Ivy League Landscaping

We've had some really great weather in the last couple of weeks, so it was the perfect opportunity to spend some time outdoors and do a little landscaping. On the driveway side of our home, we had a monster rhododendron bush that turned out to actually be a trio of bushes that were growing together (and out of control) so they were first on my list to undergo the knife. It was incredible how much dead growth there was under the canopy of branches, so it took me a few days of cutting, pulling, and trimming. I wish it were just as easy as clipping a few branches, but the undergrowth of ivy had managed to wrap itself around all three bushes. There was also some other kind of unidentified vine that had, too, wrapped it's way around all three bushes, and had started to grow over the top of them. I have no idea how long it has been there, but from the size of the trunk on the vine, it had been there for many years.

Behold, a before and after:

On the day we had our home inspection.

What an amazing difference, huh? Here's a view from the front side. The before pictures are from when we had our home inspection (because the bad blogger in me forgot to take before shots before tackling the bush). Sorry that they aren't the best angles, but they still show you how drab the landscaping really is was.

So... where you see the brown dead-looking patch above is where there used to be two giant mounds of ivy growing. When we first walked through the house, and saw the ivy I thought to myself, "Oh! How charming!" The charm definitely wore off after we moved in and I realized what a pain in the butt ivy really is. Yes, it's beautiful ground cover and super easy to maintain. Kind of. It grows incredibly fast, so i was having to trim it quite often to keep it from overgrowing onto the porch. The nightmare under the rhododendron bushes was another nail in the coffin, and the bees and wasps that were seeking sanctuary sealed the deal. My husband is deathly allergic, and if I didn't want to reenact the scene from My Girl, the ivy had to go. As you can see, I am taking it out in phases, because it is horrible, back-breaking work. I took out the top layer with the mower, and the thick, viny root base has to be pulled up individually.

As you can see, I am far from finished. I've managed to de-root most of the area where the rhododendron's are planted, but I have yet to finish pulling up the roots and vines along both sides of the walkway. And of course I'll be laying down landscaping fabric, edging, and mulch to keep the ivy from returning.

The azaleas are blooming beautifully in the front of the house, but unfortunately they, too, are being choked out by the ivy. Eventually I'll muster up the strength to tackle the front and left side of the house. Maybe in the fall. Next year (I'm kidding. Maybe.)

Anyone else getting out in their yard and gardens and getting things cleaned up for the summer? I can't wait to get started on a vegetable garden, but I might not be able to get to it this year. One thing at a time, right?

Any suggestions for what kind of plants to use for brightening up our walkway? I'm so tempted to do some sort of edible landscaping. We also have a beautiful rose bush that was on the verge of death by ivy, but it may need to be transplanted because it looks like it will grow HUGE. More on that later.

Trim and Furnishings

Things are starting to really come together in Claire's room. I've spent the last week hard at work painting the windows and trim and sanding down her bedroom furniture. The windows were extremely tedious, and though I was cautiously cutting in around the glass panes, I did have to go at it with a razor blade in a few spots. Some of the paint that I scraped off was from a previous paint job, and of course it made a huge mess. But it is progress, people! Here's a few before and after shots.

 I had some nail holes to fill in and quite a few gaps and cracks to caulk. It helps give the trim a nice, clean finish.

Overall I am happy with how everything is looking. I wonder if the color I chose, Simply White by Benjamin Moore in a Behr satin finish, is a little too creamy. It's definitely not a stark white. I suppose time will tell.

I also managed to finish sanding down the bed, and repainted the bookshelf. I decided that I really love the distressed look that I achieved with sanding. It's elegant looking with the purple, and I cannot wait to buy some new bedding to jazz it up. Target has some lovely sheets in the Shabby Chic collection that would be perfect. I think I'll be waiting for them to go on sale, though, since $40 for a set of sheets is a bit steep. I'm a cheapskate frugal.

I still have to sand down and repaint the night stand. You can see here how yellow and dingy it is in comparison to the bed. In person it looks even worse. I had mod-podged some paper to the drawer fronts, and it is peeling in places.

This room could use a fancy new light fixture as well. I'm not a fan of the boob light. I'm just so glad to be living in a house which has rooms with overhead lighting, though. Our previous rental homes in New York and Texas did not have that luxury.

Claire is enjoying her new room, especially now that it has furniture in it! Hopefully this week I'll get the curtains hung, and some of her things moved in. I've also got some more work to do in the closet so I can hang her clothes in there. The hang bar has been relocated, but the walls could use a coat of fresh paint, and the window needs caulked and sealed. I'd also like to install a shelf above the hang bar.

So that is the progress for this week. I am looking forward to bringing in some more color with her accessories. Any suggestions as to what would pop with the lavender? Maybe some yellow? What about a hunter green? What do you think of the room layout? Should I keep the bed on the large wall that it is on, or should I move it in front of the window on the far side? I have a wicker linen chest that normally sits at the foot of her bed, but with the current layout, there won't be enough room.

Anyone else making progress on a remodel project? :)

Free At Last!

I am so happy that I can finally say that we are DONE with the rental house in NY. It has been an extremely stressful three weeks since we signed the settlement papers on our new house in Pennsylvania. Now that our lease on the house that we rented in NY is finally behind us, we can focus on all of the wonderful things we are going to be doing in our new home. I cannot wait to begin sharing it all with you!

Thank you all for your support and encouragement as we transitioned through everything. Now I can get down to the fun DIY stuff that you are all waiting for! We've got SO much to look forward to: a kitchen renovation, painting projects, gardening/landscaping, and tons more!

Anyone else nearly lose sanity over a big move? You'd think that being a military family we'd be professional movers by now (and to some extent we are), but it was tough work getting two houses cleaned and prepped for moving. Especially when I had to do most of the work (including moving) on my own due to my husband's schedule. Big high-fives to those of you who have or who are going through a moving transition. It's not easy!

Subtle People Walls

I'm pretty sure that's the face my husband made when my text told him that our daughter wanted to paint her room the color people purple. We had a good laugh over that auto-correct fail, and now it has been an ongoing joke. I was seriously read to get my paint on in Claire's room, though, so I could finish unpacking her things and put away the multitude of boxes that are consuming the living room. I picked up a gallon of paint at our local Home Depot, and could not be happier with the result: subtle people purple walls.

Unfortunately my pictures do the color no justice. In person, it is simply divine. The color I chose is Behr's Lilac Champagne in their paint/primer duo formula with an eggshell finish. I had tried another color, Lovely Lavender (also by Behr), but luckily I only purchased a test pot of that color. It turned out to be MUCH brighter than I had anticipated.

Above you can see where I began to cut around the trim with the lilac and over the lavender. The lavender is a pretty shade, but just not the soft, subtle shade I was looking for.

Now that the walls have been painted, I'll be removing the dated aluminum blinds and painting the trim. I should tackle that this week once we have turned our keys over for the rental house in NY. I am also in the process of refinishing her bedroom furniture. I made the unfortunate mistake of choosing the wrong type of polyurethane when I painted her bed, night stand, shelf, and table/chair white a few years ago. The crisp white quickly yellowed and looked more like it had spent the last 30 years in a smoker's haven rather than a toddlers room. Yuck.

Sanding down the furniture turned out to be a lot more tedious than I anticipated, and here is what I wound up with after using three sanding discs:

I'm kind of loving the distressed look. Is that weird? Maybe I am just a tad feeling lazy, too. We'll see how it all comes together once I finish the rest of her furniture and assemble all of the pieces. I've also got a little work to do in her closet.

Your eyes do not deceive you. That is, indeed, a hang bar screwed into the window. An odd choice for placement (not to mention it's an odd place for a window), so I'll be moving it down below the window sill and installing a shelf above it to keep the sunlight from bleaching anything stored inside the closet. More things to throw at Bob. I'll be sharing more about it once I get the basic room together and can formulate a good design plan.

The Epic Kitchen Renovation

Well, it might not necessarily be the most epic renovation ever, but it certainly is to us. We've never tackled anything like it before, and so like a good little blogger, I have begun to do my homework when it comes to renovating our kitchen. Before we break down the nitty gritty details of things that may or may not have been decided upon as of yet, I thought I would begin by giving you a quick tour, and then wrap up the post with Bob. Villa. I wish. (Read more about Bob-- no relation to Villa whatsoever-- here.)

Let's get this tour started, shall we? Below is the view of the kitchen as you enter the house from the back door. As you can see, it gets a lot of natural light thanks to the large picture window to the right.

The kitchen doesn't appear to be that large, and I think that is mostly due to the current layout. While it does have that holy appliance to sink trifecta going on, it doesn't leave much in the way of counter space. In fact, those corner cabinets are so deep and low that it is difficult to really even put anything under there. My Keurig is not impressed.

To the left, we have a nice little hole where our refrigerator is supposed to go. Since the old one that came with the house decided to die two days after we moved in, we quickly removed it from the kitchen to make way for its replacement. Unfortunately, the big, beautiful stainless Amana that I scored for cheap on Craigslist doesn't quite fit through the kitchen doorway. So it is sitting right behind this wall in the dining room.

You might be wondering how we are going to get the fridge into the kitchen in the future, and the answer is simple. We intend to remove this wall to open up the kitchen into the dining room. More about that later.

I'm not exactly sure what inspired the previous owners color palette for the kitchen. I wasn't born yet when the yellow and black tile with maroon 50's counter tops must have been all the rage. Despite the eyesore, can't you just envision a beautiful apron-front sink? Rather than install another wall of cabinetry, we're thinking about subway tile and open shelving that flank the window to keep things from looking too heavy.

Our stove is such a small, basic appliance. It works, though, so we can't complain. The venthood overhead, however does not. Well, it would if we used the extension cord that it is wired to to plug it in, but something tells me that an electrical cord hanging over a hot stove is a bad idea. So we've opted to pretend that it doesn't work instead. You know, for the sake of safety and all.

Here, I imagine a lovely gas cook top with a large, rustic venthood. To the right, a double wall oven. The baker in me demands it. I can't tell you how many times I have wished we had an extra oven, or have run next door to a neighbor's house to use theirs.

In order for our wall ovens to fit, however, I think that the large picture window will have to be cut in half. While this will take away some of the lovely natural light that we love so much in this space, we'll be getting two additional windows from the dining room that will reflect into the open space. I think I can live with that.

As for flooring, we haven't really decided on what we want-- mostly because we don't quite know what lurks beneath the linoleum. I have toyed with the idea of just painting the floors to help keep the budget down. I think a large-scale black and white checkerboard painted onto the floor could look quite nice. We'll have to see how easily it will be to cover the transition from kitchen to dining room where the wall used to be as well.

This picture brings us full circle to where we started: the rear door. The wall on the upper right side of this picture is where our fridge will find it's new home. With the counter to the left gone, it should fit quite nicely there and still give plenty of pathway to the back door. This will likely be where the first phase of our renovation begins: removing the cabinetry, counter top, and tile to make way for the fridge.

Lastly, here is a view into the kitchen from the dining room at the front of the house. Here you can see our lovely new stainless steel fridge in its temporary home. This is the wall we intend to remove, and you can see just how much it will open up our floorplan for the kitchen. While I will be losing wall space, I will be gaining so much more with an island here. The storage I lost will be retained with the island, and I will have added SO much more workspace for cooking, baking, or coupon clipping.

We had a small conversation about removing this wall with our home inspector (who also happened to be a contractor). While this wall is a load-bearing wall, it does not mean that we cannot remove it. Obviously we will have to find a way to provide support by using a beam to run the length of where the wall used to be. Wouldn't a salvaged barn beam look beautiful there?

To wrap up this post, let's talk about Bob (our list, not the handy-dandy former This Old House guy).

1. Remove cabinets, counter, and tile from the nook next to the basement door, and prep for fridge.
2. Knock out the wall that separates the kitchen from the dining room.
3. New lower cabinets and floating shelves that flank the window above kitchen sink.
4. Apron front kitchen sink
5. Pick a counter top material.
6. Subway tile backsplash.
7. Gas cooktop and vent hood.
8. Close in half of the picture window and install double wall ovens.
9. Flooring: to paint or not to paint?
10. Island
11. Lighting.
12. Planked ceiling and exposed "barn beam" support.
13. Upgrading the electrical wiring before we drywall/tile.

I am sure there are a million little bullet points that could be listed beneath each number, but in general these are the things we are going to be focusing on as we forge ahead with our kitchen renovation. Now that we know the basics of what we want, we can begin to go down each point, make a decision, and begin a budget. A lot of the beginning work will be the demolition (read: fun part), and most of our budget will likely be eaten up by the cabinetry and counter tops. I've been virtually stalking so many kitchen renovations that have been done through my pinterest board, and so I am determined to do this within a reasonable budget. I have seen other people with fabulous kitchens on a low budget, so I know it can be done!

Are you all as excited as I am? Have I left anything important out of my list? If you've undergone a kitchen renovation, please clue me in on where the best place to start is! Right now we are still in the concept stage, but I am itching to get my hands dirty! :)

B.O.B.

My name is Jessica, and I am a list maker.

I don't know what it is about a nice, organized list that helps me feel like I am accomplishing something, but it is a guilty pleasure. There are a lot in the blogosphere that like to organize their projects by list, and I am no exception. One of my favorite blogs, Young House Love, even named theirs. "What a great idea!" I thought. So I decided to name mine. Naturally, I decided on Bob. He's simple, to the point, and expresses just how I feel when I review my list: "Boy, oh boy!" (or bunch of bull, whichever you prefer...).

Bob is ever-changing, especially now that we have purchased our very first home. And once we get settled in our new home, I will be breaking down Bob for you all as we tour the house. One Bob isn't enough, though. I've got several. Long-term Bob's and short term ones. Ones that are more specific, and some that are less so. Does that make me weird?

Dairy Free PBJ Breakfast Smoothie

I know what you're thinking... peanut butter and jelly for breakfast?!

TRUST me when I tell you that this recipe is so delicious! I stumbled upon it when cleaning out our freezer to prepare for our move. I had a couple bags of frozen strawberries to use, and thought it would be best to make a smoothie since I also had some almond milk left over from making ice cream. Originally I had been just blending a simple strawberry and banana smoothie, but after I had left the jar of peanut butter sitting on the counter, curiosity hit me. I wonder how my smoothie would taste with a spoonful of peanut butter...

Heaven. That's what it tasted like. Pure, unadulterated awesome. Since I gave up wheat, I hadn't had a PBJ sandwich in a LONG time. They're one of my absolute favorite treats. And this smoothie tastes JUST like one. It was amazing! Another great thing is that it is dairy free! One of my favorite things was to wash down my gooey PBJ sandwich with a nice, tall glass of milk, but when I gave up bread, I also gave up most dairy.

If you're a PBJ die-hard like myself, you have GOT to try this smoothie! It's incredibly fast simple to make. Here's what you'll need:

Ingredients:

1 Banana
4-6 Frozen Strawberries
1 Tablespoon Peanut Butter
1 Cup Almond Milk

Now, you don't have to be exactly precise in your measurements, and you can make this smoothie to fit whatever consistency you prefer. A lot will depend on the size of banana or strawberries you use, so if you like a thicker shake, add more strawberries. If you like something less thick, don't add as many strawberries (or you can add a splash of more almond milk).

Toss your ingredients in the blender, puree till smooth, and voila! You've got a healthy, tasty PBJ smoothie that is dairy free. Enjoy!