Nice to See You

Long time, no blog. Between Facebook and Pinterest, my computer time has been sucked up. But I had a couple of things I wanted to show off.

I've had a needlepoint notebook kit for years. Last Sunday, it called to me from the craft closet. I happily stitched away while watching a DVR marathon of Smash and House of Lies.



The kit came with everything you need to make a gussied up notebook. Thank goodness it came with instructions. I haven't done needlepoint in quite a while.

After about 3 hours I had this piece.



Which you then insert into the notebook's window...



And you get a finished project.



A fun and easy lazy Sunday project. But now it's almost too nice to use. Isn't that always the way.

You might remember that we had a dining room table custom made to fit our space perfectly. It's beautiful. However, we had it made too tall for normal dining room tables. But it's a little too short for counter height chairs. Kinda silly, right? So we've been using cheap folding chairs that were really too short for a couple of years now. They were so short we had to put Grandma on a phone book for Thanksgiving! Yesterday, Brian brought home our new "real" chairs. They are about an inch too tall. So eventually we'll have to cut the legs down. But they look 1,000 times better than the cheap folding chairs did.



It's very masculine. The rest of the room will have to be a little softer so that it balances out.



I should have cleared the table off before I took pictures.



Here's a single chair. The leather is actually really dark brown. And somehow the wood matches our table perfectly. Now we just have to have a dinner party to show them off!

New Landscaping

When we moved into this house, the yard on the north side was a jungle. You couldn't access that area without boots and a machete.



See? And this is early Spring. In high summer, it was a wall of green.



The stepping stones were messed up and the sprinkler system valves were an eyesore. We have a small yard and didn't want to waste this much valuable space.

About 6 months ago, we pulled everything out. Well, we hired someone to pull everything out leaving a blank space to design a new patio and path. While we were at it, the front garden had become completely overgrown. So we cleared that out too. The house went from this...



to this...



What a difference! You could actually see the house. I felt bad that we took out the big tree in front. But it was really messy and the roots were starting the shift the driveway, so it had to go.

Today, the landscapers finished the job. Here's the new front of our house.



There's a whole new garden!



Now you don't have to walk up the driveway to get to our front door.



Then, the path curves around to the side gate.





Through the gate we added a path to a patio extension. They were even able to hide those hideous sprinkler valves!



The plants will eventually fill in and up. Plus, there are already lots of bees visiting the new flowers!



What a huge change! Usable space!



You can see where the concrete meets the pavers. Eventually we'd like to tile the old concrete patio and the front porch to look a little more cohesive. (Although, power washing made a HUGE difference!) Every project we do on the house makes me want to do 15 more things. We still need a new gate and now I'd like to extend the paver path around the entire house. Someday. Someday.



We will be outside a LOT more this summer now that we have so much more space.

The Knitting Nook

I've seen a couple of blog posts dedicated to this pouf from CB2; an offshoot of Crate and Barrel. I saw it so many times and it really started to grow on me.



Here she is! While I love the coral color, I went with the grey. I think it looks great next to my little knitting chair.



The only thing I'm not loving is that I thought it was a little bigger. Or at least, taller. I was counting on it to be more of a side table. But it's a little too short. The pouf adds a little whimsy to one of my favorite places in the house to knit, read, or work on my computer. And so far, the kitties aren't that interested.



I also finally hung some pictures. Kind of amazing how much more "lived in" a room looks with a few accessories and some pictures on the wall. Slowly, the house continues to come together.

House-aversary

1 year ago today, we moved into our first house. So many good times have already been had here. And there are so many more to come!

We bought a house that didn't NEED a lot of work. But it sure has been a lot of work. Wallpaper, paint, new fences... I didn't know what fun those things could be. And how much more there is to go!

As you well know, I'm enjoying the garden the most. And I've been searching high and low for the perfect gnome. I found him yesterday and thought it an appropriate anniversary gift to me!



We're still working on his name. There's a long list going on facebook.

I also grabbed these little mushroom stakes because they are just so cute.



Once the rain stops, we'll have to find the perfect place in the garden for him.

The Start of the Garden 2010

It's been raining cats and dogs for about 10 days. And everyday I have off and planned to work outside, it would rain. Today was finally only cloudy. So I got to work.



Well, really I started to plan a few weeks ago. Ordered seeds online from Seed Saver's Exchange.



Rain Boots were purchased.



Plans and drawings are started. Because, after living here about a year, we have realized that the garden needs a LOT of work for it to be the outdoor space we really want. We're getting a new back fence in a couple of weeks.



See? We need a new fence. And I can't rip out the trees that the fence is leaning on until the fence is fixed.

So I started small today.



Planted a new little lavender.



Trimmed the tree back. I should have taken a before picture. Trimming involved me and a bevy of tools on a ladder. It filled up the "yard waste" bin which signals the end of working outside for today.

But hopefully, this will be a very fruitful season.

The Saga of the Red Kitchen

When we bought this house, I knew one of the first things we would do was pull the wallpaper off the kitchen wall and paint. Little did I know the trials and tortures this would entail.

A week or two after moving in March, I started scrapping. And scrapping. And scrapping. I used fabric softener, Dif gel, a fancy paper scoring tool, and a razor blade. NOTHING worked. And I managed to chunk the dry wall in the process. Yes, the paper was applied directly to the dry wall. UGH!



The wallpaper that refused to come off.


Then, someone at work suggested renting a steamer. Apparently you can rent them at home improvement stores for about $50 a day. Well, for $100 you can buy one and amazon will bring it to me. Say hello to my little friend!



That sucker worked like a charm. It was messy, steamy, and still took 8 hours but the wallpaper finally came off. And with much less wall damage. I figured it was worth buying since I still have 2 bathrooms with wallpaper of doom to pull out.



Safety first, kids!



Finally, the wallpaper was GONE!

Once a color was chosen, painting began...



It looked REALLY BAD. I mean this is crapping my pants, thinking about plan B kind of bad.



Oh my goodness! What did we do???? But facebook friends reassured me... just keep painting... And I did.

After 6 coats, the color really became what I wanted. A nice, rich, velvety red that makes the room feel warm and cozy.







Shoot! I should have moved the ladder!



The color is off in this one. But you get the idea.

So here we have it... Before...



and After....





Family Room before...



and after...



The patio furniture finally made it outside.



Slowly but surely, the house is coming together.

In Which Brian Buys a Grill

In lieu of a trip to Sock Summit this weekend, I'm basking in the glory of my new exhaust manifold and catalytic converter. I hope my sarcasm is coming through here. I'm very annoyed that my weekend trip was put on hold. And the car still needs a new transmission. Unfortunately, we're in the unenviable position of having a Honda Civic that just NEVER stops. It has 175,000 miles and this is literally the first time the "check engine" light has come on. I can't complain but we have to start thinking if putting money into the car is worth it. On one hand, we can't buy a comparable car for what the car is technically worth. But we're headed to putting more into the car than we'll get out. For now, I we're fixing it. But in a year or two, I'll have to look for a new car. sigh....

But that's not what this post is about... Brian bought a grill.

Well, really it's more than a grill. It's a ceramic refractory cooker. If you're interested it's a Komodo Kamado. And it's a beast. Watch the Today Show segment.

It arrived bright and early this morning in a big truck.



I've never received anything in a crate before. Yikes!!!



Brian couldn't wait to bust into the crate.



The guys who makes these is Art Linkletter's grandson, Dennis. He lives in Indonesia. That's where our (not so) little guy came from.



Here's where is gets really interesting... We have to move this around our house, through the garden to get to our patio.



Not sure we're ready for this. There were lots and lots of theories of how to do this. It's on wheels but there's no solid walkway from the garage to the patio. We have silly little stepping stones that are of no help at all in this situation. So we settled on wheeling it over the garden on boards.



At 500 pounds, Brian and I got a workout getting this far. But we didn't count on the uneven terrain and all of the boards breaking. (On a side note, there was much snail carnage!!) At this point we were out of cheap plywood and had to take a quick trip to OSH. A very grumpy Nell and a very optimistic Brian returned with 4 particle boards that seemed thick enough to roll the final 30 feet.



At the lip of the patio, we were almost stuck again.



But a final push got us to the concrete patio. (Is it just me or does it look like an alien robot???)



We made it!!!! Brian's so proud.



A moment of silence please for all the lumbar that was sacrificed today...



When we put it where we wanted it, Brian said, "if we sell this house, the cooker comes with it."



Good. Because rolling that through the garden was not fun. I'm told I will be paid back in pulled pork which makes my backache totally worth it. Tomorrow, we go to Costco for MEAT. Look out!