Remodel the Old or Start from Scratch??

It was supposed to be easy...oh, so easy. 

Just replace a window. A couple days tops. 

I just wanted to get rid of this old five pane unopenable (is that a word) windows. 

But we have an old house....bwaa haa haa HAA!! 

I can feel my house laughing at me. 

When the contractor took out my window he founds lots of water damaged rotten boards.

So, he had to take out the wall under my window. 

He'll have to rebuild the wall, not to mention doing something with the stucco on the outside of the house. 

Last night this was what I was looking at right before bedtime. I never realized how much LIGHT came in that east facing window, even at night time. 

Clark the contractor came back today to get to work when he realized that the new window is perfectly square, of course, and that the hole is not, of course. So he now has the problem of making a straight window fit in a crooked hole. 

This is my most recent window. I'm not any closer than last night. 

Oi. 

When I talked to DR about this earlier he proclaimed, "I'm never doing this again!! I'm never remodeling anything else!" 

"So...you'd rather build from scratch?" I asked. Fat chance of that. We never stay in one spot long enough to build a house. He did admit that he wouldn't want to make all the design decisions about a house. Fine by me!!! 

Building a house is a huge financial and time commitment while living in a house during remodeling isn't much fun (noise, dust, unexpected bumps in the road).

So I gotta ask, would you rather....

.....remodel the old house

....or start from scratch and build new? 

Painted Fall Leaf Curtains with Stencils

Fall is here!! Seriously, fall is my favorite season. 

The cool weather perfect for jeans and a sweater. Football games and piles of leaves to jump in.

Except we don't have leaves in Kansas. Why?

Well, first there just aren't that many trees in Kansas to begin with. 

Second, a lot of trees in our town are evergreen cedar. The are hardy trees but aren't the prettiest to look at. 

Third, if you are lucky enough to have a deciduous tree in your Kansas yard and you do have beautiful leaves falling down...well, put away that rake because the leaves don't stay in the yard long. The wind ALWAYS blows them away to parts far away. 

*sigh*

I REALLY miss fall leaves. Really. 

I've asked me family in Indiana to send me leaves in the mail.

I think they think I'm joking. 

I'm NOT! 

Fine, if my family doesn't love me enough to send leaves, I'll just have to make my own. 

See! Now the fall leaves are falling all day long outside my window!! 

A friend of mine had given me a huge roll of paper, the kind that schools use, and I cut it to fit my odd shaped windows. 

I Googled leaf template and printed a few pages, laminated and cut the leaf shapes that I liked. If you look at the top of that picture you can see my dauber. I took an old towel and cut off a square and wadded it up into, well the shape it is, took duct tape around the top and used it to paint over the stencils..it worked perfectly! 

I did a layer in oranges, yellows and reds then I let those colors dry. Later I came in and stenciled again with greens and browns slightly overlapping the other leaves. I am sooo happy with how it turned out! I love that big window but I hate blocking the light with curtains. Of course I can't leave it uncovered completely, people might see me walking around naked in my house (kidding!!) 

I love curtains that aren't curtains!! 

My New Curtains that Aren't Curtains.

I really don't like curtains and I LOATH Venetian blinds.

What's the point in having windows in your house if you are just going to cover up the sunshine? I love sunshine!

In the past, most of our houses have been in the country and privacy was never an issue. (Past posts of my nude kids proves that!)

But now we live on the main street of town and it's kind of nice to have a little privacy. Our dining room is small and dark and situated at the corner of two streets. When we moved in there were paper curtains up that I liked but they finally got stained and torn and I had to take them down. 

But I didn't want to replace them with dark curtains. I wanted something to provide a little privacy but still let in the light. 

I saw this post (Frank Lloyd Wright inspired) and BINGO! This was what I was going to do!  

I only bought enough supplies for two windows to begin with, to see if I really liked it. I think I only spent maybe $12 on everything. It was such a hit with the family that we're going to get enough for 6 more windows! 

All we did was cut out circles from tissue paper and place them between two sheets of clear contact paper and then hang them by metal rings off a curtain rod. I also think this would be an awesome way to customize windows for kid's birthday parties, seasons, or holidays. 

I do have to work on getting rid of the air bubbles though. I'm so excited about this, it really brightens up our little dining room. 

Photo Thursday - Roadtrip Finds

Just some photos to share today.

I've been having some editing fun recently.

What do your road trips look like?