I finished painting the living room this week, and it looks SO BEAUTIFUL!! What a difference a little coat of paint can make.    And I bought some new curtains - probably the prettiest thing I've ever bought for any of my homes over the years! My kind and helpful neighbor, Ben Parkinson, came over with his wife, Kim, last night to help me get the curtain rod up. Here are some pics before I started painting, and some during the process: New paint on the right, old paint on the left of the brick: Here you can also see the subtle difference between the old light tan color, and the new "greige" color (part beige, part grey): My Dad made an excellent suggestion for me, since my plan over the next month is to paint multiple rooms upstairs - all in the same color. He told me to get a 5-gallon bucket of my chosen paint color and to use this hanging "rack" to get off any excess paint. It works wonderfully!  Another close-up of the new paint on the right and the old paint

Happy Father's Day to my husband, my Dad, my step-father Frank (in heaven), and my father-in-law, Phil. Four wonderful, kind, smart, wise, and loving men that have all had an influence on me throughout my life. THANK YOU for being such good men!!! And now for the Father's Day Reveal that I have waited a SOLID MONTH for!! Scott's gift this year was a new front porch. :) SURPRISE!!!!!  A little over a month ago, after some discussion with Scott about the current status of our derelict porch and some tentative decisions on how to replace it and with what type of material, I felt inspired to have someone else do it instead of my ever-capable husband.  When he said something about this having to take the #1 slot of all the projects on our list to do when he gets home, which would in turn bump our top priority of expanding our master bedroom and creating a huge walk-in closet, I thought to myself, "There's got to be a better solution!" I took matters into my own han