Our Current To Do List

It turns out there's nothing like pregnancy to motivate you to finish those lingering house tasks you've been putting off! Soon after discovering we'd be expecting Baby Jones in November, we made something of a master to-do list to help us evaluate and prioritize the things we need to complete, and the things we want to complete before our little bundle of joy tries his/her best to slow us down!

We've been working on several of the items already, but as you'll see below there is still a lot ahead of us!

Nursery:

• Get rid of stuff we don't need (bed, bookshelf, books, stuff stored under bed, in drawers, in closet)
• Refinish woodwork - We have actually decided we will replace the old baseboards to keep dust to a minimum. Coming soon!
• Paint walls
• Fix closet (paint, add light, refigure shelves/rods)
• Paint dressers, replace hardware
• New veneer on side table
• Make curtains (decorative and sheers) - Decorative curtains are finished - we just need to add some sheers to finish them out. Details coming soon.
• Reupholster chaise lounge
• Build book ledges like this one in our living room.
• Finish accessorizing (lamps, wall hangings, new rug, etc.)

Other household projects:

• Upgrade my closet to be as nice as C's since we updated it last winter (expand it, add cedar lining to the walls, add light, refigure shelves/rods) - Sadly, this one might get pushed to a post-baby project. A girl can hope though!
• Upstairs hall closet (adjust/add shelves, replace shelf paper, clean and maybe repaint)
• Upstairs window coverings - Upgrade window coverings in our bedroom and the guest room with sheers for privacy and light, and heavy curtains for decoration and sleeping
• Paint 3rd bedroom/trim (This is a nice-to-do project, and the more I think about it the more I think we might wait until after the baby is born)
• Add a cabinet and hanging area to the laundry room
• Make new living room curtains

Organize:

• Nursery closet
• Chris' closet
• My closet
• Hall closet
  
• Kitchen cabinets and closet 
• Basement storage

Outside Projects:

• Outside house painting project - We're halfway done with side three, and on our way to finishing this nearly 2 year project before the fall!
• Build a deck - Yay!
• Finish front yard landscaping - This one is partially done, and will be ongoing over the next few sprints until things fill in well. Progress update coming soon. 

As you can see, there's LOTS we'd like to accomplish before Baby Jones comes home in November. We're working through everything item by item, and will keep you updated as we go! 

New Corner Seat

As I alluded in our recent post about our nursery, we recently upgraded the chaise in our living room for a newer and improved model. This has been on our list for a while. Our old chaise was fine for our first few years, but it was a lesson for us that microfiber and Wrigley are not meant to be. It wore very badly, and was nearly impossible to clean. In addition, while it was a nice shape and very comfortable, it was always a hair too big for the corner.

To tell the truth I was so excited to have it out of the room I forgot to take a before photo. Oh well! You can get an idea here. And see how we have a red quilt on the seat of the chaise? Yup, that was shameless Wrigley-proofing. He loved to lie on that chaise while we were at work and look out the front window, and at a certain point we just had to give in and keep it as protected as we could.

But there's no more quilt for us! The new chaise has a slight curve which is just enough to keep Wrigley away. The color is similar to our original one - just a neutral cream. The fabric is a ribbed velvet though, which feels great and so far seems to wear much better. And the tufting adds a really nice classic, tailored look.

Shortly after purchasing the chaise, we happened upon the perfect little side table for it at a small town antique mall in Harrisonville, Missouri. Its marble top and intricate, aged brass base fit perfectly onto our main floor, and give a nice spot to set a glass of wine (or these days, a glass of iced tea in my case) down while reading on the chaise. 

And at just $20, we couldn't pass it up!

Don't worry about that old chaise though! We're not done with her yet. When the new one arrived we stashed it away with a few thoughts about future uses, and just a few short weeks later, when we found out I was pregnant. Since it is so comfortable, and a perfect size for my very tall husband, we decided it would be the perfect place to pass out from sheer exhaustion snuggle our new baby to sleep in the nursery. I see a major facelift in this chaise's future . . . .

Nursery Planning

In case you missed it, Chris and I made a little announcement earlier this month:

That's right - Baby Jones is scheduled to arrive around Thanksgiving of this year, which means we're busy planning for a lot of changes in our lives, one if which is . . . our nursery! I've been slowly collecting ideas over the last few months, and have recently begun purchasing a few of the staple items that will set the tone for our room.

A quick note - we decided before even becoming pregnant that we want to wait to find out the gender until the baby arrives. We think this is a really personal choice for each expecting parent, but to us it meant a fun surprise after a long wait and the labor process, and we really like that idea. So, this means a gender-neutral nursery (which I am pretty sure we would have opted for anyway).

So, the first step for me was choosing our colors. Fortunately, falling in love with this fabric made it easy for me:

I bought several yards a few weeks ago, and hope to begin making lined curtains out of it very soon. The windows are on the far wall in the room (directly across from the door) so you will see it immediately when you walk in. I love the nice aqua, dark orange, light green, gray and white, as well as the nice long, curvy vertical lines the birch trees on it will make up the wall.

I then chose this fabric to cover our old chaise lounge, which we moved into the room (more information on its replacement in the living room coming soon), and I hope to not completely screw up plan to tackle my first major furniture reupholstering project this summer, covering it with this fabric:

If any of you out there have done reupholstering - feel free to send tips my way! 

We're thinking gray walls and white painted furniture (more on that to come as well), but we probably won't get to that for several months, as Chris is still pretty tied up in his current painting job, and his help will be required since I'm no longer able to sand old trim or use oil-based paints, which we use on all of our trim. In the meantime, though, we've had fun collecting some other items to get us started:

Paper crane mobile made from driftwood and old maps, from Etsy.
 

  Orange and white changing pad cover, from Land of Nod.

 

Porcelain hedgehog nightlight, from Land of Nod.
  

  National parks poster, from Etsy.

Stuffed squirrel from Anthropologie, courtesy of Aunt Steph.
 

And there are still lots of other ideas I find every day that I think will help us keep adding the little touches we want to make this room feel like the cozy, comfortable space we want to create. We'll keep you updated as we go! 

Shingle Refurbish - South Wall (Side 3 of 4)

Before and after Mount Etna blue Duration Paint from Sherwin Williams.

The weather finally turned to spectacular this weekend. Our March and April were unusually rainy and cold, so we've held off on typical outdoor stuff.

I'm about 70% done with this project. The last 30% might be the most difficult, as my motivation seems to taper with house projects as they span in time. Thankfully, I've found a new source of motivation in a pregnant wife. I've got about 6 months to put this project in the books.

If you're keeping score, I started the south side last Fall. After this past weekend, I'm happy to say the bottom half of this side is done. I'd love to put up a new post in June with the entire South wall complete. Fingers crossed.

Looking up, you can see what work I have ahead of me.

We'd like to replace the middle window asap. You can see it's pretty beat up. The paint in this section of shingles were really blistered and came off swimmingly.

Some shingles just aren't worth the effort of stripping. The old paint is secure and smooth, so I've learned to embrace a little bit of irregularity. 

Walkway Garden - Go!

Ever since installing our walkway arch last fall, I've been waiting for the ground to thaw (and the feet of snow we got in Kansas City to melt) so I could begin the front walkway garden I'd been dreaming of. I just so happened to be off work on Friday, and it just so happened to be sunny and beautiful, so I got to work.

Like many projects, the first step was the least fun, involving digging out all the sod that C has worked so hard on (don't worry, I had his blessing) and filling in the trench with mulch. It was total grunt work, so I was grateful to have a beautiful spring day (and a serious case of spring fever) to motivate me to get it over with.

  

We planned the shape of the beds to duplicate the shape of our walkway - which we have named "The Wine Bottle." The beds also maintain the strong symmetry of our home. The new lines add some nice drama to our sloping front yard, with the dark mulch accentuating the nice green grass.

C even said it looked like a baseball field. Whether he was just being sweet because I was so tired, or really meant it, it's pretty much the ultimate compliment from a former baseball pitcher.

I managed to wait two whole days, admiring my mulch, before I couldn't stand it anymore and picked up a few plants to get the garden started. It was Easter Sunday and my favorite local nursery was closed, so we did a quick Home Depot run and got a few staples to start adding shape to the walkway.

Enter four small sedge varieties, two blue fescue balls and two ranunculus, and things were starting to take shape. I laid them out carefully, alternating the sedge so that they won't crowd the walkway from both sides.

Everything is perennial except for the ranunculus, which is an annual in our area. I don't often put annuals in the ground, but these tiny plants with huge round blooms were just too cute to resist, and it's a bit too early for some of the other perennials I'm planning on adding.

I think as I add more plants I'll keep adding more sedge and fescue - I love the texture they provide, and they are nice tough plants to stand up to the intense sun of our west-facing front yard. 

So, here's the yard before the arch and flowerbeds:

And here it is now.

It's just a start, but a very satisfying one to me. As the weather continues to warm, I'll keep filling in the walkway at the top of the steps, get some climbers planted by the arch, and - most dramatically - plant the wide triangle portions of the beds that go down the hill.

Over the next few weeks, as the weather continues to warm, I'll add some topiary shrubs near the bottom of the hill:



Surrounded by more grasses, as well as some low-growing, tough flowers and ornamental cabbage.

 

And perhaps most importantly, some climbing english roses and clematis to grow up over the arch - adding beautiful blooms and fragrance to welcome visitors into the yard.  

I can't wait to get the rest of the space filled in and growing, but for now my few little grasses and flowers will have to hold me over. As well as some viola I packed into the window boxes on our front porch - I just couldn't resist!

Out on a Ledge

We're snowed in at home for the second time in a week, so consider these extra projects and posts a result of Mother Nature's recent wrath on the midwest.

We have talked for years about needing to add some interest around the seating area in our living room. While we have some great architectural elements in the windows and stairwell, we've always felt a little additional color and personality would do a lot.

 
So we've focused on this half wall to the right. It's a challenging spot because of the open cutout to the stairwell on the top third of the wall, where we traditionally think to add decor. We love that detail of the room though, and wanted to add some interest below that compliments it.

C has tons of leftover oak from trim taken out of our various remodel jobs, and we love putting that 90-year-old oak back into the house. So he went through his scraps and built a narrow ledge for the wall.

We filled it up some some of our favorite small hardcover books, as well as a few photos and small pieces of artwork - we even included the post card we recently made into a poster! It instantly added a lot of color and interest to our little corner. 

We look forward to rotating the contents on the shelves for different seasons and occasions, as well as how it will provide us an excuse to keep collecting small cards and pieces of artwork. I imagine it full of holiday cards in December, and changing out photos as we take trips and as our nieces grow up.

This gives a nice new focal point in our living room - I think the only real wall space left to think about is the two spots beneath the sconces. I'd love to have something there, but the challenge is finding objects the right size (the spaces are fairly narrow) and something interesting, but neutral so it won't compete with the items on our ledge and our brightly colored pillows.

These small changes in our living room are a lot of fun though - and we're not finished yet! Watch for a few more over the next week or two!

Post Card Art

 For several years now, C has collected old post cards from flea markets and antique stores. Many of them are historic Kansas City tourism cards, created of historic buildings, parks and boulevards in the early 1900's.

One of his favorites has always been the Power & Light building. It's one of downtown's most beautiful buildings, in our opinion, and the post card is beautiful and full of color. Plus, on the right end of it you can see the edge of the President Hotel, which is where we stayed after our wedding - see the red PRE toward the bottom right corner?

And this particular card, like many of our favorites we have collected, was actually mailed. I love the child's handwriting to his or her mother, and the fact that the sender had so much to say that it's written over every corner of the card. And notice there's no address - apparently there was only one Mrs. John W. Smith who lived in Bethany Missouri when this was sent!

 
So C decided to try something out. He scanned the post card at high resolution, and then doctored it up in Photoshop and had it printed at Costco. We weren't sure how it would turn out, but the print only cost $8, so we decided to give it a try and see what we ended up with. The result was a beautiful 20"x30" poster - one with great color and fun sentimental meaning to us. I did a quick Hobby Lobby trip for the frame ($50) and custom mat ($16), and voila! We had a great piece of art for our walls, for a total of $74 - not bad at all!

We hung the poster in our stairwell, where there is a great focal point and a wall that needed some dressing up. It brightens up the dark corner very well, and gives us this great little piece of beautiful Kansas City history to admire every day.