LOOKING SO FANCY

near the beginning of n's summer vacation she had an ambitious idea to dig up a bunch of grass and build some lower tiered flower boxes in the front yard ... well as n's extended summer vacation comes to a close ... n and her fabulous mom have had a couple weekends to sneak away from the never ending house finishing list and step out in the sunshine that finally came and build the planter boxes and finally fill them up with cedar mulch and i must say they are looking so lovely

with the addition of our spacious and lovely veranda came the challenge of trying to salvage the skinny walkway and make it appear larger than it really is ... enter some gravel from the backyard used to make the teeny tiny sidewalk appear bigger

the flowers now reach all the way to the sidewalk

who doesn't love symmetry? it was a little tricky to get this but i think it looks fab

side profile ... so nice to have the front almost done

i am pleased with the end result

cheers ~n

MAJOR BLOG SECRET

so we had to decide what to do with out puzzling front entrance and come up with a solution that would work for our little house ... we wanted something covered to protect the entrance way from the elements and something to add a little space to ... on a friday night j and his trusted happy helpers came up with this grand plan to build a covered veranda and they worked exceedingly fast and this massive project was completed in 2 weekends

here's our little hut before all the dormer additions

house completed with the bedroom dormers

our new and lovely two tiered deck

it's wonderful to have all this space

what the house looks like now ...

i can't wait to get some chairs and a table out front ...

and some pots and flowers ...

and the house numbers ...

and the mailbox ...

cheers ~n

FIXING THINGS UP

n has been busy fixing up the front yard and trying to make it more beautiful ... anything to take the focus off the disastrous mess of the house ... things have been planted, flowers are blooming and things are definitely looking more pretty ... the planter boxes still have to be built and the cedar mulch put in but here's a peak at the changes

p.s. n can't wait to be done work and have a whole bunch of time to keep working on this:

the shrubs moved from the backyard now sitting pretty in the front

adding more flowers and shrubs to the middle plant box

soon to be a collection of pinks, blues and purples ...

can't wait to see all the prettiness

looking up from the sidewalk

all the grass n dug out the previous weekend ... slowly but surely

waiting for the boxes to be built and cedar mulch

cheers ~n

WINDOW TREATMENTS AND BASEBOARDS = A VERY SPOILED HOUSE

this past weekend at project 109 our lil house got a wee bit fancier ... after 4 years of being bare the main floor received a much needed upgrade in style with the addition of window casings and baseboards ... the basement was feeling a bit left out and we wouldn't want it to feel that way so it also got some pampering ... window frames were finished, casing added around, the furnace room doors trimmed and the laying of tile began ... out little house is rounding the renovations corner and beautiful things are now happening ... here's peek at some of the makeover that occurred ... enjoy ... i know i am

the new window frames and casings

the furnace room doors

laundry/freezer room

basement bathroom

(yes more black and white)

kitchen with baseboards

(and the big empty space on the wall

is where the london pictures

are supposed to go

but n still hasn't got the frames yet)

the dining room area

cheers ~n

DIGGING A HOLE

this weekend n busted out the shovel, rake and spade and dug dug dug out a whole bunch of grass in the front yard ... this was a long time project that j and n have wanted to do since moving into this quaint lil' house that needs ever so much work ... the front yard has quite a steep slope to it and the grass that grows on it ... well lets face it the grass really doesn't grow and it looks rather sad and pathetic ... it is mostly a shade of brown with a faintness of green ... so out came the shovel and in a few hours the grass was dug up and the first stage was complete ... n just needed to wait for j and all his muscles to move the chunks out of the way so that the construction of the bottom planter box can begin ... that will have to wait for another weekend ... more to come

cheers ~n

WHITE DELIGHT

not a lot of progress so far on the bathroom ... but the shower doors are now sitting inside the shower, the walls are painted and the cute little lights are up

i am planning an ocean influenced bathroom with a picture collage of north shore waves in the prettiest gray blue colors, lots of glass including a potential glass bowled sink that floats on the wall and chrome and glass towel bars and of course the black and white tile floor ...

cheers ~n

PRETTY PAINTED PICTURES

well the basement has been painted for awhile ... i've just been lazy and haven't uploaded pics ... still have a lot of finishing work to do but it is nice to have some color on the walls (and the ceiling)

i love how the dark colors turned out down here ... it makes the space feel all warm and cozy

i want to paint some stripes on the white parts of the walls just to add an interesting and unexpected detail ... but i need my talented mom to come over and help out and that is definitely for another week ... carpet is coming soon so yeah

cheers ~n

SUGAR AND SPICE AND EVERYTHING NICE

this weekend j and n took a trip to the farmer's market on the weekend to load up with delicious vegetables and we scored on a container herb garden ... last year we wanted to set one up in the kitchen on this wall right here (oh and we have to still hang up the picture in the kitchen)

... i broke out the pots, the seeds and dirt

and had a great time planting the delicious herbs that will begin to

sprout just in time for bbq season

these are just so cute :)

yeah the shelf is hung awaiting

some cute little pots

all in a row :)

can you spot the difference?

the picture is finally on the wall

view from the living room ...

planning a special little zoe area

under the shelf ...

more of that to come

cheers ~n

BLACK AND WHITE

it is frustrating when you fall in love with a tile that would be absolutely perfect for your space and then you receive the quote for just the supplies and almost fall of your chair ... they want $1300 to tile a 5X7 bathroom and a 11X5 laundry room and if we choose to get them to install it we would have to pay $2000!?!?!? what the what that is waaaay too expensive for this little house ...

so this weekend we headed out to the 3 hardware store chains determined to find tile for the basement bathroom and laundry room (even though we had already been before and were a little disappointed) ... rona this weekend had 15% off your entire purchase so we started there and that was as far as we had to go ... i am happy to report that it truly was a one stop shop this time ... we settled on bright white tile for the middle and a funky black argyle diamond tile to border the rooms ... just enough to add some interesting detail and the price was a lot cheaper than the quote we had from before ... can't wait to install this sometime this month

cheers ~n

WHAT MAKES N HAPPY ...

... the basement is getting painted! ... the basement is getting painted! ... let me say it again ... the basement is getting painted!

cheers ~n

AS PROMISED ... ALL ABOUT THIS ...

on the weekend n did this ...

while j and his happy helpers did this

to the roof ...

on friday afternoon n came home to this ...

the view now looks like this ...

and this ...

from the inside the future bathroom

looks like this ...

love that this is part of the inside now ...

and this is the view from the master floor ...

when j and n walk outside it now

looks like this ...

cheers ~n