Garden Woes

I'm having a bit of a blog identity crisis that I'm not sure how to resolve. I maintain two blogs: this one and another, more lighthearted, aimless, every-day one. I admit I spend more time with the other one cause I don't put all that much thought into what I put there. If it amuses or bothers me, I add it. This one, having more of a theme, has been harder for me to keep up with, especially now that we're between projects. I've given some thought to just merging them into one blog, but something keeps holding me back. For some reason I just don't think that's the answer. Maybe I worry that those who are familiar with my other blog wouldn't want to scroll through all the house stuff, and those who want the house stuff wouldn't want to deal with all the nonsense that would surely get in the way if I combined them. I just don't know.

In the meantime, I guess I'll just have to be more vigilant about not letting dust collect here.

It also helps that we kind of have a new project to focus on. It's that time of year again: Spring, though you'd never know it by the weather. Freezing temperatures each night and snow showers yesterday morning. Okay, the torrential rains over the last 3 days could somehow be categorized as Spring-like, but still having to wear my winter coat and pile on the blankets at night and it already half-way through April? Not cool, not cool at all!

Anyway, according to the calendar it is time to gussy up the outside of the house, meaning the lawn, flower beds, vegetable garden, etc. Usually, The Viking gets a raging case of Spring Fever, so bad he tears home from work and literally hops out of his truck to run, not into the house to give me a honey-I'm-home kiss, but out to the shed to be reunited with his rakes, shovels, pruners, spreader and bags of seed, fertilizer and peat moss. I've never seen him, but I'm convinced he gets down on his knees, gathers them all to his bosom and breathes in their heady aroma, having fantasized dreamily about them all day.

My job during this annual mania, is research and planning. I spend weeks determining just the right shrubs, plants and flowers for each area of the yard, and he puts those plans into action. Our budget is very limited, so we try to do just a little each year rather than landscaping it all at once.

The problem is, this year we're just so dang discouraged. We've been chipping away at this for over 5 years now and we don't feel like we've gotten anywhere! The same things that bugged us about the yard 5 years ago still bug us. And, this year, we're putting every spare penny into paying off all our debt but our mortgage, so our finances are even tighter and there is practically no money available for gardening. It's putting a real damper on our usual Spring fun.

So, once again, I am charged with the task of finding the perfect plants which will give us the most bang for our buck. This year The Viking wants me to find plants that are:
1. perennials. We always go heavy on the perennials so we're not stuck buying tons of annuals year after year. Our goal is to eventually only buy annuals for the window boxes, the planters on the kitchen porch, and the hanging baskets on the front porch. As of this year, we're still looking at buying them to plant along the borders of the flower beds (2 long ones and 1 small) which, to me, feels like throwing money away.
2. evergreen or provide winter interest. Right now our yard looks fabulous from Memorial Day to Labor Day, but looks scraggly and sparse the rest of the year.
3. full and/or bushy. We still have a lot of open space we'd like to fill as you'll see in the pics to follow.
4. easy to maintain. We're especially fond of plants that spread easily and grow fast.
5. can tolerate partial to mostly shade. Our property is canopied by 6 giant white oaks so none of the flower beds get full sun all day.

I know what you're probably thinking: Hedges. Lots and lots of hedges. The problem is, neither of us likes the look of boxy, manicured hedges and prefer a more English, cottage-style, contained-chaos kind of look. But we don't really know how to do that. Are hedges our only option, to line the fence and the foundation of the house with them so our house looks like every doctor's office and bank in the tri-state area?

I am indeed looking for suggestions here, so maybe you need a few visuals:


We started this flower bed last year and planted 3 black-eyed susans and several daylilies that we were able to divide. We also planted impatiens along the front. It looked lovely, but took a while to lose that scraggly look it has now. We'd like to plant something tall along the fence that will provide a nice backdrop for the susans, lilies and whatever else we decide to cram in there. This bed gets a good amount of sun most of the day in early Spring, but by the time the oak leaves come in it only gets full sun in the morning. And, yes, it needs a good raking.

This bed is the largest space, the one that greets everyone who comes in the driveway or approaches the house. It runs along the southern side of the house and gets mostly shade, with the exception of the part farthest to the right which gets some sun in the morning. Those are azaleas, which neither of us are fond of, but they were there when we moved in and since beggars can't be choosers, we've left them. Over the past three years we've added a few coreopsis and a feverfew, both of which grow like crazy each summer, but are only just starting to shoot up right now. We did try delphiniums along the porch railing which were lovely but only lasted a summer.

This is the center of that bed, and the center of the southern wall of the house. The Viking built that window box a few years ago and they look lovely filled with annuals. Last year I did impatiens, white bacopa and vinca vine. I'm not sure I'll do impatiens again as I'm not a huge fan, and The Viking thinks the vinca gets too long by the end of summer and wants me to find an alternative, but I am hoping to find some more of the bacopa this year. I planted that everywhere last year and loved it! Here we have a few more azaleas, another coreopsis, and, almost cut out of the pic on the right, an evergreen we planted two years ago the name of which I've forgotten. We actually like it more than we thought we would. It's grown quite fast and has a nice shape to it. Dwarf cypress? Could that be right?

This is the deepest part of that bed, the birdbath area. To the extreme left you can see the right side of that nameless evergreen. There's another sad-looking azalea, an out-of-control scotch broom, a dwarf korean lilac that has done very well and is loaded with flower buds already, several lady's mantles, another coreopsis, and, in the front, not quite visible, a short border of snow-in-summer.

Finally, this is the end of the south flower bed. That bush in the center is one of our successes, a paniculata hydrangea. We planted this one to match the one on the other side of the stairs and it has just taken off. They seem to love our soil and shade. The bloom like crazy, the blooms last until well into fall and no matter how vigorously we prune them, they're monsters by the end of the season. This one is newer than its mate, so it's not as full and thick, but I know it won't take very long for it to catch up.

This, though it's not much to look at now, is one of my favorite spots in the yard. That bush in the corner is the monster paniculata hydrangea. The Viking pruned it viciously back in the fall, but I guarantee it will have grown past the tops of the railing by the end of the summer. I planted it when we moved in 9 years ago, along with the "mop-head" hydrangea next to it. It took us a few years to learn that the mop-head only blooms on old wood so we haven't had an abundance of hydrangea blooms, but last year The Viking left it alone so it should just explode this year (fingers crossed). Hydrangeas are one of my most absolute favorite flowers so I love these bushes when they're at their peak. It's just a shame they look so forlorn all winter long. There are a few more azaleas, several daffodils that just erupted spontaneously one Spring, and a brand-new lavender bush that I'm hoping survived the winter.

And now for the two areas that test The Viking's temper. The first is the North side of the house, which is the side, but the way the house is situated makes it more like the back. This area gets full shade and is only visible when driving past our house from the North to the South. The Viking hates, loathes, despises and abominates the foundation of the house being visible. We've tried disguising it with lattice and a few sad little evergreens (two varieties of holly, I believe), but still he is unhappy. I'm really not sure what to do with this area, other than the dreaded dentist's office hedges, but something has to be done or my husband is going to freak out and paint hedges on the wall or something. That bush at the corner of the house is a lilac that is actually doing quite well, but is not full or lush enough to please The Viking.

And this is probably the bane of my husband's existence, the front of the house, or I should say the street side of the house. This is what everyone sees when they drive by, the west side of the house with its naked foundation and ugly utility boxes. In a well-intentioned effort at thinking ahead, I planted several lilac suckers along this wall within weeks of moving in. I had envisioned a nice "hedge" (if you will) of waist-high lilacs, nodding in the breeze and wafting their sweet scent into the open windows above. Nine years later they still look awful. They haven't bloomed. Not once. Not even a bud. And I don't really know what else to plant here. This side of the house especially needs something that will provide year-round curb appeal, but I just haven't found the perfect solution yet. The only thing about this area we do like is not visible in this pic. At the far corner of the house we planted a burning bush last year. It seems to be doing well, was full of berries last fall and is loaded with buds already this year. There's also some creeping myrtle and a wild, climbing rose that appeared out of nowhere that add charm, but those are both near the front steps as well.

And, finally, the area lowest on my list of gardening priorities, the area at the front corner of our property, right next to the driveway. This used to be a triangular bed delineated by three tall trees and three railroad ties, though the only things planted in the bed were a few bulbs of hyacinths and tulips. I pulled the railroad ties out, moved the bulbs about a bit and added a few Japanese Iris and a wild and free mock orange blossom and then just left it alone. The mock orange has flourished, but the irises did not and the hickory tree fell down so the feel of the area has changed a bit. Generally, I like it, but every once in a while I think it needs something more.

So, there you have my landscaping, gardening dilemmas. I know we can't tackle all of it at once, but chipping away at things doesn't seem to be working, and I don't know how to accomplish the free, crowded, English cottage mish-mash of a garden we're craving.

If anyone, anyone has any suggestions, they would be greatly appreciated. I will keep you posted as best I can about any progress we make.

Still here! Got a few new lovelies!

Oh, it's been so long since I've posted anything here! Things have gotten really really quiet on the home improvement front. Since we've finished the kitchen (minus a few things here and there that we can afford to take a good long time to complete), we've gotten all lazy and stuff.


Well, that's not entirely true. After all those weeks of having our lives be totally consumed by the kitchen and the renovation of it, we're enjoying just sitting back and enjoying the fruits of our labor. That, and The Viking has been filling his time after work doing handyman jobs here and there so we can finish paying for the new kitchen. Things went a little over budget, of course, so he's doing some extra work to make up the difference. He's been going to work early so he can leave early and put in a few hours doing the side jobs before coming home for a late dinner and an hour with the kids before they all crash into bed. I haven't seen him much, but it's just temporary and a small price to pay to avoid going further into debt.

I've been holding down the fort and enjoying my most lovely kitchen! I've been cooking a lot more and keeping the room much cleaner than I ever have before. I've learned it's a lot easier to keep a room clean when there's enough space to store everything and the room actually looks sparkling clean when you're done (that old, crappy kitchen never looked clean no matter how much I toiled away at it).

We had our first post-renovation dinner party last weekend. Mrs. C handled marinated pork loin, scalloped potatoes and steamed sugar snap peas for 12 with style and ease. It was the first time we entertained in a kitchen and dining room we could be proud of. All the fancy dishes were easy to retrieve because they were conveniently located in the recently cleared out hutch and handy pantry. Before, I had so much stuff crammed into and on top of the dining room hutch (my only storage for party ware) things were hard to get to, use and put away. I actually enjoyed entertaining this time. I think this kitchen is going to be good for our social life.

I'm still on the lookout for baskets, a plate rack and a coat/backpack/sports equipment storage solution. We have a "dead" space behind the entrance to the kitchen we're not sure what to do with.

Both the trash can and the big red thing are both gone so it is now a nice, good-sized space just waiting to be used somehow. That door is the one we use to enter and exit the house and it is a natural dump zone so it seems to make sense to use it as we did before, to stash jackets, backpacks, sports equipment, lunch bags, hats, etc. but I don't want it to start looking like it used to:


I tried to remember to declutter that area and clean it out at least once a week, but it always looked junky. And I don't want to let that happen in this newly beautiful room! My original plan was to install a kind of coat cupboard complete with doors that would shut the mess up away from view. The Viking, rather tired of building things at the moment, wants me to just find a pre-made hall tree but doesn't want to spend over $200 for it. So he wants me to build bricks with no straw.

Anyway, I did manage to get my hands on a few more nifty little knick-knacks this week. My mom is helping a friend clean out an old house she just bought and in exchange for a few hours help, I got to bring home a few treats.

I'm not sure how or when I'll use them, but I couldn't resist these wine and cordial glasses (6 of each)! The teacup and saucer are very similar to a tea set I already have and came with three other unmated saucers which works for me very well since I've actually had three lonely teacups lingering on my hutch without saucers for three years. I really love the look of mismatched, but similar, sets of china so it's all very serendipitous for me. The dessert plates, too (8 of them) go well with my tea set so now I can feel like a grand lady when I have friends over for tea and scones.


These little beauties are going to sit on top of the fridge with my great-grandmother's egg beater. The one on the right is an old chopper of sorts, but I'm really not sure what the one on the left is for. The Viking thought maybe it was a cheese grater but I'm not sure there was that great a need for or interest in grating cheese back when this was made so I don't really know. Anyone got any ideas? I just like the look of them and the fact that they're red.


I also got this pretty little juicer that I just might be able to use! I wish I could find a way to mount it in one of the windows cause I love how the light shines through it.


There was an entire shopping bag full of old spice jars and cans and these are the ones I think I'm going to keep. I love the old labels and some even have recipes on the back, "Prepare chicken. Disjoint. Melt enough lard in hot pan..."

And these I haven't decided what to do with yet. The pitcher was pretty grimy so I don't know if I'll be able to bring myself to use it for anything but holding flowers. And the percolator (I think that's what it is) cleaned up really nice on the outside but is still caked with mildew all on the inside. I'm sure there's probably a way to wipe that out, but I'm just not sure how to do it. I was hoping to use it to serve coffee so The Viking will stop plopping the oh-so-pretty carafe from the coffee maker on top of a pot holder in the middle of the dining room table when serving dessert to our guests, but until I can de-gross it, it will serve as decor and nothing more.

I also acquired an old enameled pot but it proved to be useless for any indoor use because of copious amounts of rust and chippage. It will make a perfect flower pot for my front porch, though. I'll post a pic once I fill it with something lovely and fragrant.

So, we're still alive and kicking here at our Wit's End, but things have slowed down a lot. I'm enjoying the lull because I know it's just a matter of time before The Viking catches his breath and is ready to tackle the next project. He's already been scanning the living room with purposeful eyes and we're mere days away from his annual Spring Fever Landscaping Madness. That will be pure blog fodder!

Pantry Paradise!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We have a pantry.

It's finished and it's beautiful. I keep wandering over to it, opening the door and just standing there drinking it in.

Wanna see?


Of course I had to put a few kitschy little things in there, right in the center where I'm sure to see them first thing when I open the door. The round tubs hold our medicines and vitamins, the old bank bag hides the grocery store bags we've accumulated and the big silver pot is actually a Laotian steamer used for making sticky rice (and I'm sure other things, but I only know how to use it for sticky rice). I may be using them for practical purposes, but they still make me smile when I look into my pantry (37 times a day just for fun).


I know these pictures do not do it justice. You can only see half the shelf space and thus cannot fully appreciate the depths and breadth of its storage capacity. But, alas, I lack the mad picture-taking skillz possessed by The Viking and so this will have to do.

It was so wonderful to unpack that last box and finally put everything where it belongs. The first thing I moved was the dog food bin; I have hated having that thing sitting in the living room all these months! The mop and broom finally have a home after 8 years of simply leaning against the wall next to the fridge, and all miscellaneous items now have a place to hide. Filling the pantry cleared a lot of space on the counters which lets the beauty of the beadboard and butcher block really shine through.

We finally have that spacious, uncluttered and lovely kitchen we've dreamed about since we first moved in here. It's amazing what a difference it makes and I still feel like I'm going to wake up and find it was all a very realistic dream.

The completion of the pantry meant we could finally give the floor a good cleaning and clear out all the pieces of wood, boxes of tools and piles of debris from the far flung corners of the room. Remember this?

All the wood has been removed! That large red thing is a storage box The Viking made for the fire station and has since delivered to them.


This area also got a bit of a spruce up:


It was a big moment when The Viking packed up his tools and carted them down to the basement.


And this:



Thanks to the help of my gracious and organized friend who shall ever after be known to this blog as Mrs. Nugent, the hutch now looks like this:


I have never known such spaciousness and ease in my own kitchen. I feel so spoiled and I absolutely love it. It is easier to keep clean, I feel a greater sense of accomplishment when I clean it and I find us gathering and lingering in there much more. Saturday is My Boy's birthday so we're having our first post-renovation party and I can hardly wait! The big debut! That will be the big test. Will the improvements make entertaining any easier? Stay tuned to find out!

I really must go. It's time to start dinner and then I must go lie down. I haven't been feeling well and have a busy weekend ahead so I'm trying to rest whenever I can.

Until next time...

Granny Pantries

So, in response to showing you all the ugly underbelly of my house in my last post, I'm going to move on as if it never happened and keep showing only small, quickly cleaned up, carefully edited snapshots of the progress here at my Wit's End. Everyone on board with that? Okay, let's proceed.

I've been slooooooooowly bringing things back into the kitchen and acclimating them to the new environment. I've thrown away 2 large boxes of stuff, something that brought a huge smile to The Viking's face as he cheerfully booted them out of the house. He loves getting rid of stuff whereas I have a harder time parting with things.

Today was a most victorious day; I stormed the dining room, battled bravely and reclaimed it as our own. There are still a few things I have to find a place for (like the pretty but impractical canister set that came with our wedding dishes), but WE CAN SIT AT A TABLE AND EAT!

Here's My Boy mugging for the camera while he enjoys his sit-down dinner of rice! See the canisters? They need a home!

All our boxes are unpacked but one which must wait for the completion of the pantry. But I did sort through it and get rid of some things so it's all ready to be put away. Speaking of the pantry, The Viking has been hard at work on it all weekend:

He was fussing over me taking a picture of him, but that didn't stop him from working!

The pantry is lined with 5 wrap-around shelves, has a long, shallow space on the right side to hang the broom and mop and enough space at the bottom to slide taller things like the dog food bin. I am so dorkily excited about this pantry, I can't even tell you. I keep swiveling around in my chair as I'm typing to look at it. I've never had a pantry before and it was always one of those things that sounded like dreamhouse luxuries to me, like a fireplace, laundry chute, built-in bookshelves and window seats. We have yet to put in our fireplace or laundry chute, and we'll never have the bookshelves or window seats, but, by George, we've got a pantry! Squee!

I've also been trying to figure out how to display some of my decorative items without taking up precious storage space. So far I've come up with two areas: a somewhat awkward cupboard over the microwave, and on top of the fridge.

The Viking had to rebuild the cupboard over the microwave. When we went to install the stove (good old Mrs. C) we found that her backsplash made her an inch too tall to fit underneath the microwave. This caused quite a bit of wailing and gnashing of teeth until The Viking said he could pull out the cupboard over the microwave, mount the microwave higher to accommodate the stove, and rebuild the cupboard. This worked beautifully, except for the fact that we now have no doors for the new cupboard. We decided to worry about that smaller detail later.

When my organized friend came over she asked me how I wanted to use that space. I was unsure because I am rather short and have a hard time reaching it. She suggested I stash something up there I don't need to use very often, and if it was something pretty, I could simply leave the cupboard open like shelves. We tried some crystal pieces like candlesticks and vases, but they didn't look quite right. Then as I was staring at the cupboard trying to decide what to put in there it hit me! It's a perfect place to store my few pieces of stoneware!

The inside isn't finished, but once that outlet is covered and the whole thing is painted green like the outside, the white pieces are going to look great in there! I've had that soup tureen for years and rarely use it, but I love it too much to get rid of it. The footed bowl was a gift from my mother this Christmas as was the small gravy boat to its left. I acquired the candy dish from somewhere I can't recall now and the little pieces are ornaments I bought from abc distributing two years ago because I knew they'd be perfect for the red, green and white kitchen we were planning.


While I was at it I decided to try and sore a few things up on top of the fridge, an area I am probably never going to use for storing practical things. I had several picnic baskets/hampers stacked in my dining room that I decided would look pretty great up there. I added my great-grandmother's egg beater and a couple of red tea tins I bought at a yard sale for a quarter. I've had those things floating around for 3 years because I knew someday they'd be a nice touch in my dream kitchen!

In the far left of the pic you can barely see my green Goodwill candy dish and two more of the tins. I'm not sure if any of that stuff is staying, but I don't think I have any better place to stow the picnic baskets. The littler things might be moved around a bit, I'll have to live with it a while and see.

So, the pantry is now nearly finished and The Viking just announced he will have it done tonight so I can start filling it tomorrow! I'm so excited! I'll be sure to post lots of pics of the finished product tomorrow night!

Yay for the pantry!

This Is For Kim:

Poor Kim over at One Woman's Cottage Life (one of my most favoritest blogs ever) is feeling blue about the state of her home. She's feeling overwhelmed the all the things she wants to change about it, all the work that needs to be done. She thinks she's not getting anywhere. I think she is too creative, industrious and inspirational to be stuck in the blahs (and there really is nothing new to report on my own house at the moment), so I'm going to try to cheer her up. Or at least stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her.

But first, Kim's blog was the first blog I ever read. I didn't even know what a blog was until I stumbled onto her site, searching for cottage-style decorating ideas. The discovery of her and her blog opened a whole new world for me! I now have two blogs and something to be passionate about for the first time in a long time! If you haven't been to her site (and you probably have if you've found mine) check it out. I don't know how she has the time and patience to maintain such a great one, but somehow she does it.

So, Kim, I've toured my house and have taken pics to show you I understand. And what's worse, I have pics of rooms we HAVE redone, but just let get very messy. That's just tragic, and I'm going to document it here.

Ready? Okay, I figured we'd start with the porch. One of the porches. There are two. This one is right off the kitchen, the entry we use every day. All that stuff is stuff that got placed there when we were doing the kitchen, and we just haven't gotten around to clearing it yet. Get used to that last sentence, you're going to be hearing it a lot!


This here is right inside and behind the kitchen door and next to the new dishwasher. This is where we used to keep our coats, hats, boots, bags, etc. We're going to build something new there to use the space in the same way, we just haven't gotten to it yet. For now, it's where all the extra wood goes, I guess.


This is on the other side of the room, right outside the still-evolving pantry. The Viking got it sanded and primed last night. I'm hoping it gets finished this weekend so I can put all my stuff away!


Just around the other side of that wall, is my hutch in the dining room. Usually it's crowded with my favorite pieces of china and stoneware. Most of that stuff is still there, but camouflaged by inches of dust and piles of more stuff. Oh, and the pantry doors.


Now we're getting to the pics I really don't want to post. Our living room is very cluttered, in part because of the kitchen and the overflow it has caused (case in point, that mass of stuff to the right of the blue armoire) and in part because I am a very messy person.


The gate-leg table being used as a coffee table is too tall for a coffee table. It used to be our kitchen table. But we have the island now, and I just don't know where to put this table that I love. My children left their clothes and breakfast dishes all over the place and I've been too busy taking picture of my messy house and blogging to clean it up! Also notice that half of my Christmas decorations are still up and it's nearly March. Yes, that's right.


I especially like the Styrofoam cup on the piano (which never looks clean no matter how frequently I dust it), Red Headed Snippet's basketball shoes on the floor, and My Boy's blanket on the couch.


But this is the area of the living room that drives me most crazy. That weird "bump out" thing that I've tried to camouflage with my grandparents' wedding photo was a sad result of our second-story addition. It houses the heating ducts for the bedrooms and was put there because we had originally planned to close off that door (which leads to the laundry room), open an archway from the kitchen into the laundry room instead, and build closets all along that end of the living room. According to that plan, no one would ever see the goofy "tumor" as I call it, except for the coats and vacuum cleaner stashed in the closets. As you can see, that project never materialized and I am now stuck with this horrible growth on the living room wall. Also, that stuff piled in front of the bookcase? Our Christmas bins, still waiting to be put into the basement. And the bookcase doesn't usually look that sloppy, I just have been busy with other things lately...


The laundry room and powder room, off the living room, are unimpressive at best, but nothing is really glaringly wrong with them. But I had to include this pic of my nice, clean powder room with the mirror, sink and sconces I love, and the unwashed paint brush in the lower right corner. That, I think, sums up my house perfectly!


Now we head upstairs.
Though I mostly like it, the bathroom has it's faults, including a super modern-looking fiberglass tub and shower which scream to be replaced with a clawfoot tub. That's why the shower curtain is always drawn, to hide the fiberglass. The vanity is modern and boring, and looks especially bad after the kids' morning invasion. The goofiest thing about this room? The window frame, on the back wall, to the left. Rather, I should say, what USED to be a window frame. Before we built our addition, the back wall of the bathroom was the back wall of the house with a lovely large window right next to the toilet. When we added our new bedroom, the window had to go. I was very upset about this and wouldn't let The Viking take the trim and window sill down. I was determined to find a way to use it to charming, decorative advantage. That was three years ago. And we still have a filled-in window in our bathroom.


Red Headed Snippets lovely but very messy room. It's the only original bedroom to have survived intact. It used to be the Master bedroom. She and I decorated this room together and we both love it, but I just wish she kept it neater so its true beauty could be enjoyed!


This room is one of those odd, quirky things frequently found in cottages. This used to be the second bedroom. It was only 8 feet wide by 12 feet long. When we built the addition, most of it became hallway and closet space, but an 8-foot square chunk of space was left over. We decided to add small stained-glass windows and make it a "snuggery". I envisioned it housing comfy chairs and rows and rows of books. As a joke, we began calling it "The Library" because it was such a pretentious name for such a small space, and don't you know? It stuck. So, this is our library. With only one small bookcase that has more videos in it than books. I love this space, but just don't know how to use it. We had our computer up here while the kitchen was torn up, but it's just too hidden away for us to keep our computer in all the time (we like the kids to be right out in the open when they're using it). So, right now, it's storing things we don't know what to do with, poor lovely room.


This is the rest of what used to be the second bedroom, the hallway to the new bedrooms. I plopped that bookcase there as a temporary filler until the perfect piece could be found. Again, 3 years ago.


My Boy's room is basically charming.


If it weren't for the crooked, constantly dirty rug, the GIANT fish pillow (thanks, dad) and the decals he stuck all over the walls. I'm also not a fan of the race car bed, but it was a gift, he loves it, and I figure it's just a matter of time before he'll get tired of it and I can bring his lovely wooden bed back up from the basement.


But the big problem with his room is the closet. It's not finished. Fortunately, he does not yet have a big need for a finished closet, and really, likes playing in it more than anything. But the time will come when he'll need a place to store clothes and shoes and other things, and not just a cavern in which to stuff an extra mattress:

I really do like the new Master bedroom.




But even it has its dirty little secrets. This is the outside of a bookcase that hides a secret closet. We intended to use it for storing blankets and other infrequently used items.


But inside-

It's still unfinished! Obviously, finishing a secret closet behind a bookcase is not high on our list of household projects, and who can blame us? But every once in a while it bugs me.

There are a ton of other projects still unfinished around here. I didn't even venture into the front yard, back yard, front porch or scary basement. But, we are D-I-Y-ers and this is our life. We chip away at stuff, slowly transforming it into what we want, every once in a while taking a big chunk and making magic with it. It's tiring, messy and frustrating, but nothing beats that sense of satisfaction that comes with sitting down, gazing at something that makes you smile and thinking, "Hey, I did that."

So, now that I've posted messy pictures of my house in its worst light, I'm going to have to clean and spruce up all those rooms and take some nice pics of it in its BEST light. I'll get right on that, I promise.

And, Kim, if you're reading this: chin up. You will get it done. Because you love doing it and you're good at it. It's in your blood and no matter where you go, you'll be renovating things. So, enjoy your down time, stew for a while, then pick yourself and your paint brush back up and jump right back in there! We're all pulling for you!