Houston we have a problem

I just realized that next week is Thanksgiving. This is a bit of a problem for me because as a general rule that is the day that we put up our Christmas tree. Why is this a problem you might ask? Well the problem is that I have no where to put the tree. We've pretty much always had a problem with the tree placement because our home is so small. In the past we would move the bookshelf to the utility room and put the tree in the corner. This year we can't do that because I got rid of the bookshelf and entertainment center and had some built ins made in that corner. I love having the built in, but it made situating the furniture kind of hard. 

 Please ignore the ugly television and lack of decorating.

 See the problem? I *think* I would like to put it where that ugly monstrosity chair is, but then what would I do with the chair? I would love to just get rid of it, but then when we have company that would be one less place for them to sit. 

 I thought about putting it where that table is on the back wall, but then it would pretty much be right in your face when walking into the front door and I could just see my kids stepping on presents. So that's out. 

 Then there is this corner to the right of the door when you walk in that I could probably use, but it would require me moving the sofa. Again, where would I put it? 

I told my husband that we needed to suck it up and just buy a bigger house, but then he reminded me that we would have to sell ours first and the likelihood of it selling before Christmas (of this year anyway) would fall somewhere in the slim to none category. So if any of you have suggestions please let me know. 

My kids are so strange

Last night the girls helped me put a few decorations out for Thanksgiving. The kitchen looked especially cute with the placemats and napkin rings they made last year. After we had our little Martha moment we went about our bedtime routine as usual. Or so I thought. This morning I woke up to this:

 Apparently someone in our family is an aspiring comedian.

Guess HGTV will have to find some new design stars

I have come to the conclusion that my husband and I suck at the whole 'cutesy decorating/home repair thing'. It think it's pretty obvious after seeing my hand at arts and crafts that I won't have to worry about people beating down my door for help. And after this latest foray into home improvement (yes, I'm snickering as I type those words because well.... you'll see) I've also come to the conclusion that my husband won't have to worry about people calling on him for his services either. You see several a few weeks ago we decided that after ten years it was time to finally get around to doing some work on one of our bathrooms.  The work we were doing should have taken most people a day to complete, a weekend at most. Not us. It's about three weeks into this little project and we've still got work to do. Don't get me wrong, we can actually use the bathroom, but it still needs some things done to it. Like the door needs to be painted, some of walls need to be touched up, and we still need to buy some kind of storage cabinet thingy for the wall. That's right a thingy. It's a real word. Trust me. Anyway, Wednesday my darling husband did not have to go to work until 2:00 so I asked him if he would please put towel holder up so the kids would quit throwing the hand towel in the sink every time they washed their hands. He did and this is the result:

 Is it just me or can anyone else see the problem here? Hmm, anybody? Yes, that bad boy will be getting moved soon. Also, notice the mirror? Yeah, you only have to be about six feet tall to be able to see yourself in it. Which I guess for me is a good thing when I think about how much weight I've put on lately (damn those Hershey's!) so maybe I won't complain about that one. Too much. So for now I guess the powers that be at HGTV can rest easy because it looks like they won't have to worry about juggling their schedule to find us a time slot. Unless they want to add some comedy into the mix in which case we will proudly say "bring it on!"

The latest project

Yesterday my husband and I started on a project that was way overdue. The bathroom.

In the ten years we have lived in our house this is the only room that we have never changed. I don't know why we haven't changed it because it has definitely needed it, but we haven't. Until now. The cabinet was on it's last leg so we ripped it out. The flooring was starting to peel so out it came. By the way, that picture? Is after the flooring came out. The little squares are imprints from where it has been down so long. Then came the wallpaper. Yes, my friends that's right, wallpaper. Now I have known for awhile that we would be working on this room and have offered multiple times to rip out the wallpaper while my husband was at work. His response? "Oh, honey don't worry about it. The guy at Home Depot said we don't have to take it down." Uh huh. Apparently Mr. Home Depot Guy told my husband that he could use an oil based primer on the walls so that he could paint over the wallpaper. I have a pretty good feeling that Mr. Home Depot Guy was having a good chuckle last night thinking about the dumb sucker who was painting over his wallpaper. Guess what I got to do until late last night?

 So fun. And no I did not say "told ya so". After being married as long as we have I don't even have to say it. Oh, and when we took the mirror down look what was underneath it:

 Can't guess what it is? It's a piece of LOOSE LEAF PAPER COVERING A HOLE IN THE WALL!  Is that not ridiculous? I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I saw it. I ended up going with laughter because I knew crying wouldn't help.
So anyway, wish me luck on this project, I'm hoping to be done sometime before Sophie starts college. I hope.

I think we are done!

I think we are done with Kylie's room for now.  We are going to replace the carpeting with wood, but are going to wait a little while before doing it. Now before you look at the pictures some disclaimers, lol. First, I just have a really basic camera and the pictures look kind of umm, hazy I guess? Of course I'm sure they would look the same if I had a very good, fancy shmancy camera too since I'm not a photographer, but I think you can get the general feel of things. Second, the room is really small, 11x11 so there isn't a lot of room so it may look kind of crowded, but it works for us. Third, there are some things that I would still like to do, but for the most part (other than the flooring) they are nit picky. So here we go:

I'm going to buy a rug to go in front of the bed, but am waiting until we put the new flooring down. Kylie is intent on getting a round one, but we'll see. Just got the vinyl initial today. I wanted to get the larger size that was 22 inches, but Kylie wanted the smaller 12 inch one. She informed me that the other one would be far too big. It's kind of hard to see since it's white, but it has really pretty scalloped edges.

 By the way, how does the awning look? I was going to get husband to make it out of wood, but he said it would be too heavy. I went to hobby lobby in search of some foam board and they were having a sale on project boards. You know the things that fold in three sections that kids use in social studies and science fairs? I bought that, folded it into a triangle and covered it with fabric. We already had the window box, I picked up some potted plants from the dollar tree and added them. 

The pictures are 11x14. The frames have plastic, not glass so if they fall they won't break. To the right is our Eiffel tower vinyl. Kylie calls it the leaning tower of Eiffel. What can I say? The thing was taller than me and I had kind of a hard time getting it straight. 

We got rid of the of the useless armoire and I picked up the little table with the intentions of putting the television and dvd player on it. Her majesty wanted it on the dresser instead so there it is. The ooh la la letters came with the Eiffel tower so we put them above the mirror. I know you can't really see the lamp well, but I bought a shade and covered it with green and white damask fabric and trimmed the top and bottom of it with pink beads. It had a pull on it that had a moon and I cut it off and replaced it with a pink poodle one. 

 The mirror was on the closet door. I was going to buy a pretty one to go over the dresser, but thought I would try this out instead. I covered it with marabou boa because apparently I am a glutton for punishment and enjoy getting glue burns. 

 Desk and bookshelf. Nothing fancy. I bought the clock from someone, but it was black so I painted it to lighten it up some. 

 And Kylie sitting in her pretty pink chair. Please pretend you don't notice that she isn't wearing shoes. She nearly died when she saw this picture and said, "Mom, I hope you don't have a lot of people that look at your blog because I am barefoot and that is so embarrassing." Anyway, that is it for now. The paint is a lot lighter in actuality, almost an aqua color. It's called weather glass from the Eddie Bauer collection by Valspar.