As my husband said today, our house is looking more like a home: we have electricity and light fixtures at last.

Yesterday, my mother-in-law and I primed the living room ceiling in preparation for the new fixture going in there.  The primer dripped in my hair and my face and also spattered all over the floor even though we had drop cloths everywhere.  Still, the primer somehow managed to land in the sliver of uncovered floor, which meant we had to stop and scrub the floor about every five brush strokes.  But it's done. That ceiling in particular was in serious need of primer, as a lot of water stains from the leaking roof showed through the plaster.  

Remember this?

I now recall from past experiences how terrible it is to do any work on a ceiling (specifically, the ceiling we wallpapered in our last home…but it did look amazing when it was done).  My mom swore she would never assist me again in wallpapering a ceiling, but these are the stuff memories are made of, right Mom?

Here's the peek of some fixtures installed today:

Also, I think I finally found the kitchen cabinet hardware:

Yesterday was a special day in our family.  We got to celebrate this little girl:

Luciana is now three!  This is the first birthday that we've been able to celebrate Luciana's birthday as our daughter.

Greg & I were licensed as foster parents in June of 2010 and in August of that year, I received a phone call from social services indicating that they had a 15-day old infant girl who needed a home.  I asked a lot of questions of the social workers and wrote all her answers in the margins of a piece of junk mail that happened to be sitting on the dining room table.  After hanging up with the social worker, I called Greg and told him everything that she had told me (which, frankly, wasn't a lot of information).  

Greg came home from work immediately and discussed it.  We decided to go and pick up the babe.  We went into the basement to retrieve the infant seat, buckled it into the car and left the house to go pick up a baby.  It was a rather surreal experience.  

We arrived at the office and two workers brought out a newborn baby girl.  We sat in a conference room for quite some time, holding her and asking more questions.  

We drove her home where quite a crowd of friends & neighbors has assembled to welcome her.  And she was held and kissed by her sisters.

We were foster parents for Luciana for almost 2-1/2 years before we were able to adopt her. There were many times during this period when we thought we'd lose her for one reason or another.  But on December 6, 2012, we were able to finally adopt her into our family and we are so thankful.

We love you, kid.

There has been a lot of progress in the past week, but I think that it's not terribly exciting to look at in photos (except for people like me).  

First, three tons of cobwebs have been sucked up. 

The upstairs bedroom has been insulated:

The half dead tree from the backyard has been removed:

The trim & doors upstairs have two coats of primer:

Kitchen has been painted:

The wall where the piano will be has been painted (so that we won't have to move the piano again):

Baby's room has been painted and assembly of her dresser has begun:

And the first floor bath has the new tile floor situated and we should have running water by the end of this week!

The plan for this week is to put the paint on the primed trim and prime the living room ceiling so that the light fixtures can be installed.  I have wished more than once this week that there was such a thing as maternity painting clothes!  Two and a half weeks until baby arrives.....

This post is dedicated to the person who invented sandpaper.  You are truly a genius.  

I went to the house on Saturday morning to choose a stain color.  The decision was a lot harder than I had anticipated…I mean, I can't mess this choice up or I will regretfully live with it FOREVER.  Lots of pressure.

I was so excited when I got to the house because most of the floor sanding had already been done.  Here's what I saw when I arrived:

I went upstairs and the maple floors up there looked almost brand new:

The guys put down 6 different stains: some too red, some too dark, some too yellow.  Here's what the process looked like:

I debated for some time between the two on the left and had my paint samples there to help me choose. Ultimately, I chose the darker of the two because there are some stains on the floor and I figured the darker stain would give me a little more coverage.  I hoped it wouldn't be too dark...

All day long, I was itching to get back to the house to see how the floors turned out.  I went there tonight and loved them!  Perfect amount of patina.  

Also, I chose the countertop!