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.

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.



I can see out of my window!

Remember the post I did with photos of the kitchen? Remember how I said one of our small projects in there was going to be removing the stained glass decal from the door? Well, yesterday that project was crossed off our list, along with an item from my personal bucket list which was to learn to sew and actually complete a project. Alton removed the decal and I made a cute curtain. It's far from perfect, but I think I did a pretty good job of hiding the messed up parts. Anyway, on with the pictures!

Before:

Preparing for the project:

(with supervision from Vespa)

My first sewing project:

(Click the photo to make it bigger so you can see the pattern of the fabric. Alton and I like it a lot.)

Look, no "stained glass"!

Much better, I think. I'm pretty proud of that curtain as well. Trust me, it is far from perfect but I plan to make some more curtains and maybe a pillow or two down the road so I have time to hone my abilities.

Kitchen photos

I finished unpacking the kitchen yesterday and just wanted to share some photos of it while it's nice and neat.

We were pleasantly surprised to discover that we had enough money to purchase a new refrigerator. The way that the cabinets are arranged, a counter depth fridge is required in order for the drawer and cabinet door next to it to be functional. Here's our shiny new fridge:

The first project we took on was replacing all the exterior doorknobs. The old ones were a brassy gold color and were showing their age a bit. We are going to be putting brushed nickel hardware throughout the house and these knobs are the first things in the house to introduce that color scheme. 

The second project we did was replacing the brassy-colored dining room light with this more modern nickel one:

The next few small projects we plan to tackle in the kitchen are replacing the light over the sink, replacing the fleur de lis knobs with brushed nickel, painting the walls, and removing the "stained glass" decals from the door.

Of course, we eventually have some big projects we would like to do in the kitchen, including getting new countertops, getting all stainless steel appliances, replacing the flourescent light with recessed fixtures, and probably painting the cabinets. These big projects are not on our radar for a while, but I'll most likely be posting a kitchen inspiration post pretty soon anyway.

Unexpected project #1

The first night that we were here, we noticed a funny smell in the office. We thought it was the litterbox, but upon further investigation discovered that it was, in fact, the carpet. So we paid for professional carpet cleaning in the office and master bedroom (the only two rooms with carpet) yesterday. Today, after the smell of the cleaner wore off...the office still smelled like urine. Boo.

So we ripped up the carpet.

Now what? We don't really have a room's worth of new flooring in our budget, so it may end up looking like this for a while:

Action shot:

Now that we've already ripped up the carpet, we've been discussing what kind of flooring we should put in there. Tile, carpet, and wood have all been mentioned. If we go with wood, we aren't sure if we want to try to match the existing wood in the hallway or get something different. Alton wants a manly, dark, wood-paneled office, so they would probably be a good bit darker than the yellow-y floors in the rest of the house. I think maybe for now we will just tell people we're going for an "industrial" look in there.

Master bath inspiration

There is an endless list of small projects that we will be tackling pretty much constantly such as replacing cabinet knobs, painting, etc. However, I wanted to share the few big projects (and by "big", I mean "expensive") that we plan to take on in the future.

The first big project we want to tackle is closing in the backyard. Our house is on a corner lot with the front facing one street and the driveway on the other. Because of this, you have to walk across our carport to get to the backyard. Alton wants to get a dog as soon as we can (another big project in itself, but not home-related.) So we need to figure out the best way to fully fence in the yard, including going across the driveway.

The second big project we plan to do is to transform the ginormously hugegantic triangular bathtub in the master bathroom into a ginormously hugegantic walk-in shower. The master bath currently has no shower and we are not really bath people, so if we are only going to have one or the other, we would prefer a shower over a tub. We could put in a nice tub/shower combo but hey, where's the fun in that?

If you know me, you know that as soon as the words "bathroom renovation" were mentioned, my imagination was going crazy trying to picture what I wanted. I ultimately decided that as the master bathroom, this space should be a calm spa-like retreat and I've pulled together some inspiration photos to share with you.

I'm really loving white cabinets with marble tops.

This one has a more modern feel with the glass tile in the shower. I like that they did a pattern with the shower tile. I think stripes would look good if they were done in the same color scheme, but alternating between marble and glass.

I'm pretty intrigued by this herringbone pattern. It's always interesting when tile is layed in a way that isn't just a grid pattern.

I'm thinking of going with some sort of small tile on the floor of the shower. Either something like this photo or...

A light-colored pebble mosaic. Very zen.

So that's what I'm thinking for the master bath re-do. Of course, it won't be happening for a while, but a girl can dream, right?

Photos found here:
http://www.housebeautiful.com/decorating/designer-bathrooms
http://www.decorpad.com/photo.htm?photoId=5893
http://www.zimbio.com/Bathroom+Ideas/articles/1/Great+Bathroom+Ideas
http://thegoodsdesign.blogspot.com/2008/08/when-youre-in-bathroom-european.html