Fall Decorating

 The above "vase" is a little find from one of my favorite haunts called Edelweiss in downtown Prescott.  They have beautiful things at really reasonable prices - just love it.  The table their sitting on is a recovered wine barrel that was turned into a lazy susan.  We picked it up as our momento from Healdsburg this summer as we went up the California coast.  Love it.

I thought I would post a couple of pictures of the fall decorations that I've started putting out today.  The mantel is a collection of past years purchases and I love it!  It consumed all my fall pieces so I must go on the hunt for a few more.  I just love fall as you get to decorate for Sept-November!  And I think the Park House wears fall and Christmas particularly well.

Oh What a Mess!

I look around me and what do I see....a mess.  I am practicing patience because there are a ton of things half done around this house and it's starting to drive me crazy.  But, there is hope.  Things have gotten done.  Things are in progress as the following pictures document. 

The front room of the house is sunken and a little odd.  We've debated what to do with it and decided to turn it into something of a game room.  Sam got a game table for his birthday, which is pretty cool.  He loves playing ping pong on it right now - and he's pretty good.  I found the two chairs at Habitat and had them slipcovered in this great blue cotton fabric.  They're a little loose fitting but they look fine.  I think it would have been more cost effective to just have them reupholstered, but whatever, it's done. 

I got home and found my little green table had come to the end of it's life.  Sad.  So I tore it apart today and decided the back porch sitting area is still cute.  It still needs a side table, some fall plants in the planters and a small coffee table.  Now to get out and have a cup of tea and read a book there.

This is the couch before I had it slip covered.  I had it closing off the living room as I thought it made it cosier.  It definitely did, but maybe a bit too cosy. 

When I got home from my trip this summer, I awoke early in the morning (thanks to jet lag) and started moving furniture.  The couch looks great under the window and it doesn't seem to get as dirty as it did before.  The leather chair will be soon moving out to Balin's office but I have two more options for chairs that I need to pick up.  They too are getting slipcovers and I'm sure they'll look great in this room.  I'm thinking that I'll replace the rug in this room with a natural fiber rug with a thick pad underneath.  But then again, Yogi is still in his chewing stage so maybe I'll wait on that.

                                  
Here's a picture of the garage from the back porch.  The brick layer has started but he's moving as slow as molasses on a cold winter day.  Honestly.  Once the brick goes up, the shingles can be added - then the trampoline can be moved behind the garage and the shed in the back can be moved to the other side of the back yard....and we can get some order to this chaos.

The back yard.  The kids love the trampoline and so I love the trampoline. I just don't think it's a design asset.  Against the far wall of the fence I imagine the little shed (reconstructed a little bit to make it a super cute house for Perrin) with a back "sleeping porch" for Sam.  Where the trampoline is currently we're thinking about a large swath of artificial grass.  I know, artificial grass?  But look closely at the real grass - see the brown spots?  Keeping grass looking good is an annoying past time for those with much more patience than I.  Speaking of which, all that green lovely grass is going, going, gone.  In it's place we will create a living room and dining room, complete with fireplace. 

Yes, construction is everywhere. It's a mess.

The missing sections in the fence panels actually have wire that you can't see.  I am going to espallier apple trees on the fence.  The section in the upper left hand side of the photo is where my vegetable garden is going to go.  I hope to have this area pretty heavily planted this spring.  But for now...I can only dream.

The before picture of the garage.  Hopefully it's getting painted on Tuesday...then the electrician can come...then we can put the garage door in...then storage...then my car will have a home.

Balin's front room/kitchen.  Wait till you see the door he has.  I found it at Habitat.  It wasn't exactly cheap and it needed to be repaired, but I think it was worth it.  It's gorgeous.  More pictures coming next week on the progress of Balin's office.  It's going to be gorgeous.

The deck going to Balin's office.  Yogi likes the view.

The front yard survived without my presence this summer.  I must be doing something right.  My hope is to not be able to see the ground in the very near future.  And notice, I do have grass.  Just enough.  And it looks nice and I don't have to do anything with it. It stays.

The hydrangeas I planted this spring didn't die.  They didn't grow much but at least they're not dead.  After traveling through cooler climates this summer and seeing all the lush hydrangeas, I'm a little disappointed at the little guys.  Maybe if I repeat kind and loving words to them all winter they'll grow twice as big by next year.

The Master Bedroom Redo

My mom commented after seeing the last blog that it's true, my bedroom does need a little something.  I totally agree.  The first thing on the agenda is to repaint the nightstands and perhaps get new lamps. First repainting.  I sanded down the nightstands, primed and painted them the same color as the wall, Kansas Grain (Home Depot).  I then sanded them down to get them to look like they were beat up and then I applied a glaze to them in a tabacco color.  The finished product is looking pretty good - and Balin is happy to have a nightstand back after 2 weeks. (My projects are never quick - especially when I only do them at night when Balin is on a trip)

This is the nightstand before I refinished it.  The black actually was helpful in making the piece more interesting when I refinished it. 

I also found an old, pine armoire that I think I'm going to purchase and refinish in the same way as the nightstands.  It will give us some much needed storage.  It will also serve as a space to give some accesories some height.  

The last thing I think the bedroom needs is new shelves.  I would like to redo the hanging shelves we have now with some detailed trip and then distress them.  Balin's not sold on the idea.  We'll see.  

From there I think I will paint the bathroom a blue to match the coverlet and get some drapes that tie everything together. 

We're getting there one room at a time. 

The Yard in April

I spent some time in the past two weeks taking plants from the Twin Oaks garden and transplanting them into the Park garden.  I also planted 20 roses from Heritage roses - all old fashioned and fragrant.  I bought $250 worth of heirloom flower seeds and have started planting those; poppies, sweet peas....yummy.  I still have lots and lots of seeds to plant when the danger of frost is past.  Today we have 3 inches of snow on  the ground so I think we have a couple weeks till all danger of frost is gone. :)

This is the picture of our front yard when we moved in.  Nice but kind of plain and very little privacy.

 Same view with improvements.

A Real Look at the Park House

I could post on this blog shiny, edited photos that make me drool, but today is a glimpse into the real life of the Park House.  I went through the house with my camera this morning - without cleaning or picking things up - and took photos of rooms that so need to be made into something.  It's good for me to put it out there - my house, yard, life - all of it - are not perfect.  Far from it.  But I really can't let an imperfect life get in the way of living - that's ridiculous.  My devotional the other day said that I need to focus on what is good, lovely, right, kind and give thanks for those things and stop worrying/thinking about what I want or what I don't like.  So this post is a kind of "puttin' it out there", humbling myself to say I don't have it all together/done and I'm good with that.  I'm enjoying and am thankful for the process.

 The mantle is desperately in need of something...

 Oh Master Bedroom, I desire that you would be an amazing quiet space to rejuvenate.  Not even remotely there yet..

Maybe something like this:

Pottery Barn

Pottery Barn

I like having a space to sit and read in my room, but this chair, which worked so great in my old house, doesn't do anything for this room. 

 

The empty wall between the entry door and the bathroom door.  Notice the lame, cheap blinds on the windows....something must be done!

 Impressive that Balin can run a business out of this space.  But it is my craft/sewing/office that he's borrowing.  It too needs some panache.

  This my friends is the future library/piano room.  Can't you see wall to wall bookshelves?  The space has been improved upon - it was sage green.  I painted it a creamy white and made red, striped, linen drapes for the room.  It has such potential.

 Here's another view of the front room. What a mess.  Notice the guinea pig cage to your right.  He's up for grabs if anyone wants a rodent that knows how to buck. Seriously.  It's kind of cute. 
The front room is going to be a game room, hopefully as soon as this Monday when a friend brings over an air hockey table their no longer using.  I'm thinking built-in cabinets flanking the french doors on the far side of the room for all the games.  A all-in-one game table in the center of the room with bar stools for seating.  I'm thinking of asking a friend if I can borrow her electronic dart board to see if the kids play it.  The hope is that the kids will congregate here and play interactive games together verses video games (which I am resisting).  I figure we have a few years of everyone playing games together and this would be a great place to do it.  In the future this could be something of a parlor but for now we need a place to play.

The same room as above but viewing it from the french doors.  Such a great room with such potential.

The couch.  It's a little frumpy looking to me.  It's a maroon and gold stripe, which isn't so bad and it shows no dirt or dog hair, which is a plus.  But it's just kind of blah.  The goal is to find some fabric, thinking light colored linen, and redo it in slipcovers.  I've done some research on light/white slip covers and think they would work for our family.  Stanley is my only concern - well and my lack of enthusiasm for doing laundry.  This couch could be so....yummy in a neutral color with some spectacular, colorful pillows. 

The kitchen bookshelf.  I wish I had before pictures of this bookshelf. It was a 80's oak that was boring.  Now the bookshelf looks great but the space above the bookshelf needs some love.  What should I put there????

The blank buffet wall.  This is a 10' space that really, really wants something spectacular in it.  I'm thinking of taking unfinished Home Depot cabinets, distressing them in black, putting bead board in the doors, on the shelves and sides, cute pewter knobs...making a thick wood counter top that is trimmed out.  Putting feet on the bottom of the cabinets to make it look like a piece of furniture.  In the center putting a stainless steel beverage refrigerator and flanking it with a set of drawers.  I'm thinking that if Balin and I do the work ourselves, we can do it for under $1700 - that includes a $1000 fridge.  In the picture below there is a base cabinet/island that looks pretty much like what I'm thinking.  It's in the back of the picture behind the dining room table:

 

Pottery Barn

Above the buffet I have a couple of ideas; either build a box frame with partitions to put various items in, like plate racks or to hold serving dishes.  It would be black also.  Or, paint the wall with chalk board paint - frame it so it looks like a picture - put two long wall wine racks on each side - like the picture below.

Pottery Barn

If I go with this idea then I would want to drop a couple of chandeliers where there are currently can lights:

These might be fun, but I was thinking more of a chunky, wood, small chandelier or something. 

Ballard Designs 

This buffet will be a major piece of furniture and will really anchor the room.  I'm excited about putting it together piece by piece as I haven't found anything in stores that is the size I need that is in my budget. (My budget is cheap)

 

If I go with the drop chandelier idea than I will take the current chandelier off the dining room table and put in a row of can lights over the table.  Then I will do this:

Pottery Barn

Now this lighting idea is awesome. Hanging lanterns from a ladder over the dining table.  Talk about an impact.  Very cool and I think it won't cost more than...well it won't be crazy expensive but it won't be cheap.  For the wow factor I think it's worth it.

 

The Mudroom and Laundry

Here it is - the finished project.  It went from a room with absolutely nothing in it to this.  I picked up some unfinished cabinets from Home Depot and Lowes, put wainscotting in the panels, painted them, distressed them and put great knobs on them.  I had my carpenter Steve make the table near the washer dryer, with storage space for laundry baskets.  Before the cabinets could go in though I had to paint behind them and the washer dryer but I couldn't decide what color I should go with.  I ran over to my friend Christies and went through her fabric stash and found a beautiful pattern of roses and blue morning glory.  I made cafe curtains for the windows and a single panel to separate the "mud room" from the laundry room.  I think all in all it turned out great and I'm looking forward to the next project!

From Mud Pit to glorious soil!

The front garden is finally finished.  It actually didn't take that long, maybe two weeks, but being ankle deep in mud seems to draw out the process.  In Seattle I didn't use any formal watering system, just soaker hoses and a small sprinkler system conected to my hose bib.  It seemed to do the trick, but then it rained nine months of the year.  At the Twin Oaks house I pulled together a system that was a mixture of drip, soaker and sprinkler. It worked okay but the pressure was getting low and hence limiting to expansion and how often I could water.  For the type of garden I was wanting to achieve it seemed to do the trick.  In my opinion, drip is great for simple plantings that will never be added to or changed.  But for those of us who like to find a "little something" at the nursery and just tuck it into the perfect spot - drip sucks.  More often than not the plant dies before I get the chance to plant and irrigate the little guy.  I also enjoy a very full garden, interwoven with texture, color and chaos.  Chaos is very difficult to achieve with a drip system.  It's like gardening with an engineer.  I found a solution to the drip in the sprinkler system.  The problem I found with my improvised sprinkler system is that as the plants grew - and grow they did with the 10 tons of turkey manure I gave them - some plants blocked water getting to others.  It was tricky and had to be adusted weekly.  

Another problem with overhead irrigation systems are that they waste a lot of water, which gets really expensive.  The proposed solution?  Underground drip/flood irrigation.  The product I'm using is called Netafin (not sure of the spelling).  It's predrilled holes are in a very strong poly that has some movement to it but is more dense than regular poly for drip.  It is laid under 6-8" of compost/topsoil and irrigates the roots - just where the water is needed.  We've laid it in my front garden at a spacing that allows for all soil to be watered, minus the grass.  What our contractor actually did was excavate the existing grass/soil.  He then brought in a good quality soil mix and laid down 4-6", which was mixed with the native soil.  He then laid down the watering system and connected it to the irrigation timers.  On top he mixed in cow manure and soil to the depth of 6".  It looks awesome and I'm looking forward to getting it planted here soon. 

This Netafin stuff is nothing new.  I guess they use it pretty extensively in agriculture here in the Southwest.  They are even using it in sod applications.  I can imagine that it reduces the amount of water but also the amount of water borne diseases - like mildew, botritis, etc.  Pretty cool.  Of course it's expensive to install, but once laid it should last (save me digging through it) for a very long time since it's not exposed to sunlight and won't rot. (It's pretty thick) 

I'm dreaming of having climbing roses, 6' perennial flowers and grasses alongside heirloom tomatoes and lettuce - all growing seemingly magically in my garden.   Can't wait. 

A great door

I got this door from the neighbor.  It was old and kind of tired.  A couple coats of chalkboard paint, some fabric with modge podge and I've got a cool new piece of decorator art.

The above drawer is a representation of all my drawers in my kitchen.  Maybe not that messy, but for sure not neat and tidy. I was bloggin' around one day and found a blog that had the following idea on it:  Self-made organization!

Balin constructed dividers for all the messy drawers in my kitchen and I love them.  I love putting the silverware away now 'cause it all fits!  Organization makes me happy.  Little by little we are making this house a slice of heaven.  Starting with the drawers.