Ceiling done! Well, sort of!

Well it's almost done. I still have some trimming to do around the edges. But, overall it's done! My arm and elbow have taken the beating from all this work. So I've taken it easy for a while now. Once I got to the point of uncovering the furniture and removing the plastic from everything it was easy to say it's done.
We still have work to do on the walls and floor. But that is time!
We are pretty easy going about living in a less then perfect house and so that makes it o.k. to have things not finished.
Don has finished the bricks on the fireplace and he's ready to put up the barnboard panel, which is the top of the fireplace. But he's still planning on building a deck outside on the right of the fireplace. He wants a door there so we have easier access to the wood in the winter. It's pretty amazing how much we can warm up the whole house with that nice wood insert fireplace. I would like him to build a corner cabinet from barnboards for the tv and electronics, so we have a bit more to work on. Right now it's time to enjoy the kids and attend ballgames to support the Cherokee Ball team.

The Painting

This was the first color on the ceiling. Then we purchased the second color that I was hoping would go over it and make it look a bit marble like. But the finished product wasn't like what I had invisioned at all. So It's all painted the new color now.
This is what it looked like after the second color was added. NOT pretty at all.. SOOO!!! now it's like this.

We like this much more. It is Semi-gloss paint and so it has a nice sheen with shadows and shine. Plus this lighter color brightens the room alot more.
We are just glad to be able to move the furniture back in.

Don worked on the last row of bricks for the fireplace, but he ran out of mortar and can't finish the last 6 bricks. DARN! We have a barnboard panel that covers the ugly bricks at the top of the fireplace.
Some day we will have this room done!

The remodeling

The remodeling is coming along. My goal for the summer was to scrape the "popcorn" ceiling in the hallway, entry, livingroom, diningroom and kitchen. Don helped with removing the walls by the front door and moving the wall in front of the laundry room. (We changed the angle of it and moved it back about a foot so that this entry area is larger and the hallway is more open.) We worked on that over Memorial Day weekend. Brian was a huge help with tearing out the carpet and pad and Andrea was right behind him with the vacuum, cleaning up the mess. Now it's painting time. FINALLY!! I have one coat of paint on now and we are off to buy the second color to put over it. The idea is for it to be two colors of tan and the first coat is a darker tan which has covered the ceiling really well. But the second coat will just be rolled on lightly to just the highest textured areas of the ceiling. I hope it works~

The Laundry room got some new (used) cabinets and will also get a new sink (used) countertop and more storage areas.