Karli's 2013 Project Recap

As 2013 comes to a close, it struck me just how much we've done to our home in one year's time.

This was only the second year we've lived in this house and we've continued to create a cozy, welcoming home where we can entertain. We strive to do this on a budget while maintaining our sanity.

1. We started with the flooring in our office.

2. New windows were installed in the entire house. What a difference it makes in our energy bills! No more ice forming inside the house. 

3. Then we tackled the tile in our guest bath shower.

4. With help from mom and dad, we got a new old door for our entry closet.

 

5. We had several bushes, trees and stumps removed from our property.

6. After the bushes and stump were torn out in the front of the house, we had a new sidewalk poured.

7. During the summer we also planted a beautiful new front flower bed, had our exterior painted, installed new shutters and then took a deep breath!

 

8. We tore out the carpet and tile on our main floor and got new, beautiful floors installed.

9. While we had the main floor torn up, we have our main floor powder bath a makeover as well.

10. We also swapped the room where we have the dining table set up and we're loving it. Posts coming about that!

What a busy, amazing year it's been. We've been blessed to be able to do the work on this house and make it more efficient, comfortable and welcoming. (Is it sick that I'm already planning my list for 2014?!)

I hope 2014 treats you all well!

Karli

Fall Porch Decorations

I'm really happy with how my front porch turned out this fall. It's my favorite season, so this is the perfect way to celebrate! Mom's post about the fall decor in her house inspired me to finally get this done...better late than never, right?!

I bought two real pumpkins and two fake black pumpkins from Target.

 

I also purchased two orange mums from the garden center down the street. I replaced the pink geraniums that had been in those black planters all summer.

I LOVE the chalkboard panel. I'm happy with how my chalk art turned out. Who knows what it will be come Christmas?!

I simply painted a piece of shelving. You can buy a piece for about $1 from Home Depot if you don't have any scrapes.

These little lanterns came from Ikea. Eventually I'll load them up with pine cones for Christmas!

And the mums!! I love orange mums this time of year!

I hope you're enjoying the fall weather.
~Karli

Perennials Taking Hold

When we tore out all the old bushes and sidewalk in the front of our house, we knew we'd be left with lots of options for how to fill the space. I don't consider myself a green thumb, but after this year's garden and flower beds, I think I may be changing my mind.
 
I posted early in the spring about the flowers I was contemplating for the front beds. With a few minor tweaks and some fun new finds at the local garden store, I think it's shaping up quite nicely!

 


So you can see the layout of the beds.

Here are the only three annuals I planted for some immediate color and spread. I was afraid my perennials wouldn't be very showy this year...

Petunias...planted a mixed flat this year. Next year I'm going to go with
all dark purple or maybe orange. No light purple, white, pink or red.

 

Hot pink geraniums in boxed planters by the front door. I really like
geraniums in planters. But like I said above, next year no pink.

 

This was a really fun find at the local nursery. The common name is something like
"bat face" since the the Cuphea flower almost look like ears and a little nose.

 
And here are a few of the beautiful things happening right now with my perennials. I can't wait to see what next year has in store since this was just the first year of growth!

Foxgloves. I LOVE these!

 

Delphinium in a beautiful royal blue/purple. Brent picked this and planted it too!


 

We can't live in Colorado and not have the state flower. I also planted a
"lime green" columbine but it doesn't have flowers yet.

 

Another favorite for spread and showy flowers: Coreopsis.
We planted two of these since they look great and eat up space.

 

Salvia. Another Colorado staple. This is one of two we planted. The
first one almost died, but I'm nursing it back to health.

 

Coneflower: I was worried about these babies. They didn't look
great for much of their initial month. Now they're flowering!

 


Hens and chicks. I planted lots of these (along with ice plant) along the borders.

 

This is my very first Brown-Eyed Susan to flower. I notice them all over
Denver right now, so I imagine next year's plants will be much fuller.

Next year my poppies will likely bloom too, but they just weren't developed enough this summer.

I hope you're enjoying some color and flowers this summer!
Karli

Karli's Exterior Project Done...For Now

Ok, so here it is! The big reveal of our exterior project. By now you know all about the tree projects, the trim projects, paint choices and flower bed plans. It all came together in something I am really proud to call ours!

After all the old evergreen shrubs and bushes were removed (and the giant cottonwood stump was ground out), we started planting flowers. Finally, the flower beds are making all that effort worth it! The flowers are blooming and spreading and, hopefully, growing strong roots. I picked mostly perennials so those beds won't require a ton of work to look great year after year. Here are a couple of progress pictures of the beds.


After the sidewalk was poured we had an even larger space to fill next to the driveway.



 

Earlier in the summer, this pic was taken before we put in edging bricks to define the bed. We also planted a couple more things on the left part of the bed.

We picked Sherwin Williams Pewter Tankard for the body and it is exactly what I wanted. While we were painting my sister and brother in law kept calling it brown. I called it gray. PERFECT. I wanted a gray that didn't turn blue or pink. I wanted it to be almost brown.

This shows that side flower bed filled in. The plants are still growing.

We used Sherwin Williams Extra White for the trim for a really nice crisp pop. And then I ordered black shutters from Home Depot, so we didn't even have to paint those.

And I got my lime green door!

The bench mom made looks amazing on the front porch. As do the black chairs I picked up earlier this summer.

Love that bench! You can also see the door better here too.

I can't wait till the flowers fill out a bit more. (And it will be nice when we re-sod the lawn next year)

Here's the full "after" view with the before picture too. What a difference!

We still have all that empty space where the tree stump was. You'll probably see more posts about that next spring!

Just a reminder of where we started. It was all worth it!

A Sneak Preview: Exterior Project (Almost) Complete

It's hard to believe it's been almost a month since my last post. Where did the time go? What have I been up to? (Eating bonbons and sun-bathing?--I WISH!) Let me tell you a story.

In my last post, I told you about our trim being rotted and needing replacement before paint could begin. I also told you that the work was going to begin the next day. Well, that "little" project turned into a not-so-little nightmare. The contractor we used was very late starting the work, very slow to get the "two day" project done and made a few mistakes along the way that delayed the project even more. It was all I could do not to rant on Facebook and complain on the blog, but my sweet husband kept me from it. (I still have to practice deep breathing when I think about it--and to be honest I did write a Facebook post about my frustrations and when I tried to post, my phone kept giving me an error message. I considered it a sign from God that I should remain positive.)

I don't want to bore you with all the nonsense, so I'll get to the happy stuff. Brent's sister and her husband paint houses on the side of their already full time jobs and lives. They painted our old house and I realized then that their attention to detail is just as strong as mine. Perfect. Needless to say, they did an amazing job on this house too. I almost cried when I pulled up the final evening and it was done.

A year's planning and saving resulted in something I'm proud to call my own!

Here's a sneak preview of a full blown post to come...



I don't think I'd even posted about this! We add a new sidewalk into the mix too. So happy with the results!

 

The first bit of paint going on the house! I was giddy like a little kid!

 

Lime Green front door?! I think YES!

 

Shutters going up (and that last bit of reddish brown trim)!

 

Here's just a little bit of the finished product. More coming in a couple days!

What do you think so far? Better than where we started? :)

Happy Summer,
Karli

Displaying Found Junk On A Patio Wall

You may remember in an earlier post the damage that was done to the roof of our garden shed when Dwight and I took down part of an aspen tree......well the weather has now improved so we decided to repair the damage that we caused.  We replaced a board and the roof shingles.  Fixing all of that meant that we needed to get to the inside walls of the shed, locating nails.  Needless to say, we found it necessary to empty the shed to get to those walls.

As we sorted through 30 years of stuff, I found some "junk" I had forgotten that I had.
It is all "family stuff" that I had hauled back from Oklahoma, knowing some day I would find a place for it.  Here is the saved stuff we uncovered in the shed.....


These are old cistern cups, used to bring water up out of a cistern or well. These were my Grandpa Ray's and had been used on the farm in Okla.

 

A rusty old saw blade and a gear.

                                     

These are a pair of rusty old hames, part of a harness which would have been used with horse drawn farm implements. These were Grandpa's too.

           

This is an old drawer front I found who knows where....... You can not see it but it has the letter "F" stamped on the front.
It will be great to hang BBQ stuff off of the handles, or not!!!

I hung all of this assorted "found junk" on the wall outside on the deck.  I already had the grapevine wreath hanging there, so I just incorporated it all for a unique display.

I bet I can truly say that no one else has a wall quite like ours!

           
I would love to add a pillow to the chair, but the squirrels have been known to destroy things on our deck.  I also need to re-stain the deck later when it gets a little warmer, but decorating this wall inspired me to look forward to spending time out here this summer. 

I want to try planting in the cistern cups, too......I think they would be great for succulent plants, like hens and chicks.  I have one more set of these that I'm saving for Karli.....she might want to do the same thing.  If nothing else, they are great conversation pieces!  Did you know what they were?

Happy Deck Time, Kandy

Exterior Trim Replacement and Paint Colors

While preparing to paint the exterior of our house, in addition to removing trees, we determined that most of the cedar trim was in total disrepair. Completely rotted and disintegrating. Awesome.

So we got a few estimates and the work to replace all the trim (including the four column posts on the front porch) begins tomorrow. I'm so excited. Almost as excited as I am for the day the painting will start.

We continue to apologize to neighbors as we see them. One was nice enough to say, "I like the new chairs you have on the front porch. Are you going to replace the shutters?" This makes me laugh a little bit. Thankfully it is almost over.

We decided on SW Pewter Tankard as the field color, SW Extra White as our trim color and we're purchasing black vinyl shutters from Home Depot (so we don't have to paint those). And the front door will likely be SW LeapFrog. You can see the original color dilemma post here.

We had a limey green front door at our old house (until the silly HOA decided they didn't like the color). I can't WAIT to have one again! Source



Sherwin Williams Pewter Tankard

And just to add to the fun, we're getting a new sidewalk on Saturday. I'll be sure to take before and after pictures.

Ahh, once that paint is done, I'll be so close to completing one of my New Year's Style Resolutions.

~Karli

Front Porch Chairs--Change of Plan

I reserve the right to change my mind.

I've been on the hunt for new seating for our front porch. It's a narrow slab of concrete, but it's long. I knew it would have to be a bench or two chairs placed side by side.

Since I'm getting a fabulous custom bench made from a "found" headboard as a birthday present (Mom and Dad are making this for me and I can't wait!) I decided to go with chairs.

So I had my mind set on two white rocking chairs like this...


Source: Home Depot

Cute, right? They'll go perfectly with our soon-to-be white trim. The problem was that:
a) I couldn't find them in white to sit in and "sample"
b) Even the ones we found in colors were uncomfortable once we sat in them

On Saturday night Brent and I walked into CostPlus to see what they had and we saw this beauty.


Plantation Chair from CostPlus.


Totally not white. Totally not a rocker. Totally comfortable and fabulous!

End of story. Two of them are now sitting on our front porch and they'll look even better once the exterior paint is done. Then I plan to add some accent pillows the same color as the front door. Anyone care to guess what color that will be?

~Karli

Day Lily Transplant--Flowers From Home

This last weekend we brought Karli flowers from home. She has always loved the day lilies we have growing on the east side of our house. They mean a lot to mean because they were given to me by my dear friend Kathy. So, how perfect to be able to share them with Karli for her new house.

While Karli and I "did" the Tea, her sweet Daddy dug up the flower bed under her family room picture window to make a perfect new home for these transplants. This area had been filled with a cedar tree and several juniper bushes that got removed on Thursday.


The digging begins



I transported the day lilies in this bucket with plenty of water in the bottom. Here's Karli getting ready to plant in the new space.



I hope Porter doesn't dig these up!

Karli and I did get involved with hauling rocks and pulling up the numerous roots and runners from the evergreens.


Adding some potting soil to Karli's clay soil

They are expecting a big snow this week. I know the new day lilies will just love all that moisture and soon she will have fragrant yellow and orange blooms adorning the back of her house basking in the early morning sun. 

She can look at them and always think of home.


I think they grew in the few days we were visiting!

~Kandy