The Problem with Home Improvement

Home improvement projects are a lot like cleaning out your closet... it looks so much worse 

before it gets better.

This past winter we had our basement finished ( a subject for a later post no doubt), and in order to expose our lower level windows we had to remove the deck that extended off the back of our house.  In doing so we were left with a large mud puddle all spring and we are now in the midst of having the patio, that was beyond our deck, extended to meet the back of the house.  It has taken forever to get this project off the ground and now that we have started it and I want to scream!!! Just as we got our front and side yard looking good, not great mind you, but good, our contractors drive a Bobcat through it a few hundred times. It now looks like we have been doing donuts with our ATV's all over the place. No doubt my wonderful husband will have a proverbial fit.  He has a thing about the lawn and has worked really hard to have it look good and now, it's just about gone!!!!

I see a lot of grass seed in our future!

It could be worse, I could have decided that this was another project that I could do myself, which it so obviously isn't, and I could be out there in 90 degree, 90% humidity trying to lay this thing out!!!  We wouldn't have a patio for three summers if that were the case.

Luckily my contractors from Apex Contractors, LLC not only know what the heck they are doing but aren't complaining about doing it in these conditions!!! 

It won't surprise me to find them in the pool the next time I look out there though!

I will keep you all posted as to the progress of this project of ours.  I am already planning the party I am going to through on my new patio! Watch out Ellicott City, we are going to break this patio in, in style!

Everyday Beauty

I admit that I am not one of those people that naturally sees beauty in everything.  There are people like that, and frankly, I envy them.  I, on the other hand, have had to train myself to look at the world and be able to focus on only the lovely things and just pretend that the less attractive aspects of the world simply do not exist.

I have to remind myself to look at the world and see the beauty that is there in the little everyday things.  Now, it's pretty easy to see the beauty in a bowl of fresh strawberries. The perfectly ripe, just waiting to be bitten into bunch. Who isn't pleasantly moved by that?

 Maybe not as easy to note the beauty, once that bite has been taken.

Unless they are being eaten through the lips of the irresistible face of my daughter, Rylee!

In an effort to help me see the beauty in everyday things, I have found ways to increase the appeal of the ordinary.  I make little attempts everywhere to dress up the mundane. In my kitchen, which is a lovely kitchen but mainly white and beige, I have added some little things to give it more personality and a little charm too.

I love glass jars, you can not only see what you have, but how much you have of it.  Adhesive chalk-board paper cut into labels on my plain, and inexpensive, glass jars make them fun and cute. It turns what could easily be an eyesore on my kitchen counter into an accessory. (One of these jars is an older one that I got at an antique mall, but the other two are reproductions that you can pick up at Target. You can find the chalk board paper online several places, Amazon.com had a great price on it, the last time I looked. It also comes in dry erase paper, both are self adhesive, like contact paper, just cut peel and stick.)

I have a $5.00 silver plate tray from the Goodwill that I use to house the essentials of nightly meal prep. Not only does it keep these little necessities all in one place, but elevates them to the level of stylish kitchen decor.

             Oh, yes there should be at least one bunny rabbit in every room as far as I am concerned! This little ring holder was a Christmas Gift from my Mom last year. She picked it up at Anthropologie.  I have a thing for bunnies, but they have to have just the "right" look, this one is the perfect combination of simplicity and adorability.

A great old crock can change what is a staple in every kitchen...the dreaded utensil jug, into an interesting conversation piece. This one, a hand-me-down from my afore mentioned and wonderful Mom, is more like a piece of art, than anything else.  Especially compared to the drab, utilitarian counterparts we see on most counters.

Dish soap is an absolute in every kitchen but the plastic squeeze bottle that it comes in from the grocery store or, in my case, the huge jug from Costco, is not! I took an old coffee jar that I had been floating around my kitchen for years, drilled a hole in the top of the lid, stuck a pump from an old lotion bottle in the top and viola! Hard to argue with that look! I gave the old jar and that familiar green soap new life. You can do the same thing with an old mason jar, which you can almost always find at the Goodwill or at a neighborhood yard sale.

Now, I realize that most of us barely have time to clean our kitchens, let alone take the time to make them look pretty for the 10 minutes a day that they actually are clean. But I submit to you that these items not only look great but they help to keep the powerhouse of our homes tidy, too!  Simple changes in how you look at the ordinary can sometimes not only alter your view but can often extend a helping hand where we need it the most...staying sane, oops, I meant to say eliminating clutter!

Oh, and just remember...everything can be beautiful if looked at from the right perspective.  This little guys is one of the many that camp out in our backyard in the spring.  My kids love to look for them, watch them and yes,  play with them a bit.  Our little friend Danielle has even been known put one on her head!! It's all in how you look at things....

My Brick...What I Meant Was...My Fireplace!

I wanted to share with you, if anyone is out there listening...My most recent DIY project.  


I am in a perpetual state of desperately trying to turn my 1980's boring, tract home into something...well, not so boring. I can't say that there was anything about this house that I loved when we bought it, other than it's location. But over the last 19 months I have been attempting to return the 80's back to their proper place and have been working diligently in transforming my bland environment into something a little more interesting.   

Before

Before

What I started with, as you can clearly see, was a wall of brick, disguised as a fireplace and a too-high mantle shelf with which everything else in the room had to compete. So, I took it upon myself to banish the brick and lighten up the place a little.  


I went into this project with a lot of ignorance regarding just how much physical strength it was going to take.  I have never tackled the job of removing bricks and mortar, but now I know exactly how the "Big Bad Wolf" felt!  No amount of huffing and puffing was going to blow those brinks out of there.  What that took was a hammer, chisel and more than one good swing with a sledge hammer.  But once I removed the protruding bricks that supported that ridiculous "mantle" I could trash it as well.  I then took to taking off all of the, so called, molding that framed the brick monstrosity dominating my room only to   discover that no ordinary drill was going to penetrate this wall. 


Off to Home Depot I went and I am now the proud owner of a "hammer drill. With it and a lot of sweat, I was able to screw several firing strips into the brick for the sheetrock to attach to. I hung two large pieces of sheet rock to the front and two small pieces to each side, which successfully covered the vast majority of the wall up. I then taped, mudded and sanded it. Then mudded and sanded again. I then...sanded and mudded again. And, for good measure, sanded and mudded and sanded one more time! I primed it, painted it and then added a more appropriately placed mantle and surround.  The fireplace surround came as a kit that I purchased at my local Lowes store, which also needed to be primed and painted.  I then added the finishing touch, some crown molding, that you didn't need a magnifying glass to notice!!!!

What a difference! 

What I love about the finished product is not only has it lightened up the entire room up, but no longer is the fireplace the only thing that you notice in that room. By eliminating such a pronounced, and not so attractive feature of the room and instead, incorporating the feature into the room as a whole, the room has a much softer and more cohesive feel to it. Also, by adding some architectural detail with the surround and the crown molding, I think that it has made the fireplace an interestingly beautiful feature of the house.

I love the finished product and I love, even more, that I did it myself for about $200 in total! I don't know what it would have cost to hire this project out, but I am sure that it would have been a lot more. I am also not sure that I would take it on as blindly as I did, but with very little research anyone could figure out how to get this done for themselves.


Don't get me wrong; this room is far from finished. The fireplace was, but one, of the many design flaws of this room.  One only has so many hours in the day so the process is sometimes slow, but I love the direction that it is going in! 

The first step on the road.

Spring has arrived and as Mother Nature has taken to awakening the trees and flowers from their winter slumber, I too am about to rise, and hopefully, shine.

I thought spring would be a perfect time to embark upon this new endeavor of mine. An endeavor of taking what I have always done for my close friends, family and myself and I would share it with all who are interested.

As a child, my family moved around a lot and I always appreciated my Mom's sense of style and her commitment to making everywhere we lived "ours", if even for a short time.  When I was growing up, I didn't think of myself as creative or artistic or imagine that I had much, if any, style; but as I became a mother myself I wanted to make a "home" for my kids.

It is said that "necessity is the mother of invention"; if that is true, then being broke must be the father of DIY.  As a single mom, for a lot of years I didn't have the money to pay someone to patch drywall or fix a leaking faucet.  I also didn't have the cash to by furniture, not even used, so ended up with a lot of hand-me-downs but I wasn't content to live with what I didn't love.  Therefore I learned to do for myself, what I could not pay to have done, and turn what I hated into something that I cherished.  In doing so, discovered that all you have to do, to be creative, is create.

I am no longer a "single" mom, and have a little more cash to play with these days, but I have learned that I really love the satisfaction of doing things myself! I also realized that I love the character and "imperfect" beauty of things that I have transformed from yuck to ahhh! My small repair jobs have turned into full blown house remodels and along the way I have taught myself a thing or two about other things that I love; photography, cooking, gardening, designing, sewing, etc... I have never been afraid to try new things so, here I go again!

I hope that I can encourage and inspire you to tap into the artist inside yourself and to travel the "road most creative".

The artistry of my little ones, Peyton and Rylee.