Extreme Makeover - Hays Home Edition

Finally some progress on our house! I am so excited to have most of the work done and be able to start putting things back together!
Formal dining room. For some reason I couldn't get the camera to shoot a clear shot of this room - maybe lighting? Anyway, it is a warm chocolate color with red accents.

The art niche as you walk past the staircase into the living room.

I have an antique sewing machine behind the sofa. Sofa is at a diagonal in front of the grandfather clock.

More Uppercase Living on the wall. The photos in the montage are from a trip to Galveston two years ago. The words say "Loved you yesterday, Love you still, Always have, always will."

The fireplace. I have a black wrought iron cross hanging by a black velvet ribbon over a mirror. I have the window treatments down and new ones in the works - I will post more photos as I get them taken. Next up: the kitchen!!

Our princess in Swan Lake

Melissa danced today in Swan Lake. She did a beautiful job and we were SO proud of her! These are pictures of her in her costume - she was a basket bearer in the royal court!

Another long pause between postings - seems I am good at those! Our house has been in a total uproar for the last 6 weeks. We are frantically trying to finish all the repairs from our hurricaine visitor. I am going to post a few pics from what we have gotten done. This is the breakfast area at the end of our kitchen before:




And this is after. For some reason I am all into the warm colors! Most of my life I have always loved the cooler colors: blues and greens, but for some reason I am drawn to the warms now. I have taught myself to change the light fixtures out - we are getting rid of the old 80's lookin' stuff and after a friend and her husband came to help with this one over the table, I decided I could do it myself! I have changed the one over the sink (the lil' button glass globe is gone and a pendant to match this one over the table is gracing that spot now) and the one in the formal dining room - see pic below.

This is what the second floor game room looks like now . All the furniture from two bedrooms and the dining room are stuffed into the living room, game room and two other bedrooms. This leaves us with the kitchen and the master bedroom that are semi-normal - and our lives are decidedly NOT - normal, that is! I am frankly going NUTS with all this stuff to climb over, around, and through!

You can see here the new chandieler for the entryway sitting on the living room floor. Please notice my Edwardian wardrobe from England is stuffed in FRONT of the door leading to the garage! Also notice the piles of furniture piled in that room! My friend, Alane, came over the other day and with great determination and the assistance of some mountain climbing gear (not really - though she was wishing for it!) she climbed over the mountain to the piano to share her latest awesome song! Trust me when I say it was worth it to me - but I doubt it was to her! This house is truly a mess and I am SOOOOO ready for it to be back in place.
This is the formal dining room now. The flooring is not down yet - we are waiting on the insurance company to some some inspector things and send the money - but the walls, ceilings and new light fixtures are all done! I still need to paint the living room once the furniture is out. Also need another coat of paint in Melissa's room, need to paint Brendan's room and the master bath as well as the halls downstairs. We hope to have the new flooring done in the next few weeks - hardwoods downstairs and carpet upstairs. Ya'll wanna come help move furniture?

New Business...

Live is stumping along -chaos is NORMAL for us these days! Still nothing concrete from the mortgage company that might get the walls and ceilings repaired. We are hoping to have our home ready to sell by April 1st. We aren't moving far (just a few miles) but need to get to a place where we are zoned to a better high school before Andrew starts in another year! You can help us pray that that will go well...

Like I needed something ELSE to occupy my time, I have signed up as a consultant for a company called "Uppercase Living"! They have fabulous expressions for wall decor and I am really excited - mainly about decorating my home! You can check out my new business website at http://naomi.uppercaseliving.net/ - then be sure to come back here and let me know what you think! For now, I will post a picture or two:

January

I know, I know... it's been forever since I posted! It seems like the holidays just swooshed upon us with a huge blast and I have landed on the other side with a big ole "thud"! Mom and Dad came from Arkansas for Christmas and truthfully, if it hadn't been for their arrival I am not sure how I would have made it through the Christmas season! Mom dug out a Christmas tree the day before Christmas and got the kids to help her decorate it. I know, I am a terrible mother to not get a Christmas tree up until December 24th - but it's still up! Does that count for something? No, I didn't think so - unfortunately it is just a sign of the chaos my life has become!

Due largely to our stinkin' (and that is a NICE word for them) insurance company, we STILL are living in only about half of our house - it has come to the point where it is making me absolutely NUTS! I am ready to hang sheetrock myself - if we could just get the funds released to do that! First they sent a check to us for a part of the repairs (only part, mind you...) but put the mortgage company on it too. But that mortgage company was paid off over six years ago - we no longer have an account with them! I won't go into all the grim details, but I am just right disgusted with the whole deal! Anyone want a damaged house for real cheap?

Work is keeping me hopping. We typically like to have a doctor in the room when a baby is born, but sometimes that doesn't happen. When a baby is born without a doctor's hands on it, it is referred to as a precipitous delivery - I got my first one on New Year's Day and it was the first baby born in Katy! It was truly a rush and everything went well (to my great relief). I am happy to report Mom and Baby are both doing well!

Melissa is now enrolled in ballet and will be dancing in Swan Lake in March and a recital in May. She is so excited! She still remembers a lot of what she learned last year when she took two semesters from Dance Fun. This is a much more structured school and I am hoping for a more "classical" training style for her. She is so young, but just loves it and really wants to do it. I guess we will keep it up as long as she likes it - and when she doesn't like it anymore, we will look for alternatives.

I have been sewing some on my days off since Mom was here for Christmas. I don't know what it is about being around her that puts me in the mood to sew, but I have made two jumpers and a pants/top outfit for Melissa. I found a great website with good children's patterns from Europe and that makes me happy... I have found the mainstream pattern companies are largely disappointing these days in the children's clothing department. When I was young we sewed because it was cheaper - that is no longer true! I sew because I enjoy it and because I prefer the unique over the common. As soon as I can get my laptop to cooperate with me, I will post pictures of Missa's new wardrobe.

I have been writing this between checking on a very sick patient so I need to go check on her again. What are ya'll up to these days?

Master Bedroom

The new roof is ON! We had to pay for it out of our pockets, but it is up there and it looks great! We are still hoping insurance will come through with reimbursement, but we had to get the holes covered up to prevent further damage. And not a moment too soon! The last guy was finishing up the details around the edges yesterday and we got what my Daddy used to call a "gully-washer"! He came back today and ran a magnetic sweep around the yard for stray nails in the rain! We are so very thankful we are not trying to keep out the water with blue tarps like so many of our neighbors. And now we can start rebuilding the interior!

Before Ike was even a blip on the radar, we had ordered new bedroom furniture. This was a promise I made to myself when I started nursing school: "Self," I said, "when you finish this long haul, you are gonna treat yourself to some new furniture in your bedroom!" What we had was a lighted, mirrored wall-unit that was nearing 20 years old!

We had to wait almost two months for our furniture to come, but it finally got here this week and here it is! I had been watching for sale and clearance decorative elements to go with our new look for the two months so I got to redo the walls and everything... (You should be able to click on the pictures to get a closer look.)


This is the head of the bed. The long sign says "Dream" and the oval says is a scripture I love. The wrought iron scrolls are a bargain from Hobby Lobby. All of this was 50% off - gotta love it!

This is the entrance (door on the left) and door to the master bath). The gentleman's chest sports a lamp with a flicker bulb that I have had for several years but it had not really found a great home yet -it is setting up housekeeping now! The fan is a venetian bronze replica of a vintage fan that is my best friend when I am sleeping in the daytime after working a 12 hour shift all night!
The dresser with jewelry case on top. The TV will be going, but for now that is my one item that I am not so fond of...
I have struggled with these windows for the entire six years we have lived in this house. The eyebrow arch windows are a bear to cover! We installed the 2" wooden blinds when we moved in but I have never known what to do other than that - and I am almost never at a loss on window treatments! These are iron elements I found on sale at Hobby Lobby - got them for $10 each - I think they are meant to just hang on the wall, but I am using them to distract the eye from those empty arches. The fabric is a Wal-Mart $1 per yard find yesterday. I have allowed a little to puddle on the floor on the bottom of each. The swags still need some tweaking, but I think I am going to like it when I get them just so. I stuck a grape spray in the middle one- thinking about adding them on all three... what is your vote?
A closer view of the gentleman's chest. The ends open up to tie/jewelry hooks and trays. This furniture is really well-built and has lots of bells and whistles. So far I just love it!

I think I am going to head to the kitchen next. I am thinking a cayenne color, tuscan feel, using a paint and joint compound to texture the walls. I'm feeling some accents of chocolate, gold, and aqua. Sounds gross huh? In my mind it is fabulous! Stay tuned for more of the Hays House Makeover!

Photo jewelry

Life is slowly getting back to normal after the hurricaine drama. We finally got an insurance adjuster out here on Thursday to look over all the damage. We will hopefully start to rebuild within the next few weeks. Roofing, painting, sheetrock, carpet, flooring - it just makes me tired thinking about it all! So what's a girl to do when she wants to avoid thinking about the chaos around her? Play! So.... I have been playing around with poly resin and photos to make photo jewelry. Here are a few samples... Oh yeah... a disclaimer: I can't get my camera to shoot these things very clearly. I will borrow a friend's camera next week and try to shoot some in natural light so you can see them better, but for now just try to pretend they are WAY more cool in person. Okay, now on to the show!

These adorable little people are my twin sister Dori's children; Elizabeth, Garrett, and Elena. I am so proud of these! I have long wanted to learn how to colorize photos with just one area in color and the rest in black and white! I finally figured it out! Yes, it is a bit time-consuming, but these look really pretty in person! Aren't those beautiful children?

These show some different shapes and ideas. The middle one is Melissa on the Galveston beach - when it was still there! The one of the castle is a painting of Cinderella's Castle at Disney World. This is Melissa's favorite place on the planet so I wanted to make a pendant of it for her.

The first one is a shot of Randy and I on the same Galveston Beach. In the middle is another attempt at the colorization process, this time on a picture of Melissa. The on the end is of baby hands and a chin and mouth. It looks way cool in person, but may be a bit hard to decipher here...just more experimentation of styles.

This is of all of us on the beach. I have already drilled the holes on either side of this piece - I am going to make it into a bracelet.

I LOVE this piece! Another colorization one. I just love how it turned out...

Another family shot on the beach. Heart-shaped sterling chain attached to either side.

Playing around with a silhouette piece...

This is anothe one of the beach shots. You will notice the kind of mottled look to the background of this one. This was the first batch I did and the resin absorbed into the photo paper somewhat. I found a waterproof paper and it worked fabulously on the next crop.

As you can see, I am having a blast playing with my new "sport". Let me know what YOU think!