Operation Yard/Backyard - Part 2

Everything is blooming! This is our white hydrangeas up close. We also have green ones.

And here's a yellow flower that came up from a bulb. Anyone know what these are?

Our front porch has impatiens.

The side yard (and quite a few other spots) have hostas and a boxwood.

Our back patio has rosemary, mint, and basil.

 The front porch has a Japanese maple next to it.

And the driveway recently got this little tree...I don't remember what it's called...

And thanks to the farmer's market, we have fresh peonies!

We also made homemade macarons over the weekend - almost as good as laduree :).

Upstairs Bedroom

The most time-intensive project we've tackled so far has been the upstairs bedroom. It was covered in wallpaper that had to be stripped before we could paint everything, so we've been picking at the paper for months.

Finally, last weekend it was time to sand, prime, and paint the walls.

I picked up a few home decor magazines in Paris on my way home from a conference in May, and some beautiful grey bookcases inspired the grey-wall-grey-trim paint colors we used. The trim is actually the same color as our downstairs bathroom - Behr's Dolphin Fin - and the walls and ceiling are a lighter shade of the same color. We still need to add some more personal touches, but at least it's ready for guests!

Here's the best comparison. I think I should invest in a better camera; the iPhone photos just aren't doing it justice.

Operation Backyard - Update!

More progress to report on the backyard! Irish moss went down between the pavers, Japanese spurge was planted in a shady bed along with some hostas, hydrangeas now line the fence, the patio table is together, and we got impulsive and bought a few solar path lights at Target and stuck those in the ground. All in all, we're really happy with our hard work.

Just as a refresher, here's the "Before" picture.

Irish moss waiting to be divided and planted. Of course they were out of the smaller plugs so we had to take the kitchen shears to these...we're still waiting for them to spread to fill all the gaps (this is only ~half of them).

Most of the plants are in and the grill got delivered.

Table assembled - check! Hydrangeas planted - check!

 Solar-powered lights - check!

We celebrated the progress Friday night and tried a new grilling recipe: Balinese Grilled Chicken. We also made grilled pineapple to go with it, and it was amazing!

Kitchen Plans!

We're definitely making progress around here! Deposits are in, and we have plans for the new kitchen! Considering it looks like this right now (it's actually messier than this picture) and it's not functional for any number of cooks, we're really excited to get this one done!

We're planning to open up the space a little bit (the wall the fridge is against is coming out) and create an island with seating at each end. The picture below is oriented roughly the same as the "Before" picture above with the window you can see above in the top right corner of the drawing below.

Even though the kitchen won't be done till mid- to late-September, pretty much every decision is made from the faucets (Danze and Delta), light fixtures (schoolhouse), and flooring (cork), to the counter tops (carrara marble), sink (Rohl farmhouse), and wall and ceiling colors (Pineapple Fiz and Rocky Mountain Sky. :) Here's a sampling below!

And yes, that's a white fridge, not a stainless one. Whirlpool's White Ice line looks like a line of Apple products! Demolition starts the last weekend in July - who's coming?!? To save money, we're demo-ing it ourselves, and learning as we go!

Fifty Shades of Blue

One of our first projects when we moved in was to paint the living and dining rooms (it's really all one room) to get rid of the egg-yolk yellow walls. We used the living room rug as the anchor for the room and went with a light blue-grey color. After making throw pillows to coordinate with the walls and buying a blanket to complement the throw pillows, I decided I didn't like the blue walls (the other rooms we've painted turned out beautifully, so I guess every now and then there's a dud). Back to the drawing board - and Home Depot - I went.

 I still wanted a color that was almost blue, almost grey, and almost green, so after trying many more shades, saturations, and hues, we ended up with a blue slightly greyer than the first blue. :) The walls below are half old and half new; can't you tell?!? I'd post a "after" picture, but honestly the camera can't do it justice.

We've lived with it for a few days now, and I'm loving the new blue!

Operation Backyard - Part 1

I was a little nervous when we got ~ 6 inches of snow in early April - I thought spring would never come! However, in the last six weeks, our town has totally transformed, and spring is in full bloom. There are more tulips, peonies, rhododendrons, azaleas, and irises here than I've seen anywhere else (and California has a LOT of flowers!). We've also met a lot more of our neighbors in the last few weeks, so settling into the neighborhood continues.

During our first few months here, we talked about lots of ideas and projects, including adding a patio to the backyard so we'd have a spot for a grill, table, and chairs. Until now, all the projects had been indoors for obvious reasons, but it was time to take a break from painting walls and turn our attention outside. While we definitely wanted to get the patio done this summer, it was equally important to get it done before we are sans-kitchen, which begins at the end of July and will last till mid-September (yay for a new kitchen!). That meant we needed to get busy and fast.

So we sketched out a plan, pounded some wood stakes into the ground, wrapped some string around the stakes to outline where the patio would be, and proceeded to our local Menards to buy eight 2x6x8s, 81 pavers, 70 bags of sand, 90 bags of gravel, and some miscellaneous hardware. And since they were delivering everything, we threw a grill and ladder in for good measure.

Then the digging began, and went on and on and on.

But finally we got the dirt and grass (and roots!) out of the way, lined everything with several inches of gravel, added several more inches of sand, and placed each 35-pound paver. I nearly died.

Then we waited a week for it to settle and re-leveled about 30% of the stones (that was fun). This is basically how it looks at the moment. Next step: add dirt and moss to the spaces between the pavers so it flows with the green grass around it.

Houzz has been really handy for inspiration photos of pavers with moss growing between them. I hope ours comes out looking as good as this one...

Bedroom Bookcases!

 After waiting only nine weeks (!) and enduring lost of dust, we have our bedroom bookcases in! The room has undergone quite a transformation with painting the walls, adding the built-ins (complete with a sconce for each of us), and relocating the huge armoire we bought a few months ago from the bedroom to the living room (it's now a coat closet).

Here's the "before" photos of the first floor bedroom before we bought the house. It has the previous owner's tenants' stuff in it still.

And here's the room now. We painted the walls a color called Dark Granite from Behr. It's pretty dark, but with two windows, the Moon Rise (basically white) bookcases, and white bed linens, it's a nice contrast. We get a lot of compliments on this wall color from painters, contractors, electricians, air duct cleaners, and our realtor (we've had a lot of people in our bedroom!).

 The hardware came from Anthropologie. I love mercury glass and these looked old (which I wanted). Finally, the sconces came from a great website called the House of Antique Hardware. We wanted the bookcases to look original to the house, so we needed to stick with the simple, small-scale Cape Cod feel.

Now we just have to figure out what to put on the shelves. :)