The finished projects.

aHere are the pictures I promised you yesterday.  Let me preface this post by commenting on the fact that in my opinion, things always look messier in pictures than they really are.  I swear, what you are about to see IS rather neat...  (urgh.)

My son's before & after closet picture.

Before: shoe bag used to be on the door...door wouldn't shut. Now, shoes, undies, pj's, and socks in the black basket storage system.

Door shuts!

                              

 bedroom wall before & after

Again...the above 2 pics look much neater in person... (can you tell how much that bothers me????)


He's thrilled with his "new room"... oh and in case you're wondering why that peg board is hanging inside the window ~ The window looks out onto an enclosed porch, which is now a walk-in closet...had to hide the mess in a functional way!

Now, I don't have a 'before picture' of the loveseat "pre-sofa table" but that's okay.  Here's the after:

                    There's a LOT of wood in this room. I know!

It's hickory wood panels.  I really don't mind it. Some people think we should drywall it. Nahhh.  It's quite cozy really...when the lights are low, it's kind of "lodge-like." We always wanted to stone that wall on the right and put in a gas fireplace & hang the tv over it...  But with the $9,000 estimate, we decided to just light a candle!  :)  LOL! 

The picture to the left here, is the top of the new sofa table...and below you can see the new bookcases I bought at the thrift store, with the craft drawers between them.  The whole thing truly works out just smashingly!

Productive. Efficient. Love.

I love rearranging furniture to make it suit my needs, without having to go out and spend hundreds of dollars to make it work!  It just thrills me to NO end!! 
I wanted to paint an old dresser for my son's room, and get new hardware for it as well. But I first had to move about 5 different things around first.  The first being...the area behind the loveseat, where I wanted to put a sofa table...and then house the kids Wii stuff and crafts below it.
I had gone to the local thrift store to look for soccer cleats for my son. They had them there NEW for $10bucks! Loads of them. Anyway, I walked in and looked to my right, and there they were!!  TWO identical bookcases for $12bucks each. The right width. Color was fine. Good shape. Sturdy. OMG...  Really? $12? $24 total? I quickly took a pic. and sent it to my friend (hi Heidi!) to see if her husband could cut the bottoms off for me. "yes?  ok!!"  And BOOM!  I bought them!  They'll be perfect for the base to my sofa table!! 
So here's the step by step action taken:
*cleaned out the crap 9-basket toy shelf thing behind the loveseat.
*cut off bottoms of bookshelves. Placed them behind the loveseat at either end...can't be seen from the front.
*had Lowe's cut me a pine board 58" long to sit across the top of the bookcases...hence...the top of the 'sofa table.' 
*Dug a pashmina-type scarf out of the attic to cover the pine board
*bought/planted 3 new house plants to sit on top of the sofa table
*cleaned out the old, ugly dresser from the basement that housed all the gift wrap

*emptied my son's plastic 'drawer system' of clothing in his closet

*moved the 9-basket toy shelf from behind the loveseat, into my son's closet (for socks, undies, pj's, shoes)

*painted the dresser

*moved the plastic drawer system to the basement for the gift wrap

*moved the newly painted dresser into his bedroom for his clothes

(I mean seriously?  It's the SAME dresser!! Gotta love "Rustoleum 2X" spray primer and spray paint!!)

*moved all furniture, minus the bed, in the bedroom to make way for this beaut.

DONE.

Wow!  That was a crazy week.

Total cost for everything:

$20. primer/paint

$24. new hardware for dresser

$23. for 3 housplants & 1 pot

$24. bookshelves 

$10. pine board

________________________

$101. 00

what did I get for $101?

'New dresser'

'New closet storage system'

Sofa Table

Toy storage

Storage for gift wrap & boxes

Productive. Efficient. Love.

I'll post pics. of the bedroom and sofa table tomorrow!!  Off to my slumber.

the new yard

Ok, so it took me forEVER to post these pictures.  It's been raining buckets, on and off, for I swear....months.

So here are the pics...with a bit of progress.  I could kick myself every time I forget to take a "before picture."  So here's a DURING pic:

75% done.

 (laying layers of newspaper on top of the dirt - or in this case, dead grass sprayed with Round Up - will prevent weeds from growing through the mulch...or at least for a little while.)

this would've gone MUCH faster, mind you, had E. not read every article before placing it on the ground...'mommy, did you know there's a family in Rockville MD with 11 kids?"

(view from the back alley)

looks a bit barren, I know, but everything will be bursting with color next year!  Can't wait!

And finally!  Our first fire!

Need I say more??

vegetable garden + bugs = a new plan!

Man! I really was having such a wonderful time in the spring planting my garden.  I was so excited to watch everything grow...I'd wake up each morning, drag the hose out, and see if anything was "perkier" than the day before.  It wasn't 'til the hot summer sun came out that everything started growing big time!  

But with summer sun comes summer bugs.  Lots and lots of summer bugs. I remember bugs last year.  I'd just spray them with soapy water and they'd disappear.  They especially loved my eggplants!  Well this year?? ~ I didn't get ANY eggplant.  None. Zilcho. Nadda.
Really, the only things that did well were my pole beans, zucchini, lettuce, and spinach (early on).  The bugs took over everything else, and the darn birds ate my ripe tomatoes. Nearly EVERY.ONE.OF.THEM.  I thought it was chipmunks...but nope!  BIRDS!  Who knew?? 

So in looking back at all the time and money I spent planting that darn garden, I thought screw it.  I'm not doing that anymore.  Maybe I'll do a couple tomato plants and screen them from the birds.  Maybe a pot or two of cilantro and mint.  But other than that.  Naahhhh.

Over the weekend, I ripped out the entire garden. The beans and peppers weren't quite done yet...but again, I thought....screw it! 
Chris and I went to the store to browse around, and ended up buying a large firepit and 4 black wrought iron chairs to place around the pit.

The plan includes:
small boxwood bushes
5 medium sized ornamental grasses for privacy
flowering grasses (got them at Lowe's on clearance the other day)
current perennials (foxglove, daisies, rose of sharon)
pots of annuals

And the firepit in the middle.

It better look as good as it does in my head!  I can't wait to roast my first marshmallow out there....and have Nick tell me a ghost story. 

I'll post pictures of the different phases as they happen.  It's pouring right now, so the phase 1 picture will be coming soon!!

stay tuned....

A great night for grillin'

There's nothing like a beautiful 75 degree evening to grill a fabulous dinner you know your family will love!  While out there, I noticed how beautiful my flowers are doing!  The sun did them a lot of good this summer, and now, they're loving these cooler days with some fresh rain. 

                                                 

We ate our yummy dinner: grilled italian lime chicken with cucumber-mango salsa and parsley potatoes.  So fresh.  Mmmm.
Makes me hungry all over again. 

And can I just say, after a LOOOOONG day back at school, prepping/making dinner, doing homework with the kids, and helping with shower night...I often wonder...how does Michele Dugger do it? 

Phew. 

"The Picture"

So, there were 21 of us on our wonderful family beach trip this summer, to celebrate my in-laws 50th anniversary.  It was a spectacular week! 

There was MUCH talk, in the months prior to the trip, regarding 'photo attire.'  There were COUNTless e-mails back and forth and forth and back about what to wear....you can imagine, I'm sure!  My mother-in-law finally decided on the color scheme. 

After I placed my on-line order of the picture, I realized I ordered the wrong size.  8X10 is NOT what I wanted.  But it all actually turned out quite well!  I had this beautiful frame that I bought at a yard sale for 25 cents.  I had sprayed it white, and as always, left it empty for months.  It was propped against a mirror...just hangin' out.  Here it is framed:

(you can also see the book wreath I made and the wonderful hoosier cabinet top I found at a sale)

                           I love the detail of the frame.  Perfect for a beach photo, if you ask me! 

   So there you have it.  An on-line order mistake...turned perfect!

Cool art.

I love silhouettes.  We have one of Chris when he was young..probably around age 5...  I'm not sure why we don't have any others, considering they were fairly popular back in the 70's.  I remember my mom having a few as well of her family.  Small ones.

I saw this on a blog and thought it was VERY cool!  Somewhat of a retro spin on "silhouetting."  What do you think?




I have this wall of frames going up my stairs.  All the frames were empty for a very long time...I actually like them empty.  It's "art" in itself really.  But then I got tired of the 'blankness' and added some scrapbooking paper.  Here's what I came up with:

                                                                       (see Chris' littel head in there?...circa 1973'ish)

So I was pretty proud of my wall.  My mom, on the other hand HATES it.  It was quite apparent when she looked at it and said, "Ah.  Oh.  Ok."  My plan is it use some of the architectual photos I took in Fells Point and add them to some frames...

(this is a section of a beautiful gate)

(this is a carved embellishment on the side of a very ornate church)

 along with some family B&W's.  And now...maybe silhouettes in there too! 

What do you think?  I'll keep you posted on it's progress. 
...may be a while!!