Move In Ready... Almost

This weekend, it was finally time to remove the door between the new family room and the rest of the house.  Rob and I removed the door then Rob knocked the frame out but left the final blow for his number one assistant.



Rex thought it was all his doing that got the frame out which he just loved.  We did that Friday night and then Saturday and Sunday Rob put up all the new trim around the door and finished the step (it was just the bare 2 x 4's up until then).  The room is pretty much move-in ready now.







I say "pretty much" move-in ready because we do still have the electrician coming to finish up the electrical work so we can get the tv and related tv/audio equipment installed.  The big hole to the right of the fireplace is for the air conditioning unit but we will just be covering it up with some artwork until next spring when we are ready to purchase the unit.  All the oak trim at the doorway and around the fireplace still needs to be stained and we have to figure out what we are doing for shelves for the cable box, dvd player and audio equipment.  So there are a few minor things to take care of but I am hopeful that we will be able to be sitting out there and watching tv by this time next week.  We've been having fun playing soccer and just running around in the big empty room though too.

I have been getting ready for Christmas as much as I can.  I love to decorate for the holidays but I have never been even close to satisfied with my decorations in this house.  They always seem so sparse and I have been working on projects and coming up with ideas to make it the space I want it to be.  We picked up a lot of decorations at our neighbors' garage sale this summer when they moved out.  We even scored a 7' artificial tree which will go in the family room while we have a real one in the living room.  I have picked a new color scheme of silver, white and bright green to go in most of the house.  The family room will probably be a color overload though mostly because I still want to use some old things that don't fit the color scheme and because that steal of a tree we got included multi-color lights on the tree.  Anyhow, I spied some fun artwork I wanted to try using paint and stickers on canvas (paint over stickers to reveal the silhouettes) so I gave it a go.  Turns out I am not very good at painting even when I cheat and use stickers.



The one on the left may be salvageable but I think the one on the right is a complete FAIL.  The paint got under the stickers and basically glued them down so now I can't peel them off.  Oops.  Well, on to other things I suppose.  I have a wreath wrapped in white yarn that has been sitting there for weeks just waiting to be finished.  Considering I need to put it up this weekend, I'd say the time has come to complete that project.

Our Thanksgiving plans are simple- without any family around or a dining room table to accommodate more than our family, it is just going to be us.  Rob is going to cook the turkey in our smoker and I will make the usuals to go with it.  I have been so busy thinking about Christmas that I confess Thanksgiving hasn't gotten much attention.  I am so happy for Rob to have some time off though and I am sure we will have a wonderful time.  I hope you do too!