Ta-Da Friday ~ February 19, 2010

You know you are NOT a homeschool mom anymore when you have an actual dining room.

In the years we've lived in this house, this 'formal' dining room has been a school room...a computer, a table, and four overstuffed bookcases were the decor. Accents included our French language world map, a microscope, and office supplies. Functional, yes. Valued, definitely. Pretty, not so much.

I thought for sure when Nathan graduated, I'd get to overhaul this room. But, instead our oldest and his bride moved back home for a time. The dining room became a place to display wedding gifts. Then, after baby C's arrival, a place for all the stuff babies require. A few weeks ago, my oldest son and his family moved to a place of their own...and I got an itch to re-do the room before something else came up.

Here's a before (on the day all the baby stuff moved out) Homeschool books still in place.



And after a few days of work, here's the new improved version....




I like yellows and golds, can you tell? I wanted a fresh and happy room. It's not done, of course...all that wall space needs addressing. The chairs probably will get painted black in the near future. I can so see a distressed white French country dining set in that room.

All the books are re-located into oldest son's former bedroom. I'll be going through them and having a homeschool book 'garage sale' online in the coming weeks. It's been hard to go through those books, but, somehow, moving them around has helped break some of the strings to my heart. We will always be a homeschool, love of learning family, but we don't need to keep all these books.

The Pilot Guy ended up doing all the high work on this project and did it way better than I would have.



That's my creative effort this week. We also took a couple of sunny days to prune the roses. It's been a good week. I hope yours has been fun, too.