starting some house reno

We simply have had hardly any time to unpack and get the house in order.  But, the last several days, Mike has done some really great work.  Abby's room is really a bonus room carved out of the super steep attic.  It is pretty small and has a "mystery box" in the middle, which is duct work hidden in a 2 ft by 3 ft box.  Kind of hard to put a bed in there with the mystery box.  The room also had bright blue baseboards and fabric stapled to one wall.  He tore out all the baseboards and door frames and fabric.  Next, he painted it a very pretty gray and put up white baseboards and door framing.

Last night he built a platform bed, incoorporating the mystery box and a shelving unit for storage.  Abby is thrilled with this bed.  It still needs some work.  I'm so proud of Mike!

One thing we want to do is make a reading nook instead of a breakfast nook.  We eat dinner at our dining room table and the kids eat breakfast at the little bar in the kitchen.  The breakfast nook has a bay window and needs some major TLC.  We'd love to find 2 mismatch, funky stuffed chairs, refinish all the paneling and have some storage benches built for kids' games and crafts. The old table in the middle was a precious wedding gift for Mike and I.  I screwed it up when I painted with the wrong materials a few years ago. Never fear, a little personal assistance from a kind Lowes worker and I'll have it awesome pretty soon!

Below is a pic from the decorating app called Houzz. I've got zero creative juice in my brain(my parents and sisters got all that!).  So, I find something I like and copy it ;)  This pic is what I'd like to do with our current kitchen that is very very functional but very very 1983