4th of July

Independence Day was full of fun. A few weeks ago, I changed out the frames in my hallway. I love the picture of Liam last year, he was so little! These printables all came from Pinterest. Unfortunately, I didn't pin them, just printed them when I found them. 

I am ashamed to admit that I had to take out our Christmas card to put up July 4th decor!

Dan's family is in town. It is non-stop fun. Liam loves playing with his "ta-tins." That's cousins for those of you who don't speak Toddler. On the 4th, we went to the river, rode in the boat and played in the sand.

At night, there wasn't enough room for all of us to fit in the boat and watch the fireworks on the river. I didn't mind, since Liam needed to get to bed earlier than that. Dan and Liam watched the neighborhood fireworks in the backyard. Liam is still saying "boom! pop!" this morning. I took my camera and tripod to the overpass near my house to watch a big fireworks display and get pictures. I got eaten alive by mosquitoes, but it was totally worth it.

A huge full moon rose around the same time the fireworks were going off. It was on the wrong side for me, but I did manage to get this:

Happy birthday, America!

Bathroom Makeover

As part of my 2012 goal to get my house painted, I spent a couple weekend in January redecorating the hall bathroom. It's one of those rooms that had never been painted and was looking builder-basic-blah when I started. 

I have a toddler that likes to unroll toilet paper, hence the toilet paper on the counter.

I am really proud of this room. I did about 95% of the work by myself, including taking the tank off of the toilet and putting it back on. The only thing that Dan did was cutting the beadboard and trim with his table saw.

I love it. I thought that the aqua might be too bold, but the beadboard helps to tone it down enough. I still need to figure out storage over the toilet. I've got a few ideas in mind, but I haven't decided yet. I'm also planning on adding an orange chevron pattern to the bottom of the shower curtain. I've got the materials, I just need the time and will power to do it. I also might frame the mirror and refinish the light fixture in the future, but those are pretty low on my to do list.

Liam was a big help with this project. He has his own mini paint roller. He watched me nail the beadboard to the wall and now thinks he has to hit the wall with whatever he has in his hand when he goes into the bathroom. Monkey see, monkey do.

Landscaping: Done!

An unusually cold winter and having renters in our house resulted in a disaster in our flowerbeds. It was a long, hard, dirty project, but it looks great. Unfortunately, Dan hurt his back the first day we started the landscaping and I had to do more of the work than I bargained for.

About 75% of our plants died and the beds were full of weeds. I pulled out one weed that was about 3 feet tall and about as big around as a nickel. I forgot to take a "before" picture, but here is the "afters."

After removing all of the dead plants and pulling up the weeds, we planted a Queen Palm, a Eugenia, a Tangerine tree, hibiscus bushes and Canna Lilies. We also pulled up our 2 largest Birds of Paradise, divided them and planted them separately. I'm not sure all of them are going to live, though. We also put down a black mesh fabric to keep the weeds out. I topped it all off with 115 bags of lava rocks.

Liam was a good sport. He sat in the shade in his Bumbo chair or in the stroller and watched. He is good in the car and doesn't mind me lugging him around Lowes and the garden store.

Living Room: Design

One of my current goals is to make our house feel more like a home. We built this house while we were engaged in 2006 and moved  in at the end of that year when we got married. We did some basic furnishing but decorating has never been one of my strengths. I regret some of the decisions that I made early on and that has made me fearful of going any further. We unfortunately had to get rid of a lot of our belongings when we moved in 2009. We lived in a 2 bedroom apartment and rented our house out while we were gone. Now that we are back, I want to overcome my fear of decorating. I have read a few websites and blogs over the last year or so in anticipation of working on this goal.

We spent the last week rehabilitating our front landscaping. It is 95% done. I am just waiting on certain flowers to be stocked at my favorite garden store. I'll post pictures when I am completely finished (though I forgot to take "before" pictures.) Dan and I also ordered new chairs for our dining room yesterday and I should get them in a few weeks.

That brings me to the living room. It baffles me. I have no idea what to do to make it feel more like home. Let me give you a visual.

We'll pretend like my house is oriented like the floor plan image. The north and west walls are painted red and the south and east walls are painted a light tan color. The light bouncing off of the red walls makes the tan walls look pink. (That is one of the big mistakes I made a few years ago.) I really want to paint over the red walls in the living room, but Dan claims he won't assist me.

Right now, we have a wide chair on the north wall and a sofa & spin bike on the west wall facing a tv & ladder bookcase on the east wall. The southeast corner is home to Liam's jumperoo, playmat and a bin of burp cloths & toys. The chair and sofa were given to us secondhand when we got married and I'd like to replace them with a nice, fabric sectional. (We have leather furniture now. Dan doesn't like it because it gets really hot.) We could also use an ottoman, especially one with storage. We need to save up some money for the big ticket items before making those purchases though. Once Liam gets bigger, I want to put a child sized table & chairs in the southeast corner. I think a cozy reading chair in a fun pattern might be nice there, too.

New furniture is at least a year away, so I have to make due with what we have. I am having a really hard time bringing color and life into the living room. There aren't any windows to decorate with curtains and I love our carpet too much to put a rug on it. I am no longer in love with our pillow cases on the couch. We bought them while in Kuwait and they have worn out pretty quickly. I just ordered some Amy Butler fabric to sew some new pillow cases.

The south wall in the room is reserved for projecting movies, so anything that goes there has to be easy to remove. I have 3 collage picture frames hanging above the couch. Even though they are good sized, the 9' tall dwarfs them. They really aren't the right scale for the room. I want to get 2 huge picture frames for the north wall, though I'm not sure exactly what to hang in them. Maybe some of my photographs.

I could also put accessories on the plant shelf and ladder bookcase, but I am at a total loss there.

Suggestions welcome and highly appreciated!