Day 850: Dinner Party

Last night we hosted a dinner party for a dear friend, and I must say - we got the place spruced up just in time! Touched up paint here and there, got the last of the artwork and photos on the walls, etc. With the added layer of festiveness, it was just lovely!

Hurrah!

Day 798: Paaaaaint

Shannon finished painting the bottom cabinets, and they're lookin' goooooood.

Day 730: Two whole years!

Today marks two years since we closed on our house. The time really has flown by. It was hard to imagine when we were knee deep in drywall dust and musty old carpet that we'd be enjoying a nice, clean, (almost) restored home just a few months later. Now that two years have passed, and there's much more time and space between now and all that hard work, it's fun to look back at where we started.

We finally got around to updating some of the before and afters, so check out our progress on the tab aptly titled 'Before & Afters' above.

Day 697: Smelling the Roses

I can't say enough how much we are loving the deck. We're out there nearly every day, and have enjoyed many delightful meals together in our newly finished space. Shannon strung up these adorable lights for us a few months ago and they really add to the ambiance. It's nice with everything else that's going on in our lives to be able to step out here with no computer, no cell phone, and just enjoy a gorgeous outdoor space.

Day 687: Stayin' Alive

The man's a genius.

I'm on the road quite a bit for work, and when I'm gone, the plants, well, they suffer. Shannon's focused on bigger projects and doesn't often think to water the poor things until they look pitiful. But, genius man that he is, he came up with the perfect eco-friendly solution. Our water filter cycles out water every day at 8 pm. Shannon built this great contraption that redirects the runoff that would go right down the drain to sprinkle my beloved plants on the deck. Now we don't have to worry about a thing unless one's getting TOO much water (rosemary has since been relocated;). 

Day 672: Dining Room, After

And here's the dining room after we replaced the window, painted the new trim and moved in our new dining furniture. It's amazing how much more light comes in through this new window compared to the old one. Made all the brighter by the white gauzy curtains. We are loving it!

Day 665: Outdoor Spaces

Our DIY firepit (which we inaugurated over the winter but probably won't touch over the summer;) is now complemented by two comfy chairs - completing our fourth (and for now, final) outdoor space.

Riley and I frequent the red loveseat out front when I get home in the evenings, and we have a lot of weekend brunches on the sunporch and dinners on the deck.

All our outdoor spaces are lovely additions to our small cottage home and a welcome place to enjoy the beauty of our very green surroundings. Gotta love life in the south!

Day 663: All Decked Out

With the weather getting nicer by the day, we've been working on getting the deck ready for outdoor entertaining. Shannon and Matt put the furniture together over the weekend, after I gave her a good scrubbing, and re-potted some plants, etc. Looks great, don't you think? We broke it in on Sunday and had some friends and family over after the Tour of Homes - luckily it warmed up enough for us to enjoy it! Many, many meals to be had out here in the days and weeks ahead!

Day 656: New window

 

What used to look like this...

Now looks like THIS.

We've had a lot of trouble with this box window that was installed sometime between 1950 and... who knows when. It's super ugly, leaks like crazy when it rains and is directly above an outlet, so there are lots more reasons to get to it sooner rather than later. Shan got inspired and took care of business this weekend! Check it out. It's a temporary fix, but we are loving the light already.

Day 655: Hole in the House

There's a hole in our house!

Don't worry, it's a GOOD thing :)

Day 654: Trim Work in Bath

May the odds be ever in your favor...

Shannon has been hard at work the past couple weeks wrapping up a few projects we hadn't quite gotten to lately since we've been enjoying the nice weather outside!

One such project is finishing up the trim work in the bathroom. He was in there all day and then I needed to... use the facilities, and was met with this...

It's lookin' good!

Day 650: Welding Fun

It's been quite awhile since we last posted, but work it continues. Slowly but surely. So much more slowly now that we've gotten so comfy in our little cottage :) But that's OK with us. We're enjoying the house so much. Of late, it's been mostly repairs and maintenance, nothing major.

<< Last night I came home to this.

Shannon borrowed a portable welder from a friend and finally got around to repairing the porch railing out front. Yes, we know it's hideous. And one day it will be torn out and replaced with a beautiful gleaming painted wood porch and railing. But we have to come up with a design and a plan and get it approved, and yada yada yada. So, for now, it stays. And gets repaired even. Since we'd prefer to not bust it making our way in and out every day.

Things they are a bloomin!

We haven't posted in a while but we are trying to finish up the lingering status of a number of items and doing some future planning for bigger projects.  I keep telling myself that I DON'T want to be an ADD DIY person but man it's difficult to keep focus.  I've been doing some reading and came across this Finish what you start, now I'm not saying I'm gifted but I can totally relate to "I want to figure this out but then lose interest once I feel like I understand how it's going to work."  Also, it always seems like we can't do something without a slippery slope of items that need to happen before.  That is probably just my engineering "analysis paralysis" which I try to keep in check.  Throw in a couple "while we're at it" items and you get the idea.  However, there are a number of things that we need to finish that ARE bothering me and Mary - namely bathroom trim and kitchen cabinets.

The most immediate goals are to finish the trim in the first floor bathroom then repaint and finish trim in the kitchen and paint the remaining lower cabinets.  Sounds easy enough when put in a single sentence but its kind of fidgety work.  Each has little issues here and there that make them more involved than plug and play affairs.  I have to be in the right mind set to do tedious or fidgety work so I look for something a little less frustrating if I'm not feeling it.  In order to do the painting that needs to be done we need to set up a dedicated area where Riley won't get into wet paint, it is not dusty, not weather critical, etc.  Well that only leaves one of the two upstairs rooms.  Guess what,  that means another project!  See paragraph 1 for that slippery slope.  We've been using the upstairs as storage and not exactly orderly (my fault).  So we finally went through pretty much everything up there and moved stuff out of rooms and into attic spaces, Christmas, keep sakes, etc.  Now we've got one room completely empty and that will serve as painting headquarters and the other room is doing a better as semi organized storage.