Two Years of Homeownership

Today marks two years since we "bought" (signed a loan for 30 years) our house. Sometimes it feels like we've lived here forever and other times like we just moved in. Either way it still feels very much like home. About once a week I will say to myself, or to Charlie, or Penny and Blaze, "I just love this house." I really do. I love driving home and pulling into the driveway, seeing Charlie cooking dinner inside or the pellet stove glow on the walls. Watching the dogs little heads in the windows (because they're standing with their front paws on the windowsills I spent hours painting!) I love having a garage, even when I forget to open the garage door while exiting and crack two of the four windows. I like that everything we need is in the house, and that it is almost exactly the way we want it to look. I love how I look around and it feels like us and shows all of the hard work we've put into it. Mostly though I love who I share the house with and who will be joining us to live here. I'm excited for this house to have a baby live in it, and a toddler, and a kid. I'm happy for all the house has taught us so far and excited for all we still have to learn.

Man that got sappy quick. In order to keep you from crying here's a list of my favorite projects to date, and I am using "favorite" loosely here since actually doing some of these projects was not really fun, but the end result is awesome.

1. My sewing room. When I think about what it used to look like I am blown away by how much paint, click flooring, elbow grease, a new desk and a few curse words can get you.
2. The downstairs paint job. Again, paint can take you a long way.
3. The outdoor shower. I love this addition and can't wait til it's actually warm enough to use it again. I think everyone should have an outdoor shower.
4. Painting the outside. OMG did that take forever but was so worth it.
5. My plants. The indoor plants are doing great. I even divided several recently since they were doing so well. Only problem is I am running out of places to put them. The outdoor plants are a bit more fickle but I am learning.

Projects I still want to complete:

1. New front steps. I'd love two solid granite steps at the front, and would so love if the "shade loving" plants I added to the front of the house would grow and look like they do in magazines.
2. Floating shelves in the living room, so that the book shelf that holds two books and 10 plants won't tip over on Sprout once he or she starts crawling. I realize this isn't a project that needs to get done now, but I sure does feel like I need to do it now.
3. Make a path to the outdoor shower and bury the gutter pipe so it stops flooding the patio. Wouldn't it be lovely if soft moss would grow and line the path to the outdoor shower? Instead it's muddy and rocky, not exactly what you want to walk through to get back into the house after a relaxing shower.
4. Make the grass grow! I have put little to no effort into this project with the exception of raking one million acorns off the lawn, but I look at the grass and really wish it would be nice and green, not brown and mostly dirt. Then I think "first world problem" and get over myself.
5. Fix the garage door I destroyed.

Lauren

Log Cabin Quilt

I cannot remember who had the idea for us to sew a quilt together me or Charlie. In September after pinning a lot of patterns we decided to go with a Log Cabin pattern and Charlie helped me do the math and pick out the fabric we both liked. I sewed 29 blocks and he sewed one. Then I realized around block 34 that there wasn't enough fabric so we bought more and I finished the 48th block, bringing my total to 47 and Charlie's to 1. He did help me lay them out over Christmas and decide on a pattern.

We should have done more research on how to sew a long cabin quilt because I messed it up and the blocks ended up not matching perfectly. I should have started each block with a solid as the first color, but instead I did half the blocks starting with solid and half starting with a print, which kept me from getting super bored, but also screwed up the pattern and resulted in blocks that do not match. I'm pretty sure no one would notice but me. Can you tell?

Don't look too close....here's a cute dog on a quilt picture to distract you! 

Then we (I) did the math and we bought the backing fabric. Over a snow day I laid it all out and realized the back was too small so I added some scraps from the quilt to add the last few inches I needed. Moral of this story is that we are both bad at math when it comes to making quilts. Thanks heavens for scraps and fabric stores.

I thought about hand quilting it, then I realized it's a king sized quilt and came to my senses. It's tied, which is super fun and easy and not nearly as time consuming as hand quilting. Sewing the binding took me at least 5 days because my eye kept twitching and a kind sized quilt = a whole lot of freaking binding!

To be 100% honest this quilt is finished about 10 months faster than I thought it would be, so math issues aside it's a total success. I would not have picked out all of the fabric, but I really like how it all turned out. 

Have you finished anything way ahead of schedule recently? 

Lauren 

Garden Talk

We're back from our vacation! It was such a great trip, friends, family, hiking, mountains, waterfalls, goats! I am glad to be home though. My "garden" was not really growing at a rapid speed before we left so I thought it would be silly to pay someone to come water it, plus I figured, it's New England and it rains all the time here. The only day it rained while we were gone was the day we came home though. Oops. Nothing appears to be dead. I do have some plants that are doing well, some that are okay, and some that are straight up duds. Perhaps if you have any knowledge of how to grow these plants better (at all) you could help me out. 

The sweet pea plants are doing great. I swear they grow two inches over night. I have to keep training them so they'll grow up the trellis. They smell heavenly. Can't complain about this plant. 

 I can however complain about the zucchini and cucumber plants. I planted the seeds directly in the soil, they grew to about the size of my hand, or two hands, and have not grown a bit since late June. Both have a few flowers but nothing else. Charlie thinks it's the soils fault and that we need compost to make them grow. I've fertilized them, probably more than I should. I've also been told they might not be getting enough sun. Ideas, thoughts or general musing are welcomed.

I planted about 20 tomato seeds in my mimi greenhouse, then ended up picking the best six and planted them in the garden. Then they seemed to have died, so I bought four more from the store and planted them, and let the two that looked least dead try to make a come back. They are finally producing, although most of the tomatoes are still green. There was one ready when we got home yesterday. Of my two original plants only one grew. It's the tallest of them all and slowly it has started to flower and have little tomatoes. Last year my tomato plants were producing by July. Perhaps again due to not enough sun or poor soil. The lettuce looks okay. A bit small, but it tastes delicious. I also planted zinnias, which all grew, but are miniature. The one pictured is the biggest/fullest of them all. They are very cute, but not really much to make an arrangement out of. 

Some plants were just too ugly to photograph. My spinach looks like mini weeds, not like spinach. The peas are scrawny. I won't be planting them again since you need a lot to get enough peas to actually eat as a meal. The peppers follow almost the same story line as the tomatoes; planted from seed, grew, transplanted, died, bought new ones, except after buying the new ones from the store they also slowly died. Of four plants I have one pepper. 

As I said any suggestions are welcome. Luckily there is a good farm stand 3 miles away. 

Lauren 

No Spend March

I figure if I write about this I'll be more accountable for it. Here goes; I'm not going to buy anything in the month of March. I have too many clothes, too much fabric, enough cloth napkins, and quite enough plants. Since we bought our house I've been stopping by stores (Target, TJ Max, Marshals, Home Depot) just to look for things to fill the house, not things I "need", just things that look nice. This has added up to more money spent than I care to admit. My mom and I were talking about ways to cut out unneeded expenses the yesterday, which was a good kick start. Reading this blog post about living a happy life without spending a lot of money was also good incentive.  Here is my plan:

1. Don't eat out- we just got back from a three day vacation where we ate out almost every meal, so I think it'll do my wallet, GI system, and waistline some good to go without eating out.
2. Just don't go into stores- can't buy things if I don't see them. Pretty obvious.
3. If I "need" something, I'll make it, or wait- With the exception of the three air plants I just bought, most of my purchases are spur of the moment, and not thought out whatsoever. Taking a month to figure out if I really want something will be good for me. I've also noticed that going out looking for things I don't really need has taken away from the time I could be spending making things anyways. I have enough fabric for at least 4 outfits I've been thinking about making. 

Things I am allowed to buy:

1. Food- fasting for a month is not feasible. If we go somewhere thought I will bring food from home, to keep from eating out or buying crap at the gas station. No more Doritos or Smartfood. I almost always pack lunch during the week, but doing so on the weekends will save money too. 
2. Gas- I can't walk to work anymore so this is a must. Not spending gas money to drive to Concord since I won't be shopping will save some money though. 
3. Bills- mortgage, cell phones, internet, and electricity. Much as I've tried I can't think of a way out of these things. 
4. Skiing tickets- skiing keeps me from going off the deep end in the winter so although this is a luxury it's a must for my sanity. We have been saving receipts and doing this promo. 

That's the plan. Let's hope I can stick to it. Wish me luck. 

Lauren

P.S. this isn't the first time this has happened. 

Fabric Pumpkins: Lauren Tries To Decorate For Fall

I'm trying to embrace fall. It's kind of working, but mostly not. A few weeks ago I pinned some fabric pumpkins on Pinterest, bought some orange fabric and got to work. I finished these three weeks ago but never showed them to you because I was getting home from work and XC practice after the sun had set so the lighting wasn't good for pictures. Anyways, this is the only area in our house that looks remotely decorated for fall, except the front door. The mini gourds were bought at a farmers market, the chicken thing was on sale for $1.99 at Michael's

These first two were made using THIS tutorial/pattern. For the first one I did the pattern exactly as it said, for the second I enlarged the pieces, but that created some problems which lead to my mis-shaped pumpkin. I think it looks more real though with the weird bumps. 

For the last one I kind of used this picture link I found on Pinterest. Instead of using the embroidery floss all the way around the pumpkin I did a running stitch to squeeze it together.

Last night I tried to start knitting a pumpkin to add to the collection. I didn't have a pattern so I just started making it up. This morning I cam downstairs to this:

Good thing I didn't invest too much time on that project. 

What do you do for fall decorating? I'm going to carve a pumpkin tonight. I want to do one like this one but I'm pretty sure I would fail miserably. 

Lauren 

Kitchen Painting

Charlie and I decided that since it's been so hot and humid it was the perfect time to do two things: 1. Buy a pellet stove, and 2. Paint the kitchen. 

You might remember that there was an outdated fruit basket border around the kitchen, and a maroon/red paint on the walls. I didn't like it instantly when we looked at the house, and was sure it would be the first thing to go when we moved in. I did purposely rip the border while cleaning the walls 2 days after we moved in (so no one would like I actually liked it), but aside from that we lived with it for the last two months. Mostly because I wasn't sure what color to paint it.  

On Sunday I had had enough of the border and immediately following breakfast I began to tear it down. It wasn't until 2 that I realized I hadn't brushed my teeth. It was tough work. I wished we were either shorter, or had longer arms. We had to stand on the counter to reach the boarder, but that involved bending your neck. We tried to use a step ladder, but then our arms weren't long enough to reach over the cabinet. Also, the recessed lighting kept burning my face and hair. It took us four hours just to get the border off. After that Charlie cleaned and entertained the dogs and I got painting. I think he was sick of being in the kitchen with me, and listening to my 90's music choices.  

I did two coats on the bottom and one coat on the top on Sunday, then we went to a friends for dinner, thank goodness because the kitchen was a wreck and we wouldn't have been able to make much of anything in there. Then on Monday morning I did another coat above the cabinets. It didn't take too long, because there wasn't really much wall space. I used less than a quart of paint. So glad I didn't let the guy at Home Depot talk me into buying a gallon.

Some parts were a real pain to paint though. Like this little area between the cabinet and door to the garage. Luckily I had a tiny art paintbrush that did the trick.

I told you it was a disaster in there. After letting everything dry we out everything back, mostly in the same spot. We realized how much cabinet space we have that we weren't using so some things that were on the counter and now in cabinets. Here is the before and after. 

Much more my style. I like it a lot. I can't tell if Charlie has a style/likes it or if he just likes it because I like it. Some more after shots, goodbye fruit basket border. 

Now that the border is gone I can focus on the other (smaller) things I want to change in the kitchen. First up is the cabinet doors below the sink. I am not sure why the previous owners painted them green, but they did. My dad says there is no way we can stain them again so I guess we'll have to paint them as well. Any ideas on colors? I was thinking about stenciling them but I think that would make it look like a 95 year old woman lived here, and my sewing room already gives that impression, we don't need more of that. I also thought about taking the doors off and having a little fabric curtain there, Charlie said no to that idea though. 

 The next thing is the track lighting above the island. Only one of the three lights works, and we don't like the light to begin with so we're not going to spend $5 on a bulb if we don't actually like it. I've been looking online for some vintage or vintagesque lights. I like the look of milk glass lights (surprised?)  and "schoolhouse lights", but am worried about buying them online without seeing something like it in real life. I'm on the hunt for something like this, or this.

Lastly, I think this swishy wave accent above the sink needs to go. I'm just worried it will leave a mark on the cabinets when I take it down. Perhaps I should not smash it with a sledge hammer to get it down, which is how I imagine doing it. 

I really like it and feel much happier in the kitchen now. Not happy enough to cook though! 

Lauren

Bathroom Shelf Upgrade

When we looked at the house one thing I thought was terrible was the bathroom shelf/closet. The master bathroom itself was really nice, I like the colors, the wall paper on one wall, the sink, toilet and shower were all updated. Just the closet was awful. Here is what it looks like now, after several hours of work. 

When we moved in it was brown on the inside, dark dark brown, and had this crackle paint on the outside. It was supposed to look crackled, but it just looked like someone did a pitiful job painting it on the hottest day of the year. I figured we could live with it for a few weeks, but on day two I decided that had been long enough and took to door down. 

The inside was just a dark hole it seemed. The sides had these metal strips that held pegs to hold the shelves. We took those out and painted the entire thing white.

Several coats of white. This is a during shot. I am quite proud, I didn't spil paint anywhere, but I did get it in my hair.

After waiting a day for it to dry Charlie helped me measure, and he screwed in brackets to hold up the shelves. I tried to line the shelves with paper put accidentally only bought a four foot roll. So one out of the five shelves are lined. They rest will have to wait. I bought the baskets at Target and Michael's and am still not 100% sure about them.

I think it is a 100 billion times improvement over what was there before. And it only cost us a quart of paint and some screws.

I am sure there will be more home projects popping up here soon. Hope you don't mind.

Lauren

House Tour; Upstairs and Basement

The home tour continues!

At the top of the stairs to the right is the second bedroom. It's a dark grey color right now with a weird red stripe. I'd like to ultimately paint it, but I don't know what color yet.

This is my bed from when I was a little kid. The bedroom also has a futon of Charlie's. This means there is plenty of room in the bedroom for our friends to come over and spend the night. This reminds me, I need to sew another house number on Charlie's quilt soon.

At the top of the stairs on the left is our master bedroom. The way we have it set up right now is with our bed under the skylight. Charlie comments that he can see the stars on clear nights, I'd be able to if I wasn't vision impaired, and also if I was not so exhausted every night that I fall asleep within 10 seconds of my head hitting the pillow.

The room is huge and has lots of possibilities for layout. Right now over by the window is my dresser, a table my Dad made and a chair that was Charlie's Grandfather's. I am planning to read in this corner and look out the window at the mountains. I even like the colors of the walls.

Between the bedrooms is the bathroom. I'll tell you more tomorrow about the shelf, but aside from fixing and painting the shelf 2 days after we moved in I love this bathroom. It has wallpaper on one wall and then a nice greenish, blue paint color on the other walls. I really like it and see no need to change anything else, with the exception of the toilet paper holder. 

Downstairs in the basement is my sewing room. It is the room that I think needs the most work. It doesn't look that bad in pictures, but up close it's pretty needy. I'd like to paint the wood, mostly because I don't love wood paneling, but also because the kids who lived here before drew on the wood and wrote their names on it. The walls have tons of little holes in them, so I need to paint those too. Still trying to decide what color to paint them. I'd like a girly color since it will be my space, but I think if I am going to take blogging pictures in this room it should be pretty neutral. I've been pinning tons of ideas for this space, see those here, if you're so inclined. The floor also needs a lot of work, as it is peeling off of the floor and generally yucky.

As of right now it is functional and can be used for sewing and general crafty-ness. I don't feel very inspired by the room at the moment though so I haven't done any sewing yet. It might also have to do with the fact that I have not had much time to sew since we have been working on other projects.

Next to the sewing room is Charlie's room. It now has his ping pong table in it, as well as every textbook he's every owned.

The outside has a patio off of the deck.

There is quite a bit of "lawn", but I am not sure how much actual grass will grow here. So far I love having so much space, quite space.

Penny is loving the yard. We were worried she would run away so we thought we'd be getting an electric fence or dog run, but so far she's been staying close by. She explores a little bit, but always come back to fetch a stick or roll in the dirty and sit close to where we are working. On the property is a little pool of water that Penny loves to wade in. Charlie said there are frog eggs in it. There is also a little trail around the property the we trimmed down and walk Penny on. 

Thanks for your excitement. We love the house thus far and are excited for the possibilities and the future.

Lauren

House Tour: Downstairs

I've posted most, if not all of these on facebook but have a few people who don't have facebook so I wanted to keep them in the house loop. Sorry for the repeats. 

This is our new house!

The front yard needs a bit of work, and the steps need some TLC, but it's functional as is. Through the front door you enter the dining room. 

The table belonged to my Great Grandfather Benny. At some point we might get a bigger one. 

 Over here is the buffet that belonged to Charlie's Grandmother. 

This desk is where we will pay bills and be very adultish. Or it will just hold all of Charlie's junk like before, we'll see. It was my Grandmother's when she was in college. I like how we have lots of nice pieces from our relatives. 

Off of the dining room is the kitchen. It's smaller in size than our old kitchen, but is more functional and has more storage. I don't like the red paint, and there is a not so great fruit basket boarder around the top that I've already ripped part of. I'm trying to convince Charlie's on a sort of grey green color. Hopefully he'll agree. 

There is an island, perfect for cutting vegetables. On the other side there is room for stools, but we're thinking about colors etc before we buy them.

Down the hall a bit from the kitchen is the downstairs bathroom. It has a washer and dryer and a stand up shower. 

Then there is the living room. I love how bright it is. Our last place had the living room on the inside of the building so it was very dark all the time. This living room has so much light. I love it.

Everyone says we need a bigger TV now, but I still like this one.

This is my most favorite thing so far. My aunt Kelly made us this stained glass for our wedding and we had nowhere to hang it for almost 2 years. Now I smile whenever I look at it and love seeing the sun shine through it.

Off of the living room is the deck which has a lovely view of Ragged Mountain. We sat out there on Saturday when Charlie's parents and brother and sister-in-law came and I can see many sunny days spent reading on the deck in my future.

I'll be back soon with the upstairs and basement tour.

Lauren