projects

A few months ago I posted about all the projects I have been working on. Well, this one has been a never-ending (as I'm sure our friend, Jake, who built it all for us can attest to) one but I am getting SO close to being done so I thought I'd go ahead and share the results with you. Jake built all these cabinets (THANK YOU!) from a rough sketch I did of what I wanted and he did an amazing job. Jamie and I spent hours at night after Hudson was in bed painting all of this wood. And of course the wood just soaked up the first 2 coats so we had to put 3 or 4 coats on it all. We've been working on it for a long time! But I have so much storage now I don't even know what to store in all the space!
This is my new mudroom. When we finished the basement we moved our laundry room downstairs so this is the old laundry room. It's the entryway from the garage to the house and was a VERY tiny laundry room. So it works much better as a mud room - i.e. place to put down all your junk as you are walking into the house! I still have to paint the drawer fronts (not pictured here) and put pulls on them. I also haven't found the hooks I want for the right side. It's like a big locker and I want to hang hooks there to put bags and coats on and such. I am looking for hooks that hang from the ceiling - anyone seen those? The left middle part has a "smart station" which means an area where we can put all of our electronic devices to charge them up. It's really just a fancy name for power strip hidden behind a piece of wood but I love not having all those cords all over the kitchen anymore!

This is my new storage area in the laundry room. Like I said, I haven't even found enough stuff to store to use all my space yet!

And more storage! I like having the counter top for folding laundry and the top drawer has a fold out ironing board! Yes, still more painting to do here as well.

And this is my new craft/scrabooking area which I am MOST excited about. Now all my stuff will have a place instead of spread all over the office floor. And I can sit in a chair instead of on the floor to scrapbook! For my birthday I am getting some baskets and organizer things for this area. Once I get it all done I'll finally get back to my scrapbooking - and a few other projects!

This is a peg board that hangs above my scrapbook desk (Thanks Jeremy and Cecil for getting it put up!). I'm going to use it to organize more of my scrapbook supplies, wrapping paper and stuff like that. I'll post a picture once I get it done.

So we've been busy - and now that it's (almost) done I have a whole list of other projects to start on!

summertime

I have discovered something about myself - or at least finally admitting it. :) I am the type who takes on 20 different projects at once and only finishes one or two of them. I have this whole list of things I want to do and can't find time to do them all! So I am trying to focus on one or two at a time and see where that gets me.
My first project for the summer was getting the landscaping in the backyard finished. This is our fifth summer here and I still didn't have that done. So I am happy to report that after 2 weeks working on it while Hudson napped (or more precisely while he screamed in his bed and I went outside so I didn't have to listen) I am almost done. I know, I know - just finish it and be done with it. But I haven't found just the right pot yet to put some flowers in - but then it will be done.
Here are some pics of my (and Jamie's too) hard work:

Eventually the clematis I planted will grow on the old window that's propped up against the house and be beautiful. And the pot I want to get will sit in that old red chair in the corner. The bad thing about that idea is I have to remember to water it but I also planted some honeysuckle to grow on the lattice on the deck and I have to water it too cause the drip lines don't reach it. I did really good with watering every morning - front and back - until Christin and I started our summer workout program last week (another project!). Our schedule changed so instead of taking Hudson out and watering in the mornings we are loading up to go to GiGi's so Christin and I can go to the gym. But I am remembering to water everyonce in a while - and it rained last night so I don't have to worry about it today!

I bought all perennials (hopefully!) so everything will come back year after year and I won't have to work on it ever again!

My rose bushes - these have been in for a couple years and they have such beautiful flowers. I have some weeding to do on this end of the flower beds and I should have pruned them and shaped them up before they bloomed but I missed that. Goal for next year now! And I should point out that Jamie got all the timbers staked into the ground - we put those in last year before Hudson was born but ran out of stakes and never finished it! But now it's done.

So I miscounted when I bought the rose bushes and still needed one more to go all the way around. So this year I went and bought another one but for some reason I thought I had both pink and red roses. So I bought a pink one - then got home and realized mine were all red. So we now have one pink one. Oh well. I suppose I should also mention that this is the area that I destroyed the drip lines in when I was trying to dig out the monkey grass I had put here a few years ago. Jamie had to piece the drip lines back together in about 5 different places. And I was being careful not to do that while I was digging - that's how bad it was!

And last but defintely not least, Jamie's proud new purchase that will make our lives (mostly his) much more enjoyable this summer!

Our neighbors are moving to California and won't need this there so they made us a good deal on it. And since I had mowed the lawn the last 2 weeks I was all for it this time!