What's been happening?!

What's been happening lately? I haven't posted for a while because I have been so busy trying to finish the dining room. Besides trying to get it all done for Christmas, it's a real pain working on the room that is in the center of the house - plastic sheeting up, paint and tools and general crap everywhere! I was hoping to have everything wrapped up today, but it hasn't quite happened. Most of what is left are the touch ups and cleaning the place up (and re-assembling some other items that were taken apart). But I have hit a wall. I am so sick of painting and I am so sore I cannot bear to do anymore! So I am taking a quick break...very quick, because I can't live with a ladder and buckets of paint in the kitchen for much longer!

Once we got to work on the dining room, we soon realized the baseboards were in worse shape than we thought, we had planned to just paint the walls and clean the trim. Unfortunately we could tell right away that the place would still look pretty crap with clean walls and busted down old baseboards...so off they came for a serious sand and they have now been painted white, along with most of the other trim throughout the house. I was a bit sad, since it was the only room that had almost all of the original wood trim, but it had just taken such a beating over the years and I was not prepared to try and salvage the wood. Since the baseboards were all getting cleaned up, it only made sense (to me) to fix up the cabinet in the corner of the room. It looks like old kitchen cupboards and is painted a yucky purple-ee-brown like the kitchen cupboards. I am sure it will look better when its done, but I HATE painting cabinetry!

So lucky lucky me, I was able to get the heating grate off the wall - it will make it easier to clean and paint and it has also allowed me to clean out the heat duct...I could see crap in there but couldn't get it out any other way...this is just some of what came out:

Yes, that is for real...it was disgusting...that baby fork had food stuck to it...ugh. Oh, and it was not hard getting the grate off the wall, so no excuses for the pigs that let it get that bad!

In the next few days I hope for the room to be as complete as can be, I have no choice with Christmas coming! I will post after photos* when the day comes!

*Seriously, how many times have I said I would post after photos? So far I don't think I have been able to post any...what I would give for just one project to be complete!!!