Mom's a little bit crazy, y'all.

Remember the living room?

Well, I've been busy. Doing what, you ask?  I'll give you one guess.

No, these aren't giant saltine crackers.

They are the ceiling tiles from the living room.

We pulled out the cheap molding, too.  By We, I mean Ryan.  

Why bother taking down a perfectly ugly but functional ceiling?  Well, I found it was hurting my heart every morning to look at it.  I've been talking about my hatred of those tiles for a year now.  I want to paint the room, but I'll be damned if we were going to put a lot of work into a room with those abominations. The molding alone was very frighteningly outdated.  I prefer crumbling plaster to the cellulose yucky stuff that was up there.

There is some damage to the ceiling, but it's very slight. We haven't decided what to do--something has to go up in the corners because there used to be bigger crown molding there at one point, and there are gaps the molding covered between the walls and ceiling.  Taking down the wood might be very challenging. We'll just have to see.  Today, my heart is lightened.  Tomorrow, when I wake up to this mess, it'll be a whole other story...

P.S. Let me thank Ryan for not freaking out when he got home to a huge hole in the ceiling.  We worked side by side, but he made it go faster.

P.P.S Please wear eye/mouth protection if you're ever cursed with ceiling tiles and wish to remove them.  It's dusty.

Finally, the living room.

The living room has been neglected more than even the master bedroom, which has been painted but still lacks any real decor.

Gorgeous.  Or maybe I mean hideous.

The photo above depicts the living room right after we moved in.  A parlor grand piano, a loveseat, a vintage stereo console, and a pack-n-play used as changing table.  And then of course the lovely window treatments.

Broken shade on the floor next to the magic slipper.

A year later, and we've got a few different pieces in the room, but the window treatments are the same as is the lavender sand paint color (which looks kind of green in the top photo, but it's not green, it's beige...i hate beige...it should die a slow death that somehow involves spoons and rubber boots).

It was probably going to remain in this ignored state while we finished the kitchen painting (June!) until I completely broke one of the shades, necessitating a complete demolition of the entire apparatus.  It's not like we could have taken one of the functioning shades down from another window and used that instead. Nope, that would've been impossible.

Naked Windows.

 We probably need something to cover those windows.  The awning provides some coverage and also keeps out much of the light from outside, but you can see inside pretty easily, especially if you stand right in front of them cupping your eyes to keep out the glare.  Not a big deal until you remember that we have to use the downstairs shower while our bedroom is upstairs.  Use your imagination at this time.  Shudder.  Nod vigorously when I say we need curtains. Or foil.  Something.

Buried Treasure.

I pulled out the curtain collection from Drew's bedroom closet to see if there was anything we could re-use.  Every window in this house had custom drapery at one point.  Sometimes several layers.

This one is stained, so it's out.  I'll donate it.  For some reason, Ryan's camera got confused and made this in landscape.  Sorry. Our chairs are not actually attached to the wall.

There are many cafe curtains in this pale pink fabric adorned with brown bobbles.  This particular piece is a valance.  I think it went upstairs, which was painted pink at one time and included pink fixtures in the bathroom.  These are very sweet.  I'd like to figure out how to reuse them.

This one's not so bad. Downside is that it's not floor-length, just window length.  It might work for now.

Anyway, the search continues.  I'll keep you posted since I'm sure you're dying to know and actually postponing making vacation plans until you can be sure we have curtained windows in our living room.

On another note, we're going to be painting soon. The room is dark, but I will not be doing anything white or pastel (having read that dark rooms do better with vibrant colors).  Any suggestions?  If you say light gray or beige, you're dead to me.  When I say color, I mean COLOR in all caps.