Our Newest Addition

Remember a while back when we pulled up the plants and pavers that formed a jellybean shape in the corner of our front yard?

Well, we decided to plant some sort of fruit tree in the hopes of balancing that corner out with the rest of the yard, which has two Bradford Pear trees on each side, and hopefully producing some fruit as well. I really wanted a Granny Smith apple tree, but after checking online we were iffy on whether it would thrive in our climate. The choice then became either pear or peach. Peach trees get gorgeous pink blossoms reminiscent of cherry blossoms in the spring, so we went with a little peach tree. It will probably be a few years before it actually starts to produce any fruit, but hopefully it will at least grow and flower in the meantime.

Bringing home baby.

Harley has to check out the new guy.

No, we didn't fill the hole with kitty litter. Our compost is in there! This is the first project we've used it for.

Harley supervises Alton as he puts in a layer of compost.

All done!

It's already taller than me! Not that that's saying much...

Hall Bathroom Inspiration, Revisited

A while back I mentioned that we decided not to go with the beachy feeling for our hall bathroom, but instead decided to go modern. I showed you our new bath accessories, but I thought I would go ahead and share our new inspiration for that room. We are painting the living room, dining room, and hallway a neutral grey and we want to bring that into the bathroom as well. Since it is a pretty small space, I figured we could do a fun wall treatment in there without all the taping and measuring being too much of a pain. So, I saw this photo of a shower curtain on Pinterest and decided that it would look great as a paint treatment for the walls:

Photo from here: http://cupcakesandcashmere.com/updated-guest-room/

Those are pretty much the exact colors that will be used for our bathroom walls and probably about the same size stripes. Everything in the room will be either white or grey, with the exception of the black tissue cover and soap pump, plus I would like to bring in a punch of bright color through either a bath rug or some art on the wall. I haven't decided if I want to hang anything over the stripes or let them be the centerpiece and bring the color in with a rug. I think I will have to wait and see the stripes before I know if I can bring myself to cover them up with art.

This is what our vanity currently looks like:

We are going to eventually paint it white and get a new countertop, sink, and faucet. We also need to replace the vanity light. It is a brassy gold fixture that really needs to go. We were thinking something like this light would work nicely:

Photo from here: http://www.quoruminternational.com/index.cfm?do=app.productDetails&product=5084-2-65

We are also thinking that a white porcelain vessel sink would look great in there. Not sure what shape we like best, but here are a few ideas:

All three images found at www.modernbathroom.com

I'm also thinking that since there isn't a lot of floor space maybe we could splurge on a fun mosaic tile of some sort. As for the countertops, I am definitely thinking either quartz or recycled glass. Quartz especially has a really nice, clean, modern look to it. Here are a couple of examples of quartz in both grey and white:

http://www.caesarstoneus.com/gallery/modern/

http://www.cambriausa.com/our-collection/photos-and-videos/

So those are our lofty goals for the front bathroom. Aside from perhaps painting and getting a new light, I doubt any of this will be done any time soon, but I will certainly keep you posted.

One Advantage of Living in South Louisiana

While it may be snowing and cold in other parts of the country, here in south Louisiana it has been in the 70's and 80's for the past couple of weeks. Alton and I took advantage of this and he began organizing the storage room/workshop under the carport and I planted some spring bulbs in our biggest flower bed under the dining room window. I don't have any before photos of the workshop, so I'll just explain what was done in each after photo.

 Alton created a shelf out of some scrap wood and a couple of brackets we removed from inside the house when we first moved in.

 The pegboard and workbench were actually already in there. I just didn't post it when it was done way long ago. My bad.

 General organizing on this side of the room. Created another shelf too.

 He fashioned that wall hook into an over-the-door hook to hold his gear for his newest hobby:

He actually did some more organizing in there since I took these photos. The work bench is a lot less cluttered.

There's not much to see as far as the bulb planting goes, but in the couple of weeks since I first planted them, a few daffodils have begun to shoot up. (As well as a few weeds, unfortunately.)

We also recently received more free stuff (!) from my aunt. Now we have both a sitting and dining area for the patio.

And this is obviously not a DIY project, but we had our roof replaced about a month ago for almost nothing. Yay insurance! Here is the roof before:

And after:

We opted for grey architectural shingles. I think it looks good. And you can see the shade in the door, which was mentioned in the last post. I think that looks good too. :)

Privacy

So, with the holidays in full force (and taking most of our money) we haven't done very many projects around here lately with the exception of working on our front door. When we moved in, the front door had some sort of painted-on fake stained glass going on, which wasn't horrible but also was not our style and didn't go with the colors that we eventually want in the living room. I don't have a "before" photo because Alton removed the fake stained glass one day while I wasn't here. This is the best I've got:

You can see the design a bit although it is in a shadow. Anyway, here is the door after Alton got to it:

 You can see the back of my awesome homemade ornament wreath. :)

After he removed the "stained glass" we decided to try to "frost" the windows with contact paper. I found a couple of online tutorials, but when we tried it the results were not so great. I think the problem was that in both of the tutorials I found they cut out a pattern of small pieces so there wasn't as much of a surface area to smooth out. We wanted to frost the whole pane and when we tried to smooth out the contact paper we ended up with streaks and bubbles. It's hard to see in these photos, but it was not pretty. Oh well, a roll of contact paper is like $7.00. On to plan B!

Plan B was ordering a white roman shade online. I was able to find one for about $25.00 on clearance at JCPenny. 

Ta-da! Privacy!

It was really nice to get that shade put up after living with a towel over the door for a temporary curtain for about a month. This is much better.

Harley also decided to help us get started on another project, although it is one that we did not intend to tackle for a while:

While we were out, he found a loose bit of carpet near the threshold into the master bedroom and went to town. We would love to replace all of the flooring in the house anyway, but we have nowhere near enough money to do it, so unfortunately the carpet will probably look like this for a while...

Bad dog.

Q: What project did we start four months ago that was just completed?

A: Painting the patio railing.

We went for four months with half of the railing & the gates only being primed. We had good weather over the Labor Day weekend (I know, delayed post. Sorry.) and we got it all done then along with a bonus project I've had my eye on since moving day.

I'm so proud of that railing. Even if it does not do its primary job of keeping chickens off of the patio...

We need to buy or borrow a pressure washer and go over pretty much the whole outside of the house, but the metal patio roof is definitely one of the places that needs it most. We also plan to plant hydrangea bushes in the flower beds on either side of the stairs and we are thinking about removing one step leading to the patio in the hopes that perhaps that will deter the chickens from roosting on the patio railing.

The bonus project that got done over the Labor Day weekend along with the railing was the mailbox. When we moved in the mailbox was pretty ugly:

We kept the post, bought a $7 plain metal mailbox, and used some paint and primer we already had to paint the post and the numbers. For an almost free project, I think it made a huge difference:

A couple of numbers were blurred out for privacy.

I am in love with my new mailbox.

P.S. I just realized that I have never posted any photos of our dog, Harley on here. We got him in July. Shame on me. Here he is:

This is the day we got him:

 This was a few days ago:

They grow up so fast...

Breakfast is Covered for a While

I forgot to mention yesterday that we also bought a new knob for the hall bathroom to replace the blue one and to go with our more modern theme. Here it is:

We also found clear drawer pulls to go with the clear acrylic knobs we purchased for the master bathroom. I looked around online and couldn't find any clear drawer pulls for less than about $25 each. The thought of spending $75 on three little drawer pulls was rather upsetting but I had more or less resigned myself to it when I happened to spot an endcap at Lowes with their specialty knobs and pulls. This was after several trips to multiple locations of both Home Depot and Lowes trying to get the right size and amount of hinges for all the doors and cabinets. You would really think I would have noticed them before, but while frantically rushing down the hinge aisle 10 minutes before closing, I saw them. The Hallelujah Chorus played in my head when I saw that they were less than half the price of the online ones and we managed to snag them and the hinges we needed before the store closed. Yay!

I think the clear hardware will look very snazzy once we fill in the old knob holes and paint the cabinets. Those glorious drawer pulls are the first thing I see when I step into the bathroom these days. I am in love with them.

Another minor project I tackled Friday was unpacking all of our art/picture frames which we've been putting off until the house is painted. I just couldn't stand it any longer so I unpacked everything and arranged the built ins in the living room, which until Friday were pretty much books on one side and nothing on the other. Here is the finished arrangement. Alton and I both reacted by saying that it looks more like people live here now. That's always a good thing to have going on in your house!

Another thing I'm in love with besides my drawer pulls are my Jonathan Adler cat bookends. My mom bought them for me at Barnes and Noble for a housewarming gift. They are on the right above the TV.



We actually are waiting until the walls are painted before hanging up our art, which is why some of it is currently just chilling on the mantle. I painted the orange Matisse copy and the other two are originals by my friend Beth.

And in other news, the chickens have all started laying eggs now! RZR has been laying for a few weeks now and the other two caught up a few days ago.

Our egg holder is overflowing! Aren't Rickshaw's green eggs so cool??



Hardware

We finally got rid of all the ugly, brassy gold hardware in the house! It took a while to get every single hinge and doorknob replaced, but we now have a house full of brushed nickel hardware.



Before:

 After:

 In progress:

 After:

We also replaced all the fleur de lis knobs and pulls in the kitchen with brushed nickel knobs and cup pulls. We are still working on getting all the hinges replaced in there.

Before:

After:

Replacing hardware isn't an expensive project, but it makes a huge impact and really helps update the whole house.