Beautiful Box Spring?

Well, "beautiful" might be a stretch!

With all the rain we've been having the past two weekends (hampering our progress with back yard fence staining), I've been trying to work on some inside jobs.

I saw (on Pinterest, of course) the idea of upholstering your box spring, instead of using a bed skirt. The tutorial is on Urban Nest- she also added feet to the box spring when she was finished.

I thought this would be a great project because our bed skirt isn't very fashionable, and usually ends up looking like this on one side-->

<-- And like this on the other.




I found some purple material on clearance, and there was just enough to do the two sides of the bed, which is fine since we have a foot board.




I got out the staple gun & got to work.

 It went very quickly once I got going!

 Here it is, about 20 minutes later, with the mattress put on top.

The end result is barely noticeable -->

I think it's one of those things that if it looks good, no one even notices.  If it looks bad (like the bed skirt above!) it stands out like a sore thumb!

2012 To Do List- April Update

I can't believe Spring is already here!  

I'm thrilled to be done with winter, but my list of projects isn't! 

But as promised back in January, here's the updated To-Do list...

Winter 2011/2012:

• Replace basement handrail- Complete!
• Paint basement stairwell walls & shelving- Complete!
• Fix pipe/wall in Living Room- Checked it out   

Spring 2012:

• Get chickens! (Added)- Complete!
• Stain backyard Fence- In the works
• Paint Dining Room/future Parlor (moved from winter, lots of indecision on the paint color!) 
• Stain mailbox post
• Put new roof on the Workshop
• Treat front porch floor boards
• Build new barn door for horse barn
• Transplant trees/plants around yard
• Veggie garden

Quite a few items from Spring were moved  into (God-willing, fingers crossed) Summer- basically everything that had to do with the addition.

Summer 2012:

• Stain front stone wall
• Start building Kitchen (moved from Spring)
• Start building Laundry Room   (moved from Spring)
• Start building Office  (moved from Spring)
• Start building first floor Powder Room   (moved from Spring)
• Fix pipe/wall in Foyer (Added- since the Living Room was fine!)

Fall/Winter 2012:

• Finish Kitchen
• Finish first floor Powder Room
• Finish Laundry Room
• Finish Office
• Skim coat & paint foyer
• Skim coat & paint downstairs hallway
• Skim coat & paint upstairs hallway
• Replace rotting wood in framing of Workshop

The Extras (Things we didn't plan on doing!):

• Light for the driveway sign
• Kitty Door to basement
• Climber for the goats
• Chicken Coop / Goat Barn siding 

Construction Docs

I just realized that I had never posted the finished plans for the addition.  So here they are...

Back of house

Side view (from driveway)

First Floor

Second floor

Status: 

We've put the construction documents out to bid with four contractors.  

The price ranges that are coming back vary QUITE a bit... 

-Some have included an allowance for cabinets & countertops, others did not.  

-Some say that there will be extensive plumbing re-work, others don't find that to be an issue & described how they suggest we run the new piping.  

-Some say they can not do the floors the way we want in the kitchen, others love the idea...

So, it's a lot to sort through to get it to an "apples to apples" comparison, and to weigh the costs of the items that we want the most.

I'm still hopeful that we'll start this summer.  All of the contractors have agreed that it's going to be a 6 month project... fingers crossed that we'll be done around January or February 2013 (wow- that's weird to type!)

Fence Painting

If you recall, last October we put up a privacy fence along the backyard (since our house is on a corner, it was feeling exposed to the passing traffic).

Then winter came along, so we put staining it on hold.  

But now Spring is here, and we're moving right along...

BEFORE:

IN PROGRESS: 

In progress

Last Friday, Mike got started.

He tried using a roller & paint brush on the first panel- it took him an hour.  With approx. 32 panels, that was going to take WAY too long.

Luckily, we had an old paint sprayer from doing the fence at our old house.  It even had an attachment to pull directly from the big bucket of stain.
Things moved more quickly after that- until we ran out of stain.  (Since we didn't know how much it would take, we just bought a 5 gallon bucket to start).

Mike got this birdhouse
from a friend for Christmas.
That got hung and stained too.

Back to the home improvement center- to find they only had 1 more bucket of stain in stock... We're about 1/3 of the way down the fence, so we estimate that we need 2 more 5 gallon buckets.
We got the one mixed & will go back this weekend for the second.

I guess it was better that we stopped on Friday, since it rained on Saturday night (you need 24 hrs of clear weather for the stain to dry).

 Anyway, with a third of it complete, we can tell you that we really love the dark green. 

The few flowers that are around it really pop, and it also coordinates nicely with the hammock (which we also put up last weekend).

 

I'm praying for nice weather, so we can finish this up over the weekend!

Update: Here's the finished fence!

Garage Overview

I'm not sure why we decided to call this barn "The Garage", but it's closest to the house, painted the same color, and doesn't appear to have housed animals in the recent past... so Garage it is!

I'm making a "picking garden" on the side,
for flowers I can cut & bring inside.

It's in relatively good shape- though currently quite messy!  And that's all us... it was completely clear when we moved in almost a year ago.  I hope to get it at least straightened out this summer.

The first floor mess isn't TOO bad... mostly just the kids' toys scattered about.  
Shouldn't take too long to clean this part up! 

A couple of cool little details:

I love the style of the doors!

I have big plans for this shelf!  --->
It was left here by the previous owners.  I think that once it's cleaned up, it would look really cute in my son's Nautical theme bedroom.

This old hand-made crank with cord
must have attached to a generator,
since there isn't any power run in here.

And there's an upstairs... though we need to add a handrail to the stairway!

More chairs!

 

I have all kinds of projects to be worked on up here.  I might claim the upstairs as my own little area :o)  I've been checking out pictures on Pinterest, and fell in love with the idea of white-washing the walls, beams and ceiling.  The hardwood floor would be really nice if cleaned up a bit!

Yet another far-off project I can dream about :o)

Check out this picture of the garage from the 1987... I think it looks much better in blue!