Have I Been Here Lately?

I've been horribly neglectful of my blog yet again... it's unfortunate that I must even refer to it as a "blog" as I'm now starting to think of it more as an online journal of my home improvement follies.  Although to call it a journal is even a bit of a stretch, seeing as how the word's origin in Old French means "daily".  Hmm...

And so there you have it - I'm a terrible excuse for a blogger and journalist.  I'm more like a periodical writer of web-based illustrated short stories.  But at least I'm steadily (if not sporadically) tracking my progress with my house... 

We're on our fourth house in just over nine years, and unfortunately the first three houses had little in the way of documentation of our improvement projects.  This house I wanted to handle differently - I wanted to be able to share my successes (as well as my failures) with regard to the redecorating of my humble abode and the slow-but-steady removal of poor prior design.  I've managed to paint nearly every single wall surface in the house at this point, with the minor exceptions of the stairwell wall and the upstairs hallway.  The closets have also been left untouched, although for the most part they were neutral to begin with... and besides, who paints a closet?  I do have two closets here that are serious contenders for a rainy day redecorating project.  The first is in our guest-bedroom-turned-catchall, where there's a hot pink hot mess going on behind some bifold doors.  The other candidate is the ginormous closet in my sewing room, where there's some delightfully trippy floral wallpaper that's just begging for a nice long soak with DIF paper stripper.  Alas, I would have to clean out said closets in order to redesign them... and frankly, I'm just not that motivated.

The latest project at Chez Voit is the living room and entry hall.  I've finally finished the painting of the walls, which has turned out quite lovely with the new shade of aqua-blue called Harbor Mist (by Valspar).  I also installed a modular organizer in the entry closet so I can hide our ever-changing DVD collection.  I had them all in glass-front cabinets previously, and decided one day on a whim that I wanted the cabinets gone so I could reduce the overly-casual feel of the living room. My behemoth of a burgundy velvet sofa (previously under construction) was swapped with the blue and green plaid sofas from the basement, which received some lovely (neutral) stretchy Sure-Fit slipcovers. Still needing to add more decorative pieces and perhaps an area rug, but it's getting there...

And now it's photo time!  (you knew it was coming, didn't you?).  

Living Room In The Round:

DVD organization, by IKEA (what else?):

 New kitchen/dining room bookshelves, also a Swedish design:

New Kitchen Valances. 

I designed them and my mom brought them to life.

I may be a competent seamstress... but a drapery maker, I am not.

Random picture - Frankie cat holding up the wall (or holding down the sofa).  

Either way, he's pretty stinkin' adorable.

Tune in sometime next month (maybe?) after I get the yard under control - we're going to force the driveway hedge line to rout later this week if I get my way!! :-) 

Happy Renovating!