A Week of Projects

It hasn't been the best week to blog.  I've been busy but the things I've occupied my time with haven't been the best subjects.  Having your husband work long days, one child sick with another cold (you would think she would have run the full gamut of baby colds having spent her first year in daycare, but no, apparently there are more in the big city that she needs exposed to), and the other child has a weird rash and keeps threatening to catch his sister's cold it keeps a mom busy.  Very busy.  But a mom needs time to do her own thing and I used nap time this week.

Last weekend we worked hard at our front garden.  It's not quite done.  There's one place right in the middle without mulch waiting for Samuel's bush.  It's still out at the farm and we plan on getting it next weekend.  It rained quite a bit at the end of this last week and the plants seem to be happy.  Hopefully happy means growing and taking root.  It would be nice to have them thrive and mature.  Here's a sneak peek at part of the garden:

Monday was the entry way tile installation.  I am glad it's done and, yet, I was annoyed by it.  If the installer had installed my kitchen tile as he did the entry way tile I would not have called him back.  He was in a hurry to fit our entry way into his schedule and grouted the tile before it set, leaving us with areas of cracked grout and bubbles.  I was unhappy with the way it turned out and still annoyed with having people in our home working.  I didn't call him back to fix the grout, because I didn't want to deal with the inconvenience of having anyone back in our house.  One afternoon during nap time I re-grouted it myself and it looks a million times better.  I probably could have laid the tile myself except that it is installed on a wood sub floor and I did not want to deal with underlayment.  Now I'm happy with the entry way tile, except it's at that stage where it needs mopped 15 more times before it will look clean.

This week I spent part of nap time painting white doors white.  Ryan said he didn't really notice.  I noticed that no amount of elbow grease and Mr Clean was going to make those doors any cleaner.  After combining old paint for disposal that the prior owners were so nice to leave for us, I did find some that was useful.  I used the white paint and put a fresh coat of paint on the inside of four exterior doors.  That's when I decided I want to paint our front door a different color.  It needs painting, too.  It is currently white and boring and not adding to our curb appeal.  That's a project for this week...

On Friday I used nap time to paint our downstairs bathroom.  I have several cans of paint that we purchased to paint our living room.  We never used those cans because the contractor bought paint for our basement.  Otherwise, I might have picked a different color for the bathroom.  It is beige now and matches the main color in the basement.  It is also decorated and makes me feel like it is finished and ready for people to use it.

 Before

After

My last big project of the week was to change the window treatments in the kitchen.  The house came with brown bamboo shades that matched the trim.  I flirted with the idea of spray painting them a different color and keeping them.  I wasn't sure how they would turn out, especially since they were coated with years of dirt and grime and I didn't really like them.  The bay window in the kitchen had wood trim around the windows.  The trim was poorly installed and those were the only windows in the entire house with trim around them.  Yesterday I pulled the trim off, patched holes and painted.  Then I installed new white wood blinds.  I like how bright it looks now and I like the privacy the blinds afford over the see-through matchstick shades.

Before

After

Let me explain where a bit of my nesting frenzy is coming from.  At the end of the month we are hosting a get together for some of Ryan's coworkers, who helped us move, and their families.  Next month there is a possibility that we might have some family visiting us.  Those events have put me into over drive and made me feel like I need to get some things done.  I might have been a bit manic this week, but I feel like things I wanted done have been accomplished.