Weekend review

Accomplishments this past weekend:

Worked on the play kitchen.  It is now primered and will be ready for paint (or another coat of primer) tomorrow.

Continued work on the massive yard gravel project (more on that later - it's very slow going).

Cleaned a lot of things that have needed to be cleaned for awhile (side note - this may have been the first time the living room fan has been dusted since before the baby was born).

Learned how to make bagels and also ate a lot of delicious bagels.

No progress on: Curtains or bike light.

Living room pillows

     Good news - we actually completed one of the items from our list.  I finished sewing the two new living room pillows the other night.  Yes, that's right, a project was fully completed.  Usually, we get 90-95% of something done, then move on to something else.  

    Here's why we needed new pillows: we bought a new chair, and it changed the entire living room.  Our living room furniture previously consisted of a tan couch and a kind of drab olive green chaise lounge chair.  The chaise was super comfortable, and both looked great when we lived in a townhouse with dark wood floors.  But then we moved to this house, with its whitish tile throughout, and we painted the living room light blue and pink with burgundy accents.  The couch was still fine, because the color was neutral, but the chaise no longer looked as good.  Plus, it wasn't used as much.  For awhile when the baby was a newborn and refused to sleep except on top of someone, she and I spent nights in the chaise.  When I was studying for the bar exam, my barbri books and I spent a lot of time there as well.  But then it fell into disuse.  The baby liked to go behind it to poop (she does like her privacy), and Ryan would keep his jacket and work bag (man-purse) on it, but that was it.  And we gradually realized we should replace it with something that took up less space (because that thing was big!) and we kind of wanted a rocking chair, so we sold the chaise (hurrah for Craigslist!) and purchased a replacement.  The chair we bought was on sale, but we were limited in our color choices, so now we have a dark blue rocking chair. This led to our having to change the curtains (more on that later - they are 95% complete, and may stay that way for awhile), and then we needed something else to tie the room together.  Also, we included our old pillows in the chaise sale.

    So we took a trip to Jo-Anns (note: always look online for a coupon) and purchased four different fabrics and two pillow forms.  I like to try to buy fabric at Casa de los Ninos (best thrift store ever), but they didn't have anything I liked.  So Ryan picked out two fabrics, I picked out two fabrics, and we now have two awesome reversible pillows:

(the top two are the 'front' sides and the bottom are the 'backs', not that it matters)

  I won't describe how I made them, since it is super easy, and I just followed the directions in Sew Everything Workshop, which is the book I bought when I decided I was going to learn how to sew.  I still can barely do a straight line, but more because of my impatience rather than a lack of proper instruction.

Lists of tasks

Way back in 2009, Ryan and I decided to start a blog chronicling the various projects we worked on. It was supposed to be something for us, a way to keep track of the things we made (or broke), and the various repairs we did to our house. And of course, once we decide to do something, we do it, albeit at our own pace. So, once the decision was made, we created this blog.

It is now 2012, and I am writing the first entry. Maybe the second entry will come in around 2o14. Or maybe we really will follow through on this.

Since registering the blog name, a lot of things have changed: we closed our photography business, we had a baby, and one of us graduated from law school, took the bar exam, and found herself unemployed. Meanwhile, we completed a lot of projects.

Here's a short list of things we've done to the house since purchasing it in November 2008:

1. Painted all the rooms but the hallway (that's pending).

2. Ripped the wood paneling out of the living room.

3. Replaced the shoddy single pane windows next to the fireplace with glass blocks.

4. Built bookshelves.

5. Removed the gas fireplace insert (that could only be turned on/off by reaching into the fire).

6. Added a chair rail around the wall in the front bedroom.

7. Added crown molding to the back bedroom.

8. Completely tore out and rebuilt the wood-paneled Arizona room.

9. Had a concrete patio poured.

10. Built a water-harvesting system.

11. Built a shed/workshop in the backyard (interior still not complete)

12. Graveled backyard.

13. Built raised bed gardens and planted fruit trees.

14. Removed several trees, notably allergens and a mostly dead mulberry.

I guess those are the big ones, though there have been lots of smaller projects too. Not a bad list, while juggling law school and a baby. Here's a list of what we plan to do in the semi-near future:

1. Re-paint the top half of the front bedroom in a brighter color.

2. Add stenciled designs to the bottom half of the front bedroom.

3. Replace or paint the ceiling fan in the living room.

4. Replace all the kitchen lights and dining area light.

5. Completely re-do the hallway (the only area that hasn't been touched yet).

6. Build in-wall shelves in bathroom.

7. Finish pounding nails in crown molding in rear bedroom.

8. Curtains for rear bedroom.

9. Blackout shades for both bedrooms (and then maybe the baby will nap).

10. Fence the backyard (there is a fence, but it is entirely supported by a neighbors tree).

11. Paint the bomb shelter lid.

12. Refinish the baby's dresser.

13. Refinish the table by the front door ($25 at a thrift store - excellent bargain).

14. Refinish the picnic table.

15. Extend water harvesting to back of shed and Arizona room.

16. Build outdoor table.

That's a lot. Here are our projects that we are currently working on:

1. Baby's play kitchen.

2. Living room curtains.

3. Carbon fiber bike light (that's all Ryan).

4. Two living room pillows.

5. Reorganizing shelving in Arizona room.

We're a bit spastic. We'll start something, get it mostly done, then wander off and work on something else. But we're trying. And maybe we'll try to post here to keep us accountable.