Laurel

Aaron has been putting off trimming this laurel for months.  The man who lived here before said it was the biggest job on the property.  So two months ago we bought a hedge trimmer.  Today we used it!  Unfortunately I have no after pictures, because it was after dark when we finished, including clean up.
Before:

During - thank you farm truck!

Our neighbor was so happy to have this done.  Aaron also trimmed up a shrub in her front yard.  I had her and a friend come over to look at my paint colors.  I think we have our colors picked out.  I really wanted to get a picture up tonight, but I didn't get one taken due to the laurel project taking over 4 hours.  I was able to get the paint for the shingles and the door at Sherwin Williams on the last day of their 30% off coupon.  It's not 40%, but it's still a good deal.  

Bigger, Better.

We worked our butts off this weekend and made good progress on the coop.  Thank goodness for sun breaks in all the rain we've been having.  Two more sections of wall to put up and all the windows but one (along with lots of other things).  I didn't get a picture of the window we put in tonight, it is to Aaron's right in the photo.  

The babies are already loving it!  And practicing laying eggs!

It's Happening.

It's happening and there's no going back now.  The big chickens will be sleeping in the garage until further notice.  We're planning as we go, so hopefully this will turn out well and go quickly!

Potential

Anyone see an awesome rustic coffee table waiting to be creating in this old wood that came with the house?  

Those big slabs are tight grain old growth.  If we had 3 of the full sized boards it would be a piece of cake, but with that partial board we'll have to get creative.  Luckily I know someone who's creative...

New Door, Blue Door

This project was long overdue!  The front door has been sticking out like a sore thumb in the living room.  This weekend we decided to tackle it.  We picked out Sherwin Williams Jetstream...and got the color right on the first try.  I hope that trend continues!

This summer Aaron used wood filler to fill some scratches, to add to the ugliness.  Right before Christmas I sewed a new curtain, the one that came with the house was dirty and cross stitched.

Aaron used an orbital sander for everything but the small curved areas.

Sanded!

I touched up the sanding by hand and then cleaned it.

Then taped the glass and primed it using SW Adhesion Primer.

Ahhh!  It's seriously like a breath of fresh air!

Gross copper doorbell with a bow - you are next!

Love

We finally got some art up in the guest bedroom.  These prints were done by Aaron's sister Anna, each color was screen printed individually and they are gorgeous!  

We got Ikea frames (Ribba) and had mat cut at Affordable Framing - they were fantastic and put it all together perfectly for me - no random dust bits or smudges on the inside!

I'm loving the picture railing too.  It would always take me punching 4 holes in the wall before getting a picture hung in the correct spot.  Now we can move things around whenever we want, wherever we want.

The next thing this room needs are some curtains.  The brown blinds that came with the house are awful.  Then some small lamps and a quilt and it will be done.

Clawfoot Tub

We spent this weekend shopping in Portland for house things.  The plan for the downstairs bathroom has always involved a clawfoot tub.  Because it's such a small space, we needed a tiny one.  54 inches to be exact.  Which are harder to come by and always more expensive.  

After seeing what our options were for the last 6 months we purchased this one from Hippo Hardware on Saturday.  We saw it there in December, it was still there this weekend and after all of our research we knew this was a good deal.  We bartered a bit and paying cash helped our cause too.

It is a Sunrise reproduction in excellent condition.  We looked at lots of older tubs, but none were in good shape and a man at Aurora Salvage told us never to refinish the inside of one because it wouldn't last.  Buying one that was already in good shape sounded good to us, and check out those beautiful feet!

After adding up what the components would cost new from Sunrise, we ended up paying a little less than half.  A deal we couldn't pass up!

Improving

We've been hard at work over here.  Lots of rewiring to get rid of the knob and tube.  We've also added switches and outlets to more convenient places and gotten rid of the ones that didn't make sense. We're turning 2 circuits into 6, which will also be more safe and hopefully help with the flickering lights.  We finished the first circuit no real problems.  The second circuit has proven more difficult with limited access to run wire.  I'm excited to have lights in the kitchen again someday.

A new project means new tools for Aaron, including these extenders for his drill and a Rotozip which I think he is loving.

This little project is up next.  I started cleaning off the soot with soap and water and got quite a bit off, but need to TSP to finish it up for painting.

I painted our bed frame white and decided the night stands needed to be painted too.  My vote was for ombre, but Aaron opted for white.  I'm still leaning towards ombre.  Thoughts?

Yes that lamp needs a new light shade badly...the white is okay.  But I think they need some color.  I do like the crystal knobs however.

Meanwhile we have been plotting for our next big project.  Stay tuned.

Christmasy

It's definitely getting Christmasy around here.  Dec. 1 I got serious about shopping, and did most of it that weekend.  I have a few more gifts to find, but for the most part everything is purchased and wrapped.  Now comes the hard part - not opening them.  Does anyone else have this problem?  We are always so excited about what we've gotten each other it's hard for us to wait until Christmas!  Home improvement has taken somewhat of a back burner, but painting that fireplace is high on the list...

I found this vintage light up Christmas tree at an estate sale a few months ago.  

Last night we had my parents over for full Thanksgiving dinner.  They were out of the country for Thanksgiving, so we celebrated late.  I can't believe I didn't take a single picture of the food!  The turkey was perfectly golden brown and everything else turned out great as well.  We were able to try out our new remote thermometer for the turkey and it was so nice to be able to monitor the temp the whole time.

Some home improving has still been going on.  Aaron used a wire brush to take the paint and rust off these original register covers.  The plan was to paint them white, but when he got the old paint off , we really liked the industrial look of the brushed silver.  So he cleaned them with acetone and clear coated them.  They may rust, but hopefully they won't.  If they do we will just go with the first plan and paint them white.

 I wish I could share what I've been crafting...but not until after Christmas!

Long Weekend

What a nice long weekend!  I've been off since Thursday, Aaron had to work early Friday morning, but was off by 2.  We both had today off and got a lot done around here.

Thanksgiving was good, we took a pumpkin and apple pie and this braised cabbage - yum!  

I braved downtown on Friday morning by myself, but honestly didn't see much that I wanted.  I hit up Greenbaum's when they opened to get a random discount, I drew the largest, 25% off.  So I stocked up on solids and this whale flannel I've been eyeing for weeks.

Saturday morning we headed out to Minto Brown to ride our bikes.  Many of the paths were flooded.  We had made it across a few shallow areas when we came to this bridge.  We couldn't tell how deep it was, so Aaron went for it.  As you can see he didn't make too far.  Once he stopped moving it was problematic and let's just say this did not end well for his left foot.

We found ourselves in Independence for one reason or another and had lunch at the Pink House Cafe.  My food was good, but Aaron wasn't too impressed with his.  The service was wonderful and it has great reviews, but I don't know that we were wowed enough to go back.  

Sunday we drove to Corvallis to pick up Aaron's BeerAdvent Calendar.  We picked up some dough balls from American Dream, we do this every time we are in town and make up 8 small pizzas and freeze them.  After that we went to Winco, Home Depot and Market of Choice.  So much easier to run errands there, as everything is so much closer.  On the way home we stopped at our favorite old growth trail for a wonderful hike.

Today we got the automatic chicken door going - ran an extension cord through the garage wall and into the coop for power.  They are enjoying running around here.

All throughout the weekend (and over the last few weeks, and yes, months) we worked on the guest bedroom.  We are finally (almost) done!  With painting at least.  This photo shows the color the best, which is Pittsburgh Paints in "Pistachio" - made up with Sherwin Williams SuperPaint.  Trim is Sherwin Williams "Extra White".  I used their ProClassic interior waterbased acrylic-alkyd, semi gloss and really like the self leveling results.

Aaron cleaned and polished ALL the hardware from all the doors.  What a difference that makes.

This room took me so many hours to paint!  It took about 3.5 hours to paint one coat on all the trim, not even the doors and everything got 4 coats - 1 of primer (Sherwin Williams Adhesion Primer), 3 of the trim paint.  This room has a lot going on, 2 windows, 2 doors and 2 smaller doors.  We cut and painted all the quarter round and got that in tonight, then Aaron caulked everything to finish it off.

It's hard to see, but we really liked this light that came with the house.  Aaron removed the base and painted it to clean it up a bit.

Just a few things left to do here, we need to replace a lot of the electrical, so face plates are needed and the register needs to be painted white.

But overall, I'm checking this room off the list!

P.S. Here are some before pictures.  I really don't have many - total fail on my part!
Here is the room with their things in it.  You can't see the carpet.

Here is the room - I think the only picture I have of the carpet, oops - with carpet and the first god awful color we picked out.  It's Sherwin Williams "Gleeful" at 50%.  We tore out the carpet before we had the floors refinished.

Much better I think!

Chicken Coop

It was time to tackle this awful green room this weekend.  Really the pictures don't do it justice.  It was radioactive green.

I primed the walls and I think we have decided on a color...test patches are up.  If they are good in they daylight, we'll get the walls done tomorrow.  Then we can paint all the trim and move back into this room and out of my sewing room.

But our big project this weekend was to get a concrete pad poured for the chicken coop.  Our new concrete mixer and bags of concrete ready to go:

The chicken coop spent 6 months in my parent's driveway while we were busy buying a house.  We moved the coop to the south end of our yard, then used the pickup to pull/push it to the north end closer to where it will stay.
We staked out an area the size of the coop, then dug it out and added gravel.

While Aaron finished putting the mixer together and building the forms, I raked up the leaves from the two big maples in our yard.

He tamped down the gravel.

Then it was go time.

Aaron would pour in the 80 pound bags of concrete while I added the water.  Then he would rake and smooth as we went.  He worked concrete construction to put himself through college, so he had lots of experience with this.

I, on the other hand, had no concrete experience.  It is messy business.  Sometimes the concrete would fly out of the mixer, at one point into both of my eyes.  I had to go inside to dig the rocks out of my eyes.  Safety glasses all the way after that.

22 bags, 1,760 pounds of concrete later we had a 5 x 8 pad.

Aaron leveled, smoothed and brushed it to make it look nice.  

We're hoping the rain holds off so it can cure tonight.  The next challenge will be getting the coop onto it without destroying the edges.  Getting closer to having my girls here!