Summer Garden-Posted by Erin

We were gone for the weekend and it seems that our garden, herbs and flowers were very busy while we were gone. I was so happy to see baby tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini and squash almost ready to be picked this morning when I checked on our plants. I can't wait to make yummy dishes and fresh salads from our garden. Fried green tomatoes and BLT's, anyone? There is something so satisfying about growing your own food! What about you, how is your garden growing if you planted one this year?

Sage and Thyme

Marigolds

Lettuces

Better Boy tomatoes

Evening Primrose

Heather's Entryway Update

I am happy to share a bit of progress on our home. 

A couple weeks ago, we started updating our entryway.  I don't have "before" pictures to share, but just picture a blank wall painted pale yellow.  I've since painted most of the house Sherwin Williams Extra White, and I can tell you that our living room is smaller than a bedroom in many homes!  

We'll eventually tear out the wall separating the living room and dining area for a more open floor plan.  I know eventually the "befores" will all be "afters" and I just need to be patient. *Smiles*

Now that we're in a much smaller home, I like the idea of maximizing every inch of space that we have.  The idea of a highly functional entryway with lots of storage is very appealing, so I found a tutorial for a mantel shelf with hooks. The tutorial we used can be found here. 

My best advice for making this shelf is to make sure your miter saw has a sharp blade. Also, leave room for error because cutting crown molding can be quite difficult if you haven't done it before.  

This is how our shelf looked after we attached a piece of base molding to our 2x8.

The shelf with attached molding 

Our finished shelf

I'm so pleased with the finished shelf! My husband was a huge help with all the cutting.  I'd still be attempting to get the angles right!  After the shelf was put together, I filled the holes with wood putty and caulked the crown molding.  I sanded and then I painted it with two coats of primer and then a top coat of Sherwin Williams Extra White.  We hung it on the wall, and then we added the hooks. I found them at Hobby Lobby for half price.  

To do:
Decorate my mantel shelf
Build a storage bench for shoes, bookbags, etc.

New Beginnings-Posted by Erin

I've been a little apprehensive about making a post of our kitchen progress...mostly because things have gotten pretty ugly around here. What started out as a small cabinet painting project turned into tearing the walls, pipes and studs out and starting new. My husband and I had no idea that there was so much damage lurking underneath the drywall and behind the cabinets in our kitchen. There are definitely disadvantages to tearing your kitchen out (i.e. what seemed like ten trillion trips to Home Depot and eating pizza every night because your kitchen is in shambles), but the biggest highlight so far has been the fun of putting it all back together. I get to choose exactly how my kitchen is going to look. When we bought our house I knew that there would be a few improvements made, but I didn't expect a full kitchen remodel almost immediately after we moved in. So far we have done all the work ourselves and thus the process is going a little slower than we would like, but we know these things take time (and money!). So I guess what I'm getting to with this blog post is that sometimes things have to get pretty ugly before they can get pretty. Stay tuned for the pretty if you like. 

The yucky mold was from a drain leak before we bought the house.

My husband tearing out the last 1980's knotty pine cabinet. What a relief...