Progress

We've been busy making changes to the house - which is why I haven't been doing much updating.  (OK, I may not have been updating this blog regularly anyway, but that's as good an excuse as any)

If you'll remember my last home improvement post, we had just stripped all the wallpaper off the dining room walls, and we needed to get the paint.  Here's what the room looked like before we started:

Photo courtesy of my wonderful husband
who actually took some Before pictures

And after he painted it, a lighter, brighter color (Artist's Canvas) on top, and green (Stone Walls) on the bottom:

 

The light color is also on the ceiling in both the dining room and living room and on the walls of the living room.  The green goes around the corner from the dining room into the library area off the living room, though  the lighting in this pic makes it look a bit lighter. 

 

 And since we really like this green - it's the same one we had in our old house when we had it repainted after the tornado - the wall in the family room, too.  It looks so much better than the blue it used to be - see kitchen wall picture comparing colors further down in this post.

 We* also covered the blue in the hallway leading from the front door to the breakfast area.  There's really no light in this hallway, so having light colored walls really helps to lighten things up.  I find that I have no pictures, but you can just catch a glimpse of the entryway here.  It wasn't blue, but the color was dark enough that it really needed some lightening up, too.  (*I use the term 'we' loosely because Jeffrey is the one who did all the painting.  I usually try to stay as far away from fresh paint and other such things as possible.  Thankfully the fumes weren't too bad this time - they must have improved the paint since we had our house painted in Wisconsin - but I still didn't want to spend too much time in close proximity.)

And then we covered the blue in the kitchen and breakfast area with a lighter shade of green:

I do need to take some more pictures of the kitchen, but trust me - it looks better.  Not that I hated the blue.  I know some people love blue, my mom included, but it's not a color I'd ever actually choose.  It was OK, but the green is just so much warmer.  It looks so good.  I'm really loving the color and the way it looks.

And... that's not all the progress we've made, but that's all I have time for right now.  Stay tuned for some really amazing changes.  I keep walking into the room saying, "Look what we did!"

The Science Behind a Happy Relationship

It's kind of hard to ignore it.  This time of year, love is in the air.  We're coming up to the most important day in any happy relationship.  And if you don't get candy/flowers/jewelry/lingerie/something special, then your relationship must be in trouble.  Or you're dating a loser.  Right?

The people over at Happify put together this infographic showing the science behind a happy relationship.  There is some interesting information here and some good tips for making your relationship happier.  Valentines Day doesn't show up even once.  That's right - a happy relationship means every day of the year, not just one.  Or two or three.  And it's not about stuff or things.

What do you think?