Simplifying, Reducing, Organizing

It (the repainting of our house) has been going on a month now - actually a little more than a month.  Of course Ron and I were out of town for a week during that month -and the painters have had several 3 and 4 day weeks.  Still, they are not finished painting the interior of our house.  However, the end is in sight.

Today they did most of my art studio, and they will finish it tomorrow.  They had done the trim and ceiling in the art studio a couple weeks ago - but then did other rooms before going back to finish the studio.  I thought that the carpenters would be here tomorrow to start on the new cabinets for the studio, but Ron told me that it was delayed for a couple weeks while they finish another project.  However, once the painters finish tomorrow, I can start getting my studio back to working order.  And maybe by the weekend, I can actually start painting again.  I'm anxious to finish the painting of the church at Epworth by the Sea that I started at the beginning of this month when we were in Sea Island and I was working with Mary O Smith.

Totally painting and re-decorating my house is a MUCH bigger job than I'd anticipated.  Still, I'm very happy with how everything is looking.  And it will have been worth the 6-8 weeks of living with so much disruption in our home.

I've decided to put plantation shutters in our great room, kitchen and dining room.  So the painters had to take down the blinds and the curtain rod brackets today - and then patch those places - and they'll sand and repaint them tomorrow.  So although those rooms were "finished," they will need those touch-ups tomorrow after my change of plans.  I didn't want to put up heavy curtains again.  The plantation shutters will look clean and fresh and LIGHT - which I love. 

I'm really excited that my studio will now be a light color instead of that dark brown.  The studio originally was going to be a home theater, and so that's why we painted it a dark color. 

After the painters finish, we will get an electrician to add better lighting to my studio.  And then the carpenters will build cabinets along one wall of the studio so that my art supplies will have a "pretty" place to reside rather than on top of plastic snap-together bookshelves from Home Depot.  THEN my studio will be complete.  I'm very excited about it all!

And I have lots to do with the rest of the house, too.  We are getting new furniture for the great room - new rugs, too.  I've already bought new linens for the master bedroom, the downstairs guest room (previously "the pink bedroom" but is now the "gray and yellow bedroom"), and the upstairs bathroom that used to have red towels/rugs now has navy blue.  New window treatments in some rooms and new area rugs.  And in the kitchen and laundry room - all new appliances.  It's quite a major overhaul on the interior of the house.  And a good bit of money - but we've put very little into the house in the 11 years we've lived here.  It was time to re-do things.

I'm clearing out a LOT of unused items from the house - I've got boxes and boxes full of stuff stacked in the garage that we will donate to the Salvation Army.  Simplifying, reducing, organizing.