Summer Porch, Hydrangeas and Wallpaper!

Hello Friends! 

I am not sure where July goes, every year it seems to be shorter and shorter! It all starts off with a nice long weekend for a project ( Like wallpapering! Keep reading!) and whizzes right by ending with a couple of family birthdays. Whew! Here are a couple of highlights from the month.

 In our family, holidays are not only the perfect time to see family, they are the perfect time to round up a group of relatives for a project! (If you remember, last year my brother-in-law came to help demo the Brick House basement.) This year, Mandy and I went up to visit sister Becky and helped her paper her living room!

 When we were young we helped our Mom wallpaper a couple of walls and hang boarders. But we have never tried doing an entire room! It was fun! But like most projects comes with challanges.... Thankfully Becky picked a smallish repeat and a busy enough pattern that most mistakes were easily blended!

I am terrible at taking after pictures (or if I do, I then forget to take before pictures!) and with two little boys after pictures are filled with toys and motion seconds after everything is back in place. But you can see how lovely the wallpaper is and the elegant touch it adds to the room! Very fitting for the age of the Farmhouse. The pattern also reminds us of our Grandma's 1970's avocado green wallpaper, similar pattern just a different color!

As promised! Here are pictures of the little wicker and wood table! Looking right at home!

 We gave the porch another quick cleaning as our Aunt came for a visit and we knew porch sitting and talking was high on the list of things to do!

 This yellow rocker was a new addition last year. I love it! It actually is a folding and rocking chair and folds flat for storage. So facinating! I love the pale yellow color and am planning on matching the paint and spiffing it up.

The pillow is actually a class sample I made, but when it has done it's job it will come back to the porch! Fits in perfectly, doesn't it?

 I can never resist taking a few pictures of the cottage in summer. Perfection! We are so grateful for this house every day!

 It has become a tradition to plant geraniums in the front beds. We talk about planting something else, but I always come back to geraniums. They never let you down! (They always remind me of the first summer I owned the house. The inside was an ugly construction mess, so one Saturday I planted flowers and painted the steps for a bit of beauty! That post is here.)

I am loving the softer coral color this year.

I am so excited some of my other hydrangeas are blooming this year too! Most of them are tucked away behind the boxwoods and no one but myself can enjoy them. But it is exciting to watch them grow and there is always next year!

I also moved my room around in July! It was so fun and a great time to give everything a good dusting! I am really loving the new arrangement. Somehow it really feels like me. But I am going to save that for another post! For now here is a sneak peak!

Summer Flowers, Painting and Porch updates

Ah! Summer is here in full swing! The porch is almost tree house like with all the leafy green trees surrounding it. I have been doing a little fluffing and sprucing to the porch. We changed the pillow covers to our usual summer covers and have added one or two other things.

I suddenly remembered I had a basic wooden stool in the basement and decided it would make a great plant stand behind the settee. Then Mandy found a (slightly squashed) fern on sale to perch on top. Perfect!

We have had pansies on the porch this spring. This one is lovely! 

 I forgot I wanted a new doormat to spruce up the porch, until I saw this one at Hobby Lobby! Mandy managed to get Kerri to "pose" for us. I love all the colors!

 Summer also means gardening around here. This year we have larger hanging baskets on our fence hooks. The tin buckets, while very cute, looked a little lost on the fence. We are loving the bright geraniums!

We also got our patio pots planted! (Say that seven times fast!) Can't wait to see what they will look like all filled out!

Summer is all about projects too, right? So last Friday I decided it was time to get re-painting the bathroom checked off the list!

 One of the perks of having a small bathroom is it is quick to paint! I managed to paint the bathroom and back hall (they were both the same color) in a little under three hours. Made a nice start to the weekend! (I don't often get a bird's-eye-view of the bathroom. The ladder was half in the bathtub for cutting in around the ceiling!)

I didn't get any spiffy "after" pictures. And it doesn't really look any different as I used the same color paint. It just feels a lot fresher and clean with a new coat of paint. Six years of wear and tear in a bathroom was starting to show on the walls! 

Saturday was filled with a bunch of projects outdoors! All of which I will share more details later. Mandy built a potting bench, which is super cute! I cleaned out the garage, which inspired Mandy as I found a bunch of lumber. The Great Radiator Project has also started. In the left corner of the picture above you can see a radiator I am scraping. There are two I need to scrap and re-paint. The others just need a touch up coat of paint. I am also working on patching the cold air returns in the cottage, which is why there are old floor boards there! I was cleaning and stripping the finish on the boards.

It took a bit for me to adjust to not having the Brick House to work on! Still in process, but I am getting into re-focusing on projects around the cottage. The biggest one this year is to get the whole house fitted with radiators. There are a lot of steps that project and hopefully we can get most of them done this summer!

I dug this embroidered cottage out of my closet and finally got it finished! 

Spring Cleaning the Front Porch

One of my favorite things to do come Spring is clean the front porch! Somehow it really makes it feel like the warm weather is back. Mom and I started in on the porch bright and early Saturday morning. We weren't sure how the weather was going to turn out as we had planned on starting our cleaning on Friday, but there was a stiff North breeze.

 It always amazes us how dirty it gets! Floors, windows, walls and furniture all get washed down. The cushion covers also get taken off and put through the wash.

And any miscellaneous flotsam and jetsam that has accumulated over the winter gets put somewhere else. Including the salt bucket and shovels!

You can see I have already put out my pinwheels!

We also drag the rug on the porch and the rug in the entry to the backyard and give them a good scrubbing. We always marvel at these Waterhog rugs. They have to be going on 15 years and they still look good! They are so good at keeping all the snow and dirt in check. And nothing sticks to them! Muddy boots, plaster dust, dog throw up, greasy car parts; it has all come up. After a good wash, we hang them over the rocking chairs to dry in the sun.

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day! 65 degrees and so sunny! So we decided the floor needed a bit of sprucing this year. I happened to have a pint of Sherman William's floor paint on hand and off I went!

It always feels so fresh after a good clean! And a faint aroma of new paint helps too!

These little lanterns we found at the dollar store. They have battery operated tea lights in the bottoms. We can't wait to try them out!

 I never seem to know what to do with this side of the porch. This is the side that chronically get piled with odds and ends. It is getting better though! The bench has helped! I would like to get another little table to use as a plant stand.  

Last year I wasn't sure if I like the green, but as you can see, it is still green! I love the new pillows for it. I think it compliments the green very nicely, yet ties it to the colors on the other side of the porch.

How could I resist houses!?!

Have I ever showed you my doorbell? It doesn't work, but I couldn't take it out. It's so cute!