Do me a favor, people.  Next time I say I want to paint a ceiling, just stop me, mmkay? thanks.

Actually, I think someone did warn me that it was a pain in the patootie (was that you, Mom?)  But I had to do it anyway.  And I had to choose the largest room in the house.  But it does look a lot better now in ivory instead of the gray-white that it was before.  And now I share my top 3 ceiling painting tips:

1.  Use ceiling paint.  It's specially formulated to not splatter as much as regular paint.  Having already painted half the ceiling in regular paint, I can attest to the fact that the second time around, I had less paint on my face and in my hair.

2.  Don't bother trying to use the "long arm" paint roller extension.  I found it hard to control.  Get yourself some saw horses and a strong piece of wood and make a scaffold, and use a regular roller.  And see #3.

3.  Use a small paint roller.  Paint rollers are heavy, and holding one above your head for the better part of a day is painful.  A small paint roller may take more time, but it was MUCH much easier.

Now that I know these things, I might actually be convinced to paint another ceiling someday.  But I think that's a long way off.

The very first time I came to the house after we signed the closing papers, I noticed that the lights were flickering (timely, yes?).  I called the electric company and they came out and said all their stuff was working fine.  They would only flicker every once in a while, so we put off calling an electrician.  Then they started flipping the breaker.  Then this past Sunday, they just... died.

I tried flipping the breaker off and back on, and heard a buzzing noise coming from the panel, so I very quickly turned it back off and went to sleep that night with no lights working in the bedroom and thinking that the house was going to catch on fire.

But, the electrician came today and fixed us up.  The breaker burned out, and another one was scorched, so she replaced both of them and for a mere $128, we are as good as new.  Ok, maybe as good as a 38 year old house can be.

This is our den, affectionately known as The Raven Room.  When you have a painting as beautiful as this, it needs a bold background to make it pop.  In the old house, we used Behr's Mood Indigo, but it looked a little dark in the new house since we get less natural light, so I tweaked it just a bit to Behr's Sausilito Port. 

The painting is called Ravens in the Snow, by Colorado artist Anthony Grant.  The story of how we got this painting is kind of funny.  Kevin did some work on Tony's website and one day when Kevin was over at his house, he saw this painting and fell in love with it.  It was not one of Tony's favorites, so he agreed to give it to Kevin as payment for his work.  A couple months later, Tony opened a new gallery in Louisville and this was one of the paintings he had on display.  Apparently it was the hit of the show and he had multiple offers to buy it, but he had to tell them it was already taken.  It was also featured in the Boulder Weekly in a newspaper article about his gallery.  He ended up doing several more similar to it since there was so much interest, but we think ours is the best.

There's more work to be done in this room.  I want to find white lamp shades, and I am planning on painting the other walls a lighter blue color.  I thought I had it all decided, and bought a gallon of the paint, but it looks a little on the purple side, so I'm thinking about trying to tweak it.

Well, we got our new mattress last week, and our king size down comforter arrived a couple days ago, so we are finally able to break out the new duvet cover that has been patiently sitting in the closet for several months.  Ironing a king size duvet cover is a pain in the butt.  But it looks really nice!  I'm going to have to get a wide-angle lens so I can take better photos... you just can't get far enough away sometimes.

The mattress we got is from Denver Mattress and it's a love-hate relationship.  Kevin loves it and I hate it.  I think it's too firm and it's hurting my back.  I'm going to give it the old college try, but when the sales lady calls back at the 3 week mark, if my back is still hurting, it's going to have to go back.

I suggested to Kevin that we just get two twin beds and put them together using this Create-A-King Kit, that way he can have the firm and I can have the plush.  He thinks I'm crazy, but at this point I don't know what else to do.

In other news, Sasha took full advantage of the old comforter that I threw on the floor while I was putting the new one on.  I think this will become her new favorite spot.

A couple weeks after we moved in, when things finally settled down enough for us to start cooking again, we realized there was something wrong with the stove.  It was either on or off, it seemed.  To get it to heat anything at all, you had to turn it on high, and if you tried to lower it from high, it would just stop working.  We briefly considered calling a repairman, but the cooktop was all scratched up from someone trying to clean it with an SOS pad or something, so we just decided to get a new one.  (Yet again, thank you for double birthday points, Discover!) 

I used the new stove and oven last night and tonight, and am here to report that it works like a charm.  It even has a warming spot in between the burners, though I haven't tried that yet.  And I'm super excited about the flat cooktop and how easy it is to clean.  I'm a very vigorous stirrer and I am always slopping stuff everywhere.  The one drawback is that I won't be able to use my Pfaltzgraff stock pot on it because you can't use porcelain over steel.  Bummer :-(  But, I didn't use it that much anyway, so not a huge deal.

P.S.  If you're wondering what those dark marks are on the drawers and cabinets... that's where the knob back plates used to be.  The cabinets have faded over time.  This is a continuing saga that I will write more about some day when that project comes about.

Well, second favorite spot, actually.  Her favorite spot is curled up in Kevin's sleeping bag on the floor.  But since he picked up the sleeping bag, she has resorted to the window seat, which I think is quite a bit nicer than the sleeping bag, but that's just me.

But she does like variety, you know... sleeping in the same place all the time gets to be boring.