We moved into our new house a month and a half ago. It's awesome and we are loving it. My mom flew up and helped us get moved, and we had such great support from the ward, the whole thing went really smoothly. We're finally all settled in and we're busy making little tweaks to make it feel more like our home and less like someone else's house.
I have
a lot of free time this summer. Headstart ended for the year and so did cheerleading. The piano recital was last Thursday, and only about 10 of my students are taking summer lessons. Pretty much the only things I have going on in my life are 9 credits worth of classes, a few piano lessons a week, and taking care of Erik and the house. In some ways it's really nice, but honestly I'm just not wired for that much free time and I'm going a little bit crazy. I'm in this strange position where I have a lot more time to blog, and even less than usual to blog about. Look forward to posts entitled "What I ate for Breakfast" and "Musings on why the Former Owners of our Home Thought it was Okay to Paint Over Screws Instead of Removing Them from the Wall" and "Erik vs. the Sprinkler System: the Saga Continues". I'll be a lot busier in July and August, but this month is looking pretty mellow. The timing is okay though, because it's given me a lot of time to work on projects.
My first project was the craft room. I figured this would be a good place to start because its easily hidden if I messed up. My old craft room was a craft room/guest room and was white and aqua. My new craft room had light blue and dark blue stripes all over. I chose a purple color for the walls, but that meant I had to repaint all my aqua furniture. Overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I got the picture frame clock idea from pinterest, which worked out well because it takes up a lot of empty wall space. Just today I painted the top of the table with chalkboard paint after I accidentally demolished the old canvas top with a x-acto knife.
 |
| Before |
 |
| After. I feel the need to point out that the paint is actually a really pretty lavender, not brown as the picture might indicate |
Erik has been busy working on projects too. I relented and gave him the go-ahead on the home theater, and I'm really proud of him for how it turned out. It's pretty cool and adds something fun to our house. Erik self identifies as "un-handy" but he and his friend Travis did a pretty dang good job building the screen.
 |
| See, I helped. For about 10 minutes before Dance Moms started and I was otherwise occupied. |
My family visited this weekend and it was awesome. I was definitely sad to see them go. It was so fun to have the house full of people and to spend time with my brother and sister. In keeping with family tradition, we woke up on Saturday and did yard work.
 |
| Whenever my Dad wears the purple sweatshirt it means yardwork. Just the sight of my dad in that sweatshirt made my little brother cry one summer. |
My dad also installed chair rail and wall frames in my music room. This was a pretty lengthy project that he started in Idaho. I emailed him the measurements and he made all the cuts, then when he got here we painted and installed the frames.
 |
| Before |
 |
| Still before, but with our stuff in it |
 |
| In progress |
Yard work and home improvement, some vacation, huh? I also randomly acquired this little beauty from a moving ward member (thanks Jen!), and it was nice to have my dad there to help transport and arrange it.
 |
| Final product. This picture does not capture the loveliness of it all. It is way classier than Erik and I actually are. |
Come visit us. We'll watch a movie on Erik's home theater and you can help me figure out how to play my organ.
