. I'll keep you updated on this story! Here's some links to read about what is going on.

US EPA website
The Deets

Bedroom almost there.

First of all, I am almost done with the bedroom. There is a built in armoire type thing that I had to paint and fix up, and I love it. It looks so cute now! All I have left in the bedroom is the refinish the doors.