In the Meantime...

No, we still have not finished the patio railing. We are about 90% there, but the gates need to be tweaked a bit and about half of the railing still only has primer and no paint on it. We have been waiting for a day that Alton is off and it is not raining, but that just hasn't happened recently. In the meantime, we have done a few more projects around the house. We've been sitting on a $30 Target gift card since Christmas and finally used it to buy a soap pump, tissue cover, towel ring, and toilet paper roll holder for the hall bathroom. (We've changed our vision for that bathroom since the previous post I wrote about it, but more on that later.)

 T.P. holder and towel ring before:

...and after:

 The whole shebang:



As you may be able to tell from our accessory selection, we've decided to step away from the coastal vibe we were leaning toward and go with a more modern one. We think it will tie in to the rest of the house better that way. We moved the old towel holder from this bathroom into the master because the previous owners had a towel ring on one side of the vanity in there and a fleur de lis hook on the other side, which we removed. So Alton's side has been towel ring-less for a while and the one we replaced in the hall bath was exactly the same as the one in the master on my side of the vanity.

No towel ring = sad, droopy countertop towel:

Towel ring = happy wall towel.

Ah, bathroom harmony.

There just so happens to be a Lowe's next to the Target we went to for our new bathroom accessories, so we stopped by there to look for something completely different (I'm sure you know how that goes) and walked out with a new pendant light to go above the kitchen sink.

The old fixture:

Here's the new one with the light off:

                                                                           light on:



I love the stripey pattern when the light is on.

So those are the small, indoor projects we've been working on while waiting to finish the railing. Also, my aunt sent me home with a set of wicker furniture when I went over there for the 4th, so here is a shot of our new, free (!) furniture with a sneak peek of the railing in the background:



You can see what I was talking about with all the rain lately in that rather gloomy photo...I'll be back soon with details of the recent eco-friendly project Alton did and hopefully a completed railing. In the meantime we will be choosing the perfect shade of grey for our living room, kitchen, and dining room. Stay tuned!

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.