Paint this, sew that

weekend off

I took this weekend off from work.  I don't technically "work" on the weekends, but I use the option of staying up later to get ahead on lectures for the next week.  I decided that could all wait this weekend.  The end of the semester is almost here so things are calming down a BIT and I could afford to take a couple days to just hang out with my fam fam and do work around the house.  Speaking of work around the house...

I still need ot put another coat on the door and the trim, but here's our front door for now.  I think she's so pretty in her new red outfit, amiright?  Can't wait to put the new door hardware on there and call it done, but I'm thrilled with the transformation in just a couple days.  I'm working on the garage door, too, but that's no fun so I'm not going to show any pictures.

 

This weather is all sorts of gorgeous so we got lots of plants this weekend in the ground and the tree guys are coming out tomorrow to pretty up the trees on our lot.  Those things are tall and I hate the ladder.  So there.

springtime madness

Is it just our house, or does everyone go absolutely bananas as soon as the weather is nice?  We've been putting up a new retaining wall in the backyard, wrapping up projects on the inside of the house, sprucing up the entry way (helllloooooo red door!), and buying plants like there is no tomorrow.  Whoever said the weekends were for relaxing has clearly never lived in Texas where springtime (=safe time to be outside and not get either frostbite or heat stroke) only lasts a couple weeks.   We inherited a new patio set so I am hoping as soon as summer comes, we can light those mosquito-repelling candles and sip some wine on the back porch.  You know, in that spare time that will hopefully exist..

Those are all the reject paint samples for our door.  I'm waiting on new hardware (we have it, just don't know how to install it!) before putting a final after picture up.  It looks all sorts of fabulous though....too bad you can't see our door from the road!

 

Quirky

I've been described as "quirky" dozens of times throughout my life.  I've never thought it an insult, it just means I march to the beat of my own drum.  I say what's on my mind, I don't apologize for what makes me happy, and I find joy in the most simplistic things (hello button collection).  It is something I have found hard to incorporate into our home decor, however.  We live in a cookie cutter area.  While not all the houses look the same, they seem to all have the same furniture, same huge Texas stars over the garage, and same ceramic pottery adorning their gardens. 

Maybe it's because we live in a small town, maybe it's because we are several decades younger than all the other residents, or maybe it's because I prefer to march to the beat of my own drum.  Whatever it is, it's a struggle I've been having as I've been working on the house lately.  I haven't been able to find anything local to work in several areas of the house and have been trying to find ways to make what I can. 

I bought this fabric a few weeks back.  It was on backorder.  I was GIDDY to say the least when it showed up at my door maybe a week after I ordered it.  It reminds me of little alien fingers and it makes me so so so happy that I wanted it to be right where I could see it when I woke up in the morning and before I fell asleep at night.

The lighting's not so great in there, but you get the idea.  I really love them.  It took me about an hour to make the pair of panels that are helping our house go in more of the direction that I'm comfortable with.  I love our house so much.  It reminds me of the house I grew up in in California (even though it looks NOTHING like it- it just gives the same feeling, if that makes sense). 

I want our home to feel like us, not like what's available or on sale at the store.   It may take longer to get it to a "finished" point, but I'm ok with that.  I'm enjoying this little journey of ours.

 

Hibernation

So I'm back from hibernation...kinda.  The card I use to pay for this old bloggity blog expired and I just now got around to updating it, hence the hiatus.  Honestly though, I was really debating whether or not to continue with this or not.  I felt like while I was updating, nothing was ever done quickly enough or what I was doing didn't make our house look as great as I had thought it would.  It was just too much.  I questioned if I wanted to put anything out there (even though I know I only have maybe five regular readers at this point) or if I just wanted to make updates wo make us happy and keep them to ourselves. 

We have done a TON of work since I last posted.  We have a closet (sans doors), we've painted (yet again!), we've added moulding in the kitchen, we've been working on the yard all weekend...we have done SO much.  And I think I've enjoyed just going with the flow instead of having to think about the timing of it all and if the lighting would be right in those rooms so I could get good progress shots.  Then I decided: who cares?  We are working on a house we love and doing improvements we have been putting off for the past howevermany years it's taken me to wrap up that masters degree of mine.  So I don't care if I'm neve featured in another blog again or if I have 100s of views a day.  I'm going to just post what I do, when I have the time and go from there.

So, I guess you can expect me to continue posting, but there will be no rhyme or reason to it (like there ever was!). 

 

Thinking of 13 things for (20)13..

13 in (20)13

I got this idea from another blog I've been following (Casa de Lewis) and I really love the idea more than a traditional resolutions list.  I'm picking 13 things I either want to do or work on in this next year now that I actually have time to focus on something other than school and the baby.  So I'm still ironing it out, but I will share it as soon as I figure it all out. 

In the meantime...I felt like I should show you a "where we are now" picture of the kitchen and what it looked like when we walked through...

That's not really a true "now" picture because we actually went ahead and added some corner moulding to the bulk head yesterday. .. and we are finally switching out the sink today :)  And by "we" I mean my dad is coming over to help my husband switch it out while I'm at work this morning.  So, YES, work is getting done!  Can you see the light I blogged about last time?  Oh I love love love it.  The light over the sink is newish, too, and I'm hoping my dad will be able to figure out how to get the canopy to stay up since the box was put in much further than the screws for the canopy would allow.

Anyways....yeah, I have a lot to blog about in the next few weeks :)  But blogging keeps me on top of projects, so it will be happening!

I hope everyone had a fun and safe new years eve.  I got so tired thinknig about all that happened last year that I fell asleep at 10:30....womp womp.  Yeah, I'm a party animal ;)