LOST finale party recap

For the LOST series finale (read a review of it here) we decided to throw a party. We were so busy setting up that we didn't get a ton of pics, but here's a few:

Guests entered in through the entry way which greeted them with the LOST sign.  Once they opened the door they were inside the 'smoke monster'.

It just looks like black hanging crepe paper here, but there was also a smoke monster soundtrack playing, which was very cool.  The small entry way is pretty small and with all of the black paper it was really dark. 

The family room donned a Dharma welcome banner with lost Oceanic luggage, and a dharma food table.

Here are a few of the Dharma food products:  bulk peanut butter, soda crackers, ranch dressing, salsas, and sodas.

Some of my favorite Dharma foods:  apples, banana's, oranges, and (non-pictured) pineapple.

A photo of the survivors in the Dharma Initiative in 1974 next to the Dharma operations manuals.

More manuals...

Some of the survivors were also in attendance!

Apollo bars and some little Dharma bars.

The hatch!

Before & After: Guest Bedroom

Today I am featuring another one of my favorite rooms - the guest room. This room was originally a nursery, here are the befores:

 

and here is Chris painting over the lovely bugs...

Honestly, this was one of the first rooms that we completed (minus a new light fixture, which we still need to do...).  This room is nearly 100% hand me down furniture and has tons of family photos (which I love!).

We call the guest room 'Hotel Weseloh"  :)

Before & After: Sitting Room

Today's before & after is one of my favorite little nooks in our house.  We call it the sitting room, but it isn't really a room at all, it really is just a nook.  You were able to see the sneak peaks of it in the pictures of the formal living room, so I figured I might as well go ahead with the full reveal. 

The sitting room was previously covered in wallpaper.  This photo reminds me of one of those Magic Eye puzzles.

And after new hardwood floors, some 'red hot' paint, & new trim here are the afters:

After we chose the red paint (and painted 4+ coats...) I debated (for years) if I liked it or not.  However once the new floors and trim were done along side the formal living room makeover I finally decided that I really love it.  To me this room feels cozy and warm. 

We begun collecting ship paintings in this room.  The bookcase is an antique that my in-laws gave us.  The chairs are Craigslist/antique store finds.  This entire room (with paint) has probably cost us under $200 (not counting the floors)

                            

This last picture is just a picture of the end of our hallway.  We picked up this night table at the antique store one day for $5.  My husband wasn't crazy about it, but I thought it was too fabulous to pass up for $5.  It found the perfect home at the end of the hallway with all of my entertaining books and an old sangria turned penny jar.

So that is the before and after of the sitting room.  Hope you enjoyed your Wednesday tour!

Before & After: Family Room UPDATE

Okay, so like three days after I posted the family room before and afters we made another update - a new light fixture!  Track lighting is still in place...but the overhead flood lights are G-O-N-E!!!!! 

We picked this up at the Habitat ReStore for $20!  We originally were going to pick up a chandelier on the cheap and paint it, but we found this vintage-y wood one and thought it was perfect!  Check it out:

Before & After: the Formal Living Room

I think I'm the only one enjoying these before & after posts, but that's okay with me!

Today the Formal Living Room got spiffed up so here's a tour through the evolution of the room!  Here are the photos from the day we moved in:

This room was pretty non-descript (although the adjoining rooms had lots of personality with their wallpaper...).  So after living here a while the room above was taken a few steps in the right direction with new hard wood floors, paint, and trim...

The room stayed as is for about another 2 years.  Finally one day the husband and I decided we needed to spruce up the walls a bit with some decor.  Although we loved the room and the 'bones' of it all (and yes, we really did love it all white) it was in desperate need of more.  And here is the final product:

(the sitting room is on the left, more photos of that room to come soon!)

I love this coffee table!

Before & After: the Entertainment Room {Man Cave}

The curly haired guy that I'm married to has a slight obsession with movie watching.  I call him a film snob (because he is).  Because of this when we were house shopping one of his 'must have's' was a move room.  Our house has kind of a strange set up with a lot of 'bonus' areas, and thus the Entertainment Room was born. 

When we moved in the 'den' was pretty basic, except that it had a faux brick wall.  Imagine panelling that looked like bricks.  Here are the before pictures:

The lace curtain came down on Day 2 in the new house and the wall came down about 6 months later...and here's what that looked like (we thought it would be simple to just pull down the panelling and paint the drywall underneath....except there wasn't drywall, it was old crumbling plaster...):

And here's the final product:

Ironically this room has been the easiest for us to decorate - men don't really want to change stuff around once they like it!  Overall I really love this room, it fits the things that he wanted it for and it's not embarassing to me, so it works for us!.  It is perfect for movie watching (and fully equipped with a big TV and surround sound).  I would like to switch out the light fixture (and get rid of the box from under the coffee table...) but it's not on the top of my priority list since it doesn't bother him at all. 

Before & After: Family Room - still a work in progress!

While I'm off this month I've made one of my goals to get the house in tip top shape and take new pictures of the progress we've made on each room.    The other day I took photos of the family room.  The family room has always been a bit of a challenge to decorate and arrange.  It is a fairly large room (13'x17') and has no natural light except from the adjoining sunroom.  Additionally it has a fireplace, 2 doorways, and sliding glass doors leading to the sunroom.  There are vaulted ceilings, but the ceiling line is asymetrical.  Needless to say that without anything in the room, there is still a lot going on. 

Here are photos of the family room on the day we moved in (unfortuantly I only have photos of one side of the room):

Because of the layout of the room there is one obviously way to set it up, with all of the furniture against one wall (the wall across from the fireplace, not shown) and the TV in the corner of the room.  When we moved in this room was the least offensive (no wallpaper!) so we lived with it in basically this state for about 2 years.  When we finally painted it got a fresh coat of a very light greenish/blue.  We also did some massive rearranging to bring some MUCH needed symetry to the room.  Here are the photos I took earlier in the week (lovin' the wide angle lens for these indoor pics!):

To add balance to the room I painted two paintings and hung them on either side of the sliding doors.  We also floated our couch and loveseat on either side of the fireplace and placed the TV across from the fireplace.  A cabinet was placed on either side of the fireplace.  Basically in this room I've tried to do things as 'evenly' as possible. 

We recently moved a tall, smallish, blonde colored entertainment center out of here and put in a dresser to hold the TV.  I like the look of the dresser better, but after taking these pictures it really stood out how VERY EMPTY the two walls above are.  SO we have since switched the brown record cabinet (that is shown to the right of the stairs above) with the white cabinet that was residing to the right of the fireplace. 

Since we moved the white cabinet and the record stand I've also redone the fireplace decor.  This room is still a work in progress.  I'm going to be making a large vintage looking 'Weseloh Farm's' sign to hang above the new TV dresser to fill up the wall space above the TV and to hopefully get rid of some of that huge expanse of space! A new light fixture is also on the 'to do' list.

Lastly, here are just a couple of detail shots that I grabbed while the camera was out:

This is an old radio that has been converted into CD and CD player storage.

An old fan that I got last summer and Artichoke Annies :)

Thoughts?  Comments?  Suggestions?  We're still working on this room, but so far I'm very happy with it's progress!  What do you do with big empty walls?  Do you like collages?  (Which I do, but in moderation) Or do you like big pieces of art?

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To view an update to this room click here.

To view more photos of my house click here.