A House with Three Shutters

is like a horse with no name...

I don't even know what that means. All I know is that we look pretty awesome when we only have three shutters on our house. I love the screens too. They look fantastic.

You'll notice though that the two lights by the front door are changed and functioning! The other two are hung, but Jason still needs to run wire. I pulled out the mess of foliage that was on the side of the house. You can see where the sun has left a mark from the trellis. How do you fix that now?

For more front yard fun...I laid out the plan for the front yard here, and then updated progress here.

Curb Appeal?

No, that can't be right. It's more like Curb Upheaval. Yea, better.

We've run into a few "chinks in the armor" if you will. What I thought was a foolproof plan has turned a total mess. I first posted about some changes I wanted to make to the front yard in this post. I was really not planning on doing anything about it until spring, but I was running some ideas by Jason and he said, "let's do it." So off to Menards I went to pick up my paint (Pittsburgh Paints' Chalky Blue) and some new shutters (since they had a rebate which made them $13 a pair). Then Jason decides that we should probably get a paint sprayer since that would make the job so much easier. I didn't argue since painting all of the louvers on the shutters seemed like an awful task. Then I pick up some outdoor lights that I found on sale at the Depot. Now we're into running conduit since we are adding lights on the garage. So much for quick fixes...

Maybe I'll just list what we've accomplished.

• remove storm door - DONE (and I also managed to remove all of the weather stripping for the regular door too...oops)
• painted the shutters - DONE (and we've also started to peel all of the paint off of the shutters since it isn't paintable plastic...oops)
• removed one light fixture - DONE (but nothing is up in its place and there is now a hole in my front closet and on the front of our garage from running new wire...oops)
• removed one shutter - DONE (and there are three still up there that are the wrong color. the fourth was sent to a scrap metal guy that drove by...oops)

One step forward, fifty steps back! The shutter situation is really the most frustrating. The plastic ones from Menards were not a fantastic choice but they were the right price ($26 for 4) and ALMOST the right size. Now that we've found out that they can't be painted, and we can't put our old ones back up since one of them went to the curb, we are looking for other options. Shutters are definitely more expensive than I was anticipating!

We'll figure something out though...and it will be fabulous!

Putting On A Front

I resolve to actually do something about the front yard in the spring. I keep ripping the same things out and they keep coming back and I don't replace them with anything. But next year is going to be different. In the spring, we will have a little more curb appeal than we have now. I know. You and I will BOTH believe it when we see it!

Here's the right now:

And the plan...
-replace the pine tree with a tree that is a better scale (and look!)
-add some interest with foundation and accent plants (maybe some dense yew, euonymus, grasses?)
-plant grass where the old flower beds used to be
-new shutters
-paint the front door (I'd love to replace it, but I don't think it's in the budget for next year)
-replace light fixtures
-get nice house numbers
-address the post issue (one fell down and the other is just dumb)
-get rid of the rocks!!
-do something with the mailbox?

Oh how I want to add BIG things to this list (like tear off the entire front) but we'll just settle for a few changes next year. Baby steps!

Kara's Room

Welcome to Kara's room! I had the room planned out before the boys were moved out of it. Then we started moving furniture into the room and all the plans went out the window. Isn't that the way? The shape of the room made space planning a little tricky. We must have moved the crib a million times. I do love the way it came together though. I've included a source list at the end of the post.

There are still a few things that are in progress like lowering the curtains so they touch the floor and hanging the bow holder. I am planning on putting the bow holder above the changing table with some hooks for headbands and things, but I haven't found the right thing yet. I'm also debating whether or not to change the red ribbon to pink. I love the matryoshkas!

My first successful gallery wall. At least I think it is successful. It's also still a work in progress. I'd like to add a few more things, but I can't rush finding the perfect pieces. Maybe I'll add some vinyl on top, maybe.

A lovely little shot of three of my favorite children's books for girls...

My favorite art piece! I'm hoping to get either another one this size or two smaller ones at the Odeum Fall Festival this year. That way it will fill the wall a little better. Lynn Sanchelli of Painted Stuf is just a delight to work with! I first saw her work at the Odeum Fall Festival years ago. I always said that if I ever had a girl I would get this quote painted by her to hang in the nursery. I'm so glad I remembered! I emailed Lynn to see if she would create a pianting for me. She readily agreed and even asked for a color palette. I wanted to give her as much creative license as I could so I just sent a little picture of a fabric swatch. I just LOVE the finished product!

And just so we are keeping it real...we still need to do closet doors and put a door handle on her bedroom door. What girl doesn't want an air compressor in her closet? The table chandelier is another work in progress. I'm still considering if I should paint it and where I'm going to put it.

Sources:
Paint: Behr Hawaiian Shell
Ceiling fan and Tiffany glass light kit: Menards
Wall Vinyl: Etsy Shop - Cuma
Crib, Dresser and Changing Table: JCPenney
Curtains: Gypsy Ruffled Rod Pocket Sheer Panel from JCPenney
Eames Rocker: Gift
Laundry Cart: Country Door
Supergirl Picture: C2E2
Nauvoo Temple Watercolor: Mary Fielding Summerhays
Mary and Jesus: Kissing the Face of God by Morgan Weistling The girl who is modeling Mary was an investigator that Jason taught on his mission.
Matryoshka Print: Etsy gift
Kara Birth Details: Etsy gift
Other gallery wall items: various sources
Books: Flora and the Flamingo, My Name is Not Isabella, Just Being Audrey
She Believed She Could Painting: Custom Made by Lynn Sanchelli of Painted Stuf
Table Chandelier: local shop
Quilt: Details here
Air Compressor: Home Depot, haha!

For fun, here's what the room looked like when we moved in. We had basically stripped it and then started over. We also had to build a header for the closet so we could use regular closet doors instead of custom ones (not that we've ever installed closet doors, haha!). We did all of that back when we moved Clark into this room.

Clark's room was never officially finished, so I have very limited pictures of it. It was more finished than this picture, but we'll never have a record of it now. How sad! Now I know that I should take more pictures of the "almost done" too. Here's a picture of his hanging bed at least!

If you have any questions on other items just let me know and I'll see if I can find a link! Thanks for visiting!

First Floor Before & After!

Are you ready for a photo heavy post?! This post has been almost five years in the making! I can't even believe that. A lot of the work was finished just months after we moved in, but it's taken a while to get some finishing touches done and I didn't want to post after pictures with all those unfinishes....

So here is the main half of our first floor. What a trip it has been looking back at these before pictures - eek! Makes me wonder why we picked this house!

Entrance before:

Entrance after: We knocked out a part of the wall to open it up a little more.

And one from the other angle!

Front room before:

Front room after:

Full view before: This is a really awful shot, but it's the only one I have!

Full view after: We knocked out the main wall (load bearing, so we had to put up the beam), replaced all the flooring, installed recessed lighting, and basically changed everything...!

Dining room before:

Dining room after:

Front room corner before:

Front room corner after:

Front room corner before:

Front room corner after:

Kitchen before:

Kitchen after: We still have some things to do in the kitchen, but here it is so far.

And one more after just for good measure!

If you have any questions on specifics, let me know and I'll try to answer them...if I remember!

WIP 2.1 (Sounds like a computer program)

Such a busy week! We're trying to get some projects finished up before a dinner party tomorrow. It's nice to have a deadline to motivate sometimes. I'm sure Jason wouldn't agree with me, but really...it's the truth!

TIP: A few weeks ago I saw on a fellow Work in Progress blog post (sorry I can't remember who it is!) that the person had kept their projects in separate clear bins. While on one of our MANY Home Depot runs, I found some clear shoe boxes for $1.17 a piece. I picked up five and figure I shouldn't have more quilt projects than that at a time...we'll see! I love being able to pick up a bin and go - very handy! And please don't count the quilt projects in progress...

Completed Projects

•  none...

Projects in Progress

• Wee Woodland Flying Geese Quilt - finished blocks are up to 12! That means I actually made 6 blocks this week.

• Farmer's Wife Quilt Along (FW) - I've amassed quite a stash of fabric and can't wait to work on a few more blocks. None this week though.

• Queen's King Quilt - I've redesigned the quilt from my original thoughts, so I recut the strips accordingly. See the lovely clear bin?! Awesome.

• Hand Towel Apron - no progress
• 2012 Christmas Planner - no progress
• Basement Sewing Table - no progress
• Baby Quilt 1 - fabric and pattern picked out

• Baby Quilt 2 - fabric picked out

New Projects

• Bee Blocks for February arrived!

Stats

Completed: 0

New: 1

Total In Progress: 9

Home reno...baseboards, shoe moulding and the last stinkin' piece of door trim (which really isn't the last piece) are all stained and varnished. Both closet doors are stained and hung. Varnish to come soon. We're going to take them down and spray them all at the same time. Stairs, stained and one coat of poly. I'm wiping on the second coat right after this blog post. 

Here you can see both the closet doors and the stairs. Love blue tape. I think it should stay there. Don't you love the teeny shoe sitting in front of the closet door (love the littles). We're thinking of framing the closet in with trim as well. We'll see. Jason wants to change all of the door trim in the house now. I think I'll have to wait a little bit for that. I also bought a new rug for the front door as well as an area rug for the front room. This might be a good time to take some whole room shots...right before the party. We'll see!

And I'm happy to say that every piece of Christmas decor is down and put away. It took me WAAAAY too long this year! I've updated my curio with my regular goods. I just love all the little treasures it holds!

Linking up here...

WIP Wednesday 1/25

OK. I promise that I will not only blog about works in progress. But I still have to do this one. I do have another post I want to write, but it has a video and that just means it will take me forever to get it up here.

We've been very busy this week though! No time for blog posting!!


Completed Projects

•  none...

Projects in Progress

• Wee Woodland Flying Geese Quilt - made four more blocks and repieced (is that a word?) the two that I already made. I've been very good friends with my seam ripper lately, but I'm hoping that relationship is going to take a step back. I really like the way it is turning out. Can't wait to throw it across my sofa when it's all finished.

• Farmer's Wife Quilt Along (FW) - Still collecting fabric. Made the first block (for the third time) and also completed blocks 2 and 4. I think I might just skip 3 (Basket). I just don't like the basket block. And I guess I can do that....not make it. No one is forcing me, right? I can't wait to get more blocks done so I can really start to see the color wheel effect take shape.

• Queen's King Quilt - no progress
• Hand Towel Apron - no progress
• 2012 Christmas Planner - no progress
• Basement Sewing Table - no progress

New Projects

• Baby Quilts x2 (fabric arrived on Monday, woo hoo!!)

Stats

Completed: 0

New: 2

Total In Progress: 8

On the stairfront...More progress! The base is complete and we just purchased the rest of the moulding to form the top. I'm really excited about how they are turning out. We're going to turn Jason into a woodworker yet! I can't wait until I can put some stain on these puppies!

I've stained and varnished the rest of the quarter round, so we'll have completed baseboards soon! Woo hoo! And the second closet door is going to the finishing table today.

I did take a new picture of the stairs, but I didn't bother to clean up first! Don't they look wonderful serving their purpose...holding jackets?! The little angle things on the iron bars are not going to stay like that. There will be one at the bottom and one at the top. We won't screw them in until the stairs have all been stained and such. Jason will be making a cap for the top of the railing to get the right proportions. He's done such a great job on these!!

Linking up here...

WIP Wednesday 1/18

Another Work in Progress Wednesday...I'm loving these!

Completed Projects

•  Quilter's Dozen Bee Blocks

Projects in Progress

• Wee Woodland Flying Geese Quilt - made my first two blocks! The rest will be more colorful...I'm excited to see it come together.

• Farmer's Wife Quilt Along (FW) - Still collecting fabric. I made my first block. Twice. And will be ripping the seams out to make it a third time today.

• Queen's King Quilt - no progress
• Hand Towel Apron - no progress
• 2012 Christmas Planner - no progress
• Basement Sewing Table - no progress

Stats

Completed: 1

New: 0 (but the projects are just swimming in my head...eek!)

Total In Progress: 6

In home reno news...The stairs are coming along. I've also put the stain on the rest of the floor trim and quarter round. AND...I've stained one of the two closet doors that will be covering up that eyesore of a front closet! Hip, hip, hooray! I'll leave my stairs picture here since I don't have a new picture. I'll take a new one for next week, promise!

Linking up here...