I like sweets especially around holiday season. I tried the new red velvet donut from Dunkin Donuts. Yummy. 

Of course I had to get a snowman cookie from Starbucks. :)

Heart from my sweetheart in the dust from sanding drywall. 

We worked on drywall today in the dining room. Peter is getting better at taping and mudding. Next up is sanding then painting. I think I'll lightly sand the beams to get the paint off of them. 

Found a spot to put the desk to keep it downstairs for now. 

My project today. $2 finds from goodwill. Amazed at how nice wood was on desk top. Was fun changing something ugly and worn into something beautiful. :)

I visited the Goodwill Warehouse in Gorham and grabbed these two pieces for a buck apiece. I figured if I didn't like them I'd only be out $2. I thought the desk was cute.

While sanding I found two layers of paint. 

I was amazed at the grain of the wood once I was done sanding. I decided to just rough up the legs instead of doing more sanding to get rid of all of the paint.

I did a light coat of summer oak stain and a coat of polyurethane. 

The final product. I love the white with natural wood look and the blue chair adds some color. I'd take another shot of it once I have some daylight.

Tonight I worked on a Christmas present for Peyton. I found it here on Pinterest.

Today we made progress in the dining room. Cutting pieces of drywall to fit wasn't easy. 

The boys... 

Banchi. 

Todi. 

Breakfast was waiting for me when I got home from working overtime. :)

So sometimes projects don't turn out like you want. I thought an exposed wood ceiling would be nice. But I didn't realize the crawl space above the dining room was missing floor boards and my original had to be scrapped. Instead we took out the old insulation and re-insulated in a better way to keep the house warm. We sealed and added a floor to the crawl space. We will be adding drywall back up soon and I learned my lesson. 

The insulation was a pain to clean up. 

We added strapping after I took pictures to hold it in place. 

Floor is up and can actually hold weight.

I liked this saying so much I decide to draw it free hand and paint it with similar colors. I would have bought a print but wasn't sure where it was available. This was my inspiration.

My handiwork. Boyfriend watched me sketch it out and said he was surprised how my handwriting isn't girly at all and I agree not the best. But I tried to do my best. I like how it came out. 

Saturday we went trick or treating in downtown. I was so distracted by the cute kids in costume I didn't take any pictures until the end. Peyton was spider girl and despite the lines and rain she had fun.

Painted bathroom to fix plaster wall. Better. Not perfect but better. 

We played "it's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" game tonight. It was fun :)

Today

We spent time at the playground after school. She loves the swings. 

We had to do some work to the bathroom due to getting new washer and dryer. They wouldn't fit with the cabinet on the wall. I'm glad we took it down because we found evidence of a mouse living up there and a hole to the outside. Always something when you make any changes to an old house. 

Before

The wall is plaster. No fun. 

That's a little better. :)

The door Banchi damaged this summer is finally fixed. It took some work but it's fixed now with some new trim and a lot of wood filler. 

Today Peter worked on the bathroom door. Soon it will be all patched up and looking great. We think maybe banchi did us a favor since it may look better than before. 

Today we worked on the barn. We moved things around and ripped down shelving that wasn't spaced well. We reused the boards to build a new work bench. I also had Peter take down a cabinet that was too high to use. I found a cool key behind it. I made into a space to keep the yard tools. Soon we will organize all the tools and find a home for everything. 

It wasn't easy getting the shelving down. The person who built it used longer than needed nails. Let's just say there was no chance of it falling down on its own. We had to use pry bars, sledgehammer and hammers to get it apart. 

We will build shelves adjacent to it soon. We only used the lumber we had available. It's a work in progress but I'm very excited already. 

Used the stick to keep the doors closed when we were trying to take it down. Someone had nailed it up. 

Shovels and rakes have a home now. 

And we took the time to play with sparklers. :)