The Foyer Ta Dah!

Welcome to our home.

If you were to come for a visit, this is the door you would enter to walk into our home.

Dave is working on building steps for the entrance. 

They would have been finished, along with a lot more, had he not had two surgeries this summer that held us back.  That's ok, I needed a break anyway!

This picture was taken on June 5, 2016.  We were laying hardwood floor.

 You can see here how I would lay a few rows out in the evening while he was at work, and he would nail them down the next day.

 When I wasn't helping lay hardwood floor, I was painting trim.  This house has A LOT of trim.

I. could. not. wait. to. be. done. painting. PERIOD!

 This was the last closet to be finished on the main level of our house. 

It's hard to write on OSB.  Here's what it says...

It is June 5, 2016.  This is the last closet to lay hardwood floor.  Once this is done this level of the house will be finished, besides trim in the foyer.  It's been a long haul but we did it!  We started on this house in 2010.  Moved into the basement (one room) in 2012.  We built most of it ourselves.  I pray we are here a long, long time.  I pray the next home owners love this place as much as we do.  Bless all who enter our home.  Love & Peace Cindy & Dave Rush 

This was written on the floor in the closet on the left front.  The door (left-back) is a bathroom door. 

And here is the

~TA DAH~

When you step inside, you step into the foyer.

The open area to the right (center) is our kitchen entry.

Straight back is our dining area.  Dining/Living Room.

Here is a picture standing at the other end of the foyer, looking at the entry door.

That chandelier.....

  Yep, this one...was found in someone's trash pile by the curb!  It was bronze.  So Dave painted it cream, rubbed some of the cream off of it to give it that vintage look, I put the crystals on it, and we love it!

  We bought this light in one of the quaint little stores in the Ft. Walton Beach area when we went on vacation back in May.

 I had this piece of furniture (below) in the dining room to begin with, but moved it to the foyer. 

I got it a few years ago at a garage sale.  I can't remember for sure, but I think I paid $40 dollars for it.  I do remember she threw in a nice sized jar of her "grandmother's buttons" with the furniture!  I would have charged that much for my grandmother's buttons!  Not really, I wouldn't have gotten rid of my Grandmother's buttons!  Anyway, the picture above the furniture is a Patty Host autographed print, of the Seiberling Mansion, which is in our town.  You've seen me do many posts on the mansion.  It's where Dave and I got married.

I love the way lamps around the house create a glow.  They are great for a cozy ambience for morning and evening.

 The door on the left by the dining room entry leads upstairs.  The door on the right, is a coat closet.

 

The picture below is a month old.  It's when I originally had the buffet in here instead of the dining room.  (I'm not even going to try to explain)  The point of the picture is the bathroom door, when you first walk into the house.  To the left.  Right when you walk in!  The door on the right leads into the office/mudroom area.

 We have so many doors in our foyer, that when we would entertain people would forget which door was the restroom door.  We found this sign in Nashville, IN, and it hangs over the half bath door.

 I thought I'd show you inside the little half bath, while we are visiting the foyer.  This bat hangs in our little half bath!  We also bought it in Nashville, many years ago.  The old medicine chest came from a friend who moved to Florida.  She was selling a lot of her household items and we bought some.

 We purchased this mirror at a yard sale years ago, for $10, and held onto it as we knew we wanted to put it in this bathroom because we knew it would match the vanity.

 It's a very small bathroom and hard to get good pictures....

 We bought the vanity at Lowe's.

 The two medicine cabinets we bought from my friend along with the other one, the boy scout first aid kit, I think I bought it at a yard sale. 

This guy we bought at the Cincinnati Flower Show, back when we used to go to the Cincinnati Flower Show years ago.  We had him up at our other house.

You might think we have 'odd' stuff up in our house.  Maybe we do.  We like antique, artsy, different types of things.  It's more of a collection of things from people or places, rather than going into town and buying stuff to decorate our home.

Ok so...no we don't have a collection of toilets!!!  LOL! 

I wanted to show you this seat, that did NOT come with this toilet.  We bought it separately.

Oh, and I guess you do get to see the floor this way.  It is called Luxury Vinyl Tile and I love it as it is so easy to clean.

So, back to the toilet seat.  And maybe you all have had these forever, but I haven't!  You snap these do- dads up that cover the little bolts that bolt the seat down.

Then pull it towards you to take the entire seat off to clean it!

 

Then just slide them back on...and push the covers back down.  They snap into place.  Voila'!

So that's it for the Foyer and Half-Bath, along with a little cleaning lesson on toilet seats!

Peace & Love and
Happy Halloween!

Cindy

Living/Dining Room TA DAH!

So...I didn't want to start on this room until after Easter.  We had just finished the mudroom, and office area, and we were having Easter at our house.  So, we waited until the first of April and got busy.

 

First we cleaned out the room really well.

And we decided to start with the ceiling.  We had a hard time trying to decide how we were going to paint these tin ceiling pieces.  I went to Sherwin Williams and they said I would need paint and primer.  We would also need a spray gun.  The other option was spray paint that had paint and primer in the same can, but what a mess.  And how many cases of cans would we need?  When I found out that I was going to have to buy a gallon and a half of both paint and primer, we decided to go with the spray. It would be cheaper.  So Dave covered the windows in the upstairs bedroom, and he would spray about ten pieces a day.  He had just enough room to lay out ten pieces to dry.  So, we would also hang about ten pieces a day.  I would hold them up while Dave nailed each piece in the ceiling.  And this was the first few pieces we hung, and realized we didn't lay them out quite right on the ceiling, so we took them down and started over.

Perfect!

We also had a hard time deciding how to lay out the ceiling.  There were so many fillers and trims and cornice and crown molding pieces to choose from.   Every time we went into an old building we were looking to see if they had tin ceiling and how they did it.  I was at a Downton Abbey party and I saw the ceiling trim and that was it!  Simple

awwwww

Boo Boo's happen!

So here's one TA DAH!  The ceiling, which I think turned out great.

 

 Now, during all of this ceiling hanging work, I was also painting lots and lots and lots of trim and wood pieces.

 

And this is just a small amount of the trim and pieces that I painted.  If you know me personally, you know I was tired of painting these pieces of trim...every...single...night.

 Next, we started on the floor.  Every evening I would lay out several rows of floor while Dave was at work, then the next morning he would get up and nail those rows of flooring down.

Dixie had to check out the floor. 

You can see in the below picture that we had to wear earplugs the whole time.  The air compressor and nailing gun are loud.

almost finished....and you can see we put cardboard down to cover the freshly laid floor from paint because I....was....still....painting....trim....pieces........still......still.......still......

Floor finished!  Need to put trim down and finish window and door trim.

TAA DAH!!!!  Here it is peeps!!!!!

My favorite room!!!
I can't wait to show you the furniture lay out.  It turned out great!

Cindy