B&A - The Playroom

Well, I couldn't find any good "before" pictures of the playroom. I guess we didn't take too many because we knew we wouldn't be doing much in there. The only thing we really did was to replace the carpet. It was originally a yucky green carpet. We tore it out and replaced it with some nice normal beige carpet. As you can see in the last "after" picture, this room was originally outside. The brick in that picture is the same as is everywhere outside. There was originally a smaller sized porch. At some point, this additional room was built. Eventually, we will probably do some work in here, but we decided it was fine for the moment for using as a playroom.

This picture is looking right from the wall that goes into the dining room.


This is looking left. As you can see, the playroom overlooks the backyard.


We use this wall to hang some of the many pieces of art that Nathan brings home from church. I think we need to add an extra line or two.


Here you can see the backdoor as well as the window going back into the dining room. This was originally an exterior window. Now, however, there is no glass...just a window frame.

the rest of the house

There are still several rooms that I have not posted pictures for. (Yes, I know that's bad grammar.) There are several reasons.

The playroom - no good reason. Maybe I'll get something up soon.

Nathan's room - I tried to dye the existing drapes, but they were too old to take the agitation in the washing maching. So, they have lots of holes and are pink. Once we get his navy ones, I'll get pictures up.

Our room - it's far from finished. I have just started finding some things for the walls. I found some curtains that I think will work, but I need Target to get one in so I'll have two. It may be a little while still before it gets in picture taking order.

The computer room - It is still got a pile of boxes. They will eventually go in the laundry room, but it needs to be redone first. Who knows when this will happen. I could probably go ahead and put up some pictures, though, since it's livable.

Ok. I think that's all the ones that I have missed. Oh yeah...our bathroom. It's a project waiting...and will be for a while, I'm afraid.

our front bed

I know that I have already posted about our front bed, but we didn't have mulch down at the time that the pictures were taken. So, I wanted to get a new picture up. Plus, our daisies (or chrysanthemums) are now blooming. So, here is the before, middle, and after pictures.

sad reality

Tonight we went out to eat at Backyard Burgers. While sitting there eating, we observed a woman pull up in a new GMC Yukon (diagonally across a couple of parking spaces). I thought it looked a little odd, and she just sat there for a bit. A man came walking across the parking lot from a truck and went around the other side of the Yukon. Right as I said to Jennifer that I was looking to see if the woman had a ring on, Jennifer said she was looking for exactly the same thing. It became incredibly obvious that we were indeed seeing two divorced parents "swapping off" the kids in the parking lot. The parents hardly spoke a word or even looked at each other.

The two little girls stood around on the sidewalk waiting on the dad to finish fiddling around with stuff in his truck (across the parking lot) while the mom waited for him to come back and get the girls. It was a searing illustration of the way kids of divorce end up in a confused, painful world of "in-between."

After the dad came back and got the two girls, the mom came back a few minutes later with another younger sister. As the mom drove off again, Jennifer thought she saw the mom start to cry. There were no smiles or laughter from anyone, even while the dad and daughters were in the restaurant. It was sad to see the cold reality of what divorce does to people and families. And to think that most marriages end in divorce now.