I'm either crazy or brilliant!

You make the call. We were supposed to have a new dining room floor put down a year ago this past September, but that's when my Dad died and Reid relapsed. The company had already ordered the tiles, but they said they'd hold onto them and put the floor down whenever we were ready. They told us not to worry because we had enough to worry about already. (Aren't people nice?) So, they waited and when Jim was diagnosed with cancer this October I decided we'd better go ahead and get the floor down while the going was good.

I finished packing up all the dishes and glassware and we moved all the boxes over to the storage place where we keep our Christmas stuff. They came in and put down the floor. It was actually the entryway and dining room and the old floor had to be taken up and the furniture moved. It took about a week to get it all done.

We've lived in this house for 20 years and we've never painted the entryway or dining room. The wallpaper had become dated and this area of our home was long overdue for an update. However, with Thanksgiving right around the corner we've run out of time! I need to get the dishes unpacked, but we haven't painted yet. I don't want to unpack just for Thanksgiving and then pack them all up again so we can move the furniture to paint. What was I going to do?

This is where the brilliant part comes in...or perhaps the crazy part. I've decided to paint just behind the furniture for now. That way I can unpack the dishes and move the furniture into place. Then we'll throw plastic covers over the furniture and paint the rest after Thanksgiving (hopefully) or maybe the beginning of next year. Granted, it will look kind of odd for a while...especially since we're changing colors.

Today I started washing the woodwork to prepare it for painting.

There's a lot of wood and I've only done three walls for now. I'm hoping to patch holes where pictures were hung tomorrow. And I bought another dining room hutch at an antique store so I'll have more room to store dishes. The hutch I bought isn't antique, but it goes well with the furniture we have. I really wanted an antique, but this hutch holds a lot more and I need the space. Tomorrow I'm going to get Reid to take me in his truck to pick it up. Then I'll hopefully get the painting done before the end of the week and we can bring the dishes back over this weekend.

Does it sound like a plan? Would a sane person do it this way? Sigh...I wish I was 30 years younger. I get tired just thinking about painting.


Meanwhile, I did have time for a little fun. I won two Muffie dolls on eBay a while back. I never had a Muffie as a child. I was (and still am) a Ginny doll person, but over the years I've tried to surround the Ginnys with a few different faces. These Muffies were definitely in need of help and the price reflected that need. Here they are right after they arrived and getting ready for a bath and shampoo.



And here's the blond after her makeover. It was her first day of school.

And here you can see more of her curls. Her outfit was made by Susan Dart. She's adollsewloved on eBay.


The second Muffie still needs some work. She might have to wait until after the dining room.