The Marsden Family Makeover :)

In January it will be fifteen years since we moved into our home in Pleasant View. I must admit it has been the fastest fifteen years of my life.

When Sean left on his mission, I determined that by the time he got back, I wanted to make a few changes. I figured we would get started sometime after our trip to England. Last May, I started to make my list of what I wanted to do. After making my list I decided there were so many things on the list, we better get started...and I am so glad we did.

The first thing we did was we replaced our old linoleum in our bathroom and we had new tile put in. I LOVE IT!! My bathroom feels like it is new again!! We also replaced the accent tiles around our bathtub and in our shower as well as in the kids bathroom. The tile setter removed the old caulk and put in new caulk to make everything clean and new. I also found new rugs and towels!

Have you ever seen the I Love Lucy episode when she wins new furniture and then she needs to repaint and paper since the new furniture makes the old paint look bad? Well, I can relate. So, the next thing that needed to be done was to paint the kids bathroom and hall. We made the mistake of painting the hall with semi-gloss paint (I will explain later) and so I wasn't so happy. However, I loved the paint color.

I forgot to note that even though tile was put in last June, the shopping and decision making began the month earlier. I am SLOW and detailed when it comes to picking out colors, furniture, tile etc...

Since Megan was getting ready to go to college and would soon need new bedding for her college dorm, I decided we would get new bedding for home, and she could take her old bedding to BYUI. What the heck...while we were at it we bought her a new mattress and a sleigh bed!

The first time I started seriously looking for living room furniture was in May. Since it had been a long time since I had been looking for living room furniture I was surprised at what I found. To be truthful, I was having a hard time finding anything that I liked for our living room. I found some things I liked for other homes, but where our living room is a more formal space, I wanted to go with more formal furniture. What I was finding is that much of what is out there is representative of the 70's and of a more casual nature. The more formal furniture...like wing back chairs etc...cost A LOT of $$$$ and could only be found at the higher scaled furniture stores.. However, thanks to some suggestions from Lesley, I decided to recover my wing back chairs and have pillows made to match a couch that I had already found.

Our furniture was delivered in August/September! The chairs were finished in August, and the couch came in September. This picture was taken after the furniture was delivered and before we painted. I put this picture in to show you my new painting and how it brings the room together. I found this painting in August and immediately fell in love with it. It is an original painting overlooking Jerusalem. It looks to me that the artist painted this picture from the Orson Hyde Memorial Garden on the Mt. of Olives in Jerusalem. Orson Hyde is my Great Great Grandpa and he dedicated the Holy Land in 1841. The Orson Hyde Memorial Garden is right next to the Garden of Gethsemane. I spent many hours sitting in that garden over looking Jerusalem and still to this day I dream of being in that spot. So, when I saw this painting immediately tears came to my eyes; I'm not kiddin! Yes, that's right...right in the store I started to cry. When I looked at the price....the tears continued... it was a lot of $$$$! However it was on sale for $$$ and so I called Tim to ask him what he thought. He said he was just going into a meeting and he couldn't talk just then. But I thought to myself...I don't care...I am buying that (are you proud of me VicVic?) I justified it saying it could be my birthday and Christmas present this year and next. Luckily Tim loves the picture just as much as I do. Different times of day make this picture light up!

We had three daunting tasks on our "things to do list".

The first was to remove two fourteen year old trees from our yard that had died. The second was to fix our garage (another story) and the third was to paint our house. All equally difficult tasks, but the painting of our entry with its nearly twenty foot ceilings was something we were not looking forward to. We ended up hiring a professional painter to paint our entry way. We are still doing the happy dance and high fiving each other over our decision!

This is a picture of our entry way before we painted!

This is what our family room looked like before we painted!

This is the beginning of the painting prep and mess!!

Week one... we painted our pantry and our laundry room and the ceilings in both of those rooms as well as in the bathroom on the main floor.

Week two...I painted just the book shelves in the family room. I painted from 7:00 a.m. and finished at 9:00 p.m. While I was painting the book shelves, Tim worked on painting the ceilings in the kitchen, family room and hall way. Oh...and how can I forget...I painted the moldings and door frames throughout the main floor through the month of September :) I had painted the doors in July!

Week 3 began with prepping the family room kitchen and entry area. To help save $$$ we did the prep work for the painter who brought his two "little giant" ladders to reach the high ceiling. Each ladder cost him $800 so as you can see we were really equipment challenged.

Week three and four we continued on with the kitchen, main floor bathroom, family and living room. BTW, the bathroom is a different color as well as the ceiling and moldings being a different color. Then last Friday, Grandpa came to help!! He painted the ceiling from the entry way down the upstairs hallway and remember when I said I didn't like the semi-gloss on the hall upstairs. You got it...he repainted our hallway for us with satin (no more paint lines) and now I am happy :) Thanks Grandpa!

Finally at last...after four weeks of major work...Every afternoon and night and every Saturday along with Tim taking some time off of "work"...The painting was complete!!

Dutdadadu.....

The jury is still out whether we should keep the stenciling in the kitchen. So far those that have seen the finished product have given me a resounding YES!!

Can you picture it with my beautiful painting hung? Do you like my new rug? I love how the rug makes my hard wood floors pop out!

We can't hang our pictures for one week (we are waiting 10 days) because the we were told by the professional painting that the paint needs one week to cure before you hang pictures. After all that work, who wants to take a chance. It feels so good. My walls are painted, my blinds are clean, my windows are washed, my shelves are polished, my leather couches have been cleaned and conditioned, my kitchen cupboards have been cleaned... even behind my fridge there isn't a crumb...yet! And now it is time to work on decorating. Does it ever end?!