Tackling those projects!!

I've been making a huge attempt this year to be more pro-active with our home repairs.  Casey and I have "lived" (I use that term loosely, since Case has been gone for most of the last year) in our house 5 years come June.  And although we've made huge strides in some areas (like painting most the rooms, and remodeling the bath...which still needs trim btw), we've been pretty lazy in other areas.  I'd like to blame it all on Casey (who prefers demo over clean up), or our general lack of money in the past...but I'm not without fault too.

My biggest problem is I'm a "BIG" dreamer, and half the stuff I want to do with the house is WAY out of our means, ability, and budget...so I tend to fester over what-might-have-been, and forget about what-needs-done-now!!

So my unspoken goal of late is to get a load of stuff done before Casey gets home.  Most of it is cosmetic work, but with any old home, that means a lot more than simply putting down a fresh coat of paint.  It involves sanding, patching, scraping, caulking, mudding, and a whole slew of other processes that make you want to pull your hair out.  

Usually all these steps would annoy me to no end, but lately I've been taking great joy in it all.  I see it as just one more way God has made me self-sufficient this last year.  For example: instead of waiting for Casey to get home to move the VERY heavy ladder for me (like I did in the past), I now find myself tackling that ladder daily...constantly moving it from room to room!!!  GO me!!!  And every step I take to improving my home, is one more step I can take pride in.

So plan on seeing an armful more of posts dedicated to my latest endeavors.

And just 'cause I hate to leave you empty handed, here are some pics of my latest completed project:

If you remember, I posted a while back about wanting to re-do the arrangement above my living room sofa.  Here is what it looked like before (with blue tape marking the future art work):

 
And here is what it looks like now:

Pretty awesome, huh!?!  I'll post later on the whole painting process, and how I took it from start to finish, so keep an eye out for that.  

And what about you?? What new projects have you "tackled" lately?