Whistling while we work

I've got several ideas and plans rattling around in my head these days...I usually do, I think.  Anyway, with our weather taking a rather dramatic turn for the more typical fall weather in the Pacific NW, we're preparing to focus our attentions on the inside, rather than being outside as much.  Just for the record, our weather during the entire month of October was fabulous!!  We were so blessed to have spent some time at the beach and got to enjoy the last of our spectacular, warm, sunny and dry fall.  I've always said that come November, all bets are off weather-wise!  The first several days in November were greyer, and we even experienced a little precipitation, but nothing exciting.  Now that we're over a week into the month, things are normalizing. These days we're frequently experiencing fog, grey skies, rain, wind and mud.  We've also had several days with a few breaks of blue skies, fluffier clouds and a little sunshine; but nothing like glorious October.  But, I'm thankful.  In fact, the skies have been dramatic and anything but ordinary, so we take the blessings anywhere we can.  And it's been warm.  We're still sleeping with our bedroom window open to let in the cool, night-time breeze.  It feels wonderful to snuggle inside the covers while feeling the cooling and refreshing breeze on my face as I sleep.  I love it!

So, as I was saying about having ideas ratting around in my noggin...  I do.  I've got plans for renovating our living room in the works.  I am so excited!  We're going to remove all traces of the cheap, nasty-looking fake oak trim everywhere and replace it with the more appropriate for our house's style with 3/4 x 4" flat trim boards.  I've decided on Sherwin-Williams Dover White 6385.  It's considered a warm white, and we've also used that same trim color in our kitchen, entry way and laundry room.  For the walls, I've got a few selections to consider, but they're all in the warm neutrals family of beige and we're choosing a couple of shades darker for the ceiling color...probably SW 6142 for the ceiling and SW 7569 Stucco on the walls.  Our living room is a fairly large, rectangular-shaped room with three windows and the front door.  The pellet stove and brick work are on one end and that's where we usually congregate during the cooler, fall and winter months.  So, my hopes are to create a more cozy and intimate feeling of welcome when you enter the room.  When we moved into our house almost 18 years ago, every single wall in the entire house, upstairs and down, was painted a bright white and had (still do) tan carpeting.  Talk about boring!  The carpet is disgusting!  I've had it cleaned several times and there's simply nothing more that can be done with it.  It's got to go.  I considered replacing it with new carpeting, but have since decided to go with laminate/fake wood instead.  I'll more than likely use the same choice that I did for our kitchen and nook/woodstove room.  It's a fairly dark and rustic-looking flooring in the shade of walnut, but not quite that dark.  It has a very slight reddish tone to it, but is truly more in the brown family.    With the darker flooring, I still need to keep the walls fairly light, but I definitely want warm/neutrals.  I hope these color choices will look nice with our reddish-toned leather couch and loveseat.  At some point, I'll get a large area rug for the seating area.  My many throw pillows are also in the rich, dark reds, blacks and tans of what would probably be considered kind of a Southwest earthen tone??  I'm not sure, it's kind of difficult to describe, but you get the gist, right?

The one wall where the pellet stove is located is the only wall that's not painted white right now.  And I'm still in a bit of a quandary as to what to do with it.  Right now, it's paneled in a very light, (almost maple) bead board.  Maybe I'll do the painting and then decide what to do with that wall.  We could leave it as it is, remove the bead board and paint it the same as the other walls, or paint it in a contrasting color.  What to do?  Right now I'm just focusing on getting the new paint up and the new flooring and trim boards in before making a decision on that wall.  It's probably going to become a much bigger project that what I'm envisioning...that always seems to happen!

If we can accomplish this project and still haven't committed hari-kari, then it's on to our bedroom...I have definite plans already in place for that, but won't go into them right now.  First things, first.  :)

In other news that isn't news, we're still working, still interacting and caring for our horses every day (feisty, fat and furry), and maintaining everything that comes along with home ownership and rural properties.  No rest for the wicked, I'm afraid!

We just cut and stacked in our wood shed, a cord of fir for our stash.  This weekend we're getting 2 more cords of oak firewood, and that will be it for this year.  That should be more than we actually need to get through this winter, but it doesn't go bad, and it'll be nice having a little extra to layover for the next year.

We got our order of a quarter beef.  Not only does it look mighty good in our freezer, but it's really tasty as well.  We're very, very happy with the quality and the flavor of this meat.  So...the pantry and the freezer are well-stocked.  The wood shed will be full with beautiful firewood very soon, and we will then, turn our energy and attention to inside projects.  No, we never get bored!  We're feeling especially blessed and as ready as is possible for the coming winter weather...barn full of hay, plenty of bedding on hand, pellets for our stove on hand, plenty of firewood in the wood shed, pantry and freezer well stocked.  I even found lamp oil for our kerosene lamps and have plenty of candles if we ever have an electrical outage.  Yes indeed, feeling very blessed!

And that's about all she wrote!  Until next time, Lorie @ Cingspots

Happy Fall everybody...hope you find good ways to keep your hands and minds busy, and your hearts at peace.