Outside work is way better in October!

So ... we've been getting projects done around here again.  And, since it has been a long weekend and I'm tired, I'll just show you.

Stuff you get to see:

• Outdoor porch/lattice painted.
• New shutters hung.
• Back doors painted.
• Kitchen lights updated.

The porch is painted. 
3 weekends.  
1st weekend: stripped, sanded, primed (x2) the porch; did some concrete touch-up work
2nd weekend: painted porch (x2), painted front lattice around porch
3rd weekend: painted lattice in front of house, and repainted lattice around porch; 2nd concrete touch-up work.

Still to do:

1. Paint the door
2. Paint the pillars
3. Paint side of stairs (because the paint on the concrete/bricks you see in the pictures was not painted by me!)
4. Finish concrete touch-up
5.  Paint the lattice on either side of the porch (pieces to keep people from falling off the porch)
6. New furniture, house numbers, etc.

Hopefully next weekend will also be nice out so I can completely finish this list before winter!

Also, the back hallway doors are now black.  It's a high-gloss gel paint, and I thought I'd love it ... but I'm only so-so on it.  But, it's growing on me, and I've got too many other projects to do.  This one is already checked off the list, so it's just going to stay checked off the list.

We also updated all of the under-cabinet lights in the kitchen, thus making use of a wall switch that has been dead since we moved in.  And, these lights look good, but mostly I just like that the switch is finally doing something!

And, as a final treat ... we went back to Natural Bridge State Park in KY this weekend.  We were hoping the leaves would have changed a bit more, but the weather has been wacky, and there are a lot of evergreens; so not as vibrant of colors as we hoped, but still a great day trip!

Hi there.

Long time, no see.

We haven't been up to much house-wise, so I haven't been on here much.  But, we did have a great spring for plants; and we did get a little ahead of the outdoor work already this year, so we thought we'd share some pictures.

The winter was so mild, that I ended up planting tulips in January!  And, I wasn't sure if they would die, or grow, or what would happen, but they all bloomed and looked amazing!

(Also, on a side note, we have bird 'friends' again, so my hanging baskets look like crap.  I will not be hanging any flower baskets again after these birds leave.  period.)

We planted grass on the back yard hill side of our yard.  It has grown in pretty nicely for the first year.

Then, we added a vegetable garden to the patch next to the driveway.  We thought we'd just plant some bushes, but it was just such a primo spot for vegetables - almost all full sun throughout the day, and we were able to craft a pretty genius watering system.  And while the weeds are out of control and hard to keep up with (since we've had about the best season ever for everything outdoors to grow!), we are starting to get some pretty impressive vegetables.  And they taste great!

And finally, on a non-house note ... we had a trip to see Mumford & Sons in concert cancelled, so we went and bought bikes.  (I mean, we've been thinking about this for a while, but the financial timing of the cancelled trip just was too perfect to pass up on this purchase!)  They are great bikes, and we've been riding them all over the neighborhood!  We even went to get gourmet Sweet P's popsicles today, which were a great treat in this 90+ degree weather!

Truth.

It's true that you're never done with a house ... but our original to-do list, written when we moved into this house, is now limited to about 30 things.  And, that's a good feeling.

In two years, we've managed to touch pretty much change every surface in and outside of this house.  We've weeded and landscaped, refinished & resurfaced some flooring, gutted bathrooms, updated piping, replaced roofing, stripped wallpaper, and now we can finally say that we've painted almost every inch of walls in this house!  (Only the closets and trim are left ... Although that's not to say one of the rooms won't be repainted in the near future.  I've changed my mind about the color of just one room since picking these original colors ... but more on that in a later post.  It's happening soon; I've already bought the paint!)

The hallway is finally DONE.  I've painted the nook and added the coat hooks.  There are guest hooks on the panel we added down the hallway as well.  The walls are painted and trim has been added, updated, and painted!
I really like it.
I like that we have a place for coats now.
I like that the warm wood makes it feel like more than just a hallway.
I like that helps tie the house together to feel like a coherent home vs. The original and The addition.

We also inherited a bed from my parents.  My mom found this bed is some rough shape; and back in the day, spend a chunk of time restoring it from a rusty metal horror to a newly refinished state.  And, while she had it painted green to match my brother's old room; we primed it and repainted it an oil-rubbed bronze to take on more of an original metal look.  And, it looks good.

I am not a fan of painted brick.  I think that it almost always looks better as original brick; even if it's not the traditional red brick.  (I feel this way about nice wood paneling also.)  We tried to strip the paint off of the brick fireplace when we fist moved it.  It did not work well; and with all of the other projects we had mounting up at that time, we decided that we couldn't spend the energy on that one.  I've always been kind of bummed about it.  So, I've been racking my brain as to what we could do to make it better, when I came across some pictures on Pinterest and decided to do this:

Just for reference, this was before:

Now, after ...

It looks amazing.  The trim still needs some caulk, and we're going to add trim to the bottom brick area too - so it all matches.  But, it really ties the fireplace into the room and makes the mantel and the stuff on the mantel pop.  And we've got some ideas in store for the brick fireplace, that will probably help that look so much better too ... but more on that when/if we get around to completing that project!

On a side note ... I bought hundreds of tulip bulbs back in October to plant in the front gardens.  But, the weather was so crazy here through December that I never got a chance to plant.  It would average 35 one week and 60 the next.  We were afraid if we planted they would start to grow and all die.  So, I waited and waited ... and one warm Saturday in January I was able to dig up the whole front garden and plant those bulbs!  Who would have thought ... but it seemed perfect.  The week after I planted it got cold again, they got some cool weather and water before the freeze came and now no squirrels can get them.  We'll see what pops up in April ... but here's to hoping! :)