We Have Pictures on Our Walls!

In our efforts to get some rooms finished (or close enough to finished) and to get ready for our little party on Saturday, Dan and I hung some pictures, put up our dining room mirror, and finally got those living room curtains finished!

We now have some art up in the bathroom (because everyone needs something nice above the toilet, right?).

I swear the bathroom doesn't look this cluttered in person, but you can now see above-the-toilet decor!

A close-up of the pics. . . these are actually framed greeting cards that feature prints from Brian Andreas' Story People collection (which I adore).

A cross-stitched Holly Hobbie--a gift from my sister several years ago--takes her place above the hand towel!

In our living room, we now finally have curtains on all the windows (no more risking flashing elementary school students!). Making them took a lot more time than I thought it would (so much ironing and hemming), but I'm happy with how they turned out. I love how the linen fabric gives us privacy when we need it while still letting in so much light. We also now have our pictures on the walls. I have to say that, so far, I think this is definitely my favorite room in the house. I just love the colors and all the happy photos from our travels. And that picture of the typewriter keys above the couch was an awesome IKEA find!

By far, the scariest project of the weekend was hanging the dining room mirror. We had to put two very large holes in the wall, and we had to measure them out exactly; if they had been even a hair off, we wouldn't have been able to mount the mirror and would have had to start all over with big useless holes in the wall. . . eek! On top of that, I couldn't help thinking how awful it would be to do all that work, get the mirror up, and then discover that we didn't like it. Luckily, it looks fabulous and happily reflects all of our books!

Yesterday I was inspired by the spring weather to switch out our usual centerpiece with some lovely fresh flowers!

We also got one picture hung in the dining room. . . with two more planned underneath!

We had a long list of things we wanted to get done before folks came over this weekend, and we managed to get most of them crossed off the list. I'm happy to report that our first potluck gathering at our house was lovely. We were so happy to fill our house with some great company. There is no accessory better than friends!

Plugging Away

There is nothing quite like having people over to get you motivated with house projects. We've been super busy and could probably use a break, but since we're hosting a group of people at our house this weekend, we've tried to keep plugging away! I was working on Saturday, so we were down a day, but we did get a few things done.

Ever since we had our new carpet put in on the stairs (which, as you might recall, was months ago), we've needed to repaint the steps. There were some marks left on the wall from the installation, and since the new carpet didn't quite meet up with where the old stuff left off, we had some rough spots along the wall.

On Sunday, Dan got to painting and now everything looks new again! Yay!

Our biggest projects of late have been organizing the bedroom and working on getting more things on our walls. The bedroom isn't quite finished, so I'm holding out for a bit longer with some before and after pictures to come (hopefully later this week)! On Friday night, we took another trip to IKEA and purchased a huge mirror that is going to go on the wall in our dining room (to reflect all those books!). It barely fit in the car, but we just squeezed it in. That should be up by this weekend. . . can't wait to show you pictures! Our dining room is really feeling cozy these days.

We received the 11 x 14 photo enlargements that we ordered in the mail, and this week I've been taking advantage of some Michaels sales and coupons to get some frames. I must say that I'm really happy with how they turned out. . . one photo is of me hiking at French Creek State Park, and the other is Dan with one of the redwoods during our trip to California. They make me so happy when I look at them, and I can't wait to get them up on the walls!

Finally, with our newly cleared front porch and some beautiful spring weather, we decided it was time for some outdoor dining. Tonight we took out our salads and our "chicken" salad sandwiches and watched the world go by while dining on our sunny porch. So lovely! It reminded me how much I love our neighborhood and our little house, and how grateful I am to be here, even with all the work still to be done!

Spring Has Sprung. . . And House Projects Have Begun!

If we needed any sure signs that spring is on the way, we got our first bit of evidence when this appeared in our front yard. Guess what? We have daffodils (okay, well, at least one daffodil)! :)

One project that I've been meaning to get started on forever is our composting project. For years I've cringed every time I've put compostable material in the trash, but we just didn't really have the space to compost in previous places. I purchased a compost turner weeks ago but it's been sitting on our front porch for ages, just waiting to be opened. This weekend we finally got to it!

Loading up some shredded paper to get things started

Throwing in some leaves

Now it's all ready to go on the back deck, just waiting for kitchen scraps!

Dan makes the first contribution to the countertop compost container

When we first moved into our house, our front porch became extra space for unopened boxes and anything else that we didn't know what to do with. It later became a repository for stuff we hadn't yet made room for, then for cardboard boxes, then for an assortment of yard tools. Basically, it's been the repository of junk for months. Dan took the initiative to finally get the space cleared out over the weekend, and now we at least have a more presentable entry to our house, and perhaps even a nice place to sit. We still have a lot we want do to with the porch--new flooring, painting, and definitely some new furniture--but for now, at least it's not a complete disaster zone.

Another thing that has been irking me for months is the horrible, horrible light bulb that was in our front porch light. I HATE fluorescent lighting and this light bulb was one big, bright, fluorescent nightmare. Changing it out is one of those little things that would have been super easy to do and would have instantly made me happier, but we never got around to it. Dan changed it this weekend, and I'm happy to report that I will now leave the outside light on!

Though we still have lots of rooms we haven't even begun to tackle, Dan and I decided that we'd like to try to finish up the few rooms we've started before moving on, especially since the rooms we've begun are the ones we spend the most time in. With the living room and dining rooms almost finished (yay!), we started to focus on finally getting some things on our walls! We really want our space to be as personal as possible, so we spent a good amount of time sorting through prints from our travels and trying to decide which ones we might enlarge and frame. As you can see, it was a bit involved (and there's my sewing machine in the background, just waiting for me to finish that last pair of living room curtains!).

In addition to our personal photos, we're happy to include some mass market art, too. Sometimes choosing art can be difficult for me and Dan because we have different tastes. Luckily, on Saturday, a magical moment happened at IKEA when we both immediately fixed our eyes on a piece that we thought was perfect for our living room. (I was so excited when Dan said he liked it that I jumped up and gave him a hug right in the store--that's how hard it is sometimes to find something we both really like!)

Now, as many of you know, we have spent hours and hours and hours painting. Thus, it is kind of a big deal that we made our first holes in those big, beautiful walls. Here's Dan drilling the first hole, followed by a picture of our new art above our entryway bench!

This isn't the greatest photo, but you get the idea. . .

We're still mid-project on lots of picture hanging, and we've got a number of things in the works, including some improvements in the bedroom and hopefully some organizing in the basement. Let's hope the energy of spring keeps us moving right along!

The Time Has Come

I can tell that I'm actually ready to start doing house projects again because I woke up at 3:00 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep making lists of all the things I want to get done as soon as possible. I'm even considering taking a couple days off work just to give me more time because I'm suddenly in I-must-get-this-house-in-order mode. Of course, my ambitions are often outside the realms of reality (Finish painting the kitchen in one weekend? Ha ha ha!), but I do feel energized about getting started again. Perhaps it's the feel of spring coming, perhaps the break has been long enough, perhaps the fact that we're hosting a party on the 17th is giving me extra incentive to make things look nice, but I'm hoping that we are now gearing up for Phase II of home improvement and that this blog is going to start being more active again! And if it's not, feel free to leave comments and ask how things are going. . . sometimes it doesn't hurt to get a little nudge!