Christmas projects

Foyer

For Easter, Nana & Grandad wanted to give us a new floor for the dining room. However, we decided to use the floors for the foyer. We are systematically removing all traces of carpet in the house! With some help from Terry, Ryan put in slate tile and I painted the walls and trim. Now instead of two armoires and a ton of books (relocated to closet in playroom with the filing cabinet), Ryan has a little home office and I have somewhere to stash my crafts. It would be nice to fit a sleeper sofa in there too though. I see a visit to IKEA in my future.

Best Room in the House!

The playroom has four pretty windows, two of which look out onto the front lane and the neighbor's lovely garden. The ceiling has dropped beams (aesthetic only?) and a HUGE, DEEP closet for lots of room for toy rotation. The playroom is also our guest room.

Pineknot

There are a few houses in the neighborhood with cute names. Even though Uncle Charlie says its pretentious, I have been trying to come up with some good ideas. "Pineknot" was the name of Ryan's grandfather's lobster boat in Vinalhaven, ME. Maybe we will go with that. Maybe even "Vinylhaven" itself since we have awful vinyl siding on the sides of our house.

Stenciled Stair Runner

After a lot of research of beautifully painted stair risers, I still could not budge Ryan on the idea. His main qualm was that painted floors would look worn very quickly. I had a pretty piece of lace that I translated into a stencil. I thought that if I did a runner on either side of where we walk, that the pattern would hold up pretty well. I lightly sanded the finish off and stenciled away with a little measuring here and there. Ryan hates the stairs, but I love them! Every once in a while, I give the stairs a shellacking.