The Master-Master Piece

Construction within the walls of our almost 200 year old home goes on daily, so when a project or room is complete I feel like I should have a ribbon cutting ceremony or grand opening party. Therefore consider this posting my grand opening party to our lovely master bedroom.

I know I haven't posted many photos of the projects as they are in progress but thats because I always had in my head that I would wait patiently for the finish line and then debut the rooms one by one to the eagerly waiting public. (I chuckle because I know many of you are soooo not waiting by your computers day in and day out just to see photos of our house.) So without further ado here is a walk down memory lane with our master bedroom.Here is the room before we began any work on it. You see wall paper, and a pretty beat up sad looking floor. My friend Cindy and I spent an afternoon pealing the wall paper only to find that the plaster walls would crumble with the glue leaving big chunks of the wall missing. So our contractors Konstantine and Andrew replaced the walls with sheet rock. See our spectacular light fixture literally hanging by it's wires from the ceiling. Yeah, I don't think that was up to code, but I won't tell if you won't. (*wink*)
The window to the left was boarded up because of broken glass, and if you look at the window on the right an entire pane of glass is missing and was repaired with taped up plastic. We replaced all the windows in the house with double pane, low-e glass. It made such a difference instantly. The house holds the heat better and is as quiet as can be inside now.
I've already posted about my floors upstairs, but here they are again, as they were being worked on. I think this was the second coat of varnish.
Paint went up on the walls and ceiling. Goodness me, that was an exciting day! Color really makes a room feel like part of your home.

The dangling light fixture was replaced with our nifty ceiling fan that just happens to match the color of the floor. (Do you think someone was planning ahead when she went shopping?!? hee hee)
All the molding pieces were put up, closet doors installed and drum roll please................ the room is complete!

Christian and I are very pleased with how it turned out. Now all we need to do is move our bedroom furniture from the family room downstairs that we've been living in for the past two months, to where it belongs, our beautiful Master Bedroom!

Danielle's Baby Shower

Christian's cousin Danielle was pleasantly surprised on Saturday afternoon to walk into a room filled with women who love her and all wanted to shower her with baby gifts for the soon to be new Mommy. It was a fun lunch with wonderful women, many of whom are expecting their own little bundles of joy or have recently brought them into the world and had the new Mommy glow.

Danielle's nursery for her baby boy is going to be a jungle theme, so her closest girlfriends brought the jungle to the party and created a really cute baby shower theme.Everyone at the party was truly amazed at the cake that Danielle's friend Vanessa made. Vanessa is a mother of three little boys, and seems to have so many hidden talents. She never ceases to amaze me. Look how adorable this cake is, with the sleeping baby under the leaf on the top. It was so cute!
The Mommy (Carol) and Mommy-to-be. Both looked so beautiful and couldn't stop smiling the entire afternoon. My beautiful family. Mother-in-law and sister-in-law and niece were all smiles, and look stunning with their touch of animal print. (Kathy wore a zebra inspired dress, Shayla stylin' in her animal print faux fur, and although I didn't get any pictures of her shoes, Krysty wore these amazing leopard heels.)
Let the gift opening commence!
Among a few cute baby items that I just couldn't resist, my main gift for Danielle's little one was a personalized name plate. He will share the same name as his grandfather on his Dad's side, Joseph. This was my first boy name plate and I really enjoyed making it. It seems that all the women around me are expecting little boys, so perhaps I'll have a few more chances to create different styles of a name plate for the little guys! So fun!
Danielle is a truly beautiful woman and I know that her little peanut has picked a remarkable family to join, and in April we'll all get to meet him face to face.

Look at my floors!!!!

Our contractors are not 100% done as of today with our upstairs (We're still working on our bathroom, therefore our hallway has not been stained due to high traffic and bathroom fixtures threatening to damage a polished finished floor), but the four bedrooms now have newly stained floors that look simply stunning. I was going to wait to post these photos till the walls were painted and trim was up so you could see the finished product but I'm too excited and can't wait.

In the collage below, the photos display the transition that our floors have undergone in the last month or so. The first photo I call the "Oopsie color." Unfortunately Christian and I didn't care for this red color, so our contractor spent close to two weeks stripping the wood and then sanding the floor by hand. By the time he was done sanding the floors, which are close to 200 years old, they looked brand new. (Great work Konstantine!!!) The third photo is of our tester color, which we picked out and LOVED so we gave the go ahead and they stained each bedroom, applied three coats of varnish (You see coat one and coat two in the last two photos in the collage.).....

And then... drum roll please..........
Finally our finished floors look like this!!!!! Sooooo beautiful and really breath taking. The floors were something we fell in love with right from the very beginning and we knew we wanted to restore them to their original beauty. Konstantine and his Uncle Andrew did a wonderful job! I can't wait to post more photos of the work they're doing. But for now I love gazing at my gorgeous floors!

How Peculiar!

I only caught the tale end of this. The birds flew back and forth for a good two or three minutes before it dawned on me to get my camera, and then of course, once I had the camera it was as if the birds knew they were caught in the act, so they all fled. But still, how strange!

The Joy of Christmas

A few days before the 25th the East Coast was hit with it's first real snow storm of the season guaranteeing that we would all have a white Christmas. Christian and his Dad set to work right away shoveling the white stuff along with the rest of the neighborhood.
I'm a strange bird because I love shoveling snow, but sadly I could not participate due to my having surgery just two days before the big storm came. So I swallowed my pride and forced myself to watch from the warmth of the living room and played with this little guy. (Sure was a tough morning for me, let me tell you. *wink*)One of the many things I love about the Christmas season is that people dust off their address books and discover the long lost art of using the postal service. Here is just a handful of the wonderful holiday messages Christian and I received. For the past six months I've been guarding a box because it's contents are more precious to me than any purchased gift could ever be. So as an early Christmas present to myself, even though we haven't begun work on our living room, I opened the box that held the two paintings I picked out that where created by my Aunt and I displayed them on our mantle. Tears were shed as I gazed upon the beautiful work, and I know that my Aunt was standing next to me that morning, happy as a clam, that part of her is now officially in my new house.Christmas day was spent at my in-laws house. Kathy had a slightly smaller group to feed than usual. Luke, who recently got engaged spent the afternoon and evening with his future in-laws in Connecticut. While John and his wife with little Shayla spent their dinner with Krysty's family. This is just part of the wonderful shifting dynamic that is family. We're ever growing and ever changing, but we always feel the love we share no matter the distance.Grandma and Grandpa K came up with Christian's cousin Jessie, whom we were so happy to see because it has been far too long between visits.Melissa and Brianna, along with their parent's Anne and Bruce (Christian's Aunt and Uncle) also joined us for the day. I can not get over how grown up these little ladies are. Melissa will be graduating high school this year, and I remember when Brianna was just a little kid blowing bubbles and running around her yard. Kathy's best friend Helene stopped by, and stayed for a bite to eat. Here she is in her new hat, complements of Kathy. She's such a sweetheart. Look at those baby blues. Like father like son.Dinner was great. Kathy always creates such a wonderful holiday meal. And dessert had quite the spread, cookies, cheese cake, and how cute was this little Frosty ice cream cake?!? At the end of the day, when all out tummies were full, Coby took a lesson from his big brother Keith and headed to a soft spot for a holiday snooze.From the Kaufman family to yours, we hope that your Christmas was truly wonderful, filled with love and laughter. Merry Christmas !

Ding-dong the plate is dead!

I am happy to report that the great clavicle saga has finally come to it's conclusion, and oh what a happy ending it is! Yesterday's surgery was a fine success, and I left the hospital hardware free! Regardless of any discomfort I was in, the smile on my face never fell. (Honestly, I'm really not in much pain at all. I'm not sure if its just because I've built up my tolerance from the three previous surgeries, or if its because we weren't rebuilding bone this time, but I feel great!) I know that I'm normally a little more long winded with my entries but I'm back to being predominately left handed and typing is a little bit of a challenge, so I shall wrap this up with sending out a thank you once again to all those out there who kept me in their thoughts for the last year and a half. I've felt the love and am utterly grateful! Thank you all so much!

Say Buh-bye to the Clavicle Saga

Just a super quick FYI, that most of you who are faithful readers are already well aware of.... Tomorrow (Thursday Dec. 17th) is my fourth and FINAL surgery for my great clavicle saga!!!!!! I go in at 8 in the morning, I'm guessing the surgery will be somewhere around 10 or 11, and I should be home by mid afternoon. I'll be staying at my in-laws for a little while. As much as I'd like to stay in my new house, there's just too much dust from all the construction, and frankly I'd be WAY too tempted to try and put things away which is a major No-no! So I appreciate the offering from John and Kathy to take care of me and feed me while I'm recovering. Things will go great, I can feel it! I'm a little nervous as always, but more than anything I'm thrilled that the final chapter is going to be written! So keep your fingers crossed for me tomorrow and send good vibes to my surgeon that every things goes smoothly. I'll let everyone know how it went in the next day or two. Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers! Love you guys!!!