Our Front Porch

When we first looked at our house last summer, one of the first things that I fell in love with was the front porch (seriously, the columns, the bench swing...how could you not??).  It's a beautiful porch, but it certainly has seen better days (note the dirty exterior and chipping paint).  We will definitely be needing to give it some love, but living in Maine, it's just a wee bit chilly to be doing much of that kind of work outdoors right now.   So as eager as I am to start sprucing up the front porch, I guess it will have to wait a bit longer until it's consistently well above freezing.  But I still wanted to share some photos of our lovely porch, so consider these the "before" pictures.

 

The Redecorating Begins

We were pretty fortunate that when we moved into this house there weren't any redecorating projects that we felt we would need to do immediately.  Sure, some of the paint colors and wall paper wouldn't have been my first choice, but they certainly wouldn't have been my last choice either.  So it was nice to just move in and get settled before diving into redecorating.  But now that we are getting more settled, I'm itching to get started!

I promised little g that her room would be the first room we would do this spring.  Since we're still a ways off from being warm enough to open up the windows and paint (it was a balmy 42 degrees today), I've been thinking about bedding.  She recently saw a quilt I had made for someone, and was fascinated by it, so I decided that I should make her a new quilt for her new room.  In typical me fashion, I scoured the internet for some ideas (collecting them on a Pinboard, of course).  After first she had said she wanted a frog quilt, then she saw one with ladybugs and daisies that she liked a lot, but then she saw the rainbow quilt.  She got really excited and said, "I want that one!".  So rainbow quilt it is.

So I started digging through my fabric stash.  I didn't really have a proper workspace at our last house, so my art/craft/sewing supplies were scattered around (a few things in this closet, a few things in that closet, some in a corner here, some packed up in the basement, etc, etc).  Now that I have everything all in one spot, all I can say is wow.  I didn't quite realize how much stuff I had accumulated over the years.  After the initial shock, I was pleasantly surprised at how many fabrics I found that could work for this project (using up my stash and saving money...can't beat that!), and I had a pretty good start on a rainbow:

But it wasn't quite complete, so we headed to the fabric store to pick up a few more fat quarters to fill in the gaps:

So now we have this:

Now that I'm looking at the stack, I'm not sure if I'll keep that dark green in there or not.  Looks like it might stand out a bit too much.  But all in all, I'm pretty please with the rainbow.  Now to start cutting!

Inspiration and Visualization

I'm always scouring the internet for ideas and inspiration.  When I came across something I loved and wanted to remember, I would always bookmark it for later.  But even if I kept my bookmarks well organized (which I've been slacking on lately), it was hard for me to remember which bookmarks were for what, and why I bookmarked them, without clicking on every single one.  Then I found Pinterest.  What a fantastic site for visually oriented people like me!  If you're not familiar with Pinterest, it's basically a way for you to create online bulletin boards to "pin" all of your bookmarks to.  So I can see at a glance what I have "pinned", and therefore remember why I saved it, without having to actually open the link (brilliant!).

After getting my Pinterest account set up and familiarizing myself with how everything worked, I thought what better way to start collection inspiration for some of our home improvement and redecorating projects!  The biggest project we have coming up will be to paint the exterior of our house.  This is going to be a huge job, so I want to give a lot of thought to the color we choose.  To get some ideas, I started out (as I usually do) with a google image search.  I found some houses similar to ours that I liked, and made a pin board to collect them all in one spot, which makes it super easy to compare the different looks:

When I was doing the google image search, I also happened upon this post, from another blogger who needs to paint her old house too.  She had a found this great tool from Sherwin-Williams where you can try out different colors on your house without getting out a paintbrush.  It's called the color visualizer, and you can find it here.  I'll definitely be spending some time trying out colors on our house!  In the meantime, I'll also be searching and pinning away, like ideas for redecorating little g's bedroom, and inspiration for our someday kitchen remodel (it's never too early to start getting ideas, is it?).

Home Improvement Project #1: New Dishwasher

When we bought this house, we knew that the dishwasher was broken.  Now, I realize that a dishwasher is not really a necessity, but after having lived with one for the past 7 years, it's definitely hard to go back to not having one.  So at the top of our list of home improvement projects was to get a new one.  Neither my husband or I have the time or the know-how to take on installing a dishwasher ourselves, so we opted to hire it out.  And I'm very glad we did!

When the installer arrived this morning and started trying to take out our old dishwasher, he hit a bit of a snag:  the ceramic tile was put down after the previous dishwasher was put in, so the floor was actually higher than the the dishwasher (ugh!).  But luckily, after much hard work on his part, he was able to tilt it up just enough to slide it out (whew!).  Installing the new one was a bit of a struggle as well, since the opening between the floor and counter top is shorter than it should be, but he did it (hooray!). 

Now to test it out on all those dirty dishes that have been piling up...

Home for the Holidays

Moving in and of itself is a lot of work.  Moving the week before Christmas while you have bronchitis, well, that's just plain nuts!  Being sick the 2 weeks prior to the move led to us not being as prepared as we would have liked to have been, and the illness lingering on after the move has led to us not being as settled as I thought we would be by now, but hey, that's life, right?  And I must say, even though we're still somewhat in a state of chaos around here (surrounded by boxes, wondering where the heck we packed x, y, and z), we feel very much at home.  And it was so great to be here in our new home for Christmas!

One of the first things we unpacked was, of course, our Christmas tree and ornaments (I mean, we do have priorities...who cares about finding your pajamas or a hairbrush when you've got a Christmas tree to put up?!?).  Little G was so excited to put the tree up.  I had actually hoped to put up more Christmas decorations, but it just wasn't happening, so the tree was it for us this year. Oh, and stockings, of course!  I was excited to finally have a good place to hang the stockings.  No fireplace here, so no mantle, but there's a perfect little ledge by the columns between the living room and dining room.  So I picked up a couple of stocking hooks, which just happened to fit perfectly in the space.

I was also very excited to receive two new ornaments this year.  When I was little, every year, my grandmother would make ornaments for my sister and I and attach them to our packages.  Over the years most of them have migrated to me, so probably 90% of our ornaments are these handmade ones, my favorites being the ones made from felt. Well, this year, my mother-in-law made these two beautiful handmade felt matryoshka ornaments.  I was so delighted to receive them, and they look fantastic with all of the other handmade ornaments on our tree. 

Soon we will start packing up all the Christmas stuff, and start focusing on more pressing issues, like where to put our plates that are too big to fit in our shallow kitchen cabinets, and getting proper lamps for the rooms that have no light fixtures.  Now the fun begins!

A Little Touch of Christmas Decor

Moving in mid December is definitely a challenge for someone who loves to decorate for Christmas.  I wasn't about to drag out all my Christmas decorations with our move quickly approaching, but I couldn't stand to have nothing up.  Fortunately, as I was packing last week, I came across this little vintage Christmas tea towel.

This is one of my favorite Christmas decorations and has been in my family for many years.  It was embroidered by my grandmother, and I remember my parents putting it out every year when I was a child.  I've always loved the quiet little scene so intricately depicted on it.  I have been intending to frame it for quite some time now, so that I could more easily display it on my wall at Christmas time.  Last year  I left it out after Christmas, thinking that at some point during the year, I would get it done for this Christmas.  Then in typical me fashion, I got busy, set it aside, and forgot about it.  But when I uncovered it last week, I decided it was time to take a break from the packing, and get right to it!

I hadn't given a whole lot of thought to how I would frame it, but I've seen some things like this framed right in embroidery hoops and thought that might be a good option, especially since there were several stains on the non-embroidered parts.  And it just so happened that I had an embroidery hoop not yet packed up that was the right size.  Perfect!  I liked the contrast of the red edge of the towel, so I decided to paint the hoop red to keep the same look.  So here is our one and only Christmas decoration we have put up:

I think it came out quite nice!  It may not be much as far as decorating is concerned, but it is definitely special to me, and it's just enough of a touch of Christmas to tide me over until we move later this week.  Then we can get many more decorations out!

Boxes, Boxes, Everywhere!

Now that it is December, I can officially say that we are moving this month.  In just 2 weeks, as a matter of fact.  (Yippee!!)  So, we've been packing, and packing, and packing.  Packing seemed so much easier last time we did it, but 7+ years and 2 kids later, we have accumulated quite a lot!  Nearly every room in our house already has a stack of boxes that have been packed, sealed, and labeled, yet there is still lots more packing to do.

Aside from all the packing, things are moving along with the purchase of the house.  We had our appraisal this week, which went very well.  As I had mentioned before, there were a few things we thought might need to be fixed prior to closing for our FHA loan, however, the only thing our appraiser required that we do was remove a section of the deck that had no railings.  Pretty easy!  Well, I guess I should say easy for me, since it was hubby and our realtor who did all the work (thanks, guys!!).

So now we're just tying up loose ends, and continuing to prepare for the move.   And as we do, even though we're not moving to a deee-luxe apartment in the sky, I can't help but have the theme from The Jefferson's in my head.  When I searched for it on you tube, I found this video of two guys dancing along to it.  They look like they're having so much fun...makes me smile!  Hope it makes you smile too!  :)