Entries from March 12th, 2012

Spring Cleaning the Lake

4

12.3.12

Hi everyone, hope you had a great weekend. The temperature around here are taking a turn for the warmer. On Sunday we had beautiful weather for getting out and enjoying the sunshine. The warmer days combined with longer nights thanks to Daylight Savings time now in full effect have made me especially anxious to get outside.

With the lake still low enough from the Winter drawdown to be able to walk around in waders, Bryan took the time to go do some spring cleaning of the lake variety. We have a rubble dock at the corner of our property. A rubble docks means the wood platform sits on top of rocks and stone to hold it out of the water versus other kinds of docks which are held up by wooden pylons that are pounded deep into the ground.

Each year tons of vegetation, sediment, fallen leaves and general muckiness get stuck right in that cove where he’s standing. It’s not absolutely necessary to take some of it out but it certainly makes for a nicer area come summer time.

My Dad also got in on the act by fixing some of the rocks that had fallen over the winter and removing some dirt and debris that was partially blocking the road drainage pipe nestled in the corner.

I probably haven’t mentioned it in a while but for those of you who are new around here. Our whole house is actually a complete Mother/Daughter arrangement, we have 2 kitchens and everything. We’re not considered a two family house due to an interior access door that connects the upstairs and downstairs living areas.

We love the arrangement and as the summer approaches you’ll be seeing more and more of my parents around who are always up for a good outdoor project. I like to think of them as the original project people around here, I think I get all of DIY skills from them as they built multiple houses as we grew up. It’s in my blood and as most people were watching cartoons on a Saturday morning we would sit down and watch This Old House that is of course when we weren’t outside doing projects.

Bryan’s no stranger to a DIY family either. His father built two complete houses from the ground up and now tinkers in the garage and builds furniture in his spare time. It’s in the gene pool I tell you! Of course we put Nikolas to work every chance we get and so the DIY cycle continues.

But back to our projects, we also got a healthy amount of some rich top-soil delivered as the next step in the continuing saga of our yard makeover. We’ll start to work on that soon as the temperature continue to rise.

We plan to use a lot of it in front of the pool to create some garden beds. We hope it will help camouflage the large tin can sticking out from the ground. I’m thinking some cutting flowers, tall flow grasses and few bushes thrown in for good measure. It should be good.

All in all it was a pretty good an productive weekend here on the lake. We had some fun outside, got our hands dirty…. some maybe dirtier than others.

Nikolas

We brought out pale selves out into the sunshine.

And watch the the first boats of the year come out to fish.

So how was your weekend? Are the temperatures rising where you are? Did you get a chance to go outside?

The Weekend

2

10.3.12

Happy Weekend Everyone! Aren’t the colors in this bouquet of flowers just perfect? I’m in love with the hot pink orange and yellow combination these days! It won’t be long now before we start to see some color outside as well. Don’t forget to Spring ahead tonight. So pretty!.

Hope you have a good weekend!

Let’s Take This Party Outside!

2

08.3.12

If you’ve been around this blog for any length of time you know as the summer approaches we spend many of our days doing projects outside and also manage to squeeze in some fun time on the lake. If you’re new here this summer you’re in for lot’s of outdoor projects, pictures of our lake, gardening and lots more.

But it all starts with a plan right. So I thought it be fun to quickly look back at some of the projects we managed to work on last year. It’s sometimes fun to see how far you’ve come and then take a look what you want to do next. Soon I’ll share some of the plans we have for this year.

But let’s start at the very beginning, you can see why we fell in love with the place from the picture below. It was taken during our home inspection back in September of 2009. I still remember the first time I walked down the driveway peaked around the corner and noticed the view. Honestly I think the house could have been falling over for all we cared because the view was mesmerizing.

I was newly pregnant and nauseous at the time but a view like that was enough to snap me out of it momentarily. Even that cute little island I first shared here was adorable in our minds.

Fortunately for us the house wasn’t falling down, the yard for a lakefront home was a generous size with a nice lawn. It was something that we knew we could work with to make ours. In the end it all worked out and now we get to call this place ours and have begun to turn it into the home and yard of our dreams.

Fast forward two years to last summer we did a TON of work in the yard over the course of a few months. The main event was definitely by far the completion of the deck that surrounds the above ground pool. We finally finished staining this beast it in November and it takes center stage by bridging the two levels of the yard and making the above ground pool infinitely more useful for summer fun in the sun.

Our great deck building project also included a matching fence to separate the lawn area from the lower portion of the yard which leads directly to the lake. A cute little gate makes keeping little ones safe up top a breeze and the lake down below still has a generous portion of land yet untouched by us with loads of white rock scattered about which we hope to focus more on this year.

The stone stairs leading from the gate were also another project that happened over last summer. You can see a better picture of it below from before we had the fence completed.

They look gorgeous and were completely free thanks in no small part to my Dad who built them and uncle who donated the stones. They’re so much more functional than the steep stepping stone path that used to exist.

While the guys were working on the stone steps and fence my mom and I bought a number of colorful perennials to create a little garden tucked into the corner. In the summer time it comes alive with flowing grasses and flowers. I can hardly wait for it to start blooming again.

The outer fence that separates our yard from the street also saw some action last year with the addition of some evergreens, hostas, tiger lilies and lupines to break up the long expanse of fencing. Changing it from long and gray…

to lush and green.

One of our last planting projects of the season was to remove some of the rogue tomatoes plants that cropped up outside of their designated vegetable plot, plant some seed to fill in those bare spots and fixed up those horseshoe pits with some stone and sand.

We also added some holly bushes along the interior fence, so much better than the weeds and monster tomatoes I think.

Yup it’s come a long way, but we’ve still got so much planned. So what’s in store this year you asked? We’ve got big plans to fix up the part of our yard that buts up directly to the lake. Right now its mostly a blank white stone canvas, which is too hot in the summer and unfriendly on bare feet to say the least. The view below is what you see as you come down those stone stairs I mentioned above and the second photo is as you come around the side.

Right now it’s not exactly the lush calming retreat we’d like it to be. But we have plans…big plans.

Well that’s it for now, next time I’ll share more of what we’ve got planned here for both this summer coming up and some more long term plans. Until then, is anyone else tired just looking at all that work. I know I am, good thing the results are totally worth it.

Shopping at Ballard Designs

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06.3.12

Hi everyone,

How was your weekend? I spent mine knee-deep in the upholstery project. I forgot how time-consuming redoing a chair is. It’s going along nicely though. I’m about half way through and all the guts of the chair are done, now it’s on to the pretty/rewarding part.

In between stapling and retying 24 springs I slacked off and sat down to check out the March Ballard Designs catalog that arrived at my door. If you didn’t get yours in the mail you can check it out here. I always appreciate Ballard’s catalogs for their great styling, awesome ideas and lovely art pieces but my personal style tends to be a little less European than Ballard’s style in general.

This time however I want to take almost every item home with me. Ballard Designs if you’re listening please send me the entire contents of your March 2012 issue, OK, Thank You

Here are just a few of my favorites that have me re-opening the catalog again and again.

1. 2. 3. 4.

A Few Things on Friday

2

02.3.12

Hi Everyone,

It’s Friday again, this weekend I hope to get a lot accomplished on my chair upholstery project. Keep your fingers crossed for me. In the meantime I thought I’d share a sneak peak of the fabric I got for the job. I scored this linen twill fabric on eBay for $60 for almost 10 yards. Which is going to go a long way to keeping the overall cost of this project down.

It’s a fairly heavy weight upholstery fabric that I think will wear well over time. I decided to keep the chairs neutral since there’s so many other colors going on in the room with the colorful Ikat drapes floral and striped pillows. To add some interest I also purchase a couple yards white denim fabric for the piping to add a little bit of contrast.

Finally I ordered some nail head trim to add just a little touch extra by accentuating the curves of the chairs.

It’s a little it different take on light chairs with dark piping. I’m going for beige chairs with white piping and I hope it’s going to work out like I’ve dreamed it up in my head, bringing these guys back from their tattered orange Naugahyde state they were in. I can’t wait to get to the pretty part of putting them back together. We’re still in the ugly frame state, But we’re on the right path the legs have been sanded and stained a rich dark stain.

I’m also thinking a touch of bling might be nice for the bottoms of the legs. I love dipped chair legs and to me these chairs are just calling for it. I think a burnished gold tone like the tables below would match the nail-head trim nicely.

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