Holiday And Seasonal Decor Storage And Tree Removal

Hello, Friends,

How are you? How is your summer? Ours is terribly hot so I've been keeping busy inside the house.

I was binge watching Hoarders a few weeks ago. I became very convicted that aside from Bill's closet and his office, I've taken over most of the house and a section of the garage. 

To be fair, I'm the homemaker. I do the cooking, cleaning, laundry, entertaining etc. so it makes sense that I'd have control over the storage in those areas. However, it puzzled me that the front hall closet held none of Bill's items. I guess, when our oldest moved out and Bill took over his room and created an office, he moved his coats to the closet in that room. I tend to be on the messy side and Bill didn't want to share with me and the two children that were still living at home. As I looked at the space and removed my coats, I noticed that is was in desperate need of coat of paint. It had never been painted since the house was built and it looked a little beat up. My shoes and a few of my current summer handbags went back in but now the hanging space is reserved for guests. Ha- if it ever cools down, that is. 

I prefer to have shoes downstairs. City dirt is gross and I don't really want it in my closet.

It looked so good that I decided to clean out the little linen closet by the garage. 

To my recollection, we have never used this for linens. It's been the fabric closet and the dish closet. Last year, I put Christmas items in it too. 

Painting around shelves isn't my favorite. Paint ended up in my hair which isn't my favorite either. I wished it could stay empty but I decided to make the this the holiday/ seasonal closet. It got more of my stuff out of Bill's garage. I think that pulling bunnies, Santas, pumpkins and other related items out of a closet will be so much easier than digging through a tote. Each theme needed about a shelf and half. I decided to let go of items that were not my favorite so that everything will fit. 4th of July is in there too.  

It is organized. I promise. 

Any remaining bits were moved to Starsky- The Hutch after it had been cleaned out. 

As soon as I was done, I grabbed a little ice cream treat out of the freezer. It was melted. 

The old garage fridge finally gave up. We've had it 9 years. It was at Bill's mom's house before that. There is no telling how long she had it. 

Everything got moved out and in to the inside refrigerator and freezer. That was a feat which required purging some things including expired salad dressings. 

Extra drinks found the way into the pantry after that got a good cleaning out, as well. 

We increased our trash from one bag to five! 

Additionally, the little pie safe was in the midst of a makeover. It held Easter and Fall decor. 

The white finish was gloppy so it needed stripping before I could repaint. 

Very thin plywood was cut and popped into the door panels.  

After all the purging and moving things around, this piece remains empty so that Bill can use it for something. 

The tree men were here when I was cleaning out and putting everything back. This was a good distraction from their activity. 

Sadly, both of our trees in the front yard were ailing. The tree closest to the street has looked very stressed for the last few months. There was a big dead section in the middle of the tree. I didn't realize that the bigger one near the house was diseased as well. For our safety and the safety of our cars, house and any one on the street they had to be removed. 

This was not unexpected as they were 25 year trees and they lived 33 years. They were silver maples which aren't acclimated to Texas. They were all up and down the street when we moved in. Almost all of them have been cut down. Ours were not the last on the street but there aren't many left.  

Not having to deal with the leaves this fall will be a huge blessing. The leaves would turn in late November and fall in December (Who wants yellow leaves in December?) which made it difficult for my lawn guy to clean up since he is very busy with Christmas light instillations.) Additionally, since we were the only house on our section of the street with these big trees, everyone knew where the leaves were blowing from. Last year they dumped while were away. It was annoying to find the lawn covered in leaves as we returned and were jet lagged. Over the next few days, I dutifully got out and cleaned them up. 

It's hard to get used to how much light pours in the house during the morning hours. The front yard looks too bright but I'll get used to how it looks. It doesn't help that this was done in the height of summer but once we heard that they had to come down, I was ready to get it over with. 

The professionals were so fast. They were done and out of here in 4 hours. 

The stumps were ground down at the same time. 

Now, we wait for the grass to regrow. 

We'll plant one tree this fall when it cools down. Let's hope we get some relief from this heat soon. 

That is all for now. 

I will visit with you soon. 

Katie 

More Fall And Chit Chat

Hi, Darlings.

How are you? I hope you are well. 

I have some images that never got posted in October. 

I thought we could chit chat and I can talk about what's been going on. 

We're headed out to East Texas this evening as soon as Bill approves the last funding of the day.  

Tomorrow, he'll work from out there while I paint and wait for the refrigerator delivery. 

It will be nice to be able store food in the house rather than run out to the guest house fridge. 

Don't get me wrong, we were happy they left the refrigerator in the guest house. 

I thought for sure that it would be gone when we went out last week. 

I was supposed to go out alone this week but the truck is in the shop. It won't be back in time for this weekend so we will be squeezing as much as we can into the Mazda. I had a Volkswagen Beetle so I'm really good at packing a car. We've had two cars sitting in the driveway for 8 months. Now we need the two cars and both of them have had issues in the last two weeks. Granted, I'm sure that sitting so much this year didn't do them any good, but we did try to drive them so that we wouldn't have these kinds of issues. 

We're a little frustrated as we have more stuff we'd like to take out but it won't fit in the car. 

I told Bill that we needed to dial it back and practice patience. Neither one of us is great at that. 

I plan on painting the trim in our bedroom and the living room so that Bill can put up some new blinds. 

As soon as I'm done with the trim, I'll start painting our bathroom, the laundry room, the guest bath, and the hall. If I get finished with that, I'll start painting doors. The exterior doors on the insides have never been painting. They still have the factory primer. They are green and white on the outside but it's more of a kelly green. We are switching to a deep forest that is almost black.

I'm so glad all of the paint is already out there and we don't have to worry about squeezing that into the car. 

We hope to have some time to relax this weekend. I'd also like to walk the perimeter of the property. 

If you would like to see what direction we are leaning for our property, you can follow Our Texas Cottage on Pinterest. 

It got really cold here in North Texas. We went from summer to winter in a nano second. 

It was weird switching out my clothing for the season. A lot of my nicer spring and summer clothing didn't get worn at all. We didn't go anywhere that required getting dressed up. So strange. 

I worked on another furniture makeover this week. 

It was only $30.00. With some sanding, new feet, cleaning, painting, knobs and waxing and it is ready to go. 

Unfortunately, it will have to wait here in the garage until we get the truck back. 

That is all for now. I hope you don't mind these pop ins.

I hope you like seeing the process rather than just room reveals. Let me know in the comments. 

I'll be back Monday with more from the new house. 

Stay well. 

Katie 

Farmhouse Painting/Christmas Hall 2018

Some of our art gets switched out for seasons and holidays. 

My painting stash is in one of the guest room closets. 

We invited some new friends over for dinner one evening. After dinner they wanted a tour of the house. When we were upstairs in Jonnie's bedroom, Bill opened the art, pillow, Christmas, and throw closet. I nearly died. In the essence of true friendship our friends showed us one of their guest rooms closets at a subsequent visit.
We're even.

I wanted something for above my recliner in the living room. 

I'd been eyeing some barn paintings on various blogs and on Pinterest and painting a snow covered barn seemed like a fun activity. 

Bill picked up a canvas for me and I pulled out all my paints. 

The canvas got a coat of white as a base coat. 

I searched on Pinterest and found a photo of a barn in the snow. 

I liked the tree line. A zig zag, less than perfect line of trees was painted. 

My preschool teacher craft skills bubbled to the fore when I sketched out the beginnings of a barn. 

Barn siding and doors were added next. 

As It took shape, it began to look like the carriage house turned garage at our turn of the last century house in New Rochelle, New York.  Ours wasn't a white barn. It was brown but the outline of the painting was the same as my memory. We called the little lean to portion "the studio."
I love this memory of our old home. It makes it a little more special.
Abstract barn paintings and the initial photograph were periodically re-checked for details like snowy drifts.

Black paint was used to outline the barn and studio. I added details to the trees.

I hung it up behind my chair and didn't like it.

I was going to stick it in the aforementioned closet but Bill wanted me to hang it.

It looked good in the hall with my black Hunter rain boots, black jackets and one of my scarves. I even left the red dog leash out.
After a few days. I took it down and added some swirls to the sky. The snowy roof was toned down as well.

The dog comes running for a W-A-L-K when the leash is staged for blogging.

The tool box got some simple cedar greens.

I kept the painting un-Christmasy so that it can hang here all winter.

I like the graphic simplicity of this hall.
What do you think?

I hope to get better at this.
I'll share it when I do.
Thanks for stopping by.
Katie 

Bathroom Remodel After Five Years/ Potty Closet

What a pain in the neck. 

I mean - literally. 

When we did our big bathroom remodel, I got very lazy and didn't want to go to the store to buy more paint. 

When painting the potty closet, I should have used the same paint that we used in the bathroom but I was worried I wouldn't have enough so I grabbed a can that we already had.
It was a very olive greenish gray.
Here is how it looked in the bathroom with natural light.

So pretty. I loved that color.
It was a perfect gray. I needed to make a few touch ups so I went to Sherwin Williams to get another can. The new can was not the same. It looked more green.
It looked especially olive green in the potty closet. 

It didn't coordinate with the bathroom at all and I hated it so I never took a picture of it.
Repainting the potty closet has been on my list for the last 5 years.

The wall cabinet got some new accessories. 

The trim was finally finished properly. I didn't finish it five years ago. 

 
I reused our existing wall art.

I did a Vaseline treatment on it. Before it was cream and aqua.
I painted some Navy blue areas and then I let it dry.
I coated petroleum jelly on it and then painted the white.
The white didn't stick to the petroleum jelly so it created this "chippy" effect.
This technique isn't new to me but it's the first time I've tried it and it worked great.

Notice how I folded the toilet paper for your viewing pleasure!

I guess I hurt my neck by looking up at the ceiling when I was painting it.
It took almost a month for it to finally feeling better.
I guess ceiling painting it out for me in the future. Whoo hoo.
Thanks for letting me share. I know this was probably a boring post but I feel like paint makes such a difference.
This room is so much cleaner and brighter.
Paint is a small change but an important one.
Katie 

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