Garden Time

We decided to plant a garden again this year and hopefully it is a bit more fruitful than it was last year.  Last year our herbs did awesome but everything else was kinda blah.  We did end up with about 30 tomatoes at the very end of the season that I had to pick green.

So we learned to love friend green tomatoes and green salsa!  We are hopeful that this year we will have a better return.  The tree we cut down last year will allow for more sun and I am praying it isn't as hot and miserable as it was last summer.  

We spent one Saturday cleaning out the bed and getting it ready for planting.  

Then the next weekend we planted and Nick built this awesome fence.  Much nicer than the ugly chicken wire we used last year.

The space is a little bit bigger this year because we removed some bushes from along the side fence so we have a few more plants.  Here is hoping we get some good "free" produce!

Going Green

In early March we ended up with a random Saturday with nothing planned.  This doesn't happen very often so we decided to finally get around to tackling the guest bedroom.  We bought the paint probably almost a year ago and it had just sat in the corner of the room waiting to be used.  So with no other plans we jumped in and started clearing out the room and got to painting.
A reminder of what it looked like before:

Up until this point all we had done in this room is hang some stuff on the wall, replace the door and install blinds and a light fixture.  

Organic Garden

Yes, I am aware that in the pictures it looks a little like baby poop green.  I was a little worried about this after we started but I tried to be patient and hope for the best and as you will see in the final pictures it looks much much better with furniture and things on the wall.

We also decided that if we were going to paint we would replace all the old floor boards and try our hand at some crown molding.  This part was less than fun but the end result looks pretty good.

Then it was time to move all the furniture back in.  The room sat like that for almost a month because our weekends returned to their normal state of craziness.  Finally this past weekend we found some time to hang things on the wall and finally get the room to almost finished.

Nick and I have both been blessed with the opportunity to travel abroad to several pretty cool places: Thailand, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Ecuador, and Chile.  We both have a bunch of souvenirs from our travels and we thought this room would be a great place to display them.  With such an eclectic bunch of stuff I was worried it would look cluttered and random, but we are pretty pleased with how it turned out:

We still have a few things left to do: put pictures in that frame above, paint and rehang the closet doors, build and hang a few floating shelves on the wall opposite the bed but it has come a long way from its boring old self.

House Progress

We have lived in our house for about 17 months and as promised here are some before and progress shots of the house.

A walk down memory lane- here is the video I took when we decided to put an offer on the house (apologies for the terrible quality)

It was such a dark carpet filled place and when I look at that it reminds me of how much we have actually accomplished in turning this little house into a home.

Front of House

When we moved in

Fall 2012

 February 2013

The Living Room

Move in Day

About a year ago 

Now

The Kitchen

Move in Day

sorry for the blurry pic

Now

Dining Room

Move in chaos

 Christmas 2011

 Now

 

Guest Bedroom 

Christmas 2011

Now

Master Bedroom

 Move in Day

Christmas 2011

Now

Still have lots on the to do list and some rooms, like the office which has turned into the dumping ground (which is why it was left out), might have gotten worse but looking at these pictures together is a good reminder of just how far our little house has come.  

Let There Be Light!

When we moved into our house there were only over head lights in the bathroom, hallway, and kitchen.  This drove me crazy.  I like to be able to walk into a room and flip a switch and there be light.  Some of the rooms without overheard fixtures did have outlets that were connected to a switch but in most cases it wasn't the most logical outlet in the room to plug in a lamp. This resulted in most cases having to walk through a dark room to turn a lamp on.  It got very old, very fast so installing over head light fixtures in all the bedrooms, the dining room and the living room was on our list of fixes from the start and we finally got around to doing just that.  

First we had to take down the awful ceiling fan in the dining room

Then the electrician installed boxes in each room and Nick went back and installed the lights

Our stash of new lights

New Dining Room light

The Master Bedroom

I apparently don't have pictures of the other bedrooms or living room but I plan on doing a whole house update soon so I will be sure to point those out.  It has been so nice to be able to just flip a switch in these rooms and I am sure come warm weather having those ceiling fans will be a welcome relief as well.

SNOW!

It is probably no secret that I love snow and wholeheartedly believe it does not snow enough in St. Louis. I may or may not be secretly jealous of the giant snow storm hitting New England this weekend.   I am also pretty sure I have not seen measurable amounts of snow in St. Louis in about 2 years (since the snowmageddon that wasn't)  so last weekend when we came home to beautiful snow falling from the sky I couldn't help but spend a little time enjoying it even if it was almost midnight!  Nick even indulged me and played in the snow and helped me build my very first snowman (don't ask I have no idea how someone who loves snow so much managed to make it 28 years without ever performing such a regular snow activity).  So for my dear friends surviving the storm this weekend do a little of this for me:

Yes I am skipping in the snow!

and then I made a snow angel

building a snowman

Me and our fabulous snow man

I also realized the next morning that we don't have any pictures of our house with snow because we didn't get any accumulated snow last year so I ran outside before it all melted and took this pictures.  Unfortunately our snowman was not the best constructed little guy and he took a topple overnight.

And this is all that was left of the snow when I got home from work Monday.  

poor mr. snowman

I am still holding out hope for an awesome winter storm, but I know better than to get too hopeful in this town cause it just isn't likely.