Pretty in pink

Ever since my daughter realized she was going to have a new room she has begged us to paint it pink and purple.  Pretty intense for a three year-old but she tells everyone those are her favorite colors and her new room will be painted in those hues.  The first time we went to look at paint chips, she picked out the absolutely most brightest shades of electric pink and purple for the walls.  Of course, why not...if I was three I would probably want the same.  However, this mom has a different idea.  I finally settled on a powder pink and a pale lilac for our pallet.  As you can see from the pictures, the job is underway!  Under the picture rail will be pink and above it will be the lilac.  Even this color is a tad bright for me but for a three year-old princess, I have a feeling it is going to be just fine.


When I poured it into the pan,
I thought of a strawberry milkshake!



It felt great to finally get some paint on the walls.

The edge of the fireplace. What a difference
a little color can make!

Whoa! There's a lawn under there!!!

When we first closed on the home, you could not see the back yard for the mounds of magnolia leaves that had not been raked, the waist tall grass that had grown over and the small trees that had sprouted up.  It was very apparent that the back yard was in need of some TLC, stat.  I am not sure how many times our lawn guy had to run over the grass or hack at the saplings with a machedi but the man did a great job.  What was underneath that jungle is absolutely amazing.  We are super excited about having a fenced in yard for our daughter to play in and our dog to roam around freely in as well.  This is going to be a great retreat.  Just like the rest of the property, it needs a little love but we are ready to give it!

This flox was blooming underneath the brush. It looks like there might be several in one of the overgrown beds.  I am hoping we can fix up this neat, old birdhouse.

One, two, three....

I moved three boxes this week! Yay, me!  Ok, so I know that doesn't sound like a lot but it is a start.  I decided that if we are ever going to get out of our current home into the city home, we've got to start taking baby steps to get there.  We still have a ton of cleaning and painting to do before we move in the furniture. But at least by taking over dishes we only use for special occassions or pictures that will eventually go on the walls, we are starting to transition.  That is the hardest part about owning two homes - there is really no one pushing your rear out the door so they can move in while you move out.  We've been cozy staying put in the "current" home while the "new" home has been getting its pipe facelift.  For now, I will take pride in my three boxes...and see what I can add to them this weekend.

Pipes, eggs and sheet rock

Labor Day weekend is coming to a close and I don't feel as though we accomplished as much as we should.  We have season tickets for UGA football and sitting in the sun completely drained us (plus we are just getting old, let's face it)! We leave the house by 8:30 am, spend some time with friends pregame once we arrive, then sit in the sun for the duration of the game and afterwards, grab a quick bite before arriving back home by 6:30 p.m.  So Saturday was football and Sunday was recuperation and a bit of work in our home we are trying to sell. 

Today, we did spend some money at Lowe's (shocker) and did some prep work at the dream house which I have also lovingly named the "city house" since it is so close to town.  We ordered and purchased a waste overflow for the claw foot tub.  That should be delivered within 15 days and our plumber said he would come back out and install that at no extra charge.  We chose the one with the chain-plug since it felt more antique-like. Here is a visual aid:

We also picked out the paint for our daughter's room.  She loves pink and purple so we chose a light sugar pink for the main part of the walls and a light lavender for the space above the picture rail.  My husband spackled the walls and patched plaster while I scrubbed down the two bathrooms upstairs (I will spare you the before and after pictures of those rooms. YUCK).  Here are some pictures of her room in the prep stage:

Her room has an awesome old fireplace in it that will be great for decorating purposes.  Unfortunately, a previous owner capped all the chimneys so the fireplaces do not work.  One day we hope to reverse that as you can see the chimney tops in our attic.  That will be years and years from now but it is on the long term to do list.

Last weekend I was on a mission to shoo Miss Charlotte and her webs from the house.  I sprayed more webs outside than I care to admit.  I know spiders are good and they eat bugs and all that wonderful stuff.  However; I do not need a web every 12 inches on my porch ceiling complete with an egg sack waiting in the wings.  The spray did its job so this weekend I tried to knock some of the old cob webs down.  In the corner of our porch, an abandoned nest was perched on top one of the pillars.  I was able to knock it down and found these poor little things.  They were abandoned and hollow.  Speckled but not blue...maybe they belonged to a wren?  So sad...

While my husband was prepping the walls for the upcoming tape and paint job, he also decided to vacuum the vents which needed attention desperately.  The great thing about this old home is the original wood is as hard as a rock.  Petrified is a complete understatement.  The bad thing about this original wood is once something is nailed or screwed into it, getting said nail or screw out of it is quite a challenge as you can see here:

After much tugging, pulling, twisting, cussing and finally the location of the right tool, the grate came down.  We will not be cleaning this one. A new one is on the way. 

I can't end this post without showing off our new pipes one more time.  Here is the finished product.  The dry wall was supposed to go up on Friday but the contractor was told it would be a small job and well, it isn't.  The Friday before a holiday means yet again we are waiting for a project to be done but this one I will gladly wait on.  I will take exposed pipes over broken pipes any day.