sum-sum summertime

I am embarrassed by how long it has been since I posted on this blog. This has really been a busy, busy past few months...but the doors are all in, the chicks are lovin' the new fancy coop, Greg's been touring all over the US since CCL's new record was released AND we are expecting a baby in a few days. whew. I had good reason to be so slack.

Here are a few photos I did take this summer around the house. We planted a front yard garden and the watermelons have gone crazy. Luckily, the chickens LOVE them too.




The nursery...


The finished doors...


The lovely ladies...


Penelope

Lulu loves to get on the hammock with G


Still no eggs, but we expect them any day now.

So, there really isn't a whole lot of house stuff left to do around here now. Sure, we need some furniture- and Greg is really looking forward to building that this fall. I found this bedroom set I really love, so Greg is going to try to replicate it for us. We are also going to try to plant grass and landscape out back. Our poor backyard is such a dustbowl. This has been one hot North Carolina summer and I am looking forward to it coming to an end.


And a final shot of the guys playing locally the day the record was released...

The doors!

Although we've been living in our house since last August, we've been doing so without any interior doors. I admit it, it was weird at first, but I've actually gotten used to using curtains as a temporary solution. Our house guests might not feel the same though, so I am excited to say that we will actually have real wood doors in place by the end of this week!

Greg built all 11 from poplar. They are based on the classic 5 panel style of the early 1900's. He primed them and is in the process of fitting and installing the hardware.

The french doors in the music room are also in. Who knew doors could make such a difference???

The Coop!

All this beautiful spring weather inspired us to finally build our backyard chicken coop. We had lots of leftover materials to work with after building the house, so it was nice to find good use for it. I think Greg had fun building it too- not quite as stressful as building our house. Hope our city chicks like it as much as we do. Almost finished...


just getting started




already thinking about clean up




where we will collect eggs

Spring is here!

75 degrees and sunny today! I really hope we have seen the end of this dreary, cold and never-ending winter.

These are tulips that Greg brought back from Holland last year. I planted them way back in November and they just popped up. I hope they last long enough for G to see when he gets home next week.

Our peach tree is blooming too- thanks Kyra and Chandler!

Random stuff

Walk-in closets are finished! We have been living out of boxes since August and since closets were low on our priority list it took until now to finish them up. I think Greg was getting pretty tired of my stuff lying everywhere. So, time to get organized. It's going to actually be fun with all this room. Here's my fancy closet...


With our house contest prize money, we went ahead and ordered blinds for the entire house. We ended up getting the bottom-up/ top-down cellular shades and LOVE them. They let in just enough light too and don't cover up the trim. I'm sure the neighbors will miss watching Greg play the Wii though.

Here are a couple shots of our built-in desk off of the kitchen. We are now on the hunt for the perfect desk chair. Greg's also making some kind of cabinet on casters to hide the printer and cords.

G also built a very Scandinavian-looking cabinet to house all the TV stuff.

As soon as it gets warmer, door building begins. G's making 11 doors and we just got our hardware in. So pretty...

After my last blog post, something pretty cool happened. Someone in Raleigh stumbled across our blog and contacted us about having Greg build a breakfast nook similar to the one he had just done for us. Here is a picture of it all finished. I think they were happy with it and we met some really nice people along the way.

Building Built-ins

Here are some photos of the breakfast nook area that Greg worked on this week. He was on a mission to finish before leaving town this weekend and did it all. Nice work G!


This is leftover soapstone we had from our kitchen countertop. We're making a built-in desk area off of the kitchen and using some of this for the desk top. Soapstone was not as easy to work with as we thought it would be (and so very messy to cut) but we are definitely happy with the finished product.

I haven't been very hands on these days, but am getting pretty good at shopping for the things we need. Right now I'm working on finally getting something up in our windows- and there are a lot of them. At least I know the neighbors will be happy.

Life After the Holidays

Well, the holiday festivities have come to a close. So much fun seeing our friends and families, eating lots of good food and taking some much needed time off, but now it's back to work.

Our house has become a construction zone once again. Greg started on the built-ins this past week. He's building a window bench in our dining room, a kitchen nook and a desk area off of the kitchen. Here are some photos of his work in progress...

We picked out some fabric today and are having a bench cushion made.

Believe it or not, we haven't had to turn on the heat yet this year. Greg has kept that fire burning non-stop.

We found out right before Christmas that we won the contest I had entered at Repair Home!! Thanks for voting for us! We are looking forward to spending our prize money on future projects- and there are many, many more.