Up at the Wisp!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wow! We had a great first thanksgiving at our house! Erin and I made an amazing feast and my first turkey! We had a great day in the kitchen and it really paid off, we had a feast! You can see our turkey flag on the house, Maverick playing in the snow, and thanksgiving yumminess! We had a lot to be thankful for. Oh, and Sean and Brent got the chandelier installed in the dining room, it looks great!!!!!

Before Pictures of the Grand Room

Here is what the dining room looked like before

The Grand Room

So Brent refers to this room as the "Grand Room" as opposed to the dining room that it is. Our newest addition is now located in this room too. A new Yamaha upright piano. It is by far the coolest thing I have ever purchased. It's so pretty and shiny! It is a completely different feeling playing this piano rather than the electric piano of the pre-Katrina days. It is so hard to explain, but the difference is amazing. It amazing, how playing the piano is just like riding a bike. It is all coming back to me. Thanks Mom and Dad for those lessons. 15 years later and I am still at it :) The color on the wall is called Texas Leather, it is kind of a creamy chocolate color, it looks great against the white trim. At first I had my heart set on these drapes that I saw in a catalog, but now I am thinking that the windows look great painted white and it makes the room feeling bigger. What do you think? I need opinions, but I am leaning toward leaving the windows alone and going without the drapes. The closet isn't finished. At first we were going to paint it white (it was a weird stained reddish brown color) but then once we primed it and finished the brown walls it seemed that painting it white would make it more of a focal point, which we really don't want to do. So we are thinking about painting it the same brown as the walls, then maybe it will blend in. We also have a chandelier on the way. . . I can't wait. I will definitely post pictures once it is installed. I think that will be the perfect finishing touch for our "Grand Room".

Living Room

The living room has been finished for a while now. It is amazing what a coat of paint will do! Here are the before and afters. I noticed that the pictures seem to be a little out of focus. When we were shown the house this room was set up like a dining room. . . very strange. Our favorite part of the room is without a doubt the artwork above the fireplace. We definitely know what it means to miss New Orleans! you can't really tell, but there are chocolate roman shades on the windows. The sofa slipcovers aren't the easiest things to keep looking nice. . . they slip and slide everywhere. But I guess anything is way better than the huge quilted floral pattern that is underneath the slipcovers :)

Upstairs Bathroom Before and After!

Finally finished with the upstairs bathroom. . . well almost. As I was hanging up the towel rack, I realized that I need to buy new light switch plates. So that is on the top of my list for the next Lowe's visit! The color on the wall is actually a light gray, I think it's called woodsmoke, but sometimes it looks blue. Brent still has to change out the light fixture. I know he is dreading it, neither of us really have a lot of experience with electricity, but I sure am getting good at drilling some holes in the with Hoping to finish painting the dining room tomorrow! This place is really starting to feel like home :)

walls!

Fresh Snow!

So. . . we woke up this morning to find the world covered in white! It was so cool. As I am typing this, it is coming down pretty hard with pretty big flakes. It is out of this world! Enjoy the pictures!

First Snow!

Today we had our first snowfall. It didn't stick on the ground. . . I guess 38 degrees is still just too warm for it to stick! It was great watching the snow blow around (it was super windy). Couldn't help but to take a few pictures. Just wait until there is real snow all over the ground. On another note, the living room is pretty close to done, so I will get some pictures put up of the finished product soon. So far we aren't impressed with radiators, but I think that is because we haven't really turned them on, the thermostat is set at 60 degrees and believe it or not that cost us $70 last month. We are really scared at what that means for the really cold months, therefore we are trying to hold out on turning the radiators up until the last possible second. I am thinking that we won't last very long. And for our family members planning to visit this winter, no worries. We will definitely have the heat blasting for your visit, we also will be getting electric space heater things to warm it up a little more. So be rest assured that we will keep you warm, or atleast try. Right now I am actually sitting in the living room with my coat and scarf on. Give us another week of this and I am sure we will have that radiator blasting!

Fall is Definitely Here!

So here are two pictures that I took this morning. Can't believe how red our tree is! You can also see our Halloween flag, I also got a Turkey one for thanksgiving. Can't wait to hang it up! I was busy painting this weekend. The bathroom is almost done. I am waiting to post pictures until the whole thing is finished. So that you can see the whole before and after effect. Tomorrow I will hang the mirror, hand towel racks, and the toilet paper holder. Ooohhh, so exciting! Maybe I will be able to post bathroom pics tomorrow!

Autumn Glory

This weekend was the Autumn Glory Festival up in Oakland. Oakland is in the next county and is at a higher elevation. This is where all the skiing and snowboarding happens, and it is about 40 minutes away. The fall foliage was amazing, but unfortunately it just doesn't show up in photos. We went out to the Adventure Sports Center Inc. facility, which is literally right next door to the Wisp resort. . . where we will be snowboarding this winter! They have a white water rapid course. . . not as cool as the real thing on a river in the middle of nowhere. But it is a really good place to learn the art of white water kayaking, it seems that it would be much more fun to learn how to do it here before heading out on the real river. Just a thought. Then maybe your life wouldn't be flashing before your eyes, because you would know exactly what to do because you have practiced. So, they had a pumpkin race, where you pay $5 for a pumpkin, put a number on it, then send it down the river. It was pretty interesting and definitely something we had never seen before. We saw lots of these tractor crossing signs, so naturally we had to include it here for all of our family farmers to see.

What a great day! We spent most of the afternoon on the Allegany Highlands Trail. Earlier in the week, Brent and I bought two brand spanking new bikes at a local bike shop. The weather has been so great lately (although very chilly at night. . . 48 degrees) that we felt that we were really missing out by not hitting the trails and taking advantage of these cool days. So today we took to the trail for the first time. We were warned that it was uphill going out (towards Pittsburgh) but on the way back, it was all downhill. . . and really fun! For anyone that is interested in the trail, it goes all the way from Pittsburgh to D.C. You get on the trail two blocks from our house and you can decided to go northeast towards Pittsburgh, or west to Cumberland. Cumberland is about ten or so miles from Frostburg but it is downhill. . . so that means that on the way back you are going uphill at a two percent grade. I don't know much about what all that means, but what it does mean to me is that I would much rather work hard first then take it easy on the way back. So that is exactly what we did, and it definitely paid off. Going up was difficult and took us maybe about an hour and a half or so to go four miles, then we turned around and it took us maybe thirty minutes to get back! There wasn't too much scenery, as far as landscape views go, but we have a feeling that if we would have kept going that the trail would have opened up. So for next time, we will head out a little earlier and definitely pack a lunch. Hope you enjoy the pics from our ride. The tunnel does not look very impressive in the picture but when you are riding through the middle of it, it seems extremely long and very dark! It was not nearly as fun as I thought it would be. . . it was actually scary!!! On the house front, we are still unpacking boxes and painting. It feels like it is taking forever, but slowly the number of boxes left to unpack is dwindling. Will post some more pictures soon!

This was a great weekend because we finally got to sleep in our finished bedroom! It really looks great. I am working on taking pictures of the whole room so that you can see the final product. It is amazing to wake up to that perfect view. It is such a great way to start the day. We also started painting the living room, we aren't done, but it looks great already. What a difference a can of paint makes. However, I do have one thing to say. . . paneling stinks. It is ugly and it is hard to paint. Brent took this lovely snapshot of me painting the wall, and it was not fun. You have to paint each ridge by hand because the roller misses it. Once I painted all the ridges, then I broke out the roller. I don't know if there is any easier way to paint paneling, but that was all I could think of. Brent also took this picture of the Preying Mantis that he found outside. I hope you enjoy that, Mary Scott. Brent wanted to make sure that you saw it, because he knew you would appreciate it. :) Brent is getting ready to start his first day at his new job. He is working on his syllabi, right now. We have completely filled the closet up with all of our clothes. I only have one more box that is half filled with clothing. It was nice to get some boxes emptied and get the contents put away in its proper place. It feels really good! The last picture is of Maverick hanging out in the sunroom. He is enjoying the view just as much as we are! Stay tuned for the final bedroom pics! I know that the suspense must really be getting to you!