Change of Plans

So...you know how the last couple of post stated that the hall bathroom was our next project? Well, not so much. I guess I need to back up and explain our backyard plans before I tell you what our actual next project is. Our plans for the backyard include a lot of things that I will probably get into more in a later post. I'll just give a brief outline for now. We want to replace the fence because the existing one is a bit flimsy and already has a few chunks missing. It is also not all the way to the property line so we want to move it in order to gain a bit more yard (even though it will make our yard sort of trapazoid-shaped rather than rectangular.) We also need to find a good way to fully enclose the yard before we get a dog. This will probably happen at the same time as the fence replacement, so that is a big have-to-save-up-for-it project. We also eventually want to furnish our patio and build a porch railing around it. We would like to have a small vegetable and fruit garden and a storage/shop building some day as well.

I didn't think we would really even get into the backyard projects until after we tackled a good bit of the interior, but Alton wanted to go ahead and get the ball rolling on one project in particular. These guys:

Photo from here: http://crunchydomesticgoddess.com/2008/11/22/moving-on-to-the-chicken-crusade/

Yes, we are going to get chickens. We decided that having free, fresh eggs would be nice and after looking into them a bit more we found out that even a small number of chickens can effectively eliminate the bugs and small critters from your yard. (In Louisiana, the mosquitoes are the number two reason not to go outside in the summer. Number one is that it feels like a sauna.) So it seems like a good plan to us. We are going to get another backyard project finished in conjunction with the arrival of the girls, and that is to put a railing around the patio. We don't want them to get up there and leave any "gifts".

We plan to name the girls Scooter, RZR (pronounced Razor), and Rickshaw McGraw. Our cat's name is Vespa so we decided that when we get a dog we will name it Harley to continue the vehicle theme. I wanted the chickens to be included so we named them after various types of vehicles as well. This is the RZR for those who are unfamiliar:

Photo from here: http://www.polarisindustries.com/en-us/ATV-RANGER/2011/RANGER-RZR-Side-By-Side-Vehicles/Pages/Overview.aspx

Alton wants one, apparently. RZR was the name he came up with and was very excited about it, as you can see from the notebook page where we brainstormed for names:

We originally wanted to name them after bicycle brand names to fit our pet name theme, but I liked Rickshaw McGraw too much and then Alton came up with RZR and the rest is history.
So there you have it. Chickens.

Hall Bathroom Inspiration

As I mentioned in the last post, the hall bathroom is our next project. It may be a little while before we actually do anything in there, so I thought I would give you an idea of what we plan to do. I already posted a photo of the pretty blue cabinet knob we got for the bathroom. In case you forgot, here it is again:

So, the bathroom is going to be blue and white. We already have a white shower curtain and we plan to paint the cabinet in there white. We are also thinking of putting white beadboard paneling on the bottom half of the walls. The unpaneled upper portion will be painted blue and have photos from our honeymoon in California printed out and placed in white frames. We also plan to swap out the brassy gold light fixture for a silver one and the standard slab o glass mirror will be replaced by one that I plan to make with some mosaic tiles and/or seashells that I have. So that's the plan and here are some photographs that may help you envision what we are thinking of doing in there.

Here are a couple of photos I found of blue bathrooms with white beadboard:



You can see in that top photo that they have a sconce on either side of the mirror instead of a fixture over the mirror. We are debating about which route we want to go with that. We will most likely do a fixture over the mirror because that's where the fixture is now, plus there may not be enough room on the left side because it is pretty close to the wall, but we'll see.

Here are a few photos I found of mosaic mirrors. What do you think? Any preference between blue glass tiles vs. seashells or round vs. rectangular?



Office, Revisited

We finished painting Alton's office last week and put chair railing up and moved his desk in yesterday. We still need to put a new fan and a rug in there, but for now we're finished.

The spots in the photos are a result of my camera being screwy - there aren't actually random spots in the room. This goes for the weird shape on the wall in the first photo. I think that is a reflection off of the computer monitor. Rest assured, the paint job is much smoother than that.

Here is a close-up of just the paint colors:

The most exiting part of getting this room done (for me) is that my craft room is no longer the inaccessible junk room. Huzzah! Just as a preview, here is a photo I found of the color inspiration for my craft room:

We probably won't be painting in there for a while. In fact, our next project is going to be the hall bathroom. I will try to find some inspiration photos for that room to post while we are gathering the funds to actually do it.



Birthday Present and Office News

A while ago I found some photos online of air plants. They are a type of bromeliad that can grow without being planted in soil. You simply mist them with water every day. A lot of people have found interesting ways to display these little wonders and I happened to stumble across a set of glass spheres that were designed with these plants in mind. I added them to my Amazon wishlist and lo and behold, my lovely husband purchased them for me for my birthday a couple of weeks ago. I then proceeded to order myself a few air plants, Alton strung them up with monofiliment, and voila! A really cool looking addition to our dining room, no?

A few close ups of the plants:

We think the one in the second photo is going to have a flower. *fingers crossed*

In other news, we have decided that we can stand to look at the bare-floored, empty office no more. We made a trip to Lowes on Sunday and purchased chair railing, paint samples, and new light switch plates. Have you seen the ones that were in there?

Horrible. The missing screw makes it even sadder...

These are the plates we picked to replace those. (And probably the rest of the lightswitch plates in the house, eventually.)

Alton is going for a dark, manly, pub-like feel in his office. He even used a coaster as his color inspiration:

Here are the colors we picked, with a piece of posterboard standing in for chair railing.

We really like the bottom color and we liked the top color during the day, but after it was completely dry and we saw it at night with no sunlight to lighten it up it was way too dark. Even for Alton. Who wants it to be like a cave in there. So we are going to have the nice people at Lowes mix us up another batch of slightly lighter green and hopefully we will like that one because I am ready to paint!

Alton just happened to be perusing Craigslist last night and came across a nice dark colored desk that he really liked, so we picked that up today as well. It is not assembled yet, so photos will come later. Also, we are going to just buy a large rug or have a piece of carpet bound to temporarily cover the concrete floors in there. So far, the office is coming together nicely.