Memorial Day Weekend

We didn't have too much planned for the long weekend besides relaxing, eating, and drinking with friends, but it turned out to be quite productive! (Not quite grouting-the-tile productive, though. We'll get there.) We finally finished painting the living room (!!) and actually started decorating it a bit. I unpacked every frame we own and miraculously had enough pictures to fill them, and now all of them are sitting nicely on the mantel. The gray walls actually make the white mantel look not-so-terrible and the fireplace look a little less gray and more beige, which isn't really a bad thing. Here's a reminder of how the living room looked before.

We finally found a good large jar to keep our bottle cap collection in. It was on sale for $10 with free shipping from Oneida.com! Way better than the dozen or so mason jars I've been hoarding to keep them in. Like most people with a bottle cap collection, we have dreams of covering a table top or making some kind of art with them, but we're going to be the ones who actually do it, right? Either way, there's plenty of room for us to keep collecting, and now they make a pretty piece of art for the fireplace.

As for the most exciting purchase this weekend, we finally bought a lawnmower! We made it until the very end of March with just a weedwacker and our own hands to pull out stubborn weeds. I think that's pretty impressive for a yard in central Texas, yes? Nick mowed the entire yard this weekend. I'm not sure how many hours it took, but it was worth it because the yard looks amazing now. Well, of course it was worth it to me because I didn't mow it :P

Another project we took on this weekend was hanging all of our artwork. I was going to hang them around the living room, but there were a lot of competing colors, so I instead put them in the entry hall where the walls are white and nothing at all has been done. It makes it feel so cheerful when you walk in! I'll show more details of our latest paintings in a different post soon. We intend to keep adding to this gallery wall as we paint more.

Just a tiny hallway update

We finally finished the stencil! It just happens to be only on the smallest bit of hallway wall. We also finally hung those Texas Tech football programs after painting the brown frames flat white to make them stand out a bit more. They will look extra awesome once that wall is stenciled as well.

Spring Has Sprung

What we've been up to lately...

We hung some hanging planters from the front tree, a fern and rosemary.

We got several irises from Nick's mom that we decided to plant in the front flower bed that was sad and empty.

We had to clear out a LOT of weeds & random roots that were trying to take over and the rotten wood that was the previous flower bed border.

These bushes were already on either side of the front bed, and they bloomed way back in early March, so they'll keep the front yard looking pretty when all the dead leaves are still on the ground and we're too lazy to rake them up.

Iris-planting time!

They will be so lovely when they've filled out a bit!

We were intending to tear down this brick grill but I always liked something about it. I decided it would be awesome to fill it with dirt and use it as a flower planter! For now we just have some potted plants (mostly succulents; they are so hard to kill!) sitting on the rusty old grill grate, but sooner or later we will fill 'er up. Until then I quite like it as a plant stand!

On the opposite side of the grill there was already some pretty ivy growing so we thought we'd keep it going and plant some Tuscan Blue Rosemary there. Once he becomes a big fluffy bush he will smell wonderful and some people seem to think it helps keep away mosquitoes, so win-win I think!

A few more chairs and some tables for drinks and we'll be set.

The neighbor's roses are spilling over the fence and it's awesome.

See?

Finally, I leave you with a stunning visualization of how the front of the house might look in a few years. At some point we will add shutters, and they may or may not be yellow, but they will be adorable, not to mention help to cover up the data cables that run on the outside of the house... The front of the house already looks so much better after replacing the wonky poo-brown gutters with these awesome seamless ones in "Linen" which is basically just ivory. I know my Paint skills are probably impressing you to no end.

Yellow!

The entryway to our house was brown, beige, and sooo boring. At first I thought, "I know what will make an impact! RED!" Technically I was right, but it was probably the most obnoxious use of red I've ever seen and clashed terribly with the lovely wood tone of the door. About an hour in, I couldn't take it any more and ran over to Sherwin Williams to pick something else. Scroll down to see the final result that we LOVE!

Before. Isn't this trim the most awful shade of brown you've ever seen? Sad, sad, sad.

Even one coat of white over that poo brown is a great improvement. And I will never get tired of painting over beige and off-white with clean, real white.

Getting better...

Yellow!

It looks so good with the door.

This is quite close to how bright it is in the middle of the day. So happy!

Nick even surprised me and replaced the doorbell! It looks like it's from this century now.

What I want to do next in here is get some colorful little wall planters and some pretty "drippy" plants that will hang over the front and sides. Like a plant-filled art installation. Here's an all-white version (via West Elm) of what I'm imagining. It will be awesome.

Paint colors:
Yellow is Sherwin Williams HGTV Home in Lemon Twist (Satin)
White is Sherwin Williams HGTV Home in Extra White (Semi-Gloss)