Stock Tank Pool

We've had the new pool up for about a month now, and it has been really wonderful. It doesn't get too terribly hot here, but it's so nice to have something like this to cool down in.

Instead of getting one of those big vinyl monstrosities (that will never biodegrade), or something like a spa (which we would have to have craned in over the roof), we invested in a 8 foot diameter, 2 foot deep, galvanized steel stock tank. My husband piped in a small pool filter with some gaskets and plumbers putty, and we have not had to add any chlorine or other ph balancers. It ended up costing about $500, including the filter and delivery of the tank. (The six foot diameter tanks were about $100 less) About five times more than a similarly sized vinyl job, but I think it is totally worth it.

Later in the year we plan to replace the tubing out of the tank with copper pipes, and maybe pipe in one of those chofu style propane heaters. Even adding the cost of that, it would still be about half the price of a hot tub. Add a fountain pump, and it's a water feature. We thought it might be too shallow, but it's perfect to sit in, and leaning up against the side is surprisingly comfortable. Success!

Hall Color

That's some yellow paint, people. It's doesn't look quite so yellow with the light off, which is most of the time. But you can see in the second photo the color difference between the old and the new.

I just ended up painting the little section of the hall around the bathroom and bedroom doors. I kind of like it like this, stopping before turning the corner here. I don't think we could do this bright color in the rest of the house, this color is Kelly Moore 3555-1 sparkle tint, in eggshell.

I still have the trim to paint. It will be the same color as it is now, but it will look new and fresh and clean. Ahh. I would love to replace the doors with some paneled ones, but I would be very happy to just switch out the doorknobs and hinges.

Link: White and Gray

Anne at the City Sage blog posted photos of her kitchen update, and it looks just great. How funny that I have the exact same tile on my kitchen counters!

I've been putting off painting the kitchen, mostly because I really don't want to do it myself, and I also don't want to have to pay someone else to do it for me. But when the time comes, I will absolutely go for a white and gray color scheme like this, I love it.

And, I decided to take out all the tile that serves as the backsplash first. I got a quote for replacing the counter tops, and covering the backsplash more than doubled the price. I'd rather just have painted wall behind there. Before we get to that point, though, I'll have a showdown with my husband about the countertop color. He wants dark, I want light, maybe we'll flip a coin. A double headed coin, so I will be sure to win.

via: The City Sage

Link: Dumpster Pool

Love this idea! Dumpsters repurposed as pools. We've got our own pool project going on, but I would love to be able to swim in a deep, rectangular pool like this.

via: ReadyMade blog

Front Yard in Summer

The birds have found this feeder stuck on the window, but as soon as I turn the corner outside the kitchen, they flip out and fly away. I'm going to camp out at the table so I can catch them at it.

This is the view outside what we generously call 'the dining room.' It's more than a nook, but certainly not a room. The dining area? We also just say 'the table.' We don't know what kind of tree this is out front, but I love the mossy trunk the most. And, it wasn't trimmed into knuckles like a lot of other trees in the neighborhood. It's so nice and shady, the grass stays green and the house keeps cool.

Hall Mirrorless

The hall mirror was just barely held in place with the bottom little holder there, we had to take it down before it nailed someone, or shattered all over the floor. It's really hard to get used to not having a mirror here in the hall by all the bedrooms and main bath, it was there when we moved in. I've been meaning to replace it for awhile, maybe a dark framed one like this from Ikea. I better pick out something quick, this was the only full length mirror in the house, nobody knows what they look like without it.

But look how dirty the wall is! My goodness. While it's down, maybe I should paint the hall. My husband likes this color, but I'd like a light gray, or a beige in the tame tone range as the current yellowish. The rest of the 'main house' is this color, the hall, the middle room, and the dining room, but I could just paint the hall and stop it at a corner. Argh, paint!

Magnetic Soap Holder

Just as I was wondering what to do with the magnetic soap holder in the half bathroom, Z whacked it right off the tile with a toothbrush. Well, then.

I thought that it was screwed into the tile, but it looks like it was liquid nailed or something. "Construction adhesive" they call it. I guess I can scrape all that off and be done with it.

Tea House

We went with my in-laws to a few open house this afternoon, they like that kind of thing.

This house was neat, with a huge wood shop, and this great little tea house on the property. It's a great building, really artful craftsmanship. It would be amazing to have something like this, it was really cool to be in there.

Fence Mock Up

Like we don't have enough half finished projects to do. *Cough* Exterior Paint * Cough* Faucets* Ahem*

This mock up of a fence for the front yard looks like one of those old timey signs. I love the look of it out front, it helps out the house's mid century modern street cred. I mean, curb appeal.

Living Room Paint

Besides some touching up, and scraping that blue tape up off the floor, I'm done painting the living room. Phew, I do not like to paint. It looks pretty good, but it'll be awhile before I can look at it without thinking about having to climb up and down a ladder a million times.

The ceilings and trim are semi gloss Kelly Moore 'Swiss Coffee,' and the wall is KM 'Portland Whitbed.' They have everything available as no VOC if you ask for it, it costs an extra couple bucks per can. It was great to get no VOC, it didn't smell at all, and it won't be off gassing any volatile organic compounds.

If we had paid our (really reasonable priced) painting contractor to paint this room, it would have cost about $600. Yay for me.

Link: Yellow and Gray

I love this light gray and yellow color combination so much. Found on an oldish Design Sponge post. I saw this about a month ago, and put it to work when I picked out the paint in the half bathroom. I'm going to get the camera in there and post some photos of it, I'm really liking it in there.

via: Design Sponge

The Hatch

Part of the paint preparations in the living room is on 'The Hatch.' There is a sky light in here for some reason, and all it brings into the house is blinding sun light and burning heat. Oh, and it also condenses water and drips on the floor. Shortly after buying the house, we screwed some cardboard to the ceiling. I know, we're so fancy.

The plan now is to build a little frame or something with some wood slats, or something. I don't know, my husband is in charge of that project. I'll paint it when he's done with it. I originally wanted to get a fancy shade for it, but the kind that I want that are tracked for horizontal installation are, like, $300. Hence, the cardboard.

Artful Curls

Before & After: Living Room Windows

The window trim in the living room was weird. Actually, the entire living room is a bit odd, it was probably a patio to begin with, then the room was added, maybe in the '70s. So the whole room is a bit screwy, but it's the largest single room in the house.

We just clipped the curved end off of the bottom of the window trim, planed off the raggedy edges left by the saw, and painted it the wall color. There are five windows like that, and three of them are covered up by the couch. There's no other wood trim on the windows except this bottom sash (told you it was weird).

Bike Parking

Since the tool chests were set up in the garage, we had to park the bikes outside. But they're still behind the gate, and actually in a more convenient spot for getting them out on the road. And they are parked by the lovely lemon tree here in the side yard.

My bicycle is this Giant Sedona with Xtracycle and seat in front for Bean. Z rides on the deck there in the back. My husband rides his old red Univega.

Garage

The rest of the garage is pretty messy. We do have room to park the car, though, so score 1 for me.

And look at the new tool chests, ooh la la. We picked these up yesterday, and spent this morning filling them up with all the tools that were pretty much just piled all over the work bench area. The tool situation was getting out of control, we've needed tool drawers like these for a long time now

Link

I love the look of this photo grid on apartmenttherapy.com. The black and white really makes it. I don't really have a great spot or subjects for something like this, but I like it.

Shade Sails

We just got these shade sails up in the backyard. I was worried about the shade since we had the tree trimmed, and these are perfect. It's so nice, I spent half the afternoon under here.

Half Bathroom Progress

The half bathroom work began when we were just going to have the toilet replaced. We figured we could get a new toilet to replace the old one, and mess with the wallpaper and junk later. Once the old one was out, we look in the box and saw the new one was chipped. So, while we had the room, might as well redo the whole bathroom, right?

So here's my husband putting the new low flow toilet with this long and dainty wrench. It's so cute, it looks like a magic wand.

I spent hours and hours on the floor dying all that grout, and I picked a light gray for the walls. The last thing we have to do is to replace the old faucet. So, yay, we finally have two bathrooms.

Link: ApartmentTherapy.com

Bright white kitchen on apartmenttherapy.com

Now that our floor is mostly white, something like this might work for us.

Grout

Jeez, sick of me talking about grout yet? Grout grout grout. Hope I'm almost done working on it, so I can stop talking about it. Phew.

Kitchen: In progress

I'm probably about half way done with dying the grout in the kitchen. The dark grout on the left is what we have been living with for four years. The whitish on the right is one application or two of the grout dye. And those are my big feet.

The process is pretty much crawling around on the floor on my hands and knees with a toothbrush, brushing some 'grout renew' liquid into the grout areas. Then, I wipe it off a little after 5 minutes or so, and end up having to make two or three applications. The kitchen isn't very big, but it's easier to do it in sections so that I can move around while it's drying. Like most things, I'm doing it kind of half assed as well, but I like the way it's turning out.

Link: ModMidMod.com

Love this blog for mid century modern exteriors inspiration: ModMidMod

Bathroom: Before & After

The full bathroom needed paint and a new fan (and new floor tile, maybe later) to make it a bit more finished looking in there. Last year, I painted it a light gray really quickly, and I'm not very good at painting.

So, a professional paint job and a new fan, and we're good to go. My husband picked the paint color, it's a little bluish for me. We like gray around here. And, the before photo was taking mid fan replacement.

The next thing I should do is decant all those bottles into nice ones, a' la Chez Larsson. That's almond Dr. Bronner's liquid castille soap in the green bottle, btw. Thumbs up. The floor tiles should really be replaced, as they are cracked and whoever installed them did a crappy job. I might end up just dying what's left of the grout in the meantime.

Kitchen: Before

Our galley kitchen is small and not particularly attractive. Ugh, that hardware is ugly. The countertops, yuck. It is, apparently, a great place to park your little bike.

Anyway, fixing up the kitchen is a long term (and big $$) project. We decided not to replace the cabinets, or the floor. *Sigh.* Step one is the tile grout on the floor. We can have the backsplashes torn down, hardware and counters replaced (we're thinking PaperStone or recycled glass), and the cabinets painted. Eventually. Making it work, people.

Pots

I hadn't even noticed we planted so many things until it was time to get rid of all the pots. I think these were mostly from tree saplings. I've been cleaning out the backyard for the last couple of days, there were some wire, pots, broken rakes, flat soccer balls, etc., that were all just uglying up the place. Got rid of these on freecycle.

Half Bathroom Walls: Before

There are two layers of (ugly) wallpaper peeling off the walls, offsetting this (ugly) yellow tile. This is kind of a screwy half bathroom anyway, the cabinet is skewed on one side to allow the door opening. I know, how could we have this eyesore in our house for years and years? We closed the door and completely ignored it. For shame.

Instead of a complete, back to studs renovation, with poured concrete floors, wall mounted faucet and lav, and a hatbox toilet, we'll be doing a few quick, cheap fixes. I'm picking my paint colors, and crossing my fingers.

Half Bathroom Tile: Before

Gross, right? We have had this half bathroom for four years and have never used it. Between the peeling wallpaper, 4 gallon per flush toilet, and this floor, it is just not an appealing place to be, even for a minute.

We are hiring a painter to strip the wallpaper and paint the walls. My job, however, will be to dye the grout. I think this will go a long way into making this tile bearable. We're embarking on quite a few band aid renovations, but this is first. Since Bean has transitioned out of diapers, it will be nice to have two bathrooms between the four bathroom-goers.

Spring in the Garden

Planted some lavender and rosemary in these black resin pots (from Costco), outside the shed door. The sapling by the fence is a Late Santa Rosa Plum, and last year's broccoli in the raised bed is flowering again. The grass is a little patchy, but this area gets so much sun, it's too hard to fight against it. Hence, the beds. I think we will replace the broccoli with salad greens.

Picnic in the backyard