Project update

I will post pictures soon, I promise. It's just that my house is kind of a wreck right now, for numerous reasons. First, because I have 20 projects in process right now and second because I spend all of my time doing projects rather than cleaning! I had a pretty productive weekend and hope to finish a bunch of things up this week. I made curtains for the two windows in our kitchen. I think they turned out pretty good. We also bought a new dining room set. I can't tell you how happy I am about that! Here's a stock photo:

It's not very big, but it's nice because it sits behind our couch in the living room and I got tired of pushing the old table out of the way to get by. Technically it can seat 6 people, so it should do for a few years anyway. I also ordered a new light fixture to go above it, but it's not here yet. The one that's there is very country. Here's a stock photo of the light fixture:Also, my two person table for the kitchen came in yesterday and my sweet husband put it together while I was at work. I'll post pictures later. Now that we have paint, a table and chairs and curtains in the kitchen, I need to take a break from the kitchen for a while because the cabinets and countertop are jobs that are too big for me right now.

I finally got all the pieces put together for some new art for our living room. I found these prints I loved on art.com (I love that website). I bought 16 x 20 prints thinking that would be a standard size to find ready-made frames for, which it is if I didn't want to mat them. However, 20x24 frames are not so easy to find. I finally found some at Aaron Brothers, but still needed mats. I called around to several framing shops. Apparantly mats are made out of gold these days because everyone wanted a LOT of money to cut plain white mats. I finally found this little mat store in the mall that would do it for a reasonable price. Yay! They also earned my business forever! I called ahead to ask them to have the mats cut for me when I went to pick them up. That was bonus number 1, because none of the other shops would cut them before I paid. Then they told me that they would put everything together for free if I brought in the frames and prints. Cool! So I take all my stuff in and they take my art and frames to the back room and are taking FOREVER! Finally I ask what is taking so long. Apparently, I gave them the wrong measurements for the mats and they had to re-cut them. Not only did they not charge me for the first ones (even though it was my mistake), but they also gave me a 30% discount because I had to wait so long. Holy Cow! If anyone EVER has framing needs in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, you have to use this place. It's called Frame Up. They have two stores- one in Superstition Springs mall in Mesa and one in Paradise Valley. They will also beat any printed framing quote by 10%. I wish I knew about them before!

So the end of that story is that I got the art framed and hung on the wall last night and it looks great. I finally hung up all the pictures in the staircase and hallway as well. For the rest of the week, I just hope to paint and install the molding for the shelves, finish the living room furniture (it's so close it's ridiculous) and clean my house so I can put up Christmas decorations on Friday. I'm so excited for this weekend!!!!!! Yay!