Finally!

I know, I know....a month with no update.  Well, we haven't spent this past month painting, sadly.  So the kitchen, bonus room/office, guest room, and guest bath, as well as the inside of all the closets, remain untouched.  But we have been busy with so many other things!

The yard:

Remember the back yard when we moved in?

My super-handy hubby dug out all 12 of those thorny, out-of-control rose bushes, and our awesome new neighbor, Chris, hauled them away with some of his own yard waste to a local site that accepts the bulk of that stuff.  Next, hubby dug out 7 of the 10 evergreen trees (he left the 3 that were at least partially living so that we aren't starting completely from scratch to landscape.  Whether they make the final cut in the end remains to be seen over the next couple of years).  You see, the previous owners didn't exactly play by HOA rules, which state that a shrubbery barrier is against the covenants in the neighborhood.  But since we don't have to get most landscaping approved, his wife won a yard make-over from Lowes and put it in after they were angry about not getting approval to build a fence.

Hubby also planted a 4' x 5' vegetable garden.  We're only doing some Roma and Cherry tomatoes with Basil, Cilantro, and Parsley this year.  TN has very clay-filled soil, which requires amending with nutrient-rich compost to be able to grow anything.  Since this is our first year amending, we only planted our essentials.  Next year, we hope to expand it to add zucchini, bell, and jalapeno peppers, after we get a little used to the care the soil will require.  We haven't yet moved our railroad ties from our retaining wall over to surround the garden, but that will be done when we dismantle part of the wall for our fence construction, and we need to plant marigolds around it to naturally fend off buggy pests too.  So far, there is a baby bunny who we have to chase away, but I'm sure he'll bring friends once the plants start producing edibles, so we are hoping to pest-proof the garden before that happens!

That leads me to our battle for a fence.  We didn't get our first choice for fence installation, but we did some tweaking to make the HOA happy, and we will be building a fence in the coming weeks to keep our toddler from running over that 3 foot retaining wall drop-off!  Utility companies are dropping by this week to mark the lines before we begin digging post holes, and then we can dig-in (pun intended) until our back yard is child-safe!

We were also given approval by the HOA to build a pergola over 3/4 of our existing patio (we are leaving part uncovered above where our grill sits and to avoid having to cut-out the pergola around the chimney that juts out from the back of the house over one corner of the patio.

And indoors:

After months of searching, I couldn't find 2 24-25" sewing hoops anywhere.  23" is the largest standard size sold in craft stores around here, and I was only able to find a single 24" hoop online, and the seller confirmed she wouldn't have more of them for me to be able to make my own DIY drum shade over our existing dining room chandelier, which was brass that I wanted to spray paint satin stainless.

Original light:

But the in-laws were in town a month ago and offered to buy us a light I had seen for a good price (hardly above what it would've cost me to build and paint the original light) at Lowes. While there to purchase it, I turned a corner and saw another light I liked that was totally different!  Since I knew what the original one would look like (it was practically a store-bought version of how my DIY-ed plan would've ended up, had I been able to make it), we got the different one, just to see.
New light:

We left the plastic on the shade because I wasn't too sure about it as we installed it.  I love the light, but after assembling it on our ceiling, it just didn't feel right for our dining room.  And after a week of "testing it out," I decided it was too high-set and that the lovely oiled bronze would just get on my nerves by not matching the brushed stainless curtain rod a few feet away.

So we switched it out for the original choice, which is  a 3-light chandelier of what our original 5-light chandelier would've morphed into with some paint and unattainable hoops to make the drum shade:

I may still re-cover the shade after we move in my Mimi's china cabinet and once our white curtains from IKEA ever arrive (now on backorder until June...seriously?!  Since when did IKEA run out of plain white fabric?!).  But for now, the neutral beige is live-able, even in contrast against our barely-beigey gray walls.

And the floors!

The floors!  The floors!  I can't praise these beauties enough!

Remember that nasty carpet?  The beige/cream carpet that had weird pulls in it from the previous owners' pet as well as the stains that barely faded even with 3 rounds of spot-clean scrubbing?

A couple of weeks ago, the Hubby and I dropped the kid off at his Oma's house while we boogied away at a friend's wedding, and the next morning, we high-tailed it back to Tennessee to rip out carpet, pry up parquet, and install the new Glentown Oak laminate wood floors in all the open areas.  Did I mention that mid-way through day 1 of our 2-day window before Oma brought our son home to us, we had a big storm that blew some shingles off our roof and knocked out power for 9 hours?  We kept working as long as day-light lasted, sawing straight cuts with the hand-saw, but once we hit the angled wall for the kitchen pass-through, we went out to eat and came home to light candles and rest-up for a hard day 2 ahead of us.  (Power was restored about 10:45 that night, so we were up and at'em the next morning to get busy).

We still have to do the bedrooms, but those can be closed off before completion to keep a toddling little boy off of dangerous work-zone areas while Hubby devotes nights and weekends to their transformation...after he builds our fence and pergola.  (Yes, our project list is surprisingly smaller than it was in January, but ongoing none-the-less!)

Check out their shiny, hard-surfaced, allergy-free beauty!  (And with our gorgeous 100% hand-looped Katherine 9x12 foot area rug from Pottery Barn that we scored on eBay for about 1/2 price.  It had a tiny pencil-sized hole in the backing, which was the reason for the markdown of the never-used rug, but it is under a piece of furniture and not visible from the top, either!)

So the list goes on, but one of the biggest projects is nearly done.  We are waiting to install new white quarter-round around the new flooring after we paint the trim....i.e. maybe by Christmas.  But we're living with the in-progress stage for now!

See, I told you we've been busy!