TOP 20 THINGS WE LOVE LIST CONTINUES - #8 - WINDOWS

One of the many things I love about our HOME are the windows.  They bring in plenty of natural sunlight and afford us beautiful views. We have 33 windows and a set of bay windows off the living/dining rooms which create more space in each area and a lovely view of the pond as soon as you walk in the door.  JUST LOVELY.  I, also, love the double patio doors on the morning room/basement doors because they maintain the same look/feel as the windows thus more natural sunlight. The biggest decorating job will be choosing the window treatments.  I have narrowed down my choices and choose to use beautiful drapes and valances for most rooms.  I plan to put some micro mini blinds in the one hopper window that we have in our basement/media room. That one was easy.  lol  Oh, the other easy choice was the garage window--one simple white mini blind.  lol 

I still have the temp blinds up in the most visible areas for privacy and will keep them there until I find the perfect window treatments to coordinate with my color palette.  We do not have any temp blinds in the morning room and I love it that way; however, I will put some drapes in that area to maintain the view that we have now.  I hate the idea of covering those windows plus I am grateful that no one can see through those windows to disturb our privacy. YAY!  In the meantime, we do plan to sit down with a blind company tomorrow to select some options for the two guest bedrooms, master bathroom and my dressing room.  Wish us luck.

I love how the drapes embrace the windows without the blinds in this picture from the old model in our community.  We have the same design with our living room windows in the family room and the fireplace next to it.  It is a great way to visualize our family room with window treatments. 

 I like the idea of keeping the drapes open throughout the day and close them at night.

I don't want to open the drapes and have our view impeded with blinds. 

The only location in the house where I am willing to include both blinds and drapes will be our master bedroom and the guest bedrooms for their privacy and comfort too.

Garage Project is Complete! YES!

I have always wanted our garage to look just as good as the inside of the house.  I shared my vision with DH and we made it HAPPEN! 
I LOVE TEAM WORK!
  To get the project going I cleaned out the garage days before because we had a lot of stuff inside taking up precious space.  

This is the day the project started.
First Step Paint the Entire Garage!

Second Step Prep the Floor=clean the debris, paint the edges and caulk the perimeter!

Preparing the Paint with the Base!

Team Work Makes the Dream Work

DONE!
We also purchased some mini white blinds for the window that you do not see in the picture.  It is a wonderful contrast.  So the color scheme is cream, white, black.  The floor has the same color speckles mixed in the paint.  It looks gorgeous.  I love walking in the garage and feeling like we are still in the house.  

According to the instructions, it takes 48 hours to Dry!!
I was so nervous about ruining the floor that I wanted us to wait at least 72 hours plus! In this picture, we were figuring out placement.  I forgot to take a picture of the rearrangement.

Thank God for this Ceiling Fan! It provides some great air while DH is working inside the garage on his motorcycle.
It looks so beautiful in person! 
It also provides additional lightening.

These cute little carpet runners were purchased from Home Depot. You must special order them. It only took a week.

The door knob is ORB and I did not feel the need to change it;
however, we did change the knobs on the closet system to ORB! They seem to work well with the black in the space. 

The carpet runners had to be tacked to the steps.  We had this Stanley Steemer Rug from our previous location which works perfectly with the color scheme.

TOP 20 - #9 - Open Stair Case - Update

I Love the Open Staircase in our Rome!

It leads us upstairs to the wide open foyer that leads us to either the master suite side or the guest bedroom/loft side of the house.  I, also, love the width of the staircase because it affords for leaving plenty of space to carry large pieces of furniture upstairs.   I love how open it feels too.  It's not cramped and the rooms are spaced far from one another.  You know how you can have a bedroom next to another and can hear the noise from the other room whether it's a television or people talking etc. Well, this floor plan is set up different so that there isn't any noise interference.  

My husband has been doing a fantastic job hanging the pendants, chandeliers and fans throughout the house.
I could not wait until he hung this one in our foyer.  It is unique and it looks fantastic.  **I forgot to mention I had my eyes on this chandelier for months and waited for the price to be reduced.  It started out as $2189 to $1899 to $1599 to $929 and finally to $525--MAJOR SCORE!!*** He also hung the mirror on this wall which was not an easy JOB!  It is a very heavy mirror and the box said do not hang on the wall but he got creative and created a way to hang it securely!  
GREAT JOB, RICK!