Wallpaper & Lights *update*

I never posted the finished pics of the lights and fan I put in the downstairs bedroom. One reason was it took me awhile to finish it because I was somewhat undecided as to what I wanted in there. What I ended up with was more work or course... I ended up puttin in a ceiling fan in the center of the room, then I put recessed lights in each corner of the room. It's a pretty cool effect!

Looking towards the doorway.


Standing in the doorway looking into the room.


And here is the finished wallpaper.

Michigan Weather

Michigan always seems to have some interesting weather changes. This week was a good example. Last weekend we got hit with some really heavy snow storms that dumped more than 10 inches of snow on us. This was followed by sustained 30 mph winds that lasted over 24 hours, with gusts up to 45 mph. I tried my best to stay indoors that day as the windchill was in the negative teens, but it just didn't happen. Christine was on her way home from work around 2pm and when she turned onto our road, she was met with a 3' tall snowdrift. Even in her 4 wheel drive vehicle, it was no match, she was stuck. I got the phone call and I was on my way to rescue her. When I went outside, this is what I found, our driveway was drifted over, higher than the hood of my car.

I got in my truck, but even with 11 inches of lift and 37" tires, I still couldn't get out of the driveway without shoveling some of the snow away. When I got down the road to Christine (after busting through some drifts up to my front bumper), I was able to shovel her out with the help of a neighbor. I then busted a trail back through the already reforming drifts with my truck. Finally I had to just hook up a tow strap and pull her the rest of the way into the driveway.

Here's a little better perspective with some of the drive shoveled out, you can see how deep the drift is.

Flash forward 5 days... It went from negative teens to 60 degrees outside... a nice 70+ degree temperature swing. Also it rained all day, so now most of the snow is gone, in its place we have several new small lakes. Its hard to see in this pic (taken looking out from the back deck), but visible just above the deck railing is the remnants of a snow drift, but farther out, out in the field, is a new lake. I'd estimate it at about 800' wide by 500' across, and probably 2-3 feet deep.

P.S. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

Snowflakes & The Living Room Wallpaper

No, the wallpaper doesn't have snowflakes on it, but there are plenty of them outside. We got a blanket of 4-5 inches last night.



A couple hours work this evening and I have the top part of one wall done. The lower part will be a goldish colored paper, with a border between the top & bottom. Its nice to get some color started in this room, the white walls were bothering me.

Artwork - Oil Painting

Work on the house has been slow lately, its been a very busy few weeks for other things however. My older brother was in visiting from Minnesota and my younger brother moved back from AZ. So lots of family stuff has been going on. In the meanwhile I figured I'd post a few pics of the artwork we've been awaiting for a few months now that finally arrived. What happened was me and Christine came across a painting we really liked by a famous old painter, Edmund Leighton, entitled "The Accolade", that was painted in 1901. Seeing how we could never afford the original, we did the next best thing and had a reproduction hand painted by an artist. It took just short of 4 months to get the painting, but they did a pretty good job on it. We wanted the painting to be rather large as our ceilings are 10'-3" tall, so there is plenty of wall space above the couch for it. The framed painting is almost 5' tall.