Groundbreaking Experience

Hello ladies. Welcome to Metamorphosis Monday. For all of the great posts go on over to http://www.betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/

We recently had a groundbreaking metamorphosis of sorts. It was groundbreaking AND back breaking. We did an overhaul of the driveway and the flower beds near the house. We started with a gravel drive and zilch for landscaping. See.....There is the yard. Not a lot going on there. I don't have a before of the gravel drive, but...not a lot to look at either.

First we marked the beds with spray paint. Then, we started digging. We dug out the grass and transplanted it to other areas of the yard. Next came building up with new dirt. We called in the big dirt truck and got a dumper full. Our kids, neighbor kids, and kids we didn't even know all showed up with shovels and gadgets to move dirt from one spot to another. We worked and worked....the pile wasn't getting a lot smaller. So...more neighbors showed up with this... Much faster. While the dirt was going down, the pvc was also going in. Husband and neighbor ran the pipe for the sprinkler system. Gotta love that. Men get really dirty when they are messing with pvc.

Next came the big trip to the Nursery. As one who knows nothing about plants, I had many questions. The nursery man was really nice. We got all the plants and headed home. Then, we had to lay out all of the plants where we wanted them.
Finally we planted and mulched.

Now we have a paved, planted, mulched, watered, landscaped yard. Our groundbreaking metamorphosis is done. We learned a lot in the process and we can't wait to spruce it up some more in the spring.

Thanks for stopping in to see our metamorphosis. Much love, Laura

A Splash On My Back!

Hello ladies. It has been a while, but I am trying to catch up. As most of you know by now, we are in the new military mansion. We have been working and working to get it into tip top shape. Great....but....all of this tip topping has left my piggy bank sounding a bit tapped out.

We finished the bathrooms, the laundry room, and a bunch of other stuff. We were nearing the end of the kitchen and I decided that I needed a tile backsplash. FABULOUS! Major Husband says, "No problem, I will just work a little overtime..." LOL For those of you pounding the military pavement every day, you know how crazy funny that statement really is. 24/7 No overtime...ever...

So, this means that the lady of the mansion and her Aunt don their work clothes and get at it...

Here is a pic of the kitchen before we started any redos.
We left our mark on the wall and started placing tiles with tile adhesive. It went on really easily. We used some little dividers to space the tile just right. We also covered the countertops with brown paper to keep the mess down.
Some of the tiles needed to be cut to fit. No problem. We used a wet tile saw to cut. This was much easier than I thought it would be. We just marked the tile with a wax pencil and went to cutting. After all the tiles were in place...then we grouted with a pre-mixed grout. This is as easy and making mud pies...just real messy!

After intense clean up efforts....we had this....

Not bad. My splash now has a back and my piggy is not much worse for wear. The entire tile job cost about 200.00.

Thanks so much for stopping by today for DIY Thursday. Take a look at all of the wonderful DIY stuff at A Soft Place To Land.

Laura

My Shrinking Bathroom

Hello ladies. Welcome to the mansion this fine Sunday evening. Hope this finds you all well. I wanted to take a moment and share a little bathroom metamorphosis. If you would like to see scads of Metamorphosis Monday posts hop on over to Between Naps On The Porch.

As I mentioned above, my hall bathroom in the new mansion has experienced a metamorphosis. When we moved in a couple of months ago, this is what the bath looked like...

The walls were white and the trim was dark brown. The furniture was dark brown and there was one small light fixture on the wall above the sink. All the dark trim made the 10 foot tall bathroom look really stark and sterile. The one small window made the tall room look even taller. Our mission was to shrink the bathroom and make it less "chilly."

First of all, we painted the walls and the trim. Then we knocked down the glass shower doors.

I painted the furniture black and added a monogrammed shower curtain (thank you lillian vernon, love her!). These things softened the room, but they didn't do anything to shrink that ceiling ...So...we decided to add a large light fixture from the middle of the ceiling. The light is actually an outdoor light, but the space was large enough to accommodate the fixture. The light addition helped with the height of the room, but the tiny window on the big wall still presented a problem for height and blandness. So...off we go to build a cornice board. We used some cheap plywood to put the board together. The height of the board ended up being 15 inches. We put the board at the top of the window and extended the ends of the board 15 inches to either side of the window. We added curtains that fill the extra 15 inches on either side of the window. The whole thing is set upon two "L" brackets.

Look at that! Instead of three empty feet above the window, now we have only about one. And the window looks much larger. Yippee. We threw in some DIY art, a cute stool, and a bamboo shelf.

And finally, we have a finished bathroom that appears to be shorter and less sterile.

That about does it for the shrinking bathroom. Yall have a great week.

Laura

Laundry Anyone?

Hello ladies. Welcome to the mansion. It is Monday and time for Metamorphasis...check out Metamorphasis Monday at Between Naps On The Porch.

Today I would like to share my laundry room makeover with you all. Here is a pic of the before laundry room when we moved into the new mansion...

And...here is Aunt Kathleen painting like a crazy woman.... We painted the room all the way up to the top...10 feet. The color is called Teague Dune. We decided to paint the trim bright white.

Here is the finished laundry room...

I found some great "dune" colored fabric and made a little curtain and a counter skirt. The skirt is box pleated and attached with velcro. I made several hidden openings in the skirt so that I can get to my goodies underneath. I found a bunch of baskets really cheap at Wally World. They are hiding candles, light bulbs, pet supplies, lunch kits, and much more junk. I made some tags out of scrap paper and ribbon to affix to the baskets.

I found a cute mirror laundry sign at the thrift shop for .50. Yippee. And there you have it....the laundry is done. I would like to find a great light to hang from the ceiling....maybe the next trip to the thrift store will make that happen.

Thanks for stopping by the mansion. Have a great week.

We Got A Horse...Kinda...

Hi there ladies. Welcome to the mansion this fine Friday. It is time for show and tell over at There is No Place Like Home . Pop on over and check everything out.

We, my husband and I, have lived all over the place in the past 16 years. Germany, Georgia, N. Carolina, Texas....and in every single place we have been a stone's throw from our neighbors. I am so...not kidding about that. Some neighbors were a mere 5 feet across the stairwell. Some neighbors even shared a common wall. We were always surrounded by people...and cement. I would classify all of our prior homes as belonging to the "concrete jungle." Here is a picture of our hometown:

Houston, TX. No grass between your toes going on there.

So...here we sit. In our new "mansion." In the country. Grass between our toes, open spaces, not so near neighbors, and lots of questions... Like...what do we do with all this space? How do we cut all that grass? What is that small creature? Where do we park...there's no concrete? Ha. Being here, we want to embrace everything country. We really do. But, we decided to start small....

His name is Micki Moto. He is a seven year old mini horse. We didn't even know there was such a thing. He is too...cute. The little ones ride on him. They feed him, bathe him, and even scoop the poop.

So, we are jumping into country life...we are just jumping in one "mini" step at a time. All we need now is a mini cow and a mini goat.

I must also confess that we just had someone lay a 5,000 square foot driveway...all brand new beautiful CONCRETE. You can take the family out of the "jungle," but you still have to give them a place to park!

Have a blessed weekend ladies. Check back Monday for our yard metamorphasis.

Polish Pottery Crazy

Hi. This is a repost from Show and Tell Friday. A couple of ladies suggested that I post on "Blue Monday" over at Smiling Sally. So...here goes...

Hello ladies. It's Show and Tell Friday at "There is no place like home."
I decided to "show and tell" yall about my Polish pottery. That is some of it right up there. It all started in 1994. My husband and I had just moved to Karlsruhe, Germany. The Army "misplaced" our furniture, so all we had in the flat was several pieces of military furniture on loan to us. Sad and pathetic.... Well....our new neighbor knocked on the door and asked if I would like to go to a German thrift sale. Yahooooo....Yes Mam. Several hours later I came home with my first piece of Polish pottery...Thank you Emily... I paid a whopping 5DM for it. That would have been about 3 bucks. I proudly placed it upon my Army issue table. It was our only "pretty" until Uncle Sam called and informed us that he had indeed found our stuff. Gotta love it...ha.

Being the new military spouse that I was, I didn't fully understand the importance of the teapot I had recently acquired. That is, not until Emily knocked on the door again and invited me to go for a weekend ride...to Poland. What???????????????? Yep. Poland...Boleslawiec, Poland. Because, you see, Emily clued me in. We MUST have tons of Polish pottery. We must have oodles and oodles of the stuff. We must drive to Poland with a mere 100 bucks in our pockets. We must find a place to stay in the afore mentioned Polish town. We must go to BOTH of the potteries. And, we MUST buy every last bit of pottery that we can stuff into Emily's Explorer. So...we did. We turned in our 100 bucks for millions of Zlotnys. It was the first and only time that I will ever be a millionaire of any sort. Ha. We bought Christmas pottery... Patriotic pottery... Cheese ladies... We bought every piece of pottery that struck our fancy... I lost track of Emily over the years. But, I owe her many thanks for our trips (we went back a second time), our overnight stays with a nice Polish family (they had a little picture of a bed on there front door...the symbol for...stay in my extra bedroom), and for my enduring love of blue and white pottery.

Thanks for stopping by the mansion.

Stripe Me Happy!

Metamorphasis Monday: Take a gander at all of the changes at Between Naps On The Porch.

Hello ladies. Welcome to the "new" mansion. It has been almost a month since my last post. Much has happened since... Two flatbed trucks and 17 crates later...here we are. We are getting the new place whipped into shape slowly but surely. We are also learning much about old houses and small country towns (more on that later).

Today I wanted to share a striping project with you all. A polyurethane striping project to be exact. When we arrived here four weeks ago, our dining room looked like this...

10 foot ceilings and white walls left this room feeling like a flour canister. So, first we painted the walls with a neutral color. (Teague Dune from Sherwin Williams) Then we used a laser level to mark 14 inch stripes all around the room. Next, I painted every other stripe with a high gloss polyurethane. One coat did the trick. The end product is a subtle and sophisticated stripe.

Thanks for stopping by the mansion. I hope to share many more thrifty and nifty ideas with you all real soon. Have a blessed week.

Laura@ the mansion