New Photos up on the Walls

Now that we are through all the Ireland posts, I can show you some new photos I have up on the walls.

First I had two macro photos printed to hang in the entryway.  

Then I had an Ireland photo (Kylemore Abbey) printed to replace one in the display above the TV.

I also had one printed on a canvas, this was the Cliffs of Moher, to hang in the master bedroom with my Oak Alley canvas. 

And finally my favorite photo, of the waterfall from Killarney National Park I had printed as a large metal print to hang in the half bath.  It is really hard to capture the beauty of the metal print in a photo. 

Railing Painting

Since we bought the house I have been debating painting the railing and posts on our staircase. Finally in August we just bit the bullet and started sanding and then priming.

We ended up painting the posts white and the railing black.

After a few days I noticed pink bleed through on the white. I did some research and ended up buying some shellac based primer and that did the trick to stop the pink.

I realized when uploading these that I don't have any final after pictures. I will have to do that. Overall I am happy with how it turned out. It needs some touching up, the cleaners tend to plug in the vacuum in one room and run the cord all over the upstairs. That seems to be damaging the paint so I told them this week that they need to stop that. Hopefully they will and I can paint and it will hold up.

New Lights

In August we had the electrician come and hang up two lights we had purchased. We have done this ourselves a lot of times but it always ends up frustrating and involving five trips to Lowe's so we decided this time to hire it out. So much less stressful!

First was the one at the top of the stairs.

The other was a new porch light. I had to touch up the blue ceiling paint since the new light covered a much smaller area on the ceiling.

Kitchen Picture Ledges

Shortly after taking the house photos of course I had the urge to make a few changes around the house. One change in the kitchen was to take this empty wall and add three small ikea picture ledges to the wall to make a place to store and display cookbooks.

 

House Tour 2013

In July I did my annual shoot of the current (at the time) state of our house. Like normal it has changed a bit since then. But this is what it looked like on July 11th.

Another Porch Update

Would you be shocked if I said we spent the weekend working on the porch again?  No?  Me either.  I think that is going to be every weekend until it is done at this point.  But I admit it is starting to feel like the end is in sight (though we still have at least 3-5 weekends of work left).  Which is amazing with this being the third summer we are working on it.  We are both wondering what we are going to do with our weekends when it is done. 

This weekend we built and installed one of the two long sections. Hopefully next weekend we can do the second one.

Porch Railing Progress

The past couple of weekends we have been slowly making progress on putting up the railings on the porch.  First we put up the railing on the end by the garden, that one section took an entire weekend since we hadn't really worked on any railing since last fall.  Then another weekend we installed the posts to support the railings around the stairs.





Finally this past weekend we put up the two easy sections by the stairs.





Next up, the long railings on the front.  We need a few more spindles for those, we ended up liking a tighter spacing than we had planned.  Each of those might take a whole weekend being as long as they are.  And last, the dreaded section by the stairs. 

Bistro Set and Light for the Porch

You would think that after all my posts about shopping for furniture for the balcony that if I actually bought something for the outdoor parts of our house, it would be for up there.  Apparently I am feeling impulsive, I bought a bistro set from Cost Plus World Market for the porch instead. 



I bought the Turquoise Cadiz Mosaic Bistro Table and the Blue Cadiz Stacking Chairs (along with the white cushions that go with them). The table arrived this past Friday. The chairs are on backorder. Initially I was planning to put them on the left as you walk out the door, but as we get more of the railings up I think that will be too tight of a fit and we will end up with them to the right as you go out the door.

We also picked out a new light this weekend, hopefully I will order that tomorrow when the pricing is confirmed. 

New Trees

Remember how back in October we lost two of our street trees (darn bradford pears!) to Hurricane Sandy? Now that spring is here it is time for our new trees to go in.  We decided to stick with the other new trees we have put in over the past couple of years.  So an Eastern Redbud out front.



and a white dogwood down the side.



They both have a lot of growing to do (of course so do the ones that have been there a while) but it is nice to have them there.  Maybe someday we will have some of that privacy back. 

Ikea Balcony Furniture Options

While I was shopping at Ikea the other week (after my Friday off work trip to Longwood)and picking up the solar lights I mentioned, I took a few photos of some of the outdoor furniture options they had on display.

I really liked the look of this option, but it wasn't all that comfortable to sit on (the sectional part) and I would prefer to find something with wider feet. While I think the new floor/roof we put on the balcony will hold up better than the tar paper roof that was there I don't want to risk damaging it. Though I plan to put down an outdoor rug and I think that will hopefully help protect it.

I like this one, it looks really comfortable, and I am debating having an umbrella up there to make the balcony more useable in the afternoon when it gets a lot of sun. It also does have wider feet. Aside from the fact that this is beige (which is a color I tend to shy away from), it looks like every other sectional out there.

This isn't the kind of louge seating I am looking for but I really like it. Could be a good outdoor dining option when we figure out where that is going to go in our yard!

This one was definitely my favorite, and not just because it is gray (which is one of my favorite colors), it was also really comfortable.

Any favorites? Suggestions for other options I should look at? There are so many options out there, it leaves me feeling rather overwhelmed!

Planning the Balcony - Part 1

Our progress on the porch and balcony have been slow over the past two years but the balcony is finally structurally finished. New side walls, new roof/floor, new railings.

Now it is time to start thinking about how to make this a space we want to use and can enjoy. My first step was hanging up the solar lights you can see in the photos above. I bought them at Ikea. They don't make it quite as bright as I would like out there, but for only solar powered they are pretty nice!

Next up, shopping for a rug and furniture. I don't really know what I want, but I did draw up a floor plan so that I could start testing out what will work.

What would you be looking at?