I scoured and studied pictures of our house before I had the chance to see it in person.  That didn’t happen until after we made an offer and were pretty much committed to buy it as long as Jeff received a job offer.  In the pictures, I was hopeful that the trim was a nice, clean white, but I had my doubts. When I walked through the house for the first time, my love for the house was tempered, if even a little, but the fact that trim was almost beige.  I knew it would mean weeks of painting if I wanted it to be bright white, which, of course, I did.  Having painted out the trim in our two previous homes, I knew what a huge job it is and not one that’s particularly exciting. The results of bright white trim, though, are worth it. So, Monday, when it

In my post about the pot rack, you could see the new open shelving in the background… When I first spotted this somewhat awkward alcove, I immediately thought it was begging for some shelves. And I realized once we were unpacking that I was really missing some open shelving in this kitchen! It was one of the projects on my list to complete during the two days my brother came to visit.  Late one night, we talked about possible ways to install the shelves…floating, bracketed, built-in, etc.  We also checked out the space in more detail to see what ideas would actually be possible.  It turns out that there are only studs at the back corners of the cubby, so any shelving had to be mounted there, not the back center or the sides.  There just wasn’t anything to screw into, but drywall. After over-complicating things, we balled up the

I must confess that as I looked at this big, empty house, I felt a little intimidated by it.  When we bought our PA home, there was a lot of obvious work that needed to be done.  This house, though?  It’s beautiful.  Would my chippy, crusty antiques look like junk?  Would my ironstone look completely out of place? The moment of truth came Saturday morning when an army of people from our church showed up to help unload our truck.  Before we talk about the kitchen and how my stuff looks in the house, I have to give public kudos to all of the people who showered love on us on moving day.  The 28′ truck, that was packed floor to ceiling, was completely empty in 45 minutes.  And once the truck was empty, many people stayed to help with everything from putting together beds to removing shrink-wrap from furniture,