It's Christmas Time

Christmas is coming very quickly. Our schedule has kept us running in different directions so we have yet to put up our Christmas tree. But it is going up this weekend. My excuse right now is that the cable guy is coming on Friday to figure out why we're not getting a high definition signal to our TV in the family room and the tree would just be in the way.I think the signal strength is low, which was an issue with this room when we had Time Warner, too.

We finally have bedroom furniture on its way. We bought a king size mattress a while ago but have had just the hardest time finding furniture that we liked, that fit the space, or that we were willing to pay for. (Really liked a bedroom set at Crate & Barrel -- didn't like the price.) But we got one that we had looked at several times before, and it will be here Friday (hopefully not at the same time that the cable guy is here). Our bedroom is pretty much bare now as we moved most everything out. We'll finish tonight so when the furniture comes in they can get it put together and in place quickly and easily. It'll be nice to have everything matching and looking right.

The furniture also came with an LG flat screen TV, so we'll have all flat screen TVs now. Hooray for no more bulky, heavy TVs. Now we just need to get those old sets out of the house.

Latest home project -- dining room light

We've been doing a few projects around the house with Spring coming along soon. Last weekend we finally hung the new light fixture in the dining room. We ordered the light, but one of the support arms was broken, so we re-ordered it and they sent the wrong size. Third try was a charm (except for the piece they forgot, but had on the first one and it worked). So finally we got a chance to hang the light.


This was the original pseudo-brass light fixture. Not our favorite, and not really fitting the room.


This is the new one. Much more dramatic and appropriate for the space. This is the fourth lighting change we've done. I still have a healthy respect for electricity, but I'm getting more confident.

Home improvement projects

We have tried to do a few projects the last two weekends. Jeni has been wanting a ceiling fan in the kitchen since we moved in. I recently overcame my fear of electricity and decided to tackle this project.


This was the light before. It was a good light source, but ugly, hodge-podge, and not a fan.


This is the new fan installed. We love the fan. It puts off a great amount of wind, has a remote, and really looks nice in the kitchen. The problem is that the light is dim. It should be enough light, but I think the globe dampens the light too much for it to be functional in the kitchen. So pretty soon we'll be picking out a second fan, moving this one to another room, and installing a new one in the kitchen. Practice makes perfect, right?

Then we started to clean out the closet in the guest bedroom to make room for Tiffany to come and stay with us. This closet had become a small catch-all for winter jackets that we no longer wear, and other miscellany. So to make room for this stuff elsewhere, we had to install a new shelf in the extra storage space by the washer and dryer. So while we were putting shelves up, we also decided to take care of the office closet too (it really is just a cascade once you start a project).


This was the closet emptied out. I hesitate to call this a true "before" shot since it is empty. The office floor was covered with stuff. It is truly amazing to see how much you can fit in a closet.


This is the "after" closet with the new shelves up. Eventually Jeni wants a closet almost full of silver IKEA boxes, clean and organized. She painted the inside of the closet with some leftover paint to give it a clean look, which is so much nicer than a flat off-white closet. Of course, there is more in this closet now, but tons better than before.

A few new things around the yard...

The azeleas are blooming in the front yard....


And the cherry tree is blooming in the backyard.....

I love spring!

A few new things around the house

A couple of weeks ago Dean and went to Atlanta to visit with the Kings. In addition to having a wonderful weekend with wonderful friends, we went to IKEA. Here are a couple things we bought for the house.

We knew we wanted bookcases along the whole wall in the parlor. We looked and looked and finally decided on these. So with the help of Tiffany and her mom's SUV, we bought these bookcases. They are exactly what we wanted for this room. On Sunday we unpacked 9 boxes of books and a box of vases. When we decide on getting a new TV and media center, then we will move in the other books from the family room shelves.On to the office..... We knew we wanted a new desk but couldn't find one we liked, let alone loved. When I received the Ikea catalog in the mail I immediately fell in love with this desk. After we had made a decision on the desk, the rest just fell in place. We bought the cabinets and the shelves below the cabinets. We also have a wire to hang pictures on below the shelves. As you can see Jasper loves the new big desk. The last thing we need for this room is some kind of window treatment. I have been looking for fabrics but without much luck.
The final project - the guest room cornice. When Tiffany was here we went fabric shopping for the office window treatment. Instead we found fabric for the guest room. We found this really cute stripped fabric on sale....like 75% off. I couldn't pass it up. I bought enough that if we goofed up making the cornice we would have enough for Sharon to make something else. Luckily we didn't goof up. I think it turned out pretty well for our first attempt.
Here's a close up of the fabric.

Bonus room stripe

This is a picture of the bonus room over the garage after the final coat of paint and all the tape had been removed, but the furniture is still in the middle of the room. The stripe is "batter bowl green," a Martha Stewart color the Jeni fell in love with years ago and hung on to waiting for the right spot. We went with the brown to pull from the hallway color, but several shades darker, keeping a flow through the house.


To do the stripe, we used the same taping technique we used in the dining room (forgot a step, bled brown paint into the stripe and had to retape...) but it turned out very good. The stripe is 12 inches wide and goes around the entire room. We're thinking of using the green in the laundry room (that you can't see, but the washer and dryer are behind two doors behind me).


To determine the height of the stripe Jeni decided to go from the angle of the ceiling. Since this is a room over the garage, one side has a slight angled ceiling from the roof line. You can also barely see an access door to the storage off this room. We painted that the same wall color so it is less of an eye-sore.

More painting

We painted the bonus room over the garage over Labor Day. Due to forgetting a step, we managed to have to tape it, oh, about four times, before we got it just right, but it was worth it. We'll try to post pictures this weekend -- easier than trying to explain exactly what we did.

One Year House Anniversary

Today is our one year anniversary of owning our house. We have worked all year to try and make it "ours." We both had visions of what we wanted and I think it has really turned out nicely. There are still lots of projects that need finishing, and lots that need starting. We have loved having our friends and families here, and we hope they have loved being here just as much. And for those of you who haven't been able to visit, remember our door is always open and there is always sweet tea in the fridge. Thanks to everyone who has helped us make this house our home!

Here are a few pictures of some of the projects we have finished....


The front yard landscaping. If you want to see the whole thing, go here.



This was our first project - Jeni's kitchen. I love my kitchen. I have always wanted a red kitchen. (red=passion and cooking is one of my passions, go figure.) The first thing to go was the linoleum floor tiles that they put up as a back splash. UGH! They were ugly and made a mess of the walls as we pulled them down. But it all worked out, as it always does.

Thanks to red-headed Kelli from bringing me my "Indulge" sign. It's one of my favorite things in my kitchen. Actually in those two pictures you can see a lot my favorite things - my pot rack that is very well traveled, my All-Clad, my Gail Pittman pottery, my lady corkscrew from our German friends, Urs and Kirsi, the lights under the cabinets, and my little flip down TV.



Then came the living room...We wanted all of the rooms on the first floor to flow together. The kitchen and the living room share two adjoining walls so we tried to use colors from the same family. I wish I had a better picture of the living room, but we let a friend use our camera this weekend, so I'm stuck with what I have saved.


And the dining room, our labor of love. As many of you know it took us five days to complete this project. The results make it worth every minute. I have wanted to do this technique for years and finally got the chance. I love it!


To be honest the only room in the house that I didn't want to change when we first moved in was the master bedroom. Unfortunately they didn't leave us any extra paint, and I really couldn't find a comforter that I liked to match. I did however find this one, and we took the colors from it to paint the walls, ceiling and bathroom (and the closet as soon as it starts to cool down). I'm still working on trying to find a fabric for the curtains. And bedroom furniture, well that's a long story.


Master bathroom. The Charleston themed border had to go. (Once again I wish I had a better "after" picture...)


Guest Bathroom. After the kitchen this was the room that I most wanted changed. And what a pain the butt it was -- the clouds painted with high gloss paint, the coat after coat of primer, and finally the finished project. Now I want to change the color to something lighter...you would think I would just be happy that it's not a lighthouse room anymore.


And finally our deck....I love it. One of my favorite parts is the smell of fresh herbs - rosemary, basil, chives--yum. I do have a post with all the changes we made to the back yard, but I haven't finished all the labels. I hope to have that up next week.

Once again, thanks to everyone who has came, visited, celebrated birthdays, holidays, or just sat on the deck, had a cold beer and a good laugh.

New least favorite job

Next to painting the front porch, painting the spindles on the stairs is my new least favorite job around the house. They may look good, but it's no fun.

The Front Yard

I'll go ahead and apologize for the lengthy post, but for the amount of work we put in, it deserves a long post.

Dean and I decided to basically "gut" the yard and start over. The builders did as little as they had to do, and it showed. And the previous owners did even less. We knew we had our work cut out for us, so we started in early spring and luckily finished 95% of the projects before the South Carolina hot weather started.

Grand total for the front yard:
216 plants
10 bushes
1 palm tree
~950 lbs of compost, top soil and mulch
16 shrubs given away to a friend
2 ferns for the front porch

Here is a picture of the front foundation beds before we started.

All the bushes out...
Add 400lbs of compost, top soil, and mulch; put in 10 azalea bushes (between the two beds).....
Then finish it off with 8 daylilies(Catherine Neal, Custard Candy, Prairie Blue Eyes, and Strawberry Candy), 8 hosta 'Lady Guinevere', 4 Shasta daisies, 2 huge Crinum 'Bradley', 4 Columbine, 4 Penstemon 'Blue Buckle', 100 Tigridia bulbs, 2 butterfly bushes 'Black Knight', and 2 Robellini palms.

And today...
These are the faces of the daylilies in the front foundation beds.
From L-R - Catherine Neal, Custard Candy, Prairie Blue Eyes, and Strawberry Candy

And here is the bed the middle of the front yard. There was no definition to the bed, and as I said before they just put what shrubs they had left over in there. (In this picture, we had already removed the shrubs.)

We made the bed into a kidney shape; added 250lbs of compost, top soil, and mulch, then add in the plants -- 7 daylilies 'Black Eyed Stella', 7 daylilies 'Clara', 12 bareroot daylilies 'Just Watch' and 'Bourbon Kings', 14 hosta, 2 giant ginger lilies 'Luna Moth', and 2 daylilies 'Autumn Minaret. We also planted 15 Golden Spider Lily bulbs but I think the friendly neighborhood squirrels got them. The 14 daylilies are the only thing we kept from the original landscaping.

Here are some of the daylilies staring to bloom. Happy day!

Top:'Black Eyed Stella',

Bottom: 'Clara'

(I'm not a 100% because these are the one used from the previous landscaping.)

And today...
We put a windmill palm at the front of the yard. The palm is 4-5 years old, and we can't wait for it to start to get some height.

This is the front side yard. We forgot to take a before picture, but trust me, it looks a ton better. We removed 3 shrubs, a bunch of weeds/trees, and a huge bunch of ivy that was starting to move out into the yard.

First we gave the bed some definition, then we added 300 lbs of compost, top soil, and mulch; and then the plants - 15 lantana ('Ms. Huff' and 'Red Spread'), 3 Black-Eyed Susans, 3 flame flowers (Kniphofla uvaria 'Grandiflora'), and 2 bunches of pampas grass (to hide the transformer).