Awesome Weekend

First, a little St. Patty's Day recap...

Not a fan of the carseat.

This weekend, we really enjoyed family time. Brian took off half of Thursday and all Friday so he could spend more time with us (and watch basketball). I like to pretend it was more about us than March Madness! Just kidding dear, I know you really did want to spend time with your boy.

So Preston and Daddy did a lot of this....

After a lot of basketball and a lot of cuddling, we decided to tackle the formal living room and dining room. They open into each other, so it's hard to do one without starting on the other.

We thought we would try Preston in his swing for the first time while we were working. He LOVED it!

For those of you new to the blog, here is the formal living room and dining room with the previous owners stuff. We have been living with the wallpaper and mustard color trim, but we can't take it anymore.

First, the living room. It's a pretty easy fix really. No wallpaper to take down, just three coats on the trim (thanks to Brian and my dad) and a couple coats of paint on the walls (that is taking place as I type).

What a difference white trim makes! You can really tell how yellow the walls were.

I am so pleased with the fireplace mantel... it looks awesome in white!

Thank goodness for the ability to buy samples of paint.

We debated a lot over the color. Choosing paint colors is hard, but I like doing it. So far, we've been happy with our choices in this house. We're going with the top one - Benjamin Moore's Wheeling Neutral. Love their no-VOC paint. Really, you can't even tell painting is going on in the house - there is no smell! Good for Preston :)

Now, for the dining room. WE. HATE. WALLPAPER.

After scoring, DIFing and scraping, here is what was left. This is just one small section of the dining room.

What we found were two layers of the same paper (what?!?!) and messed up walls. There is no possible way to take this down all over the room. So, we said, what would a little bit of Killz look like over it?

After one thin coat, it covers it up okay. We may try a few more coats in the spot and see how it covers. I think we are leaning towards just painting over it. I mean, look at the mess this SMALL area made.

I'll have more pics as we continue to make progress. Preston just started crying, so I'm off to try to problem solve as to what could possibly be wrong with a well-fed, well-loved, clean-diapered baby :)