The Crowd Shot

We must be reaching the end of the line, because our house has turned into the Extreme Home Makeover set! When I went over this afternoon to meet with Alan about knobs and bathroom fixtures, there were no less than 12 workmen on site. 2 indoor painters, 2 outdoor painters, 2 granite installers, 1 tile guy, 3 carpet installers, 1 carpenter and one guy delivering Conor's bathroom counter! With all that chaos, I went through just praying that they were doing more good than harm!!

The upstairs bedrooms have all been painted and the neutral walls work pretty well with the carpet. If you think neutral means it goes with anything, you haven't picked paint colors lately! There are warm neutrals and cool neutrals and if you can tell what will 'go' by looking at two by two swatches of paint and carpet in a showroom with bad lighting...you are a better person than me!! I think when we get some furniture and fabric into the rooms it will all blend together in a very muted, unobtrusive way, which is just what we want until, somewhere down the line, we pick more specific colors!

The granite looks great! And we ordered the most comfortable wood bar stools ever made in Amish country on Saturday. Brian says your back just melts into the chair! They will be sturdy oak and painted black. The downside is that they won't be at the house for 8 weeks but we think they'll be worth the wait!

The fireplace tile is going to be beautiful with the furniture and the green wall paint - Texas Sage to be exact! It's not grouted yet, but it's on the wall and that is huge! The mantel is going to be a little simpler than originally planned because we want to keep it somewhat low so we're not straining our necks to watch TV, but given that the tile is 'busy' it's probably better that the mantel is simple and understated.