Curb appeal details.

Yesterday after work, we headed our church small group meeting, but we left a little early to stop at Young’s Jersey Dairy to hit some golf balls.

I usually get uber frustrated trying to hit a golf ball, but I was surprisingly patient and just happy to be outside in the sun.

We finished with some time to spare, so we walked over to the dairy barn to see the animals. Nothing too exciting for two people in their mid-twenties, but it was a nice little date away with Eugene on a weeknight.

I mentioned yesterday that we tackled some outdoor projects for the house this weekend. Other than the new roof, our house budget is predominately on indoor fixes, but I was able to squeeze in a couple dollars to add a hint of improvement to our curb appeal.

I’ve been searching for house numbers that aren’t the usual peel & stick paper or plastic kind. I found a few I liked, but they all ran around $30 a piece. Um not gonna work.

Last week while shopping at Hobby Lobby, I noticed these unfinished, wooden numbers for $0.99 each. Sold. I figured it was worth the try!

I brought ‘em home & hit ‘em with my faithful ORB spray paint {yes, the same can I used for my bathroom faucet!}.

I picked a spot for them above the garage door, although I may end up moving them eventually, {placing them on a plaque and hanging it by the door?} I had to get creative on how to hang them since I didn’t want anything permanent, and screwing the numbers into the vinyl siding wasn’t going to work, so I decided to try the command adhesive strips. Worked like a charm – so far – even after a thunder storm the past two nights.

The only way to tell which house is ours is by really small numbers on our mailbox which is across the street slightly diagonal from our house. So for just four bucks, now people can actually know which house is ours.

The next curb appeal detail has been a goal of mine since the day we moved it. See it below?

Here, let’s get a little closer… see it now?

How about now?

Ugh. Yuck. I hate how high it is, not to mentioned that tarnished gold is not my favorite. I know what you’re thinking, and no, I didn’t spray paint it. It’s beyond the help of spray paint anyway! So I shut off the electricity & went to work on dismantling it, remembering how it was connected so that I could hook up the new fixture easily.

Speaking of the new fixture, I love this guy!

 

He was only $16 from Lowes, seeded glass and all, and since it hangs downward it doesn’t look as awkwardly high next to the door. :) Ta da!

In case lighting intimidates you like it did me, here’s how simple it can be – it’s just a basic color matching game.

More “after” pics of my new pretty outdoor light….

  

I tried an energy efficient bulb, but it wouldn’t fit. Hmm.

So here’s the house with just a couple curb appeal details.

Twenty bucks, and you can hardly tell from the road, but I still think it makes a big difference in the outside appearance.

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Breathing in the sunshine all weekend.

We finally got a little relief from all the rain and clouds this weekend. It was beautiful out – almost felt like summer, with warm temps and bright sunrays. We took full advantage of the beautiful weather this weekend, enjoying a Friday night bonfire in our backyard with Eugene’s brother & friend, TJ {Espn’s godfather.} ;)

Of course, I had to roast a marshmallow to make it an official bonfire…

I like to sit & stare at the fire for hours. It’s so mesmerizing.

     

I didn’t get much sleep Friday night, but Saturday morning I made a cup of green tea, pulled out my Bible & sat on the front steps in the warm, bright sunrise with the pup. That’s all it took to feel real rest & peace, regardless of how much sleep I got.

I wish I took the time to do this more mornings. God’s Word seems even sweeter to me in the slow mornings.

While the pup sprawled out as he usually does, I turned to Psalm 31.

See that big penciled “X” by the chapter? When Eugene & I went to the Dominican Republic for our honeymoon, our last full day there. we were riding a bus for a few hours back from Samana Peninsula to the city of Santo Domingo to meet with some missionaries, do a day of service, & talk with them about their life and mission. {Eugene & I have talked about maybe doing mission work someday in the DR.} I remember listening to Coldplay’s Viva La Vida on repeat. I don’t really know what that song’s about, but I just kept hearing the line “Be my mirror, my sword, my shield, missionaries in a foreign field.” Anyway, I was also reading my Bible on the long bus ride, praying for the people on the bus that I thought were so far from knowing the Lord. However, when I looked at the local woman sitting next to me, she too had a Bible. I pointed to her Bible,and then to mine & smiled {I don’t know Spanish, so nonverbal was my only option.} She smiled back, quickly grabbed my Bible and pencil from me, and started turning the thin pages and crossing off her favorite chapters – Psalm 31 being one of them. We passed my Bible back and forth sharing different special passages.

In you, O Lord, I have taken refuge…come quickly to my rescue…You are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of your name lead and guide me…Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love…How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you bestow in teh sight of me on those who take refuge in you…Psalm 31

It was so neat of God to use that’s woman to connect with me. Two years later, I still smile whenever I turn to a page in my Bible marked by the Dominican woman’s “X”. I love to read the passages with her perspective in mind, trying to imagine why the words spoke to her through all the hardship she faced in the DR, and I can’t help but appreciate that those same words speak to me, right where I am, in the midst of my personal struggles in the US.

The pic above is of a little Dominican girl, Angelica, who wanted us to take our picture with her while Eugene & I were four-wheeling through. We met many interesting people on our honeymoon, but I see her, as well as the woman on the bus, and another man in the airport as true angels we met in the DR. {Oh, and don’t judge the hat…gotta protect my head with Eugene’s hat from those nasty, smelly, used helmets we were given to wear. Ha!} 

Okay, moving on to the rest of the weekend. Saturday afternoon, it was FINALLY perfect baseball weather – just in time for the last game for the season! Eugene’s team won, finishing with a record of 14-14 {improved from last year}, and his pitcher even broke the school record for wins.

{Coach Eugene giving signs.}

 

I also mowed the dandelions lawn with our new push mower that my dad scored from a coworker for free, Eugene weed-eated {should it be weed-ate? lol} with our nice $30 weed-eater we snatched up at a rummage sale. I pulled lots of weeds, plated some more tulip bulbs and a forsythia bush, added new house numbers above the garage & finally replaced the crusty, old brass outdoor light. {As stupid as it sounds, finally replacing that light was a wondrous thing!} I’ll post more this week on the DIY house numbers and my improving wiring skills for the pretty new outdoor light.

Saturday night we embraced the feel of summer with dinner too: grilled chicken salads, mashed potatoes, and McDonald’s ice cream cones. :) Mmmm.

And finally {sorry this post is ridiculously long} on Sunday we made the rounds at the local home stores to look at some different flooring options for the kitchen.

We think we’re going with sheet vinyl. We know it’s not the nicest option out there, but it offers some good benefits for us - it’s durable, easy to clean, and cost efficient for our budget {remember, we’re not using a loan for all these renovations; it’s our precious savings}. We thought about doing porcelain or ceramic tiles and grout, but it’s a lot of work, hard to clean, cold, and not very gentle on the legs. We nixed hard wood because of the hardwood that runs throughout the rest of the house. We want to refinish our wood floors dark someday, but we don’t want the kitchen floors to clash or try to match them to the current or future stain of the living room floors. {Complicated, I know.}

Finally, on Sunday night, we watched August Rush. This movie was SO good! If ya haven’t seen it, you must.

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I love movies that make me and breathe in deeply and smile once the credits start rolling. :)

It was a lovely, full, summery weekend indeed.

Straight out of a TLC episode.

Since we moved, one of the bedrooms has become a storage area for all our junk belongings that we haven’t found a place for yet & renovation items. It’s gotten to the point where the room looks like it’s straight out of the TLC show Hoarding: Buried Alive. If I ever need motivation to clean and organize my house, I simply watch that show & it scares the snot out of me enough to keep me cleaning all night. I digress. Anyway, here’s the mess of a room {keepin’ it real here, despite the embarrassment}…

So after organizing, purging, and putting lots of stuff away, here’s the room now…

Just a corner of items including our tall toilet to be installed in our main bathroom, some boxes of frames, pillows, and extra decorating pieces yet to find a home. Much less hoarder-ish!

I also tried to install two more lights – one in the kitchen & one in our hallway, and both resulted in failure. {Cue the “woop, woop, woop” sound.} This is the kitchen light – same as the one conquered above the sink. – and the poor shade was all smashed in the box, but luckily I want to have a larger shade anyway, so no sleep lost on this one.

But the hallway one was a little more frustrating. I had this basic five buck light we bought from Ikea, and after I got it all installed {yeah, me!} I went to pick up the glass cover and it broke in two.

So for now, I’m stuck with this ugly thing, until I can find a replacement or think of a DIY solution…

      

I guess it was a bad evening to work on lighting!  Eh, on well.

Free fabric flower wreath.

Ever since I took down my girly Valentine’s Day wreath, I’ve had an ugly make-shift wreath up that makes me frown ever time I walk in our door. So last night, I decided that it was time to make something {without going to the store} to replace the existing ugly wreath under the logic that anything I made would have to be better than what I had lived with since February. And here’s my final {free} product:

I knew I had some left over fabric from when I turned a shirt into a pillow and I also had another really old shirt that is waiting to be made into a pillow.

So without a real plan, I cut the sleeves of the shirts into strips, varying in width, depending on what sized flowers I had in mind…

Then I simply twisted the fabric {not worrying about the raveled ends}, and started to wrap it around itself in a circular pattern.

  

My weapon of choice was the glue gun – some between the layers to secure them every so often, but mainly at the center of the flower and at the very end edge.

  

I repeated the process with different sized strips of fabric to create some smaller and thinner flowers, and some thicker and larger flowers too. 

I even added some tiny seed beads and some buttons with some more hot glue for a few flowers’ center. And all that was left to do was to simply glue the flowers onto the grape vine wreath {leftover from my Fall wreath.}

It’s not elaborate or fancy, but it’s cute & free. I love this wreath 10 times more than the make-shift, “I’m-moving-and-don’t-have-time-to-worry-about-a-wreath” wreath. ;)

No more frowns when I walk in my front door. Success. :)

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