best monday ever.

this is what i'm doing today:

i know, it's not very exciting.
but if you're an organizational freak who's genius husband just created 20 feet by 10 feet of storage space in a house without any? well, then you're pretty darn excited.

but perhaps organizing is not quite as exciting as picking up my new (to me) mazda cx9! TONIGHT.

so if you're on the roads, you'd better look out.
i don't need no swagger wagon to be able to strut :)

guilty

okay, so old habits die hard.
and despite humid 89 degree weather...

yes, i was in the garden weeding.
and yes, i did have to use a pick axe to get the last of the weeds up.
and yes, my back is very sore and tired.

and yes, i am still aware that i'm pregnant.
so yes, i did in fact lay down after i finished so i'll be able to walk later.

AND
yes, i'm guilty. 
BUT
i had help this time!

dave's parents and sister are in visiting from indiana, and they like to help with projects (so you can imagine why i love them so much).

dave and his dad have almost finished painting the garage doors black (from white). the shutters used to be white, and we did those over in black last year, and the doors were white, and are now a fabulous puke-y yellow, and now? the garage doors will be finished to complete a front of the house face-lift.

next up: the house trim needs a new coat of white, and the house will get a grey/blue/slate paint update. it gets a lot of full morning fun, so it's faded a lot in the 4 years we've been here. i need to find just the right shade, though- not too light, and not too blue. i'm open for suggestions :) 

dave transplanted this arborvitae from it's random spot on the other side of the garden to here to the front left side of the house (where it can hide the propane tank and canoe until we put a fence up. don't get me started on my desires for a fence, though...)

and look what i found hiding under, i don't know, eight inches of tall grass and a thicket of crawling weeds:
OUR GARDEN!
we weren't actually going to do a garden this year, but when my friend deanna had extra plants that she didn't have room for? well, i couldn't say no to that!

it's actually kind of fun, because some of the plants are mystery plants, so eventually, we'll get to find out what they are! i do know we have tomatoes, roma cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, zucchini, basil, strawberries, and...maybe squash?

later today and tomorrow while i'm at work we'll also finish installing an attic staircase in the landing upstairs. our 163 year old home, though lovely, has no storage. we have a dirt basement and not even CLOSE to enough closets, so the attic, albeit small, if accessible (and not via a 2x2 portal in our bedroom), will add a lot of value to this old house. and make more room in the garage again, so maybe, just maybe, i'll be able to park my car in there before winter :)

what can i say?
i love life in the projects.

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bedroom inspiration

so this photo is the the inspiration the future of our bedroom. who knows if or when. i just love to dream :)

i'd love to switch out the bedding to something some subtle, maybe a white with some texture, or some sort of neutral. (truth is, white scares me thinking about the little nosies and toesies in my bed!)

see the yellow in that frame in the previous photo? i'm thinking that yellow alll over the nightstand(s) below, and alllll over a vintage bureau my parents have that is the same shape. with glass knobs?! ugh, i'm getting anxious even thinking about how good it'll look.

this is an ikea bed frame...that's $99. it might as well be free! love it.

and this bad boy at the end of that fabulous bed?

what do you think??

bedroom befores

i love before and afters. i have a lot of before and after drafts up my sleeve, but more often than not, projects aren't quite finished around here, and i don't really want to post almost-after pictures. that's way lame. but if i don't, i'll never have anything to show you because nearly every room is at work in progress somehow. so i guess i'll have to be a little lame :)
these are the before pictures of our bedroom. this room i hated more than i could ever explain for a few reasons:a) the paint colors, though not terrible, clashed with our bedroom set. BADLY.b) whoever painted it was likely blind. what a mess. AWFUL.c) someone was trying to get creative with the two-tone, but didn't finish the trim work and so it mostly looked ric-rac. ugh.d) the wallpaper on the ceiling (which is the only unfinished part now) really had to come down. it was so ugly and elias enjoyed peeling it off while he'd lay with us in bed. awesome.e) the list goes on. and on.
i'll post the after pictures of the bedroom in the following post and soon i'll reveal the plans we have for it in the months to come. if you're lucky, maybe i'll give you a hint...



























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bedroom afters

the bedroom: after

i have to admit i'm quite pleased with how this room turned out. then again, anything is an upgrade from the hot mess it was.

this first photo is of one of my favorite little details. it's actually a hook for a jacket, but i'm using it as a tie-back. i bought it at michaels (a craft store) for 70% off thinking i'd use it for the foyer, but when i realized there's no place in there i want random things hanging, i decided to use it to sweep my too long curtains to the side.

the paint is a custom mix very close to behr's "english channel" (ul230-2). i adore it. the trim is a creme color called bare (oc-98) by benjamin moore. i'm going to switch the window shutters for the white ones i had put in the bathroom since now there is no more brown trim. hallelujah!

this will eventually go on the slanted wall where we took off the old wallpaper. as soon as i'm not to nervous that i'm going to screw it up royally. eek. wallpaper scares me.

ta-da!

tomorrow's post will be a sneak peek of what i have in store for the bedroom :)

my crayon box

Okay, let's talk paint some more, since I love paint :)

In the past, I've never been a bold color girl. Maybe in handbags or shoes, but never on say, walls. But this house is different. We live in a 1847 Cape, and traditionally people stick with airy, beachy, soft Cape colors in a house such as ours. But I found this amazing green when we were re-doing the foyer that threw me straight over the edge into bold and saturated and fabulous...

My predicament with the main floor, however, is this: It's currently running the risk of becoming a Crayola crayon box. I'll elaborate...

Here is the foyer- deep rich mossy pukey green. My very favorite paint choice ever (Benjamin Moore's avocado):

That armoire, by the way, was $20 on Craigslist. I just painted it :) Oh yeah, deals on wheels...

A quick family pic :)

Off the foyer is a bright red bathroom, which was red when we moved in and I actually like:

When you walk through the foyer, and into the kitchen, you are greeted by Benjamin Moore's "ol' blue eyes" which is really bright and fabulous, and works because there isn't much wall space at all in the kitchen.

And off the kitchen is the dining room, which as you know, I've felt tempted to paint again, given its school bus yellow-orange condition. Still undecided on the paint here, and still not convinced I want to go pumpkin, though I likely will just to steer away from the "crayon box" syndrome.

I mean, this yellow, Valspar's "morning sunrise"...is electric, boogie oogie.

Off the kitchen is the kids toy room/my office, and it's yet to be painted because the windows need to be replaced (we'd really like to blow the whole thing off and make a bigger addition to expand the kitchen and give us a little bit of basement that's not dirt, but that's not in the cards for now). This room is a pale pale blue grey, and I'm thinking of painting it a warm darker tan. Any thoughts?

Lastly is the living room. As you can see, we tore the ceiling down (a while ago now) to see if the beams underneath were nice enough to expose...but not so much, unfortunately. Eventually, rough pine board will replace the non-ceiling and that sad excuse for a built in will get ripped down, too. My original thought for this room was to paint it red. But now I'm shying away from red and moving towards the blue in the pillows below. A steely blue. Again, thoughts?

The curtains:

i thought that I had found the same paint that was on the walls when I did some patch work. Apparentlyyy not.

So c'mon, all my design/paint/interior decorating girls (you know who you are)...I need some feedback so I can get to work!

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look familiar?

1. my house is not always clean (the fact that i have to even say that indicates that i may have some issues)

2. however, when it is in this unclean state, which is quite regularly, i want to crawl out of my skin or run away or freak out. for real.

3. it's impossible to keep a home clean when you have children who's chief aim and purpose is to mess it up, pee on it, and leave a literal trail of wreckage in their wake

4. i hate when people see my house messy because i simply can't have it that way. makes me anxious. but because i can't have you all thinking i'm june cleaver or some other psycho, i made this video (and proceeded to start 92339 loads of laundry while dave got his hazmat suit on to do the dishes. have i mentioned that my husband is amazing?).

check this out:

look familiar? (say yes, say yes...)

life in the (middle of a million) projects

i love projects. especially home improvement projects, these days.

our home was built in 1849, so it's pretty much what you'd call a work in progress. the thing about progress, however, is that you need to make some. and that proves to be hard with elias and piper sometimes.

i recently made some good progress around here, though. i painted the fireplace mantle, spackled the walls in the living room and office, and did some paint touch up.

AND i finished eli's room. finally! what were once maroon walls with dark and light wood trim are now cobalt blue and "appletini" walls (yes, kristen- the right choice, indeed) with crisp white trim. my anxious heart can rest now that the gloomy, drab maroon paint is off the ceiling and the trim (and yes, the walls). sweet victory over the darkness.

what you must know about our cute little cape is that the previous owners simply didn't pay attention to detail. and i couldn't pay any more attention to detail without becoming a lunatic. it's part of my very essence, i guess, and why editing was an obvious choice for me. but there are so many things that were done, well...poorly. which may be the understatement of the century. and those things drive me crazy. so one room at a time, we've re-painted, re-finished, re-done, re-plastered, re-everythinged.

and i really try not to start too many projects at once because dave is a busy guy, and i always need his help/skills for things. but there are certain projects that take all my will power not to start. like the "built-in" (if you can call it that) in our living room that looks like it was built by a blind man with no arms. it's ricka-rack. and i loathe it. but the walls behind it are unfinished and it will require much more time and effort than my kids afternoon nap can support. so for now, it's left in all it's ugliness for me to look at and be tormented by each day.

i like "re-ing" things. i like the process of making things look the way i envision, but it can be hard having multiple unfinished projects. especially because i'm a results person. i want it done yesterday, and well. but budgets and time-constraints don't always allow, so i wait in project purgatory...usually for a time when dave can help me finish what i started. i'm so lucky he's handy :)

so the other day, as were finishing up painting eli's room, i said to dave something like, "wow, it's so nice to have a project completed...totally done. i'm so excited" and after a few moments he quipped "does this mean tomorrow when i come home i'll find you with a sledgehammer and the built-in in pieces?"

he knows me all to well.

what can i say? i like living in the projects.