Polka Dot Surprise

If you read my other blog Hey look a chicken! you probably know that I am part of a church plant (C3). (Either that or you're just not paying attention.) Anyway, Jeff (our pastor), Tamara and the girls were living back in Ohio with Tam's parents for awhile so that Jeff could work on his masters at Cincinnati Bible College. After a long and complicated, frustrating, exhilarating, frustrating again, and "a total God thing" series of events, they began to plan their move back to Houston to plant a church. Jeff came down for a brief visit to do some church business and to attempt to find a house. Before and after his visit, I looked at a bunch of houses with their realtor. I took a bunch of pictures and videos and sent them to Ohio via computer. (Don't you just love technology?) As a matter of fact, here's a brief snippet of one such home tour. Please note my obnoxious gum smacking and talking smack about the person WHO I AM MAKING THE VIDEO FOR:

They didn't end up choosing that house. They placed a bid on another house (sight unseen) based on the video I sent them, a visual inspection by my husband of "guy stuff" like the roof, electrical, plumbing, a/c, etc. and my personal judgement about the house overall. That's a fairly big leap of faith, people! Jeff flew down ahead of the family to buy the house and do some more church stuff. During that time, Tam and I were back and forth on the phone trying to plan a surprise house warming gift for the girls -- their own custom decorated rooms. Even though they were welcome in their grandparents home in Ohio, it was, after all, not their home. They were ready to have their own rooms again. It was a labor of love and I was so happy to be involved in the process. Tamara had the girls select a couple of different bedding options on the Internet. The girls thought that the surprise was that once they got down here, they would get their new bedding. They had no idea the rooms would already be painted. I designed the walls based on the bedding. Here are pictures of the bedding:

And here are the rooms:

By the way, bargain shoppers, The bedding for the first room I bought at Marshall's for $29.99. The other set came from Target and also comes in pink and brown. If you have access to an overhead projector, circles are easy to paint. The lines are a bit trickier (especially on highly textured walls), but if you think you want to try it, let me know and I'll talk you through it. Obviously, the rooms are way cuter now that the girls have put all their furniture and personal effects in there, I just haven't had my camera handy when I've been over there!

I also painted the bathroom that the girls share. Tamara ended up finding a shower curtain a Kohl's that we used as the inspiration for wall and cabinet colors, but before she had made a final decision, here are a few options I suggested:

I think Jeff was really favoring the second one, but he got overruled.