Thanksgiving and Foyer Refresh

Last year we were in Alabama for Thanksgiving and due to travel schedules, we actually celebrated on Wednesday evening. I actually had to work that day and it was rather nice coming home to that warm meal. Those who cooked found no guilt in running to the store for a few forgotten ingredients. We all really enjoyed having the big meal out of the way and just eating leftovers on Thanksgiving. I floated the idea to Brent and the girls of doing the same thing and they were all game. Brent bought a couple of rotisserie chickens from Costco and then focused on the sides (we are BIG fans of the sides!) and it was a lovely meal!

On Thanksgiving we had wassail and pie for breakfast and sat back to enjoy the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. It was lovely and moving forward I think this is the way we are going to do it. There was so much less stress and anxiety. We didn't feel the need to spend an entire day cooking- we just did what we could for a fancier dinner and that was it!

I'm putting this here because I tried it and really loved it! Hoping to do it again next year.

 The real motivation behind getting Thanksgiving out of the way is I decided it was high time we finally repaint the foyer. Ever since we bought the house I wanted to change it and the time had come. I told Brent it would be my Christmas present and since we rented the 24' ladder on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, by the time we returned it on Friday evening, we'd only been charged 1 day of rental, which was nice! 

The old gold color of the foyer made it dark and in pictures the yellow hue made everyone look jaundiced. 

Previous owners had not been kind to the walls and even though I had repaired them, they needed a good paint job to make them look fresh and new. 

I would strategically tape Christmas cards over the patched holes and then when the cards came down I'd have the sad reminder of how awful the walls looked. 

I thought about scaffolding and in the end realized a very tall ladder and extension on the paint brush is what was going to get the job done. 

Halfway there:

 Before and After:

Like I suspected, this was no small job!

Initially I thought I'd go up the ladder and Brent would hold it steady but after one shaky ascent, he did all the high work. 

In fact, the whole family worked on it. Gita braved the ledge around the window. The rest of the girls helped me patch and sand. 

Bit by bit it came together and with bruises on our shins and sore shoulders and necks we were finally done with the bulk of it.

I spent extra time with touch up and trying to smooth some areas. I am SO happy with the result and couldn't wait to put up the Christmas decorations. They look so much prettier with those clean, white walls. The expensive travertine tiles actually stand out more rather than blending in and I think they look much more sophisticated and classy. Simple upgrades to the switch plates made it look like new construction. Make no mistake, I'm SO glad this is over and done with because I was a job I tell you! But every time I use the stairs I'm so happy with the result and I'm glad we did it. 

I am colossally bad at gallery walls and I really never liked the original arrangement of our photos from Hawaii. Honestly the original positioning had much more to do with covering up patched wall than anything aesthetically pleasing. I happily repaired the holes, painted and tried again... and then repaired most of those holes, repainted and tried (yet) again. I'm so much happier with it this time around! Hawaii was such a happy time for our family, I really wanted this to look nice. 

Major props to my sweet husband for being such a sport. It was the perfect Christmas gift! Kinda makes me wonder what other projects we could tackle with a nice, extra long weekend... hmmm.