Bedroom Facelift

BEFORE ...

AFTER ...

I adored my old comforter, but despite having two windows, I don't get much natural light in my bedroom because of the orientation of the windows and all the trees outside. My furniture and floors are all dark wood, so I really felt I needed to find a lighter comforter or quilt to give the illusion of light. I've been on the lookout for new bedding for a while, and I finally found some that I like and works with the existing paint. I painted this room before I moved in, and painting it again would mean moving this massive bed and painting the bathroom as well. If necessary, I would have painted, but I was hoping not to have to.

Last year, I bought two sets of navy sheets to go with my existing bedding, and they were quite expensive, so I wanted something that I could use them with. I may change my mind about the navy sheets and pillow cases, but for now, I'm going to use them ... for a pop of color if nothing else. I like the blue drapes, but they still made the room too dark ...

 

So I changed the navy out for white black-out drapes. They do make the room look brighter, but I'm not so sure I like them. It seems too stark or something ... and it's WAY too bright when the sun comes up. These drapes, while pretty, are worthless as blackout drapes. And the gold sheers looks white ... so back to the store.

I settled on gold black-out drapes. Despite promising 99% light barrier, they aren't as light filtering during the day as I would like them to be, but they look much better. The only time I need it really dark in there is for the grandkids naps. They sleep better when it's dark. I'm hoping these gold ones will be enough to let them get the sleep the need.

AFTER ...

CLOSE-UP OF THE NEW BEDDING ...

The color is off ... the background is a creamy white and the words are gold.

All in all, it's a much brigher room during the day, and it's plenty dark at night. Even so, I still like my old bedding better ... and we'll just have to see how well they work at naptime!

I've Been Under the Weather Lately

I apparently caught one of the norovirus's going around, and it's knocked me for a loop these past few days, so I haven't been posting lately, but hopefully I'll kick this thing soon and will be back to normal. I hope.

Eight Months Today

Sweet Davy at three years old.

Davy,

I can't believe it's been eight long months since I talked to you. Eight months with no hugs from you. Eight months since I heard you tell me you love me. We survived all the 2018 birthdays and holidays without you in the room celebrating with us, but you were always on our minds, and you'll forever live in our hearts.

I tell your babies stories of you every time they come over, and we look at all the pictures of you sitting around the house and on the tv screensaver. They always get very excited when they see a picture of you, especially when you're holding or playing with one, or both, of them. I will make sure your babies know you and how much you love them. How tragic that you can't be here to watch them grow up, marry, and have babies of their own.

I know you're in a better place, but I miss having you here, and I will miss you until I take my last breath. It's still hard to believe you're gone. Eight months later, I still think about you constantly. You will never be forgotten. Oh, how I wish I could turn back time and raise you again!

And don't worry ... we're still looking for whoever killed you. We may never find them, but we'll never stop looking and hoping and praying.

I Love You,
Mama

He Didn't Choose the Thug Life ...

The thug life chose him ...

This is an older picture of my youngest grandson (he's a whopping 20 months now!), but I came across it on my phone ... and it's just too cute not to share!

Detergent

I added a detergent dispenser to the laundry closet, and I love it! It's so cute!

Bottle Cap

In the days just after Davy was killed, I was so restless. I was trying to do my best to keep my mind occupied, but that was an impossible task. No matter what I did, I thought about Davy the entire time.

One day, I went for a walk in my woods and found this bottle cap. It was the ship on the bottle cap that caught my eye. Davy liked pirate lore, and was thrilled when we vacationed on Ocracoke Island, where Blackbeard was killed.

I picked up the bottle cap and put it in my pocket. When I got back inside, I put it on the shelf, above Davy's picture. It's been there ever since.

I looked up "Small Town Brewery" on the internet. It's in Wauconda, Illinois. It looks to be a fairly new brewery, so the bottle cap is not decades old ... meaning it's very possible it's from when his best friend, Zach, would come over. They'd sit outside, build a fire in the upper fireplace, drink a few beers, talking and laughing under the stars until the wee hours of the morning.

It might not be Davy's, but I like to think it is, and it makes me smile to remember those two "boys" hanging out and having fun ... and I can easily see Davy flipping this bottle cap into the woods to see how far he could make it go. That's definitely something Davy would do!

So when I found it, it brought me a small bit of comfort ... I was touching something Davy had touched.

A Painting of Davy

Not long after Davy died, a childhood friend, Ben, told me he wanted to paint a picture of Davy. I was thrilled! He said he wanted to try a new technique he'd been working on ... painting on glass. He came over one afternoon and we picked out a dozen or so pictures of Davy.

Ben was a true friend all through Davy's childhood. They were thick as thieves. Ben lived a few houses up the hill, and those boys played from the time their feet hit the ground in the morning until they were called in for the night. They were always so dirty at the end of the day! I didn't mind at all ... it meant he had fun ... and the dirt was nothing a little soap and water couldn't take care of. Ben confided in me, just lately, that they would climb the massive pine tree in our backyard to see who could go the highest. That tree is at least 100' tall! I'm glad I hadn't seen it. My heart would have stopped!

Davy and Ben in the tree house in our backyard.

Ben came to the funeral home when Davy died. He was inconsolable. He was the same at the funeral. His family came to the visitation and funeral separately from him. Their adult kids were crying and the parents could hardly hold it together.

When we planted Davy's dogwood, it only seemed right that Ben be there.

A few weeks ago, he messaged me and said he'd had a dream the night before. In his dream, I came up to him, crying, asking him if he knew where Davy was. He just looked at me, knowing Davy was gone, then he started crying. He said he woke up thinking about the painting, that he had yet to start, and that it was really pressing on his heart that he needed to do this. Now.

Not long afterwards, he sent me a couple of pictures of the process as he painted Davy. He chose a picture of Davy sitting on my sofa, with a sweet, satisfied smile on his face, as his infant son lay fast asleep on his chest.

 Here's the picture he painted from ...

The beginning of the project ...

The finished project, with a white matte behind the painting ...

The finished project without the white matte. He said he was going to put a mirror behind the painting so that we could see our reflection, too, when we looked it.

 

I don't have it yet ... but I know exactly where I'm going to hang it once I get my hands on it. What an incredibly kind thing this young man did for me. His expression of grief and pain at Davy's passing was impossible to miss.

It touched my heart that pretty much all of Davy's childhood friends ... and many times their entire families ... came to both the visitation and the funeral. All of his friends were crying very hard or trying very hard not to.

Davy, I don't think you have any idea of how many hearts you touched. I miss you, Buddy.

The Laundry Closet is DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is another project I have wanted to tackle since I bought this house, and it's finally DONE! I had everything in place and the shelves stained for while now, but the thought of hanging three very heavy shelves ... on a plaster and lath wall ... and making sure they were all level and spaced evenly really intimidated me. But, I figured the shelves weren't going to hang themselves, so I put on my big girl panties and went for it. While I was hanging the shelves, there were many, many, many times I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew, but I persevered!

The walls are plaster, so hitting a stud was essential. The shelves are heavy, so holding them in place by myself to mark the screw holes for the brackets was very difficult. Plus, I also had to make sure the shelves were level. This definitely would have been easier with another pair of hands ... but somehow I managed.

Here's the AFTER ...

When I moved in, my side by side washer and dryer took up most of the closet. There was a little space on each side and there was one long shelf across the top, so despite having a whole closet, in reality, I had very little storage. I left the doors on the closet (because the washer and dryer weren't very "decorative"), so I'd have to close one side to use the washer, then close the washer side to use the dryer. It was a hassle, but I lived with it. (First World problem, right?)

And now here's the BEFORE ... (the "line" in the middle is the light pull-string)

The old chest in the AFTER picture was in the closet in the guest room, and I needed that room for toys. Moving it meant buying a stackable washer and dryer and putting the old chest beside it. The chest holds a lot of Davy's things, so moving it  made sense. I had toys piled on it when it was in the guest room closet, so putting more things in the chest was a chore.

A couple of friends moved out my old washer and dryer and hooked up my new ones. They put the vent for the dryer hose above the electrical outlet, but there's no way I could get three shelves with it located there ...

So I moved it below the outlet ...

I had bought a 2x12x12 and had it cut into three, 4' pieces for the shelves ...

And stained them ...

Then I hung beadboard on the back wall of the closet. I didn't bother making it neat around the outlet because I had bought fabric to hang just beneath the bottom shelf to hide all the hoses and wires. The string for the light makes it look like I messed up on the beadboard, but (again) that's just the light pull-string ...

Finally, and with great trepidation, I hung the first shelf ... (and added an angel (temporarily) at the end of the light pull-string). This shelf was particularly maddening because I had intended to use the brace on the side wall as guide to keep the shelf level. After I hung the first shelf, it was not level. Not even slightly. It was then that I realized the side brace wasn't level. Ugh! I had to remove the shelf and brackets and start over. Second time was the charm ...

Then the bottom shelf ... (This time, I moved the light pull-string out of the way before taking the picture) ...

Then the middle shelf ... and it's done!

To someone who knows what they are doing, tiling the bathroom and hanging these shelves would have been a piece of cake ... but I do NOT know what I'm doing ... so for me, they were NOT a piece of cake!

There are other projects I want to tackle, but after the bathroom and the laundry closet, I'm not exactly anxious to dive into another project, so they're going to have to wait. Plus ... I still have to grout the tile in the bathroom. The plan is to do that tomorrow (which will be "today" because I'm not posting this until tomorrow!), then I will be 100% done with both projects. What a relief, and what a sense of accomplishment I feel!

Another House I Drew

This was the childhood home of a friend, so I drew this for her. I can't find the picture I took to draw from, but here's the drawing ...

I Admit I'd Starve as an Artist

I drew this for a friend in 2010. I thought this drawing turned out pretty good!