Birthday/Anniversary Weekend

We've had a bunch of fun this weekend, but we couldn't justify ignoring house projects completely (besides, they can be fun too). Yesterday we did take the day off from pretty much every conceivable obligation, and went to Logee's. We swore to ourselves only to get 1 plant, as space is limited in our one well-lit window. We came home with 4! Though 1 is for Matt's office, 1 is for the terrarium, and 1 is a shade plant that has a home in the office, so I guess we sorta stuck to our original plan. Careful to all visiting parents and pet owners - some of our new friends are toxic!


Colocasia illustris


The ferny plant is for the terrarium, the other for Matt's desk at work


Eucharis amazonica

We also worked on finishing up backerboard installation, here show with Matt's illustrious GFI outlet....



And I finished prying the paneling off near the sliders. We did this for two reasons - 1, the paneling was weirdly out of place post-slider installation (the picture rail didn't extend all the way to the doors) and 2 - we're going to use the paneling to make the back of the dishwasher enclosure match the adjacent cabinet backs. Here I am after vanquishing the paneling foe. The dining room already looks lighter, though now we have some interesting patch jobs to do.



And of course - GO SOX!!

Deck

Our sweet new deck table now has chairs! I meant to get them last weekend at Target, they were on sale for $27 each, but the Target I went to didn't have any left. On the way home from work yesterday we stopped at a different Target (where I had seen about 20 a few weeks ago), and they had FOUR left for $9.99! Such a great deal, we cleared 'em out. I'll check out a third store today to see if I can snatch up 2 more. Oh, and they're FSC Certified Eucalyptus wood, gooooo sustainability!

Weekend Madness

Well, this weekend we were super lucky to have 2 very hard-working helpers, Jeannie and Amber! They are so fun, and so helpful. We got a whole lot done, between shopping and sewing and installing backerboard and spray painting. And, since my camera is fixed, here are some pictures:

Here are the finished wall decals and the sweet IKEA lamp we got for the guest room.


This awesome $5 red chair was a great yard sale find this weekend. The woven seat was badly torn, so we made a chair pad for it with some fun fabric. It's found a home in the guest room.


Amber and I finished sewing the new sheer "custom" panels for the bow window (yay, we can see our plants!), while Matt & Jeannie installed backerboard in preparation for tiling.




And finally, Amber and I gave this great $10 table (another yard sale find) a fresh coat of spray paint to freshen it up. We'll use it for our deck table.

Backsplash Progress

Well, my camera is broken so I can't show you the sweet demolition that has been taking place today. We're more than halfway through gutting the backsplash walls - whee! Yeah, we bit the bullet and decided to do the job right. We're gutting the backsplash area to the studs, then installing backerboard, over which we'll put the tile. And, here's the tile we plan to get, our own custom blend, remarkably affordable from Modwalls: