What we've been up to (lots of photos) !

We've had a bunch of projects going on. Since I'm so far behind in posts, I decided to just do one post with a lot of photos. Some of these projects aren't 100% done, so you might see them in another photo-- the "finished!" post.

Bedroom Project
First up: We rearranged our bedroom. Rotated the bed and redid the nightstands. Results? WE LOVE IT.


Nightstand Redux
The nightstands went from gray with slate to purple with wood. While the old nightstands looked ok, we just weren't jiving with them. I also spray-painted the knob on the stand and the stand of the lamp. Results? We love them. The drawers have mod podged green paper inside, which is a neat touch, but I'll save that for another post.


Butterfly Bush Hack Job
We're going to be redoing the front yard a tad over the next few years. The previous owners left a bunch of grape plants out there. That's all well and fine, but the grapes sprawl all over the place and it's just not a great usage of space. For now though, we cut back the butterfly bush. Don't worry, it will come back. These suckers are hardy. But, at least this way, we can control its growth a bit more. It's a bit drastic, but I think it will look better in the long run. Now it will be more of a bush and less of an overgrown explosion.


Stair Paint Job
I painted the stairs going upstairs, attempting to make them look nicer and have the walkway be a little more appealing. I decided to use a light green color available from the awesome, low-cost, recycled-paint place. We had been considering this green for our house. Result? FAIL!!! The green is far too lime-y. Dang it. So I painted one stair purple to see if we'd like that. Yes, possibly. More updates to come.


Candlestick Craft Job
$0.99 candlesticks from Goodwill that were a garish gold? Spraypainted blue! They can easily be spraypainted again. Such an easy craft project.


New Sideboard!
We got a new sideboard! Finally, my Grandmother's china has a home. Super traditional? No, but it works like a dream, even if Rumpole likes to lay on it. Sigh.


New Mirror
I took a cheap $2 Home Depot mirror and attached it to a leftover door I had. Then I taped it up and spray painted it. There are some additional bits of interest that are the same color that need to be attached. More on this later, but so far? The project has been great!


Hall Closet Redo
We're working on reorganizing the hall closet. Exciting, right? Hey, we need an organized space for all that toilet paper (hooray Costco).


Ampersand and Quote Graffiti Wall
We painted a large ampersand on the wall and then attached "MR" and "MRS" to the wall in wood letters. Since we've now moved the bed, we've decided to get paint pens and carefully start adding our favorite quotes to the wall. Exciting!


New, Festive Entryway
Large glazed pot at recycle store: $8. Tree at another store (that I got discounted because it had a small bad spot in the back): $7.50. Pumpkins: $2. Pipecleaners: $1. Googly Eyes: $1. Total: $19.50 for a festive entryway! And I will keep the tree there year-around but decorate it for the various times of year.



Naked Living Room Floors
We've decided to go rugless in the dining room and living room. Yes, it requires more regular cleaning, but it's 50x easier. More on that later on too.


Canning Projects
First round of applesauce has been finished! Also canned up: Three large jars of apple cider and a few jars of blackberry jam.


Lilac Hack Job
We hacked away at our lilac trees. I love these trees, but they're going to go as of next spring when we fix up our bottom tier in the back yard.


Hen Home
The chickens have a new home! It's not finished (and won't be so long as this rain continues), but you get the general idea! The left two feet are a shed, so it's a dual-purpose structure. The hens have a lot of space, but they are slow to adjust to confinement.
And the babies? They're getting bigger!!!
The hens are also using the new egg box well (hurray!).
Again though, they're slow to adjust to confinment....


New (to us) Lawn Chairs
Found great cedar lawn chairs at the recycle store for a steal. Fixed them up and painted them. Voila!


New Garden
We're in the middle of building garden beds for the top tier. 3-5 more garden boxes to go. We'll need to decide on final arrangement patterns, then paint them (yes, paint!!!), then fill them, then plant any overwintering items. We're also building a 3' or so high fence to keep dogs out and nicely define the garden space.

Meat Bird Home
The old chicken coop was moved to the other corner of the top tier (it gets more shade). It's covered partially with a tarp to help keep the occupants dry. The occupants? Our meat birds. We have 8 of them (long story involving a likely raccoon took 3 of them), and they're fat and happy. They'll be around for about another month.
Fat and happy.


Trees!
We've begun to plan out trees, since we've decided to add two trees to our backyard. We may eventually add more, but we're starting with two. We've narrowed down the varieties and where to put them, but final decisions on types have not been made. We'll get them about a month, once fall has fully settled in. Since we're planting them on a slope, our main concern is making sure we create a situation where their roots will get a good soaking, since we'll need to really soak the roots for the first two years. We're debating arrangements.


Compost Bin
We bought a used (well, it wasn't used but it had been sitting in someone's yard) compost bin. Woo! Now we need to get a better compost bucket for in the kitchen.


Lots of Eggs
We need to use eggs more.


New Cleaning Method
This may seem weird, but we've been hunting for a way to somehow make our floor maintenance easier. We gave into fad and are trying swiffer (the old owners left behind the broom). So far? It's not as cheap as a broom, but it sure gets the dust. Then we also use OrangeGlo Daily Spray for our wood floors. Whew!


Too many tomatoes...
Sometime today, I have to finish processing the last 20 pounds of tomatoes we have. Lots of good sauce though!

House Paint
We're also debating what color to choose for our house. Metropaint is about 60% off of regular paint on cost, but their colors are limited. Hm. We'll paint in summer '12 or '13, but we'd like to make sure decisions we make now on other things are supported by our future home colors.


Old Window, New Dry Erase Board
We found this great old window. We're painting it up and then we'll use it as a 6-paneled dry-erase board for in the kitchen.


Beer Brewing
And finally, Bob made beer this weekend. I am not a beer-drinker, so I'll have to look to him and to third-parties to let me know how it turns out.


So there we go! We've been busy, and more updates will soon come!