After all the wall color angst, and the moving adventure (stories to tell you all there!), I can successfully say that the paint worked out splendidly. :-) Though I don't have pictures of all the rooms yet, I do have some to show you, and at least from the perspective of living here, the transformation is huge. Taking out the dark wallpaper in the office lightened up the room incredibly and made it a place I can't wait to go to every day (which makes my editor happy, I'm sure). And the kitchen...I'm overjoyed. The only hitch was not being able to see any of it the first 13 hours we lived here because we were in the dark. Literally.

A wind storm hit our city the day we moved in, and we lost power about an hour after we unfurled the last blanket. Lights went out, and stayed out until 10 the next morning (which caused a huge crisis for my teen daughter who wanted to stay home from school because she couldn't flat iron her hair. Uh...I don't think so). Then the cat took off for three days. We thought for sure she got out, because we couldn't hear her or find her ANYWHERE in the house, and believe me, we searched and called and set out food, etc. Then one day, she just popped up the middle of a movie, hungry. I have no idea where she was, but I'm glad to see her :-)

The last of the boxes were moved over on Monday, save for a few things we left for staging purposes and the handful of boxes we forgot in the attic. We're 2/3's of the way unpacked, because we did it gradually, moving over three weeks, but I'll tell you, it was NO FUN. Lots of packing a box in the morning, unpacking it in the afternoon, refilling it that night, unpacking the same stinking box the next morning, just to turn around and do the same thing again.

Throughout it all, I fretted and paced while the painters were working. I couldn't quite envision the final product, with the new furniture and our old stuff. But as each coat went on the walls, I got more and more excited. Practically dancing in the halls. Okay, I did dance. ;-) The painter clearly thought I was crazy.

Here's the dining room -- Before and After

Here's the kitchen -- Before and After (no more wallpaper! New appliances! [FYI: that's my realtor and me in the Before pic])

And here's the Office -- Before and After (no more dark wallpaper! I included a few of those because everyone always wants to see where I work)

And finally, the Great Room -- Before and After

We still have a ton to do to finally be all the way "here", but as soon as the paint color was on the walls, the house finally felt like ours. And though there may be boxes all over the place (I moved them out of the pics, LOL), it does feel like home. :-)

Shirley