part of my story: 2014 in photos and words

Here I sit on New Year's Eve slightly feverish and coughing my brains out. So I thought that since I'm not going anywhere I should update the ol' blog one more time. . . for auld lang syne. I figured I'd show some of my favs from the year, which, in hindsight, wasn't my most favorite year ever, but there were a lot of good things to remember.

Best Projects of 2014:

1. painting the kitchen and dining room. We went with Valspar's Carolina Skies and ultra white for all the trim.

2. bidding farewell to the ugly 1970's fireplace in the family room/aka mancave. We aren't sure who painted the rocks the groovy multi-colors and only added white mortar to part of them, but I put up with it for nearly 3 years until I'd had enough. We sold the tv armoire and moved the tv and electronics to the opposite side under the heater.

It took 2 coats of masonry primer and 2 coats of ultra white paint and a lot of woman-power, but it's all pretty now. The top and bottom of the fireplace are white, with the exception of the hearth tiles which still need to be replaced. It changed the whole look and feel of the room.

3. the great spring break scrapbook room/office purge. So embarrassing, but here's the honest before. A disaster. It had become a catch all dump. It's a teeny tiny bedroom that had been a baby boy's nursery for the previous owners, thus the tan and blue. I was ready to brighten things up a bit.

I moved almost everything out to the living room so I could sort and give away and recycle. We sold the computer armoire which freed up a ton of space. The two bookshelves found new home in the other bedrooms and then we went to Ikea.

Here's the after, but obviously not the final after. I kept the white desk and moved it to the opposite wall. Everything was neat and organized and then, well, it's kind of a mess again, but at least the furniture's cute.