June 2011: We move our extra dining set up from the basement to use as our kitchen table so I can paint the brown table a different color. The plan was to paint the table off-white and then collect a variety of vintage chairs, paint them all the same color, and that would be our new (and awesome-looking) kitchen table and chairs.
About five coats later and the table was painted.
August 2011: I found some fabulous chairs on my way to a full set of mismatched glory. Chris moved the brown-now-off-white table back upstairs (did I mention that the legs have to come off every time that thing goes up or down the stairs? Well, they do. Poor Chris Graham.)
Day after moving the table upstairs, AKA August 2011: Elliott colors all over the white table with crayons. And even though I put a clear coat finish on it, we were able to scrape, chip, and dent the crap out of that white table. I really didn't think that white-table-with-small-children-thing through.
January 2012: road trip to IKEA for a new kitchen table that can handle our rough treatment, take up less room in our small kitchen, and match. Chris takes the brown-now-white table apart (again) and then puts together the IKEA table and chairs. The white table is put back together (aga...oh, you get the point) in the basement as the craft table and now I have a new, beautiful table and chairs in the kitchen.
Doesn't my kitchen look nice and clean? Transparency: my kitchen only looks like this at night when everyone is asleep. Before we go to bed, we straighten our house: pick up toys, load the dishwasher, wipe down the table, etc. I guess so if we're robbed in the middle of the night, the robbers will be impressed with my housekeeping. It is nice to wake up to a clean house, but it doesn't ever look like this during the day. I am a neat freak, but even I can't keep my house looking like this while two small children are on the loose.
The below pictures would represent more adequately what the kitchen looks like on a daily basis (the first picture is the painted table and the chairs that were painted brown but never made it to off-white).
Harper and her shadow, Monkey. Sometimes I'm not sure if Harper actually eats dinner because the second you turn your back, she feeds the dog. She's sneaky.
If money was no object, I think I would happily redo all the rooms in our house every six months. I love the way a coat of paint and some new pillows can make a room feel completely different. Some days if you come to our house, you would think it's cute and orderly. Other days you would think that we have five kids instead of two and that there has to be more dogs somewhere because one dog could not produce that much dog hair (Side note: schipperkes are heavy shedders. Didn't know that when we picked that little guy up at the shelter--oops. Also, I linked to the AKC info about schipperkes because eveyone always asks what the heck our dog is.).
Our house isn't big and we like it that way. We've discussed moving in the next few years as Ellie gets ready for school. We don't know where we want her to go to school or where we want to end up, but we get the feeling that this isn't our forever house. Although we could be completely wrong and live here until we die. Either way, I think we'd be happy.
Until then, I'll keep starting (and scrapping) projects, remodeling things, and updating others. Our house is in a constant state of "we're working on that" and I feel okay with it. It's kind of like our life: always improving but happy in the mess.
