Stuh-pid Birds

One of the things we got to enjoy last summer was all the nesting birds and watching them feed their babies. This year the birds were just starting to nest.

I was surprised that on one of the first mornings I found a piece of egg shell.

A few days later while Roger was mowing/weedwhacking the tall grass he came across this nest.

We think they are quail eggs. After he cut the grass, we think the "parents" abandoned the nest.

A few days later Roger told me to get my camera and come outside. He lead me to this

Now let me zoom out so you see where it is

Yup, you're seeing right. The stuh-pd birds build a nest under the hood of the TRUCK.Why would they ever build a nest in a moving vehicle?

Naturally we couldn't leave them there. Wearing a pair of gloves I gently lifted the nest out of the engine and put them under the lilac bush (where the parents were hiding)

I included a few of the feathers so they might recognize their nest, but after a few days, the nest was still untouched. So sad :o(

Totally unrelated, one of the blogs I follow, Thrifty Decor Chick, is hosting a link page this week where you can share your yard. I'm looking forward to lots of ideas for our hole in the yard.

Aloha a Hui Hou!

Front Room Revisited

As a quick reminder, here are a couple of before pics of the West end of the front room:

In this part of the front room the only updates that were done are the kind that don't have a lot of visual impact. We had new windows put in and had them framed out like the window in the bathroom. The electrical was updated to 3 prong sockets (grounded). Lastly, the hardwood floor was sanded and resealed.

We didn't put the a/c back in and don't plan to either. The house is naturally cool and it only gets uncomfortable when a lot of people were inside. When we finally move in and we can agree on one we'll put in a ceiling fan and add more insulation in the attic.

My color and style vision for the room was beach cottage. I'm not so sure that the color I picked out is the color the girl mixed for me, but it still looks good.

The love seat was one of the pieces that Roger's parents gave us last year, as well as the side tables. The fabric was a purple floral print that didn't go to well with our colors, but a slip cover took care of that.

While we were there we also found a pair of wingback chairs that recline. Nice and comfy with brown slip covers. Just what I was looking for. They seem sturdy enough to someday be worth reupholstering.

I bought the chest last year and wanted it as a coffee table, but now with everything in place I realize it's too big. So for now it is place to put the TV, until the carpenter re works the hutch. After that we'll see what I'll do with it. 

When thinking of a rug, my mind was all over the place. I was looking at rugs that were ocean themed and more traditional rugs. I had even looked at those new traditional looking rugs that they make to look old and very warn, but  they were pretty pricey and I was just not willing to pay that price.

Then I discovered this rug at Home Goods and fell in love. It had the colors I liked, the blue, although you might not be able to tell, matches the wall paint, brown like the wingback chairs (for now) and touch of nice sandy brown like the slip cover. The red will be my POP! of color in the room. It also feels great to walk on. 

Before we left I ordered Honeycomb blinds (for the front room and bedrooms), but they won't be installed till later this month. 

We will be getting the simple version of this (only opens one way)

Finally, somewhere down the line I would like to put up wood trim, cornice boxes and get some wood on the ceiling. Like this, but not totally.

All in all, we love it and can't wait to work on it some more.

Aloha a Hui Hou!

Bathroom Revisited

Before you go on, let me refresh your memory. This is what the bathroom looked like before.

While we were there I did some painting. Number one on my list  was the bathroom. After looking at the swatches for a few days we agreed on a lighter blue.

This is how it turned out.

This one is a little brighter

Love the way the white built in pops off the wall.

Since this was a small room and there were lots of things to tape off - it was a bit of a PITA, but I love the way it turned out and I KNOW that it will stay blue for a long, long time...lol

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Aloha a Hui Hou!

Antiquing

On our trip we did a bit of "antiquing". Nothing big, just a few small items to give our house a home-ie feel.

Let's start with the small Kraft American crate we found in a little antique shop in Caldwell. I have a crate here in Hawaii for our condiments, but it is new, made to look old. I like this MUCH better.

We had been shopping around for a spoon rest and just couldn't find something we liked - Till I saw this baby at a thrift store. In Germany it's called milk glass, unsure if that its what it is called here. On the inside it has fruit embossed on it and on the out side there are flowers. Easy to clean and dish washer safe! Just the way I like it.

The "green" collection

Currently I don't have room to store any vases, let alone have any flowers in the yard that I could put in one...so I don't really have any (I'm cheap, Ok? I don't want to PAY for flowers...lol). But at the house I will have tulips, lilacs, iris, roses and and and, so I'll be needing vases. We stopped at a local thrift shop and I became obsessed with green glass. It's all older glass and I was able to make a killing. I got it all for under $15....cool, Huh?

Vintage Mason Jars

For months I've been ogling the canning jar soap pumps that Post Road Vintage has been offering on Etsy. I planned to order 2 before we flew, but just didn't get around to it.

In the first antique shop we found a quart size jar and I thought "wait a minute! I could make that!"  Taking another look at the jar I came to realize that a quart size jar would be a bit too big to fit on the ledge of the kitchen sink.

So we kept looking. We got lucky at the thrift store and found 2 pints, two more quart size jars (that I could always use as vases) AND I found two soap dispensers with metal pumps. I was in business!

Our neighbor was so kind to drill a hole in the lids and with a glue gun I was able to secure the pumps in the lids. I love making/creating things for the house that will get some use.

The bedroom doors had the original brass door knobs, but they had seen better days. At one of the other antique stores in Caldwell we were able to get two beautiful glass door knobs.

I put them on the doors and they feel great in the hand.

The door to the wood room is still the original wood and looks great. The doors to the light room and the bathroom are painted. I hope to strip them and find that they are as beautiful as the other door.

Can't wait to get back and find some more treasures!

Aloha a Hui Hou!

Opps, I did it again..

I'm still in love with our driftwood lamp, but the room looks a bit lopsided

I need something for the other side. Now chances of finding another piece of driftwood like this one are pretty slim, so I have to come up with something else. A bit ago I bought a mercury glass jug and thought it might make a nice lamp. I was on the hunt for a 2nd lampshade and a kit to turn a bottle into a lamp. Turns out it was not all that easy. I had to google, call and drive around to get my parts.

Photo from this blog

With this kind of kit there is no drilling or special tools needed. All you have to do is stick the cork in and the cord runs down the back of the lamp. 

The corks that were included were a bit small to fill the neck of the jug so I wrapped a couple of pieces of fun foam around it. Now it fits perfectly.  WAH-LA, lamp #2

The room is no longer lopsided.

OH! I just checked out the vintage stuff on sale at One Kings Lane an discovered this:

You can find it here

Mercury Glass Cobweb Lamp

$999.00

$1,800.00 Estimated Market Value

WoW! That makes my lamp a STEAL!  And you know what? I like mine better! :o)

Aloha a Hui Hou!

No, you're in the right place...

Just thought I'd "redecorate" a bit.

What'cha think?

Aloha a Hui Hou!

No, no, no, no, no

I did want to mention that not everything was sunshine and lollipops.

So, the time was coming for our HGTV moment. As we are driving along I notice that I received an email from the painter with a picture of the cabinets. The Queen was not happy.

I know we talked about it before, having the cabinets look "worn" and I figured out that I didn't want that. It looked fake and messy. I wanted it to look like this:

Not like this:

My excitement of seeing the house, that had been building up for weeks was shattered. I dreaded going in and it put a damper on everything that they did so well.

The rest of the cabs were even darker and one of them had this on it

Is that creepy or what? Roger said it looks like the "Shroud of Turin". Not to mention that strange things happened while that face was up on the cabinet...the water pipe popped off the sink, flooding the basement, our ice cubes grew stalagmites.....just plain strange.

Lucky for us this was a decent painting company and they came in and repainted the kitchen

Love how it turned out!

Aloha a Hui Hou!

The Reveal

With out further ado, our 50% new kitchen. Let's start with entry...

The North facing wall - Before

After

The door you see leads out to the back porch and to the left are the stairs that take you down to the basement.  I painted the wall with 3 coats of magnetic paint and a final coat of chalk board paint.


Funny story about the magnetic paint. I purchased a quart can and asked the guy at the paint counter to "shake it up" for me. He put the little, but oh so heavy, can in the centrifuge and walked away. Surprise, surprise! When he turned around the machine had shaken itself about 2 feet out of it's cubby space. It was also really heavy to roll onto the wall. I'm glad it was a relatively small area.


Oh and another thing about magnetic paint and chalk board paint. If you have them separate, like I did, keep in mind that by over painting the magnetic paint with chalkboard paint it reduces the strength of the hold your magnets have on the wall. Be sure to get it covered with one coat.

The window over the sink faces South - Before

After (OH! I see the curtains are crooked...guess I can't do anything about that right now, can i?)

We are so pleased with how the tile turned out, the color of the cabs, the granite, the wood details, the sink....everything. It is a beautiful little farmhouse kitchen.

The fridge is on the West facing wall - Before

After

You can see we added a 2nd drawer to the left of the fridge. That's where the laundry cute was.  The lower part is still a laundry cute, just smaller, but it's still big enough for what we have to throw down. Down the line I have to insert something so the laundry doesn't get caught on the water line/rafters.

We originally didn't want to have the ice maker hooked up, and then we went ahead and had it done anyway. Not that we really needed a lot of ice while we were there (we only have a few days over 60), but it's good to know that it works.

This window faces East

Here is our "table"and it is just perfect for the two of us. If need be, a 3rd person could sit at the end. Kind of bummed that we decided to skip the silverware drawer, but I'll get over it.

Oh, can't forget the floor....I love, love love the tile floor. Easy to clean, feels great under my feet and looks fantastic, just like wood. I would pick it again in a heartbeat.

Here you can see the under cabinet lighting. It makes the counter tops and back splash shine.

These are the lights we finally decided on. I really liked the farm house ones, but just couldn't get over the price. These cost under $30 a piece and also have a vintage feel/look. In addition they go well with our appliances and if I ever want a touch of color I could always spray paint the skirt of the light.

Oh and they are on a dimmer, which is perfect for our needs.

Looking in from the entry off the front room.

The light over the sink - originally we had planned to put the same light over the sink as we have over the table - turned out it was WAY TOO BIG, so I had to go out and buy something else. As you can see it has similar lines. A good match to the ones over the table.

Window facing East - Before (original listing photo)

After

Two things I want to say about this photo. First, notice the Sit-a-Bit sign over the window. I bought this sign years ago, when we were still living in Waikiki. Amazing how it exactly fits in the color scheme of the kitchen! Love those little coincidences!

Second, the chairs. You can't believe how hard it was to find counter top height chairs! Sure, we found some saddle chairs, but we have those here, never really liked them and replaced them with a nice set I found at Ross. Most of the chairs we found were so cheaply made we just had to pass on them. One day, when we were driving down the road I spotted a 2nd hand furniture store. We turned around and went in. The guy had these two chairs. They were the right height and seemed pretty sturdy. Not to mention the price was right. The guy at the store was so nice. He asked what colors we have in our kitchen and gave us a piece of fabric (enough for both) that will fit right in! I didn't get around to reupholstering the chairs this time, but I will next time...might even paint some of the wood to match the cabinets....we'll see.

Thanks so much for following the progress of the kitchen - Looking forward to getting some good use out of it!

Aloha a Hui Hou!

Put a little light on the subject...

As I mentioned before, I've collected a lot of driftwood. Some pieces speak more to me than others - especially, this one

I sanded it till it was as smooth as a babies bottom....love, love, love it! But what to do with it?

Cruising pinterest I found some table lamps made of driftwood and it hit me - that's what I could do with it! So I went out to Target and bought this:

and this:

My original plan was to take the lamp base apart and slide it into the wood (it is hallow). But Roger and I tried and tried but we just couldn't take it apart. I then tried pulling it apart a bit and was able to slip it over the base and TA-DA! We now have a nice "designer" lamp! (do I have to sign it?...lol)

Looking for my next project!

Aloha a Hui Hou!

HGTV Moment...

As we are getting closer to completion  - this is a long distance thing and I've been living vicariously through the photos Lisa has been sending. I get to see every detail, from so far way - it's amazing.


Now I've been thinking about this for a bit and have decided I (we) want to be surprised with the rest of the work. Yes, you read right. Surprised.


This is what I emailed to Lisa and David


"So I feel I'm ready to be surprised with the rest (Roger says "What ever you want sweet", good hubby)....

Please continue to take progress photos - just don't share them with me...I want to cry and be oh so happy when we walk thru that door

Crazy, I know"

Crazy, I know...but that's me! 


Hope we get to see it soon!

Aloha a Hui Hou!

Which is it?

OK, totally unrelated....but I was writing someone about the color I plan to paint the light bedroom and was stumped. Every time I write it I think I'm spelling it wrong. The color is Grey...or is it Gray?

Something in my says it's G-R-E-Y....but G-R-A-Y looks good too....oh I don't know! 

Like I said I was writing someone and didn't want to look like a fool so what did I do, I googled it and came across this page.

This one tells me that they're BOTH correct and a cute little spelling rule that went something like this:

In England they write GrEy and in America they write it GrAy. 

I don't think I'll ever spell it "wrong" again! The site also shows other common misspellings and cute ways to remember how to spell it right, like:

abundance - Often spelled -ence Mnemonic: A hot dog can make a-bun-dance

Is that cute or what? I've had my giggle for the day - hope you have too.

Aloha a Hui Hou!