Our Very First Overnight Guest

No, we're not sleeping at the "big house" (as my daughter calls it) yet.  But someone is.

Mama mourning dove has two eggs she's sitting on.  This is right outside on the ledge of what will be the playroom.  She's just the sweetest little thing and never moves a feather when we come near to check on her.  I think it's a good sign:)

My Painted Thrift Store Mirror

I finally did it.  I painted the mirror that's going in the powder room.  It only took a month (or maybe longer). Here it is when I bought it.

Not awful, and I know this color is kind of in right now, but there was some damage that I had to repair and that meant having to paint it as well.  I decided on BM Rose Quartz which is kind of a coral-y red color.

Here's how it looks now.

It's so hard to take a picture of a mirror.  You get the idea.  Now I just need to hang it and get a window treatment and I can call the powder room done.  That means I should be posting about it in a few months-Ha!

The Yard

We are still sleeping in the "carriage house" aka garage apt, which means we trudge through the disgusting little yard every morning and night to get to the kitchen.  The yard is pretty small and yet huge on the disgusting factor.  It's overgrown and uneven so every time it rains it's like a mini swamp.  We've put planks and bricks to navigate our way but I'm always worried one of us is going to trip and fall on our short journey, so this was a huge weekend for us.  Here's what the yard looked like. I wish I had taken more pictures of before the work started, but you can get the idea.

And here it is now.  

There's still a little bit of stone to go in...they ran out.  It's a huge improvement though.  Finally we can walk across the yard without worrying about falling or stepping in a puddle.  This is just the hardscape though.  Still have to put in some grass and plants etc but it's a step in the right direction.  One thing we're really looking forward to doing is eventually having a tiny vegetable garden which will go in this area.

Can you believe all this was done in one day?  I got up early the day after it was done because I couldn't sleep.  I was so excited to go outside and look at the new patio.  It's the little things that make me sooo happy.

All About The Lights

This weekend was fairly productive.  My husband finished painting the porch (yes, it really took that long) and I finished painting my daughter's bathroom.   I'm definitely finding it increasingly difficult to perform even simple tasks these days.  My stomach seems bigger than it should be at this point, and my boobs are out of control.  I don't know how you more voluptuous women out there do it.  The sad reality is that my boobs will get smaller again, only they'll look like empty tube socks.  Oh the joys of pregnancy.

Enough of the "tmi", let's get back to the point of the post.  Lots of lights got put up this weekend.  Ok, not lots, but more than usual.  First, here's the painted porch ceiling and the fan/light combo we chose.

I hate the way the ceiling color looks in this picture.  It so does not do it justice.  It's actually a really pretty pale blue in person.  We ended up color matching it from our neighbor's porch ceiling which I love.  It's BM Crystal Blue and I highly recommend it.  Anyway, about the fan, as I posted before I'm not a huge fan of fans (pun intended).  There was one that I liked better, but it was more expensive and this is the back porch. We'll save the more expensive ones for the front porch when and if  we ever get around to having it rebuilt.  I'll show some better pics of the porch later.

And here's the bathroom lights I ended up buying.

For some reason they look crooked in this picture.  Probably due to my awesome photography skills.

Finally, here's the star lanterns that are in the back hallway on the second floor.  There is a door that separates where my daughter's room, bathroom, playroom, and laundry room are from the front half of the second floor.  Since this is going to be the kid's half of the second floor I thought it would be kind of whimsical to have the star lanterns in their little area.

The hallway is a work in progress, but I love love love these lights.  They just put a smile on my face every time I see them.  Did anyone else out there have a productive weekend?

Not All Wood Should Be Painted

There is some woodworking and plastering going on in our master bedroom.  We had a little trouble with one of the walls, more specifically, the wall above the fireplace.  

This picture is before the wall was taken down, hence a year old.  I couldn't find a better picture of the fireplace though which is the whole point of this post...gah!  Anyway, the wall above the fireplace apparently had something called lime rot?  Nope, never heard of it either.  So the plaster had to be taken down to the brick and the brick had to be treated with something.  It's always 1 step forward 2 steps back with this house!

In the meantime the fireplace mantle had to be removed.  It was pretty typical of a mantle in an over hundred year old home...painted over a million times with goopy paint.  We decided to go ahead and have it stripped and start fresh.  Then we got a call from the shop that does the stripping.  Apparently under countless coats of paint the wood was bird's eye maple which is a very expensive and beautiful wood.  In the nicest way possible they basically told us (and we agreed) that it would be a crime to paint over it.  So instead we had them just poly it and call it a day.  When my husband went to pick it up he said there were whispers everywhere as all the staff came out to greet my husband and display the work they were so proud of.  They even put it on their website.  Cute.

I wish I had a closeup of the before because it had been painted so many times that you really couldn't see all the detail.  I can't wait to see it back up in the room!