The New Kids!

Just a quick post to introduce our new kids!

We had decided that we would get 2 little Dwarf Nigerian Goats to keep our older goat company, and for our boys to raise them from kids.

We went to the farm last weekend to pick them out!

From the moment we entered the goat yard, 

this guy started following our oldest son all around!

The owner said he loves attention...

Then we went to the second goat yard and our youngest fell in love with this guy...

We won't be able to bring them home until June 

(they have to be at least 8 weeks old).

The boys are so excited & are picking out names.  

I have a feeling the names will change a few times between now & when they come home... so I'll wait until they're moved in to announce their official names!

Featured on The Dedicated House!

Yesterday marked the two year anniversary of being in our house!

I totally meant to do a recap of projects that we've completed, 

but things got nutty & I didn't get the chance.

Then, I got the best surprise in my e-mail... 

Our Bathroom Before & After is featured on The Dedicated House today!

It feels good to look back at how far we've come in the past two years!

A big Thank You to Kathryn for truly making my day!  

Hop on over to her site to check it out.  

There's always a fun project, party or feature going on!

Catching Up- April 2013

Here are some random updates made around the house...

I once again swapped out the photographs in the downstairs hallway.  This is the third swap after my original pics and then my St. Pat's selection.  I added another tulip, and brought back the original tulip and the hydrangea.

I love the bright colors for spring!
Here's a shot of them from coming down the stairs...

It's weird how the wall color looks brown-gray in some light, and blue-gray in other.
It's really somewhere in between!

The Picking Garden is slowly coming along... All of the weeds have been removed.
As you can see by the toys left behind, the kids helped with that!

Our next step is to add topsoil (we have a big pile on the back of the property) & roto-till it.

I updated the tree planting post, to add the specific types of apple, peach and cherry trees.
When we went out to buy the second apple tree that we needed for pollination, our oldest asked for  some plum trees.  Why not?  It needed a pollinator too, so we came home with three:
A Gala Semi-Dwarf Apple Tree
A Methley Plum Tree
A Burbank Seim-Dwarf Plum Tree

We planted these back in the same "orchard" area we have going.

Bus Stop Bench

Last summer, my mom & I were out yard sale-ing and saw this bench... for FREE!

I had a moment of hesitation... Did we really need this?

Mike already teases that I have an addiction to old chairs!

But then I thought about how we have all this property- we need a place to sit & enjoy it!  ...And the price was certainly right!!!!

So into the back of the car it went!

This was also the same yard sale that we picked up the ceiling medallion at.
A good day!  :)

Last weekend it was so nice out!  I took the opportunity to work on the bench.  Happily, we had already bought some white wood stain in anticipation of painting more of the picket fence... so I had all of the materials I needed on hand.

Once it was dry, we put it out at the end of our back driveway.

 This post has a photo of what it looked like last week.  It was taken after the little Leyland Cypress was planted, but before the bench was placed.

I dug around in the workshop and found a flower pot to put next to it... I still have to buy some plants for it!

With all of the nice warm days we had earlier this week, we've really enjoying sitting here while waiting for the school bus, instead of in the car!

Here's the Before/After shot:

Chaise Lounge

I was so excited when this box arrived last week... I've been wanting a chaise lounge for a long time!

When I saw one on sale at Joss & Main a few weeks ago, Mike & I decided to get it as an anniversary gift. We started the tradition over 10 years ago that to celebrate our wedding anniversaries we'd splurge on an item for the house that we didn't really need.  Over the years, it's ranged from TVs, to artwork, to furniture!

Back to the chaise lounge... there were 3 pieces that needed to be put together, plus the 4 legs to attach to the bottom.  It took me about 40 minutes to assemble.

I moved it into the family room, in front of the corner cabinet.  I'm thinking a tall floor lamp would be nice behind it (and take up some of the blank wall that's next to it).

Mike isn't so sure about that placement... so it may move around a bit until we find the perfect place.

I grabbed a little pillow that was on another living room chair, but it looked too dinky.

<--So I found this one while out running errands that night!







Much better! --->

My favorite part of this chaise lounge is that the seat offers storage!

Perfect for the blankets that we use to cuddle up when watching TV at night.  

We used to store them in the storage area in the coffee table, but then needed to clear off the table every time we wanted to pull them out.
So, this should be easier!

Dining Room Table- Watermark removal

We bought our dining room table back when we first bought our old house.
It was a great deal- something like $350 for the table (with three leaves), the hutch, the buffet, and two chairs.

In the 11 years since, it's gotten a lot of use...
& has some scars to prove it!

There are a couple of marks from water or heat (I have a table pad on it most of the time, but somehow it still happened!)

I'd tried several methods to remove them... mayo, lemon oil, etc.  None of them worked for me.

A few months ago, I read this post on Young House Love about buffing a piece of furniture with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

It sounded like a great idea, and I figured it was worth a shot, with nothing to lose since I've been keeping the table under a tablecloth.


Here's the step-by-step:

Looking better after the Magic Eraser!

1- using a slightly damp Magic Eraser, scrub the table top.

I made sure to go in the direction of the wood grain, just in case the Eraser left small scratches (happily, it didn't!)

I had to use a bit of pressure on the white water marks, but they did come up!

The water marks were removed, & the scratches were minimized.  However, there was a film left behind, so I took a damp rag and wiped it down.




2- Old English wood stain... I use this a LOT- on the wood banister, my bedroom furniture, plus any other antique furniture I pick up at yardsales!

Using an old rag (or a paper towel) pour on & rub into the wood.  This stain fills in scratches & they pretty much disappear from view!

Note that there are 2 colors of the Old English stain.  Even though this wood is a medium tone, I used the darker stain.  I think you'd use the light for oak.



3- The table was looking really good now, but after letting it sit for a while (so any residual stain would dry) the wood itself seemed a bit dry.

Which leads me to Scott's Liquid Gold...
This stuff is great- It really brings the wood back to life!
It's similar to Pledge or other furniture polishes, but adds so much more moisture to the wood.


Here's the finished table...

Reverse shot

Now I need to go back and use the Old English on the table legs & chairs!

If you look in the background of that last photo, you can see a box in the background, on the floor of the family room- more on that delivery here!

Close up of the stain & polish I used.

Planting New Trees

Last weekend, we bought six new trees!
We planted a Black Tartan Cherry Tree, an Elberta Semi-Dwarf Peach Tree, and a Red Delicious Apple Tree between the two barns...

It's a sunny area (all three require 6+ hours of full sun), 

& we hope they'll eventually provide some shade for the goat yard.

Mike put stakes & chicken wire around them to prevent the deer from eating before they get established.  

We have to pick up one more apple tree, since it's needed for pollination.  The tag on the tree gives a list of compatible varieties that we can plant.

We also picked up three Leyland Cypress trees...
We planted two of them up on the far side of the back driveway.  The hope is that they'll grow big and block the backyard a bit.  These too require full sun.










The third Leyland Cypress is planted in front of the long privacy fence in the side yard.  This section of the yard is slowly coming along.  You can see a hint of yellow to in the Forsythia bushes on the right.  We want to do a bit of landscaping around our sign.

Close up of Leyland Cypress branch.  These will be pretty to decorate with for the holidays!

Porch Problem

We didn't realize it immediately after, but following Hurricane Sandy, we noticed we had an issue with the ceiling of the front porch.

It started warping... So much so, that a bird was able to make a nest in the space!

And then the crown molding started popping...

Obviously, not good.

Mike took a couple of boards down to take a look.








We discovered that there are a lot of holes & cracks letting cold air through the siding of the house (you can see a couple in the photo-->).








We left it open for a few rains, just to make sure there weren't any leaks.

Mike got up there with some foam insulation and filled in those holes and cracks.

No wonder I could feel a draft over by my corner cabinet!





After nailing the boards back into place, and repairing the crown molding, it's looking good as new!