"The Flower House"

Is it just me, or did this summer fly by?  We had every intention of starting work on the exterior of our home this summer, but due to some other unexpected expenses (pest removal and car repairs...fun!), it looks like it's going to have to wait until next summer (boo!).  But we did start looking at colors and have at least narrowed it down to blue.  On the bright side, I guess now we have another year to decide on the exact shade!  And I do believe we have at least rid the house of all of the critters which had invaded it and gotten the holes sealed up tight (knocking vigorously on wood), so that is definitely a good thing. 

Since we haven't been able to do much with our house, I thought the least I could do was redecorate this blog.  It was looking pretty bland, and our home is full of character, so shouldn't the blog reflect that?  I was debating what changes to make to the blog when it dawned on me:  The Flower House.  When we first looked at this house last summer, little G called it "the flower house" because of the floral wallpaper lining the entire entryway, stairway, and hallway upstairs. 

 
Over the course of the next few months, whenever we talked about the house, we would call it "the flower house".  The name just stuck, and seemed very fitting.  Now, I'm not typically a fan of wallpaper, but for some reason this wall paper has really grown on me.  I think a large part of that is because little G was so excited about "the flower house."  So, what better background to use for this blog than the very wallpaper that gave this house its name?  Hope you like the new look!

A Saga of Household Pests

As I mentioned briefly in this post, we have had squirrels in our attic (well, technically, the ceiling above the attic, since the attic is finished). But that's not all we have had for household pests. It actually has become quite comical the things we have encountered since we moved in. In fact, so much so that I thought the subject deserved to be put into writing. So I thought I'd share a poem I've been working on about our household pests.


A Saga of Household Pests
by Shannon Hanley

When we first moved in
We knew there were mice
So traps we did set
Not once, and not twice,
But several times
Until we were certain
We had caught all of
These pesky vermin.

Then one day we saw
A small squirrel scurry
Into our attic
In such a hurry.
So we set a trap
To catch our intruder,
Enticing him with
Sunflower-nut butter.

Two squirrels were caught
And driven far away,
In hopes that they wouldn’t
Return to us someday.
We thought we were done
With our unwelcome guests,
Until we heard more
Scratching and unrest.

So then we decided
To call in the trapper,
To see if he could see
What was the matter.
Grey squirrels, he thought,
And he trapped some more,
Taking them far away
From their little door.

But then we were all
Quite surprised to find
Some more squirrels of
A different kind!
The flying squirrels who
Had also come to nest
Up in our attic
Would need to be addressed.

I think the trapper
Had now realized
That this job was bigger
Than he first had eyed.
As for us, we are
Very, very glad
That we gave up trapping
And hired this man.

We seemed to be done
With all the squirrels,
When we found out that
Our yard was in peril.
The crows were feasting
On something in the grass -
We weren’t too concerned,
We thought it would pass.

But then something else came
Through our lawn late one night -
Foxes pawing the ground -
It was quite a site!
It appeared there were grubs
That the birds were chomping,
But what of the foxes?
Why were they stomping?

We started asking
And some suggested moles,
But we didn’t see
Tracks or mounds, just holes.
It’s still undetermined
What’s destroying our lawn,
But at least the foxes
Seem to now be gone.

All was well for some time,
Then one day I went up
To the attic to work
And heard some hubbub.
Squirrels again?? I thought,
But the next morning
Something unexpected -
We had no warning.

We were startled to see,
When we glanced outside
Our bedroom window,
Looking at us wide-eyed,
Sitting on our roof,
Was a little raccoon.
I thought to myself,
What’s next - a baboon?

You would think we lived
Way out in the woods,
With all these pests coming
To our neighborhood.
But in the city
Happily we dwell -
Even with these troubles,
We still think it’s swell.

But I do hope that
Our saga of pests
Very, very soon
Can be put to rest.
And that no new critters
To our house should roam,
Wreaking more havoc
In our new home.

Playroom Update!

We're finally making some progress in the playroom.  I've been slowly chipping away at the task of painting all of the trim white, and I've come to two realizations:

1. Painting windows is very tedious
and
2. I probably should have used primer.

But, live and learn, eh?  I actually thought for half a second before I started that priming might be a good idea, but then I discovered the nearly full gallon of white semi-gloss in the basement, and thought:

go out and buy primer (and therefore delay the start of the project)
or
jump right in and just start with the paint (not spending any money and getting immediate gratification?  It's a win-win!)

Obviously I opted for the latter.  So, two coats in on most of the trim, and it looks like a third will need to be applied (dag nabbit!).  That being said, I'm loving the white trim.  Makes the whole room feel lighter and brighter.

Then I got this great idea to make valances for the windows that look like puffy white clouds (why is it that every project I start becomes more and more involved along the way?).  So I've been playing around with a piece of white fabric I had laying around (me?  have spare fabric??  never!!), and I think I've got it pretty well figured out.  But, I will need more fabric to make three valances, so off to the fabric store I go.  In the  meantime, here's a little sneak-peek at the grassy hills, which I did finally manage to finish up this weekend:

April Recap

Wow, was April ever a whirlwind of a month!  We've had a lot going on this month, and I haven't had a moment to blog about any of our house projects.  So here's a little recap of our April:

1. Realized that painting the exterior of our house might be a bit more than we are capable of doing on our own this summer.  So...
2. Got several estimates from painters.
3. Raked and bagged more leaves.
4. Seasonal allergies kicked in (ugh!)
5. Fixed our broken garage door (well, I should say a temporary quick-fix...I expect we will have to revisit this little project again soon)
6. Put up a baby gate and baby-proofed the playroom for a newly mobile baby b.
7. Discovered half of our lawn is dead (more on this another day)

8. Continued sewing the rainbow quilt.
9. Started painting the play room (here's a little sneak peek:

I'm loving the blue, but I still have to get the green paint for the grassy hills, and...
10. I realized that I definitely want to paint the trim white in the play room (of course!)
11. Shuffled some furniture around.
12. Thought we had finally gotten rid of all of the squirrels above our attic (did I mention we had squirrels above our attic?  More on this another day)
13. Raked and bagged more leaves. (really?  more leaves??)
14. Washed the siding on our front porch (here's a pic of it half way done:

 


What a difference, eh?)
15. Heard something scurrying around above our attic and realized that we were wrong about #12.
16. Planted some grass seed in the mud pit (what I like to call the fenced area behind the house where there is nothing growing except for a couple hostas along the side, and apparently where some previous inhabitants had chickens!)
17. Pruned a few tree branches.
18. Passed an annoying cold around our family.
19. Realized we did not do a thorough enough job with #6 , so we moved more things around and out of the play room.  (As a side note, quite surprisingly, this is one of the most injury-producing items in our home:

because, you see, kids don't just sit on it.  They jump on it.  They climb on it.  They lean on it until it tips over and they land flat on their faces.)
20. Raked and bagged more leaves. (seriously, how many leaves do we have?!?)
21. Decided to start a children's music band. (because, you know, we don't have enough to do already!)
22. Found an almost full gallon of white semi-gloss paint in the basement. (score!)
23. Used newly found paint to paint a board for a height chart.
24. Installed newly made height chart board on wall, and began recording heights.
25. Celebrated baby b's 1st birthday!  (hooray!!)

So there you have it.  All in all, I'd say it was a good month, and I feel like we got a lot of little things accomplished.  We'll see what May brings!

Spring Clean Up and More Quilt Progress

We've been pretty lucky weather-wise so far this spring. With some unseasonably warm days last week (in the 70's in March?? Usually it's still snowy!), we were actually able to get outside and start cleaning up the yard a bit. So we raked up some leaves (9 bags full, to be exact), and unveiled some of the landscaping.

I knew we had a few crocuses, as they had already made there way up through the covering of leaves, and I was excited to see some daffodils popping up too. I think there may be some irises and lilies as well, but it's a bit early to tell since they are just barely coming up out of the ground. It will certainly be fun to see what else we have growing.

Then over the weekend we got a reality check when the weather went back to more typical March temperatures (40's and even some snow this morning!). So I decided to go back to my big indoor project of the rainbow quilt. Getting it all laid out was quite the task (1008 squares and no definite plan for how they'd fit together...what was I thinking?!?). I had to shuffle the squares around a lot to get the stripes even and blending together nicely. And of course I hadn't cut quite enough squares, and of course I didn't have quite enough of one of the colors, so I had to go pick up one more fat quarter to fill in the gap. But all in all, I'm quite happy with the progress, and also with how much of my fabric stash I have been able to use in this project.

Anyhow, I did finally get it all laid out and have even started sewing! Yippee!! And in the process, little g is getting her first sewing lessons. She was very curious about my sewing machine and iron, and asked me all kinds of questions them, wondering how they worked. I guess it's time to find a simple sewing project for her to do and start learning some mad seamstress skills. But for now, she's happy to help line up the squares after I've sewn them together. It's nice having a little assistant!

Playroom Plans

I love having a playroom.  I pretty much knew from the get-go that we would be able to have a playroom for the girls in this house, and where it would be.  At some point in this house's history, an addition was put on the back.  So straight behind the kitchen is a little laundry area, off to the right is a bathroom, and off to the left is this extra room.  Perfect place for a playroom!

So here's a few pics of the playroom in its current state:

While the color of this room is not intolerable, as you can see, it is a bit drab for a kids playroom. I feel a playroom should be cheerful and vibrant and happy, not dull and muted. So we will definitely be painting it soon. I was talking with little g about painting and suggested we get creative and paint grassy hills and blue skies. She loved the idea, and thought we should add a rainbow on one wall.

So here's a couple of rough sketches of what I'm thinking:

As for the rainbow, we're still debating whether to paint the entire rainbow, or only include a section of it. I think we're leaning towards a section of it. What do you think?

I'm thinking we will probably paint all the trim white as well, but I haven't decided for sure yet.  And I'd love to put in a new ceiling fan/light fixture and new flooring, but I have to keep reminding myself: one thing at a time...one thing at a time.  So for now, the next thing on the agenda will be deciding on the shades of blue and green.  Off to the paint store!

Quilt Progress

So I'm a few weeks into the rainbow quilt project now, and I'm pretty excited about the progress I have made.  There have, of course, been some setbacks (there always are, aren't there?), for instance, not being able to find my rotary cutter.  I looked in every place I thought I would have packed it, and I kept finding all these extra blades and even a couple of blade sharpeners, but no cutter.  So eventually my sweet hubby just ordered me a new one.

Once I got my new cutter, I could get to work cutting all those squares (1008 to be exact).  Of course, being that I am trying to use up a bunch of scrap pieces of fabric, I didn't really have a definite plan of how many of each color I would need.  So I just kind of winged it and started cutting away.  And of course I didn't keep track of how many squares total I had cut (what fun would that be?!?), so I'm at a point where I need to start laying them all out to see where I stand.  So for now, here are the rainbow quilt squares:

Oh, and that missing rotary cutter?  I just found it in my box of thread.  :\