The problem is, I can see the potential.

When we were house looking, we found a house that was practically move-in ready, it only needed new paint. We looked at it 4 times. Our realtor knew we really liked it. That was the house Chris wanted and we were going to make an offer on it the morning our realtor called.

The quirky house that I had also looked at several times, the one that Chris thought needed too much updating and remodeling, the one that I thought had SO MUCH POTENTIAL just dropped their price by $40,000. So just like that, we switched gears and made an offer on the house that needed a lot of work.

I now often joke that I wish our house had less potential, as everything is taking a lot longer than we thought it would.

I’m excited to share some “before and after” photos of our living room, dining room and sunporch. These are long overdue!

First, we needed to get rid of the wallpaper and carpet. I’m actually becoming quite skilled at removing wallpaper, since almost every room had it. It takes time and patience, but luckily not a lot of brawn. The walls were in rough shape under this layer of wallpaper, probably from the last owners removing the grass cloth wall paper that had been there before. We dodged needing to skimcoat the walls, but Chris did need to retexture them before we could paint.

This floor took a little bit of artistic design finagling. It’s three different widths of boards that repeat in a varied pattern. Chris left that all up to me and just cut the ends when I finished each row. If I had to do it again, I would pick this flooring again. The rough “hewed” texture looks great.

From the start, I had particular ideas for the living room. I wanted dark wood floors and dark gray walls. For the foyer, I wanted a light blue to brighten the room and to set off the gray. I wanted all the trim and fireplace to be crisp white to really make the gray stand out. Chris is always a little worried when I pick paint colors, but then falls in love with them when the rooms are painted. This was no exception. He was nervous it would be too dark, but when it’s on the walls, it has the impact I wanted and everyone loves it.

When we were looking for a house, a formal dining room was something we thought we really wanted. Now that I have one, I don’t want a huge table taking up all that space. Plus, I have 4 kids who are pigs when they eat- I don’t want to bring that mess into any other rooms beyond the kitchen!

I decided to leave the dining room mostly empty, giving more open floor for the kids to play. It’s also the main walkway to the sunporch, so not filling the room with a table helps to make it feel larger. We took down the heavy chandelier and Chris convinced me to go with a darkened stain on the french doors. Along one wall, I created a family station for school papers and charging electronics.

And here are the “Before and After” of the spaces all together. We are so happy with the final result!

Walking into an art supply store is kind of like walking into a candy store. You want to get everything!

At the beginning of the summer, my four kids had worked together to create a list of art projects they wanted to do and needed items. I then took them to the art supply store, with the list in hand. Our shopping trip would fill out the craft cabinet at home so they’d be ready to create.

Walking down the first aisle, it was obvious that following the list was going to be a problem. There are so many possibilities waiting on the shelves, for so many projects we hadn’t even thought of yet.

The aisle of painting canvases stopped me in my tracks. The blank white material was stretched over wooden frames in tons of sizes and thicknesses, looking fresh and ready to be used. My eight year old saw this. “Can we get these?” he asked, picking up several.

Canvases were not on the list. “What would you do with a canvas?” But I understood the appeal. I saw the possibilities. Like a new notebook that could be filled with smart and wonderful words strung together in ways you haven’t even thought of yet, an empty canvas is filled with the colorful potential of designs just waiting to be painted.

I added six of them to the cart.

The canvases became a “family night art project.” I selected six paint colors and set the ground rules: The colors could not be mixed into a crazy mess on the canvas and they had to have their handprint included into or onto their design.

I wanted the limited palette so that the canvases would coordinate together on the wall, regardless of what each person painted. I wanted the handprints because I thought it would be a fun way to tie the canvases together and as a way to remember the sizes of the kids as they are now. When they were done, I had everyone sign their canvas, so their own handwriting would be preserved, as well.

I now have our family art on the wall and everyone is happy with how they turned out. The collection is perfect.