The joy of being a homeowner...

I haven't blogged much in the past couple of months. I'm not sure if it's because I have grown weary of working on the house or weary of writing about it... perhaps both. It seems the everyday tasks of home ownership are hardly worth writing about.
But, lest you think life at the Ponderosa is boring, let me assure you it is not.

Here is a little bit of a run down from the past few weeks:
house guests
yard work
put out the garbage
more yard work
forgetting to put out the garbage
house cleaning
laundry
dinner guests... lots of dinner guests :-)
decorating for fall
furry friends in the attic
the great moth ball catastrophe

Thanks for checking in... more to come on the "moth ball catastrophe" in the coming days!

Time For Fall...

It's time to get ready for fall! Since I like to put up Christmas decorations at the beginning of November, (don't laugh) I have to seize very moment of fall that I can.
I put out a few decorations today...

The Great Outdoors...

I've been trying to tame the great outdoors at the new house. It has been a hot and prickly job. Today, I cut down some trees. (Actually I think 2 of them were bushes, but perhaps bushes can be considered trees when they tower over your house.)
Maybe now that the trees are gone I won't have hundreds of pink feathery flowers on my car from the Mimosa. And hopefully, I have cut down the squirrels' stepping stones to the attic.
Here's a picture of my newly pruned greenery.


Before








After








There used to be a tree right there. Good-bye Mimosa!!








For those of you who may be concerned that I am working on these projects alone, I'd like to put your mind at ease. It seems the Wild Kingdom is my constant companion at this new house. Chipmunks, birds, bugs, spiders... and today we have a new addition...

I feel a little like Dr. Doolittle. (Except so far none of them have talked to me :-)

Red Couch View

Everything is in place and it looks like home.
I thought I would give you the view from the red couch (one of my favorite spots :-)
























But there's still a little problem with the back door...


Oh well, it stands as a monument to what the house used to look like.

FLOORS!!!

I am happy to announce that the floors have arrived. They are beautiful hickory, and I am so grateful to have the last BIG project done. Here are few pics.













The dining room is ready for guests :-)

Curtains!!

Yippee!! Curtains for the living room are almost finished (thank you Mrs. Marcia).
I absolutely love the fabric. The colors are so fun and the design is fabulous!
Here is a sneak peak at the finished products.

The Great Divide

I love homes with wide open spaces, but it does create a problem. If the foyer flows into the den and the den flows into the dining room and the dining room flows into the kitchen which flows into the hallway... do you have to paint them all the same color? Where do you change colors? It's not like there are doorways or other "natural" boundaries.
Well, I could not bear the thought of all those rooms being the same color so I had divided the space into 2 colors, sage green and a mushroom brown. The only problem was that it made 2 wierdo places on the walls where it looked like dirt meeting grass.
Example 1 & 2:












What is a girl to do? :-) So, I got out my little yellow miter box and my hand saw and bought 2 long pieces of trim. And made a Great Divide. (I am happy to report that my hammering skills have shown some improvement since my last trim work project!)
Examples 1& 2

Fans, finials, floors, and final touches

Have you ever heard the saying, "The devil is in the details." Well, I'm not sure if the devil is in them but they are certainly time consuming. You can spend days looking for the right screw or touching up paint. Here are a few of the details I've been working on lately...
Here are the drapery rods I made. I absolutely refused to pay $29.99 for a rod and $30 for hardware. So I bought finials on clearance at Target (4.99 a pair), a pine rod from Lowe's ($2 a foot) and brackets I ordered from Target.com - I thought they were $10 a pair but it turned out there was only 1 in each packet so $20 for both. (Grand total of $21 ... that's better than $59.99)



This rod over the door is made from the spindle that was on the frame of an antique twin bed. There is a long narrow window beside the front door and I thought this would make a fun rod. The spindle was free (thank you Mrs. Merry) and the brackets were free (Thank you Mrs. Marcia). They were a thrift store find. I think they were $1. Originally they were painted shiny white but I spray painted them black and then sloppily painted brown craft paint to make them look like the ones from Target on the other windows.

Let there be light! There is now a new fan in the living room. The old white one was absolutely disgusting. I was going to install it myself :-) But after taking down the old one by myself some friends of mine felt the need to have a "fan-intervention" :-) Thanks for the help Mr. John and Mrs. Cecile.





The floor has been officially ordered. Here is a picture of the sample. It is called Burnt Barnyard Board. It is real Hickory. It's probably the nicest thing I've put in the house. It will be installed next week!! I do LOVE wood floors, so I think this is a good item to splurge a little on.




Last but not least, I want to show you this great Salvation Army find. This dresser is going in my dining room as a buffet. It also has a beautiful large mirror with an ornate frame around it. The finish was pretty cloudy and abused, but after some TLC it is looking Ponderosa worthy! We washed / scrubbed the finish with equal parts boiled linseed oil, mineral spirits, and vinegar using the finest steel wool. I love the tiger look of the wood on the doors.

Hang Time

I've been hanging pictures all afternoon. And even though I used my level and my tape measure it seems I can never hang a picture on the first try. Oh well! It's not a lived in home until you've put 30 or 40 holes in the wall :-)

Fabric.com

Yippee!! The fabric for the living room curtains has arrived. I always have the hardest time finding colors I like, but fabric.com had just what I was looking for.

A lot can happen in a month...

It has been a busy month with moving, a trip to Gatlinburg, a mission trip to Africa, and a visit from Mom.
Here are a few of the latest updates to the Ponderosa.

The Exterior has been painted: THANK YOU Morgans












Walls and trim painted in the living room:












An Island for the Kitchen: a thrift store find with a little paint and new pulls













The deck is ready for company:









Curtains: Thanks mom for sewing

From Gross to Great!

Here are the before and afters of the completed guest bathroom!
Before:
























After: