The Sunroom has STUFF in it Now!

We've been hanging out in the sunroom nonstop since a few days ago when we finally got it all set up with furniture. I think we would have made it a priority sooner had we realized what a lovely room it was going to be.

The thing that bothers me most about our floor plan is how closed off the den is from the kitchen and the rest of the house. It feels like a big, lonely expedition to go hang out in there, so I never really do unless it's specifically to watch TV. But the sunroom connects to both the kitchen and the den. And it has a doorway and an open window into the kitchen, so the spaces feel very connected. So now it's like the open to the kitchen family room we never had!

Here's what's going on in there (in HERE, because I'm in the sunroom right now!)

Here's another shot, with a cozy family moment involving a jigsaw puzzle:

The leather couch is from my mom. She was replacing this one and offered to us awhile back. It sat in our garage for a long time, then we finally brought it in here, where it sat some more, sort of lonely and unused because it was pretty much the only thing in the room.

I knew I wanted wicker chairs in here and I sort of half-heartedly looked around for some for awhile. Ikea and Target had some for around $100 each that were....okay. Not quite as substantial as I wanted, really, but they would have been okay. And I could usually find some on Craigslist that I would need to spray paint. And spray painting wicker is not much fun.

Saturday I was doing one of my casual "let's see what they have on Craigslist RIGHT NOW!" things and came across the chairs you see up there. The guy said he had won the set with the chairs, loveseat, and coffee table, and was selling the chairs and coffee table (still new in the boxes) because he didn't have room for them. And they were pretty much exactly what I wanted, so here they are! We paid $150 for the two chairs and the table. I don't want the table, so I'm selling it to my mom for $25. The chairs are $200 each on Target's website, so I'm pretty pleased with our post table selling price of $62.50 each. They're much nicer than the $100 ones I was considering.

They were kind of a pain to put together:

But once we did, they looked great and are pretty comfy. And they came with nice neutral cushions that I can fancify with some colorful throw pillows:

The trunk that we're using for a coffee table used to be in our den. But I want a big ottoman with storage for in there, so this came in here.

And, lastly, we went ahead and moved the kitchen table in here, even though we don't have anything to replace it with yet. The sunroom's only a few steps from the kitchen, so it doesn't really matter. Once we have a kitchen table again, I want this one mostly to be for non-eating activities.

There is, of course, much left to do in here. We just bought the paint today and are hoping to start on that tomorrow. And we need to hem all the drop cloth curtains and buy blackout fabric to line them with. It's been fairly cool and/or cloudy so far this summer, but this room is pretty much unbearable for much of the day once we start getting 90 degree sunny days. I'm hoping curtains the block the morning light will fix that (and then we can open them back up in the afternoon when the sun's on the other side of the house).

And that overhead light/fan still doesn't work. So I'm sitting in the dark right now.  So those things are next on the list.

The Big House List, Part 1: Downstairs

Aww....summer. If you are us, summer means a couple of months of two adults being home. Summer is the best part of Dave's job. We love summer. Except that it's really, really hot. But you can't have everything.

Summer is, theoretically, a good time to knock out projects. Last summer, Dave built a fence. We thought that maybe Dave should build a deck this summer, but I think we're leaning toward leaving deck building to professionals. Building a deck would likely take all summer, and there are so.many.other things to do here. It would be nice to do more than one of them.

So, in the interest of motivating ourselves to get moving, and because we've never done it before, we're putting together a massive list of Things to Do. House things. It is, of course, all subject to (and likely to) change over time, but it's good to have a starting place. Or, well, a somewhere relatively near the beginning place, at any rate, since we've already done things before even making a list. We're pretty impressive that way. Not everyone can do things that aren't on a list.  Well. Maybe everyone can, actually. Anyway. List!

Foyer/Stairwell

*find big mirror to replace prints on squirrel wall

*finish squirrels

*replace plastic bins with nicer baskets

*sign over front door

*rug

*paint bannister

*something fun for stairs (runner? Paint somehow?)

*finish painting stairwell

Library

*more seating: I'd like to figure out a nice looking way to replace the lone plaid chair with a loveseat so that more people can read/hang out in here. Maybe move chess table more into the middle of the room, in front of the shelves, and put a loveseat against the window. or even two armchairs by the windows.

*paint piano and bench fun color

*make cushion for piano bench

*finish photo wall above piano

*find a way to hide Milo's amp (build box around it maybe?)

*bigger rug?

*deal with lighting situation in some way or another (overhead lights, ideally)

*organize books somehow or another 

....it was at this point in my list making, when I got through with not so short lists for two of the most "finished" spaces in my house, that I began to realize that we'll never, ever, ever be finished. Which is fine. 

Dining Room

*gallery wall next to kitchen

*curtains

*work on top of buffet....maybe a seasonally changed out vignette of some sort?

*find card catalog for storage

*not sure about table and chairs. Maybe a different style chairs eventually and/or painted a fun color

*rug?

Kitchen

Scenario one (unrealistic, maybe someday scenario)

*move refrigerator to another wall to make room for a big island with seating

*open up doorway wider between dining room and kitchen

*built in storage along wall where table is now?

*all of this moving appliances about would necessitate new counters

Scenario two (the one that we can actually work on)

*come up with fabulous command center organization plan

*paint

*build farmhouse table (current table out to sunroom)

*get chairs for said table (maybe mismatched wooden chairs all painted the same fun color? Aqua?)

*build cabinet for cleaning supplies/vacuum

*chalkboard wall near hallway

*new (matching) appliances. Ours are all mismatched and nearing or at the end of their life expectancies, so it's going to happen sooner or later. Probably very soon, now that our home warranty's expired ;)

Den

*sectional sofa

*paint fireplace

*paint walls

*something fun on wall around fireplace (wallpaper or stencil)

*new tv stand

*shelf behind sofa

*more pictures on walls

*rug

*make/find big ottoman with storage for coffee table

*lighting—preferably overhead

Hallway

(this is straight ahead of you as you come in the house....the den, kitchen, basement stairs, and half bath all go off of it)

*paint (or wallpaper; it might be a fun little space for wallpaper)

*pictures

*build storage for baby stuff/books

Hall Bath

....this is a really long, skinny room....tons and tons of wall space. I don't have a clear idea of what to do in here, but it needs to be....something.

*paint (I would love to wallpaper in here, but the walls are textured, so I don't think it would work without major prep work)

*replace fixtures

*towel rack

*replace lighting (vanity light and overhead)

*paint cabinets

*stuff on walls

Sunroom

It's looking a little better than this now.....more on that soon.

*paint

*coffee table (maybe the one from the den)

*move kitchen table out here for crafts/school/puzzles/eating/etc

*get some wicker chairs for more seating

*hem/cut curtains

*line curtains with blackout fabric

*do something fun with curtains (stencil?)

*replace cruddy windows

*replace or repair ceiling fan light

Also, whole floor stuff....we need to refinish the floors at some point and replace all the windows on the back of the house (the ones on the front are all new vinyl ones; on the back they're the original wood, single paned ones)

The lists are just as long as longer for the rooms that are more finished, oddly....I guess it's because I know exactly what else I want to do in those, whereas plans are still vague in the largely untouched rooms.

Next up the upstairs! And then the outdoor spaces...yard and porches.

We're Home!

Ha! I was so sneaky that maybe you didn't even know that I left. Unless you're on instagram. I am not usually one to pay as much attention as I should to internet safety, but I thought that, since figuring out our address is probably a kindergarten level internet sleuthing assignment, it might be better not to make a grand announcement about exactly which days we'd be gone (although, in this age of portable electronics, and what with our failure to stockpile gold bullion, there wasn't much left behind to steal anyway. Would Home Alone even be possible today?!)

Anyway, we went to Disney World!

I took lots of pictures (and when I got home, I played around with the filters on photoscape that I had never even noticed before. fun!)

Like of just stuff around WDW:

And of the kids of course:

And occasionally I'm even one of them (with my double chin. But, look! Dave has a double chin from that angle, too, and he's skinny!):

I have, in years past, written exhaustively detailed trip reports and posted them on disboards.com. I am not going to do that this year (though I might have to tell the story about how I got called a bitch right there in the Magic Kingdom, when I am so not. Honest! Non-confrontational to a fault--that is me. This woman had issues). But I am thinking of doing a summer Disney post series. Because I've been to Disney a lot of times, and I like to talk about it. Still  mulling over ideas, but maybe a two parter or so mini trip report and then some posts on stuff like traveling with a baby, on property v. off, bigger families and disney.....that sort of thing.

Not all the time, though! Dave doesn't go back to work until 8 weeks from today, so we're hoping to knock out a bunch of house projects. Cheap ones, especially, because we just gave all of our money to Disney.

Now I'm going to go catch up on all my blogs and find out what some of you guys were doing while I was gone!

Garage Sale Herb Garden + General Garden Updates

A two part post about things that are happening on the outside of my house.

So, as you might recall, awhile back we built a garden bed and planted some stuff in it. Back then it looked like this:

And now it looks like this:

This is why I keep attempting to grow things even though I am a somewhat reluctant gardener. All of that stuff (except the strawberries) came from teeny tiny seeds! (Well, and the strawberries, too, at some point in their history, I guess. But I didn't grow them from seed). The front there is carrots and one square of strawberries. And then beans along the side. In the back, by the netting, getting ready to climb up it, are watermelon and cantaloupe. It's hard to see them in this picture, but there are also purple tomato cages in there! I just planted the tomatoes. Very late, because square foot gardening guy says they're supposed to climb the netting, too. But we were all out of netting. So we were going to plant them elsewhere in the yard, with the cages. Only we didn't get around to it. So finally I was just like, "there's room in the bed; why don't I just stick the cages in there?" And I did. I hope not too late. It was still May, so I think we're good.

We just put the mulch down a few days ago, because it was looking like this around the edges:

Weedy!

And if there's one thing we have plenty of, it's mulch:

In fact, I'd like to go ahead and make the mulched area bigger, and maybe put up a little fence around it (it is not unheard of for us to look outside and notice a naughty little beagle sniffing around in the garden bed), with an eye toward future garden expansion. I envision maybe more raised beds, maybe some berry bushes, maybe a trellis with something or other growing up it, maybe a fun collection of planters, sort of like this one:

source

But for this year I'm just going to be happy with my one bed out there. And how could I be unhappy with it when it's so close to making way too many beans for us?

And already provides us with the occasional strawberry that we get to eat before something else does?

And part 2.

We planted basil in the garden bed, but it didn't make it. But I'd been thinking of doing a container herb garden closer to the house anyway. So when I came across a big metal tub the other week at a yard sale (for $5), it seemed meant to be.

We attempted to hammer some holes in it for drainage:

But that was too hard.

So Dave drilled holes in it instead:

And the drill bit only got stuck once:

(I thought about painting this, by the way (see: colorful container garden inspiration pic above), but I also like it metal colored, and, all things being equal, it's easier to not paint than to paint).

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, but we have a lot of mulch. So we filled up the bottom with that:

Then topped it off with potting soil:

And then we stuck the plants (that we bought at a local garden store) in there. I hope we spaced them out okay, so that they have plenty of room but will fill in and look pretty. I have no idea. I probably should have researched a bit more. Oh well.

Let's see if I can remember what's in there. Basil is the tall stuff. Some kind of mint. Lavender. Lemon grass. uhh, something else. I'm planning to make prettier markers for them than the ones they came with, so you'll find out then. It will be a big surprise!

Linking with:
Craftionary's Friday Link Party
Inspiration Gallery
The Shabby Nest's Frugal Friday
Tatertots and Jello's Weekend Wrap Up
Monday Funday
By Stephanie Lynn's Sunday Showcase Party
Home Stories A to Z's Tutorials and Tips
Summer Spruce Up Series

Things to do this Summer

There are millions of examples of such summer bucket lists out there, and they seem like a nice thing and all, so the kids and I decided to make one one day. "Let's make it pretty so that I can blog about it!" I said. We did our best. 

We all came up with ideas for awhile first. Then Ari wrote the ones that made the cut down on strips of paper:

....Gus held Abe:

...and here's the list we came up with:

It's easy to get caught up in being lazy and just hanging out over the summer (which we will still do plenty of)....or in doing house projects to the exclusion of anything else...so we're hoping this will remind us to stop and do some fun and different things some of the time. 

Ari's Room: All Finished! Rustic-Industrial Tween Room

All done! This one took us a little longer than the nursery, since Ari was already born and there was no built in deadline....but I'm really pleased with how it turned out. And, almost as even more importantly, Ari is, too.  And now for the long post with tour and sources for everything. (I guess it would be more exciting if I did things the opposite way: did a big room reveal first and then went back and did individual posts about all the projects. But I am not nearly patient enough for all that. Plus there'd be like 4 months where I didn't have anything to blog about. I saved a few little things for the big reveal, though).

So here is the room back before we moved in:

And here it is a few months ago, right before we started working on it (we'd painted--Ari picked the color--before moving in). The original plan was much less ambitious and mostly involved painting furniture. But we got a little carried away:

And now:

I'll go wall by wall. On that wall we have the plank headboard that we made and the vintage bedside table we painted.

I was supposed to make a no sew bed skirt for Ari's bed, but....I just couldn't. It made me very tired and sad to think about. It would not have been hard, just tedious, but I'm just burned out on making no sew stuff and I was ready to be finished in here. So I went to Target and bought a fitted sheet to put over the box spring instead. Now I have seven yards of gray fabric to find something to do with.

He's very into Portal 2 these days and found this poster online, of Portal 2 if it were a 70's sci-fi movie. I thought it was pretty cool, too, and we needed something for that wall, so I ordered it.

I talked about this grouping of pictures here.

Sources:
paint: Martha Stewart's Kerry Blue Terrier (Home Depot), trim is MS's Brook Trout
bedding and pillows: Ikea
lamp on wall next to bed: Ikea
Portal 2 poster: valvesoftware.com
poster frame: Hobby Lobby
paint on bedside table (and desk and dresser): Valspar High Speed Steel
knobs on bedside table (and desk): Hobby Lobby

Moving along:

My mom found the vintage fan at a yard sale. We're planning to rewire it so that he can actually use it.

We painted the dresser with a stylized subway map design and made the curtains and curtain rods.

Sources:
Curtain fabric: "gray canvas" from Fabric.com
Union Jack box: TJ Maxx
Bing Bong print: Ikea
silver ribba frames: Ikea
Tabouret chair from Overstock.com with Ikea cushion
Tokyo skyline print from Loose Petals on Etsy

Next wall!

We made the London skyline out of plywood. We redid the desk with paint and stain. No new sources to speak of on this wall, really.

And, finally:

That's not a real dart board; it's Doink It darts. Magnets, not pointy things. We took the bifold closet doors down awhile and put that shower curtain (from Target) up instead. I'm not super crazy about it in here, but Ari wanted it to stay. I think I'd prefer putting the doors back, painted brown like the trim. But, you know, it's not my room. Behind the curtain there's a cabinet from Ikea for storage and.....a lot of stuff. But it's all behind the curtain! yay!

And that completes our tour. Here is how Ari feels about his new room. He says to say it's, "Ari approved."

Linking with:
Craftionary's Friday Link Party
Inspiration Gallery
The Shabby Nest's Frugal Friday
Tatertots and Jello's Weekend Wrap Up
Monday Funday
By Stephanie Lynn's Sunday Showcase Party
Home Stories A to Z's Tutorials and Tips
Tuesday's Treasures at My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Stone Gable's Tutorials, Tips, and Tidbits
Hookin' Up With House of Hepworths
Before and After Competition with One Project Closer
Thrifty Decor Chick's August Before and After