Sprinklers and some fun stuff inside

Sprinklers are officially a go! Please note the 300-some feet of pipe strapped to the top of my car. The Home Depot guy was not confident about our use of ratchet straps, but those things are the greatest. 

So now our front yard looks like this. Back yard is similar. Lots of small trenches. Todd's dad (who's heading up the project) used a Ditch Witch to dice up what remains of our pathetic lawn. (Also I recently got an iPhone 5 and am working on mastering the panorama shot.)

Inside, I hung the floating terrariums I bought a couple months ago. My air plants arrived earlier this week and will be living in them, hanging in the kitchen window for now.

This one has three: it's a 6-inch diameter bubble and has a big plant and two small ones, one at 4 o'clock and one at 7-8 o'clock.

 This one just has one; it's only a 4-inch diameter.

Cool, huh?

I also (slightly intoxicatedly) did this to the powder room trashcan. The idea was devised while fully sober, but Todd pointed out that I might regret executing a drink and a half in. He was sort of right, although I could also argue it adds to the desired irregular nature of the pattern. Anyway...this bathroom is slowly getting a little more personality. (And it was really good gin from Bendistillery.)

And this variety of asparagus fern is living in the back entry. Seems happy so far. It's so fluffy!

And lastly, I painted the artichoke lamp in our bedroom a lovely glossy white from the tan-with-gold-glaze it came as. I'm still working on finishing up the plan for our bedroom. Missing art, bedside lamps and possibly a couple accessories, depending on how the lamps turn out. Something about this still seems a little disjointed to me, but I'm sure it'll come to me eventually.

The saga of the kitchen trim

Yesterday afternoon, it was broiling and humid outside so I decided to work on something inside. The kitchen trim has been grating on me for a while, so I grabbed my caulk gun and went to work. I dislike this project because it's multi-step and the parts that need to be done first aren't very gratifying, like caulking unprimed wood. Anyway, here's the window over the sink before. 

Before from straight on...you can see the wood on the sides and top. 

And here's the icky shape the trim was in. Now unfortunately, because we are suspicious that we likely have some lead-based paint somewhere in the 72 years of layers of paint on this casing, I wasn't going to sand it. I used a lint roller (you laugh, but it works!) to remove any loose paint and gave it a wipe with a damp paper towel before Kilz-ing it. 

This is after I primed. I told you it wasn't very gratifying. It does look better in person, and there's a nice crisp caulk line along the counter all the way around that painter's tape. That is gratifying. 

The trim around the kitchen window is now primed, which is a wild improvement that's hardly visible on camera. The rest of the trim is either primed or painted. What's annoying about that project is that it doesn't really look significantly better, it just doesn't look crappy anymore. That's what nobody tells you (ok, my parents both warned me) about renovating old houses. So much of it is just bringing it up to a certain baseline of acceptability before you can start improving on anything. 

I also did some more serious work styling the shelves that flank the windows. I had some random stuff there, but that's pretty much what it looked like: random. stuff. 

 Still a work in progress...

 And we'll see how far I get not killing the succulents I've started collecting. TBD.

I love this. That aged french florist pot and little Delft creamer pitcher. It has a small tray and a sugar pot that it goes with. Maybe I'll pull the other pieces out and put them on a shelf too. They're in my china cab right now. They were my grandmother's pieces.

 I'm becoming a bigger fan of identifying what I love in decor and filling spaces with that. It's evolving, but I find myself drawn to rustic wood, aged terra cotta pots (shocker), blue and white pieces, anything cobalt blue, crisp white finishes against dark wood especially with green plants...

One of the decor blogs I follow posted a palette of her colors throughout her house, and I like that idea. Given the moment of crystalizing my own tastes I'm having right now, I created my own whole house palette:

It's a lot, I know. But somehow it's working, I think because it's usually offset with some metallic (gold or mercury balls) and a "big" texture: jute, woven baskets, wood. I usually don't go with all the colors in one room; our bedroom is cobalt, yellow and tangerine with lots of white. The living room is red with cobalt and navy accents and a heavily textured jute rug. The dining room is navy, white, moss green (literally, moss...) and a little orange, again with heavy texture from the grasscloth wallpaper. 

The guest room, kitchen, entry and powder have had me stumped for a while because they're like the inverse of the other rooms: where I've had major color backdrops to work with, this is white, with white cabs and dark floors. Pulling in the pots and the greenery is helping me crystalize. I've been trying to figure out how to pull in cobalt and orange or possibly lime for the downstairs rooms, but haven't gotten there yet. 

Upstairs I'm still stumped, but that's ok. It's a process, and I finally feel like I have some kind of framework after this weekend, when I spent hours on Pinterest distilling what I was drawn to in certain images. It was a good and productive exercise for a groggy Saturday. It's weird, turning it into more of a science. Everything I've done with this house so far has been freehand and by some combination of chance and my eye for things, it's worked together. I think this is a good move and will help me start finishing rooms so I can stop thinking about them and just enjoy being in them. What a concept...just living in a house :)

And lastly, our most expensive investment in a while. Here's our lovely new roof. We opted for a lighter color for better energy efficiency. I'm working on adjusting to it. Kind of wish it was a little darker, but I'll get over it. I just realized how actually horrific our back yard looks here. I've gotten used to it (a particular type of coping us renovators develop) but wow...what a mess. That's going to change soon though. 

P.S. Have you ever seen a bluer sky than that? That's Oregon in the summer, folks. It's so blue you can't even look at it. You just can't beat it. 

That time we tried to turn our pool into an infinity pool

And other bedtime stories. Kind of. First, let's start with a picture from a couple of weekends ago of the Wood River, our favorite canoe trip. Gorgeous day, hot and sunny with perfectly clear water. Super fun time with Alyssa and Mike.

Next, I finally finished our master bedroom headboard that I started last summer. It was pretty much finished, but the screws and washers in the tuft holes (technical term) were still visible.

 

They don't really look very obvious until you compare to the "after"...

And now, the part where we address the title of this post. We kind of left the faucet running on the pool all afternoon. Until 8:30. 

When I went out and discovered this water totally overflowing out of this filter thing, into and under the pool shack and out into the garden. 

Next! We're having the roof done. This is not a very fun way to spend a very lot of money, but we had perhaps another year or so before it really needed it, and we figured it'd be better to get it done before things start leaking (like our garage did during an extended spring rainstorm).

Thought it was kind of funny the guys left all their stuff on the roof to come back tomorrow. Water, nail guns, etc.

They also left their truck in the front yard. Now that we don't look like total bumpkins all the time, it's more amusing to do it occasionally.

Oh, right...here's the reason the dang thing was so expensive. That's one of the layers of old shake roof. Under which there was no plywood. Do you hear that noise? That's the cash register, adding zeros. Ka-ching, ka-ching...

Pool shack, patio projects and curtains

It's that time of year...the time when I turn my attentions outside and start doing all sorts of outside projects. Like spray painting pineapples on outdoor end tables. These turned out pretty well, although my stencil work was kind of sloppy. Sharp edges are hard :/

On my time off last week I built this table for the pool shack. I adore my Kreg Jig. The top and shelf are "salvaged" cedar. Does it count as salvaged if your neighbors call and offer you their old fence and pile it in your garden utility area and you use it several years later? I say yes.

I was on the fence (heh) about whether to stain it or just leave it natural and opted for the later for now. Can always go for stain later if I want. Pressure treated legs should last a good long time.

 So now this is what it looks like...

 Pretty good from where it started before I cleaned and vacuumed and cute-d it up! The pool shack is much less "scary" than it was before. (My dad referred to it as scary. Fair enough. There were a lot of spiders.)

Additionally, I added some additional fabric to the curtains my mom made for our Pasadena apartment years ago. They're the striped part on top. I also re-hung the rod so it's closer to the ceiling. Additional height really opens up the room.

The fabric is what I upholstered the ottoman with. It doesn't really look all that great in the pictures, but the extra seam isn't noticeable in person and they're much more billowy and full looking. It ended up being a bit of a time-consuming project, which involved an unplanned visit to Joann's for thread, but I'm glad it's now done and the curtains are back in place.

 Lastly, tune in next time for what I did to this table (it was much less pleasant in real life than this picture might lead one to believe).

Pool shack rehab

How cute is the pool shack these days with the lights?

The "chalkboard" (old door from the attic access off the guest room) has a line from Tip It Back by Florida Georgia Line. Still a bunch of pool-ish clutter around, but the pool itself is almost cleaned up. Todd's worked so much on getting it spiffy. Sparkling and clear!

Please note massive haul of cherries (this is perhaps half) and knife magnet that I successfully installed a couple weeks ago. Drilling through tile is STUPID and the two holes took me 30+ minutes each to drill. Like I said, stupid. I am, however, thankful that I didn't break any tiles and the knife magnet hasn't fallen off. 

Hardware and cherries

Trash dresser's cousin got hardware installed last weekend, and I love it.

 It's kind of a blocky, modernish shape. Dark finish. The best part is opening and closing drawers and how much easier it is with a handle. Also, lesson learned, when you're filling holes in furniture, use wood filler and not caulk. Four coats of caulk in and the holes from the previous hardware were still visible. Wood filler dealt with them in one swipe.

Todd's dad came and tilled the weed forest garden a couple weeks ago too. We planted annual rye grass in the non-bedded section and won't be growing much this year, other than a few determined dahlias that sprouted again after two years of not being dug up and split. Five tomato plants are in the bed and two basils are in the back entry waiting to be planted. 

 You remember our plumbing project? And how I said our pipes were made of concrete? Welp, that's one of the pipes. You know what pipes aren't supposed to have? HOLES. That is like Swiss cheese pipe. Glad this project is drawing to a close.

 This is from Friday night at the farm/winery just up the street from our house. 7 minute walk, perhaps. I will be probably blabbing more about them in the coming weeks. Perfect place to spend a Friday evening.

 Our first round of fruit ripened earlier this week: the cherries. It was a lot of work keeping the birds out of my cherry trees this year, but mission accomplished. We netted the trees and then I put some stuffed animals out (rabbit, lobster and bear) to deter would-be thieving birds from making off with the goods.

 Of which there were many. Last year I saw the green cherries, and then a few weeks later went out to check on them and there was no trace of any cherries at all. I was later told that birds will clear the tree within a day if certain measures aren't taken to fend them off. This year, said measures were taken and we filled two huge mixing bowls with our spoils, and they are yummy.

 Sadly, we lost one of the apple trees (Todd's Red Delicious) from last year. Kind of weird because they should have been established, but anyway... My Macintosh has a pretty lot of apples on it, which is the first year we'll be getting fruit from it. Only one of the peaches has peachlets on it right now, but one tree full of peaches is better than zero trees full of peaches, so I'll take it.

Kitchen Backsplash + Trash Dresser's Cousin

Trevor was finally able to get the kitchen backsplash in over the last few weekends. 

 White subway tile and white grout.

 We were a little concerned that the white wouldn't look quite right with the off-white cabinets, but it's fine.

 At least, it's not bothering me. I can't believe how much it snazzes up the kitchen. I knew it'd be nice to have it done, but I didn't realize how much of a difference it'd make.

 AND! Acquisition from a couple weekends ago: a hideous free dresser off CL. It is uncannily similar to "trash dresser," a dresser I saw in the trash on my way to work a few years ago and drove around the block to collect. I stuffed it in the back of my car, where it remained for a few weeks because we had nowhere to store it. (We were still living in the studio in Bend before moving to the Fishhawk house.)

Anyway, still waiting for the hardware for this one to arrive: an oil-rubbed bronze modernish style. I rehabbed it a couple weekends ago and went with the same painted bottom, stained top approach as the one that's in the dining room. I figured it looked good, so why reinvent the wheel? This fits in the laundry room way better than the other one and provides a lot more storage and surface area. All our shoes are in the bottom four drawers, so no more tripping over shoe piles. Love it.

 Trevor also cut slate and installed the backsplash in the upstairs bathroom. Great to have that finished and checked off the list. It looks fantastic. I love how that bathroom came out.