To do list: Summer bloggin'

I don't think my summer blog is going to look quite like my non-summer blog.  Since this is the first summer I've been writing this blog, I'm trying to get a sense of what it will be and look like.

This is what I'm thinking, so when I have no idea what to blog about, I can see my list, and see how I'm doing. 

First though, I just have less time to myself these days.  We play a lot, with friends, at the pool, at playdates, riding bikes....you know, the normal summertime fun stuff.  We went fishing on the Shenandoah River this weekend a fished from the canoe: yes, I bait hooks and take fish off.  It was awesome!  But.....all this fun leaves little time for projects.

So here goes from ideas I'm playing with:
House Crashing: Starting with my friend A, I'm going to take you to her house to see her beautiful new brown/red living area.  I wasn't excited about brown and red??, but she pulled it off, and it's beautiful. We'll check it out.

Where we went Wednesdays: Ideas for traveling from favorites spots we've found; will also motivate me to digitally stores those old photos!

New blog find: I love to surf the blogosphere, and if I find a really awesome new blog I hadn't see before, I'll pass it a long.

New blog topics:1) Families that create zero trash:Now I can learn something there I know.
2)minimalism: living with less: I crave this!
3)Finding and sharing some good "how to" blogs/articles on decorating, since I'm clueless on how to pull a room together. And decorate while being a minimalist. Who creates no trash in the process.

And other, random things we want to do around here:
Outside projects: Deck build
Basement: Scour Craigslist for some awesome budge friendly finds since we spent the budge for that on our vacation coming up.
Recover cushions on outside chairs on porch (Material already purchased)
Make baseball quilt (Material already purchased)
Make new curtains in FR (Material already purchased)
Re-cover ottomans in funky fun fabrics. 
Do SOMETHING in the dining room. 
Go retro to the 70's and create some String Art for the states represented by our families. 
Re-do boy's room.
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Oh-kaaaaay. There. A list for the summer. Hmmmm...This week is crazy; we leave on vacation shortly.  By the time we're back, unpacked and back in sync with reality, It will be July 4th. There will be 7 weeks of summer left at that point. 

I'm hoping that at least some of these things will happen around here!!

Blue yarn crochet days...

My very talented friend Jen crochets up a storm....and crochets up some incredibly amazing little hats!  Check out her amazing creations on Facebook at Jen's Creative Crochet.   Not only does she crochet up her amazing creations for sale, but she also finds time (in addition to raising a little one!) to make hats to donate to a hospital for premature babies.

I used to crochet a lot, so I pulled out my old bag and found the leftover blue yarn I showed you earlier this week.

Pulling up the pattern Jen sent me for a "10 minute baby hat", I sent off to crocheting.  My first one took longer than 10 minutes, but I'm hoping to get in a lot of practice this summer.  I love the little collection of colorful hats Jen has collected, and hope to add some of my own to the pile.

This is my first, and it really made an impact on me: Why?

Well, here is a baseball for comparison:

 Yep, that's the hat in my hand...really.....

....and Jen assures me it fits the premies she has sent some to already.

 My son was not premature, but initially had serious complications, and we stayed in the hospital for a very long eight days.  Those eight days remind me of families that spend not eight days, but eight weeks or much longer in a hospital with their babies.  Eight days was difficult and long;  I hope to make some hats and send to families that will have a nice warm hug from a stranger, a hug in the form of a little tiny hat that maybe will remind them that someone, somewhere is thinking of them. 

I want this to be my summer project.  Teeny tiny little hats. 

If interested, comment and I will send you the teeny tiny "10 minute" hat pattern. It's very simple and quick.

Treat day!

Today was purely about fun!  We made the long trek across town for a huge treat: the "behind the scenes" tour at Monticello.  They only do a few tours each day to limit visitors, and have only had the upstairs open to the general public for a few years.

Up the little stairs that you usually just get to look at and think: boy, I wish we got to go up there!

 Looking out of one of the dome room windows....a cloudy day....

The dome room.  To keep with TJ's standards of keeping everything "even steven", he placed a circular window on this wall. Because the window butted up against a wall, the bottom half was made a mirror!

 Back down the little stairs....you can see all the way to the cellar, where the enslaved brought in the food from the kitchens.

 Amazing architecture.....

We took a try at writing with a quill pen....harder than it looks!

What a treat!!  I found out I have something in common with Thomas Jefferson (a stretch I know!): He also tended to build first, and plan as he went.  I like that!

Paint samples

I was in Lowe's yesterday looking for samples of turquoise paint for a small project this week.  I only need a small amount, and even a quart will be too much. 

I was thrilled to see these little paint samples!  This one is available online, and looks  a bit different, but the deal is you get 8 ounces of paint for $2.94 in a ready to take home little sample, right off the shelf!  And ever better?  You can get a free little color wheel of the colors they offer!  So I came home with a bunch of sample paint chips and the color wheel.  I'm trying to settle on a color in one of the ready-to-go samples, and think I may have met a match.  And yes, I realize this is not even close to turquoise: It is green, but I'm holding out for the color reveal for the actual project.  Now to get sanding, priming and find some time to work! 

Random

Random. I think that may be my word for the summer of blogging.  My word of the year is 'step', and that remains; I just think my steps will be of the fun, but random variety for the next 10 weeks!

Lists: to buy for vacation, to pack for vacation: more on that later; we will need both beach gear and rain gear....there's your first hint.  Next week is Vacation Bible School, which is a fun and busy week, so a lot of this needs to get done this week.

Yarn: A new project I am trying to jump in to.  Pictures and details to follow soon also; it involves a very teensy tiny little hat.  It also involves using up this blue baby yarn that has been sitting in my crochet basket for.....years.....since I last used it....

Jewelry: Sent out two more cute fun necklaces today; can't wait to share them, and I will, once the owner sees them first;

Fun life: First day of summer break; guitar lessons as usual; lunch with dad; smoothies; shopping; sleeping in a bit late; rain (so no pool); puzzles; books; laughs and laziness;

House: Trying to fit in a project or two without messing up fun life stuff, for fun life stuff comes first in the summer.... (turquoise anyone?)

an "All Boy's" Room: Project Batcave redo

Do you know that saying, "He's all boy"?  I don't particularly care for it, and that's not the meaning of my post title. 

This summer, my boy is asking to have his room re-done.  I've done his room up until now, adding in his touches where he asks.  He has great tastes and I value his input: he has picked out so many of my paint colors, and has made final decisions on fabric (when I get to this one or this one and can't make a decision, he's decisive.  And right.)  He has good taste. 

So now that it's about his room, I can't wait to see what he has in mind.  One thing I am sure of: It's going to be all him.   We refer to him so much as "boy", so it will be an all boy's room, for sure.

Before that happens, though, I need to go down memory lane.  And I realize my message is in his room.  My message, you ask?  My message is that you can do it.  Whatever it is.  I'm sharing the message of just getting in there and trying.....no matter what.  Even when it scares you, or you think you definitely will fail. try anything. 

Snakes scare me.  Building him a treehouse scared me for weeks.  Many times I thought I would fall fail; ok, I thought I would fall a few times too!

Another times I was frightened?  When boy asked me to paint a batman scene on his batcave wall.

There are things I can do, and I'll try most anything.  Painting pictures of any kind is not included.  But you see, my boy has gotten used to asking me to do things, and knows I'll try. 

He just didn't know I couldn't paint a picture.  And I didn't want to say no.  So I tried.  Rule #3: What happens if you fail?  In this case, I admit to him I couldn't do it, and then paint over the mess. 

I can live with that.

So I started.  And here is where I finished:

The yellow wall color was what was on the walls in the room.  I scoured the internet for pictures of bat-signals and cityscapes, and found one similar to this.  The city was simply a series of blocked off areas with painter's tape; buildings with lights were added later.  I wanted to add more, but the boy said no, he was fine without lights.

The yellow bat-signal light was blocked off with painters tape, and I drew the bat signal on the wall freehand with pencil.  Yes, I erased a lot, and you (I) can still see pencil lines in the drawings, but I was happy with how it turned out.  It actually looked  like the real thing! 

The colors were samples sizes of Sherwin Williams paint.  I still have a lot of black and yellow paint in the basement, and have no idea what I will ever do with them! 

The room all started with this new bed from Flexa.  He immediately called it his "Batcave".  His grandma lovingly made all the "bat curtains" and it was loads of fun.  The original yellow on the walls became dark dark blue.  He picked it out, and assured me it wasn't too dark. I thought it would be way too dark.  He was right. I was wrong. It's been lovely for the past 4 years.

But it's time for a change.  The days of Batman and superheroes are behind us.  We've moved on to guitars, baseball and more grownup things of a nine year old. 

He's making plans.  I plan to make it happen.  Why? Because this face is worth it!  I will try anything he asks for, and we'll see.  What's the worst that can happen?

christmas 2008: the "O" of our JOY card

Oh my....really?

We took down the loft bed a few weeks ago at Carter's request.  He was tired of climbing up and down to get in bed, and wanted a "normal" bed in his room....which is growing up in so many ways right along with him.

New bed in 2006!

  He's also been watching re-runs of the tv show "Drake and Josh" (don't you wonder where this is going?) Well, Drake, the "cool" kid on the show, has a loft bed that is huge. It has space all around the mattress that is just sitting on a platform.  And you can hang out up there, sit on the edge and play your guitar: exactly the things he wants to be doing in his more "grownup" rooms these days.

So we're talking about it.  I've pushed it off under later in the summer when we have more downtime.  It would be much bigger than the loft bed he had.  It would go from wall to wall. 

I'm thinking I've lost my mind. 

But I did some research anyway, and found this at Ana-white.com:  Oh.My. gosh. Now I know ours would have to be more grownup than this, but what kid wouldn't want a tree house inside their room?

For now, I'm letting this all process, sink in, and see if he changes his mind.  But if not, it would be a really cool project to tackle!

Paths and walkable plantings

I am in love with the idea of walkable plantings and ground covers.

Putting up the fence last fall created a new space for us in the back yard, a space that is a mess for now until we have time to work on it this summer.  The most pressing (for me) is this walkway from the driveway to the gate: we don't use it often since we enter the house through the garage, but it is the first thing you see when you come down our driveway. 

not very pretty or inviting

 

 My grandfather (Pop-pop, read about him here) had a huge garden around the perimeter of his backyard. (He also was a great cook and pie-maker in addition to a great woodworker!).  These pieces of rock/stone were standing on end all the way around.  A few made their way to my mom's house, and last summer they made their way to my house.   That's two states, three cities.  Well travelled stones they are.

 I wish I had more, but this is what I have to work with.  This is just a basic path (mostly thrown down to combat the mud problem with all the rain we've had recently.)  I don't want a manicure, edge path, but rather a random, inviting path with character.

no character, not inviting

 And with the rain comes weeds.  And no grass, because in this part of the yard we have mostly shade, and many attempts at starting grass (including zoysia) have failed.

This is one outside goal for me this summer: Make this an actual pathway, and make it pretty and inviting. 

I'm trying a few things out in this space to see what works.  Above is some moss I've transplanted from other parts of the yard.  Moss can be beautiful in the right space. And it's free.

I've also become interested in a newer term for me: walkable, or stepable landscaping.  Check out this cool website: Stepables.  I was able to find a few plants from this company the other day at my local garden center!

 This particular one was mondo grass.

 For my project, I ended up with some dwarf Herons Bill....

 ....and creeping speedwell.

 Tags are always useful when picking out plants of any kind.  You can see where these tags note the Traffic Tolerance: Moderate right on the tag. 

  And this little fella was completely free!

 So for now the path doesn't look much better.....

 ....but with two new plants and some moss, I'm hoping we're on our way. 

And for some inspiration photos, here are some I used, and some to drool over:

www.landscapingpetaluma.com

www.homepage.mac.com

 Today I also transplanted some hostas to a corner near the path, and that added a lot of interest.  Hopefully in a few weeks I can see some changes.  If not, there is always mulch or pea gravel!  Either way, the weeds will be gone, and it will be improved one way or the other. 

Mudrooms anyone?

As the garage cleanup makes more progress, I'm getting to the point where I'm going to have to make some decision about the "mudroom" part of the garage.  No, it won't be a room, but it will be muddy. 

The garage is where we enter the house, and there is always a pile of dirty shoes and coats there, in a pile.  I want to build out the wall just before the door into an official mudroom, all painted and looking pretty, like it's a part of the house, and not the garage.

And this is where I get stuck.  My other projects were more for purpose than pretty, so I could just cut nail and go at it.  I was using leftover scraps, so if I messed up, it wasn't an issue. 

But this will be different for a few reasons:

• I want to paint it, which will require a bit nicer wood than 2x4's
• I want it nicer, so the wood will be more expensive than 2x4's
• I therefore need to plan
• and because I need to plan, I need to make some decisions. 
• And that is where I get stuck in paralysis by analysis.

I'm trying to make decisions based on the size of the space, how we need to use it, and what else needs to be stored there. 

The size is easy: It's long and narrow, and I will use the space I have. I think it's the perfect bench size.

Use? Shoes, coats, and I'm not sure what else, which is why I need some flexibility. It would be nice to have a space to sit down and put on shoes, boots etc. But how do I want to store shoes? Bins? Cubbies? Shelves? Under a hinged bench? See my problem?

This is beautiful: It's from The Gathering Place Design blog.   The size is perfect....although this is a bit too nice for my garage.  I love the idea of drawers, but I've never tackled those. But I love that it's part bench, part storage on either end. 

This one from House Beautiful is simple and has a lot of storage.  And I love the colors, but that's beside the point.   Or maybe it isn't...this is the first thing we'll see every day when we enter the house, so why not make it pretty and bright!

Same shoe storage, but simpler to make with no hinged tops.  And I wasn't  thinking we needed dividers, but in this picture I see how many more hooks you can have with sides. Hmmm..... (from http://pinterest.com/source/your-betrayal0.blogspot.com

So, does anyone have any advice?  Do you have a favorite mudroom/mud area you just love?  Should I just start with phase one, and go from there? Anyone?

Check me out on Pinterest as I pin away mudrooms and try to make some decisions.  Summer is coming, and I need to get some plans in the works!

 www.pinterest.com/laurag1va