Dear Reader,
I’m sorry I dropped off the face of the blogosphere! There are so many fun and interesting things to do outside during the summer months. Besides keeping constant tabs on where my kids are, since our new neighborhood is FULL of children and fun and adventure, I have also been helping Mr. Michael with lots of projects around the house. A recent favorite is re-organizing my spices. Before, I had them all thrown in a Thirty-One bin. As much as I love my Thirty-One, I have to admit that spices are NOT something to be stored in a big bin on a shelf.
I found some medicine cabinets at goodwill and took the doors off, sanded & repainted to be a crisp light gray. With all my colorful spice bottles & a gorgeous tiny quilt my mom made for my birthday, I am just loving how this looks!
We also decided to change things up on our porch…struggled to find any before pictures, but here it is after rearranging some furniture (and painting the chairs yellow!).
There is still more work to be done here, especially a slip cover for the love seat. And a much bigger project which I think is going to be rather difficult will be re-flooring our porch floor. It’s currently painted concrete. And in the places where it’s gotten wet, the paint bubbles up and chips away. Ideally, we would strip off the paint and then possibly stain the concrete. If that’s not possible I’d love reclaimed wood, but that’s another big job. So I’ll let you know in ten years if it works out! Ha!
We have also undertaken the task of bringing the light into the living room. Removing the curtains helped a lot. And we traded our over-sized olive behemoth of a couch with a nice sized light green retro couch from Savers. It was $30!
Since I forgot to take lots of before pictures, I figured I should start sometime. Here’s part of the living room. We live in mess and ruin! J/K (not really). We want to move the TV off the mantle so it doesn’t send the message that we’re all about TV.
Here’s the new old couch.
The kids and I repainted the play house to give it a little new life.
This potter’s bench was a really ugly yellow-ish wood finish before. I thought we had enough yellow-ish sad colors in the porch (I don’t hate yellow, really). So I painted it turquoise and this fun neon green. I think our fire wood looks really good on there. And it adds a nice pop of freshness on the porch.
Michael had the great idea of creating a little bistro set with some pieces we already had. I love the way he thinks!
Some current projects include adding some fences/landscaping to the back yard, refinishing a coffee table & an end table, and looking for a piano (preferably for free). Yes, there are pianos out there for decent prices. But there are always people looking to just get some of their space back, and will gladly just give you the piano if you will move it out of their home.
We’ve been having a fabulous summer. Enjoying coffee on the porch in the morning, checking out yard sales, working on the garden. Well…not as much of the garden work as we should. We’ve had several visits from dear college friends, a vacation at the beach in Sea Isle City, NJ, and lots of time for reading stories with the kids, getting to know the neighbors, cookouts, campfires, and more. It’s been perfect.
Sea Isle City with Michael’s family.
Blueberry picking with Nanny.
Nearing the end of July, I can’t help feeling like our summer days are numbered. Only a few next week (I’ll be away several days of it), then one more week home before our last week of vacation & then it’s back to work for Michael. Ugh! Not yet!
Being married to a teacher, I feel so spoiled. I get him after 3:30 most days of the week, and most of the summer months, and holiday breaks. And yet, I have little pity parties for myself every Sunday night and every end of July/beginning of August when I know I have to let him go back to work soon.
At the same time, this is going to be a fun year. Nikki is starting first grade. Penny will be starting pre-school. Alasdair….will maybe be potty trained (???), and Johnny wants to walk soon!
Have you been having a fun summer?
Update: In case you’re confused, I wrote this post and then I didn’t have access to any of the pictures for a while. So now that I do, I’m posting. Even though NOW we have started back to school, Michael is back to work, and we have made some more changes in the house! I’ll be posting more about those things soon! Promise!
