Vintage Pink and Black Powder Room

There's a saying I read recently that fits our vintage (antique??) pink and black tiled bathroom perfectly: "love the house you're in." In my understanding, the idea is to make the best of what you have, without always needing to change or update things to fit with the latest trend.

I happen to like a lot of vintage or antique styles, so it wasn't too much of a stretch to apply this philosophy to our powder room. I can honestly say that I wouldn't have chosen pink and black tiles for the powder room if we were renovating it. But since the tiles are in really good shape, and I am pretty sure it would take a lot of sweat, dirt and time (or money) to remove them, we had no interest in changing things around drastically. We just made a few improvements and decided to embrace the retro look.

Powder Room Before:

                                         

Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the old floor, but if you imagine old vinyl-like square tiles that are grimy and off-white/dirty white, then you'll be pretty close.

We had the wall regrouted and new floor tile installed. I scrubbed rust off the light fixtures with steel wool and took the mirror down and scraped paint off the sides of it. I originally thought we'd want to replace the black toilet and sink and put in white ones, but once we replaced the flooring, I didn't despise the black as much. I still don't like a black toilet because I can't really see when it gets dirty. And if I don't see dirt, I am much less likely to clean. Until I smell it. And at that point, I just get annoyed that I waited to so long to clean it. 

We replaced the faucet and handles as well as the towel rack with vintage looking ones. The ceiling, walls, trim and baseboard radiators all got fresh coats of paint. The walls are a light gray. I was unsure what to paint them initially, so I took my time deciding. The floor grout is gray, so I figured we'd tie that in with gray walls as well. And then it just so happened that I had a flower painting in similar colors. I love coincidences like that. So here it is now.

After:

It's not flashy and new, but it's freshened up, clean(ish) and fits with the 

age and character of the house. 

Mulch, Stones and Flowers and a Fence

We've been busy as bees around here. I love this time of year when it's getting warm but still cool in the mornings (ideally, anyway) and the weather isn't too muggy to work outside all day.

So here's how things are looking in our back yard these days. 

(Warning: this probably should have been broken into multiple posts, but I just don't have motivation for that right now.)

There are some delphiniums growing behind the coreopsis. These are decended from seeds our former neighbor tossed from her backyard into ours at our previous home. She is no longer living, so these flowers are a wonderful reminder of her. I've learned that they don't all start growing at the same time, and they don't transplant easily, so I've had to be careful when moving them. I have them scattered all over this flower bed.

This clump of orange lillies was planted by the previous owner. I divided the clump last year and now have 3 clumps doing well. I just added a small one to the perennial bed at the corner of our property. They seem to thrive in the mix of sun and shade.

These two bushes are the same kind. I trimmed the one above pretty drastically a few weeks ago. It was twice the size of the one below and oddly shaped. New leaves are growing on it, but it looks kind of sad right now.

Moving on to the garage and garden area...

My mint tea is thriving. Those bags have some mushroom soil we plan to put around the potatoes. We're hoping for a better crop this year than last.

Our first little strawberry patch. The berries were stolen by birds before they were even ripe. We will have to do some heavy duty bird proofing next year if we want to harvest any berries. I was livid. I like birds, but not when they eat my strawberries.

So now the raspberries and blackberries are covered. They haven't done so hot at this location. We brought these raspberries from our previous yard. They had grown under the fence from our neighbor's yard (same as the delphinium) and did really great there. My theory is that they need more sun. They only get the afternoon sun in this spot.

We made the garden a bit larger this year than last. We have potatoes, beets, spinach, green beans, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, broccoli, a brussel sprout plant, an eggplant and  cucumbers. Edwin started a pumpkin plant at school, so we'll try to find a place for that as well. We like to cram things in...

As we gradually try to get rid of all the English ivy covering our back hill, I've been allowing the violets to grow and I planted some heuchera. I threw in a few extra impatiens because I can't resist flowers.

The view of the playset from our fire pit, which is between the garden and this hill above.

Most of where you see mulch in this picture (and some areas not pictured) was formerly English ivy. I spent a lot of time pulling up the ivy, bagging it in yard waste bags (we set out well over 30 bags of ivy and leaves this spring) that our city picks up for us, and then going over the ground again to pull out ivy stems that were still in the ground. I know I didn't get them all out, but I put down landscape fabric over most of this area and then covered it with mulch. I'm hoping this helps to kill the ivy. Eventually, we want to thin out the underbrush in this wooded area, as well as get rid of the ivy and have a more native wooded section. 

You can see a stone path leading up to the playhouse and in the picture above this one, you can see some of the stone bordering the mulch. I dug up the grass along this path and tried to recess the stones a bit so they wouldn't be a tripping hazard. We decided to try this stone border instead of using wood and having a raised border. This way Dan can mow along the stones easily and we can also sweep the mulch back off the stones (if we care to). I'm pleased with how it turned out overall. We used the removed sod to fill in some bare spots in other parts of the yard.

And lastly, one of my favorite flower beds (although this picture doesn't do it justice) is on our back hill. This was my solution for a hill that was weedy and patchy with grass. Who wants to mow that or look at it? I made the flower bed last year, and things are really filling in nicely. It's mostly perennial flowers and herbs with a few annuals sprinkled in for a little extra color. But my plan to is to have perennials blooming successively all summer.

And the fence - let's not forget the fence! A 2-man crew put this baby in in one day. We love it. I like knowing our toddler can't get too close to the street.

And I've been surprised at how many people have stopped to tell me they like the fence. 

Playhouse Dream

I have fulfilled a childhood dream of mine. I now have a playhouse. Yay! Many hours of painting later, and the house is finished, reassembled and in use. A number of weeks ago I posted some pictures showing this playhouse we got from our former neighbors. It was clearly in need of some TLC.

Every time I paint something old, I am amazed at the difference a fresh coat of paint makes. The wood had been stained before but it was wearing off in many places. Instead of restaining it, I opted for paint. I kept most of the trim white, except for the door. I decided to paint it a similar color to our front door and skip the headache of painting around the trim. I didn't paint the inside at all - it was in mostly good shape. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Dan helped me put it back together, and we carried the assembled walls to the location and then put the roof on it there.

The picture below was taken later in the day. I removed more ivy and we moved the playhouse back so that it wouldn't be as close to the bottom of the slide.

Almost Springtime Freeze

We didn't get many inches of snow, but what we did get was covered with ice. I've always loved the look of ice covered trees and shrubs, but this year it was a little bittersweet since some plants had started flowering early. Some shrubs we planted last year were just starting to grow new leaves, the forsythia was blooming, and a magnolia tree had bloomed and been burnt by the freezing temperatures over the weekend. I love wintry weather (when the power doesn't go out!), but this time around I was concerned for the new growth on plants. And concerned about falling tree limbs. We did have some of that on our property, but thankfully nothing that downed any power lines or damaged anything else.

I love winter and I love springtime, and I prefer them in their proper order. Too many mild, spring-like days in February have really messed up early-blooming plants around here. I felt sad seeing cherry trees in bloom a couple weeks ago, because I knew they would freeze. One of our magnolia trees started to bloom before a freeze, but not all the buds opened. The other bloomed between two freezing weekends. I'm really, really hoping the first magnolia survives and has some buds that can bloom when it's really spring. Weather out-of-whack worries me. And knowing that we won't be able to enjoy some colors of spring because they bloomed too early this year just makes me feel sad.

The iced forsythia

Broken Cedar branches

Top-heavy Arbor Vitae

Iced Trees

Broken Arbor Vitae 

Frozen, iced Magnolia blooms

Just Give Me All the Projects

I think this is the story of my life. I really do like projects, but I can get ahead of myself in starting new ones. Or adding new ones to my "to-do" list. Our neighbors across the street sold their house and are moving. But they didn't want the adorable little wooden playhouse in their backyard. They had a crew cleaning out their house and getting rid of all the old stuff they weren't keeping, and the plan was to have this crew tear down the playhouse and toss it in the dumpster.

I don't know about you, but as some one who never had a playhouse (and who really, really loved them), I did not want to see this thing torn down - especially since it still has a few good years left. Long story short, they said we could have it but we needed to move it before the day was over. Dan was at work, and it was too heavy for me to move, so it seemed like it wasn't going to work out.

However, the dumpster got completely filled, so the work crew didn't tear down the little house. I happened to tell another neighbor about the playhouse, and the next thing I knew, she offered to take it apart and carry it over piece by piece for me early the next morning. And that is just what she did. While I was getting breakfast for the kids, I looked out the window and saw the roof was off, and half of the walls were already outside our back door! I helped her carry the roof over since it was too big for one person.

So now we have the roof and four walls of a playhouse all in need of some fresh paint a some more screws and nails to tighten up various areas.

I spent much of Tuesday cleaning the walls and nailing some pieces back together. I bought paint today, and all I need is some more warm weather, and I'll get to work on them. It's going to be a big project, and I think I'm a little bit crazy (and I know Dan thinks I'm nuts), but all I can think is how much my 5-year-old self would have loved this little playhouse. And now my kids will get to enjoy it. Well, as long as I can put it all back together nicely.

Old Chairs, New Paint

When it feels like spring, it's time for an outside project. What better way to spend time than with a can of spray paint and some old chairs? I "should" be working on something for my online class, but this is much more fun. Plus, I can work on that stuff after the kids are in bed.

A number of years ago I bought 2 chairs (like this one below) at a used furniture store. I recovered the seats, freshened up their white paint and they were good-to-go. Lately they've been looking a bit worn out. I just purchased a vintage iron table and two small chairs, so I figured these chairs should get a make over too.

Just for fun: here's the original fabric. I left it on and just put the new fabric over top.

Cushion off, first coat of spray paint. I like them much better already!

And finished! All ready for warmer weather....