A big step!!! CURTAINS!!!!

To me curtains are huge! It looks like a home when there are curtains. I think we might still be in a grey area getting closer to 'home' since you can find hammers, nails, drills, molly bolts, wrenches, etc in many rooms of the house...but needless to say we are getting closer!! No longer can you find a ladder, or 3, INSIDE the house. They have all found their home in the garage! (Getting them out of the house was a huge step!) So often when people come over (That's right, now we feel comfortable having people over sometimes...woo hoo!! No parties YET but it is nice to have visitors and not be humiliated by ladders and construction mess!) they ask if we are tired of construction. I don't know how to explain it but to put it simply....no. It is so much fun and rewarding. I am my parents! They were ALWAYS working on the house. As soon as it seemed that everything was done and lovely, they would be ripping something else out, stripping off paint, sanding, sawing, sewing, stuffing, and mounting all over again. (Now that their house is done they are over at my house and Aimee's helping out! Thank goodness!! BUT they are gluttons for punishment!) I love where we are at now. We still have some major projects, but some rooms are ready to be decorated! For me that means sewing!! The past two weeks my job has been sewing curtains and pillows for the den. (With help on the curtains from mom!)

Sewing...Sewing...Sewing...


Mom is going to kill me for putting a picture of her on here :) She was amazing!!! She really did the hard part! IRONING! (Seriously! If it is ironed wrong it will look crazy!)


After sewing the 15ft curtains they had to be reversed to put the right sides out. Easier said than done! Thanks mommy!!!


I don't have a pic of it on my camera...but I painted that on the curtains. They were ivory silk. Then I painted the damask print going down the center of them. That is 60 yards of material painted!


Ty put the rod up and I put up the curtains.



The finished product (Well almost. I need to get ivory tassels and pull them up a bit. I will post a pic of that as soon as I do it.) Also there is our chandelier. I don't think it made it on the blog. Ty taking down the horrible gold fan was posted, but the chandelier never was. Well there it is!!!


PILLOWS! I sewed the pillows on my own. I had a 3 minute edging tutorial with mom as she left after working on curtains for 10 hours. Left to my own devices...I think I did pretty good. (The white pillows I painted when I painted the curtains. There is a close up of one of them.) I made all of the pillows except the 3 with large circles on them. Those came with the couch. Mocha had to hop in one picture of course. She always comes around when a camera is out. She is a natural model! :)




Our coffee table is an antique trunk that mom and dad had. I cleaned it and stained it to match the wood floors and Voila! Coffee Table! (We are going to get a glass top for it later this summer.)

Close up as requested.

If you want it done right do it yourself. Right?
Well Tyler and I have watched enough DIY "Renovation Realities" and HGTV "Holmes on Homes" to know that isn't the case. We have no desire to give major reconstruction a go at the expense of our enjoyment of this house...or each other. (I swear they should have a marriage counselor meet with the couples after Renovation Realities.)
However when it comes to what we like, decor, art and crafts we will happily give it a go. Below is a close up of the clock wall as requested. (Those are not decals. I painted the words on.) I think there were some other close ups requested...but I can not remember of what. Email me and I will get the pictures up! tara.yell@gmail.com if you want a better picture of something or a how to of how I made it/did it.

updates

Ok...I know I don't have to confess this to you....you already know, but Hi my name is Tara, and I am TERRIBLE at blogging!! Well the good news is all of the time I have NOT been blogging I have been working on the house. I will let my words be few and SHOW you all of the changes. I will start where we left off. I believe that was landscaping and fence. We did both the fence and landscaping in April. Our neighbors own a construction and landscaping company. We used their company for landscaping. (Fun fact: They landscaped for George and Laura Bush's new home in Dallas.) Also note the newly painted door, and while we are looking at the front door, I sewed curtains for the 2 windows by the door, and removed the blinds.
Landscaping Before:

The day before Landscaping started. I purchased the pots and Ty pulled up the bricks that were buried around the garden. Sionara leaning tree!!!!!



Landscaping After:


Fence Before:




Fence After:

We moved the fence up 10 or so feet. Now you can see it from the street.

Door Before:


Door Midway...Almost there! (But it was like this for a few days...including not having a knob. We had the large hole tapped for about 5 days!):



Door After: