Adding Some Color to the Inside!

I painted all of the walls in the main area white so it would give a brighter, cleaner look inside.  I knew I would have to dress it up with lots of color though because otherwise it would feel too cold and sterile for me.  The first step was the dining room table and chairs.  Now I am at the place where I am adding decorative touches to the walls.  This is my first one in the main space:

I have found these online, but I wanted it to match the dining room chairs material so I opted to make my own.  Nathan helped me.  It was super easy.  In fact, it was probably the easiest thing I've done so far project wise.  I wanted something to hang pictures from and it works great for that!

The chicken wire was wire that the former owners had out in the chicken coop so not only is it authentic, it has some sentimental history to it.  

I participate in an event called Project Life.  Basically, you take a picture a day for the entire year.  I normally just use them for digital scrapbooking, but now I can print them and hang them too!

So fun! I also wanted color with our dishes, so I told Nathan I'd love to have Fiesta dishes.  I don't want to pay full price for them though, so I was hoping I would find some at the thrift stores.  I have been tickled pink that the last three times we visited, we did in fact find some pieces.  It will be fun to slowly build a collection as we do find them at a great price.  

With all of the not so fun projects we have had to do, it is nice to work on some that are a little easier and are helping to make the house feel like "our home"!

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2nd Big Project Finished: Dining Room Table

The second big project I completed this week was our dining room set, which I painted and reupholstered the seats on the chairs. Before and after of our dining room table and space around it:

I spotted this dining room table right after we put an offer on our house.  I thought it would fit the space perfectly and I loved that it seated 8 people without being a long, rectangular shape.  It was still available on Craigslist by the time we moved into the house and the people selling it dropped the price tons for us, and included the huge lazy susan too.  I was thrilled except for the fact that it was pretty boring and the seats were dirty.  

Since Nathan was letting me pick the colors and designs I loved, I went with fun and colorful.

The paint for the chairs and table legs are paints I had on hand already and just so happened to match the material we picked out. I wanted a Key West cottage feeling to this room and think I managed to capture that feel pretty well.

The material we picked up for 75% off the original price because it was an end piece to a bolt.  The plastic I found on Amazon for the incredible price of $4.24 including shipping.  Yes, you read that right.  We still have lots left over for outdoor projects.

This was a very time consuming project.  It took me two solid weeks of painting coat after coat just to paint the chairs!  We think it was worth it though because it added so much color and brightness.  I love that we have enough room to have our kids over and we use it a lot to play games at too.  Now we are really looking forward to having the new floors in!  Until then, we are enjoying our bright and sunny space.

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The Ponies are Here!

I am writing this well after the fact, because going from four horses to seven was a huge adjustment.  The ponies arrived on the 7th, and settled in very nicely.  From left to right: Sophie, Bella and Mia.

Sophie reminds me of Gypsy, she is very food driven and if you send her away she comes right back in a few seconds.  She is a sweet girl though.  Mia is still very scared of people, but she is more respectful than Sophie.  Bella is...well, Bella is Bella.  She is a hoot to put it mildly.  She plays all day long.  She pins her ears at the big horses all day long.  She flirts with the big boys next door moving her mouth in the way babies do to say "don't hurt me, I'm a baby".

She is not afraid of anything and is curious about everything.  She tried to climb in the cart the other day when I was scooping their pasture.  She loves to throw the ball and play catch with herself.

Robin brought a tub over for her that we filled with water so she could use it as a swimming pool.

Everything that happens during the day, she wants to check it out and see what is going on.

After having four strong willed horses to deal with, she has definitely brought a lightness to the place.  She is quite the handful in her own ways, but she is mostly full of joyful, curious fun right now.

On the house front, we managed to get these plantation shutters up in my room.  We found these at the Habitat for Humanity Restore and were tickled pink when they were a perfect fit!  I love them.  They give me privacy when I want it while allowing me to retain the light when I want it.

I apologize again for all the low quality pics, but I just don't seem to find the time or energy to grab the big camera right now.  Life is good here!

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We Are Adding to our Herd

It was only a few weeks ago that I was saying on here that four horses were more than enough.  I should have bit my tongue then because we are already adding to our herd, or adding another herd to our home!  In February, three ponies were added to Sixteen Hands Horse Sanctuaries list of rescues.  One was a bitty baby still.  We named her Bella, because she was beautiful.

The other two ponies were her Mama which we named Mama Mia and Sophie.  Mama and Sophie were very thin.  They were all scared of humans.  As of this month, all of them had gained a nice amount of weight and Bella had really grown!

After deciding on what would be the best course of action for the ponies and what we realistically feel we can handle, we have taken on the commitment to bring them to our property.  The sanctuary will handle the financial part of the ponies, since we already have four we are responsible for, and we will do the daily care for them.  

A little back story on the ponies that I have only shared with a few until now, I saw the ponies and fell in love with them months before they came to the sanctuary.  I saw them on the property where they lived, while looking at a house we were interested in buying, and literally got out of the car to go and look at them.  Believe it or not, I do not do that.  Ever.  I love my horses and the SH horses, but I am not one to go gaga over horses just because they are horses.  I don't know what it was about them, but I was truly smitten with them as soon as I saw them.  I joked with Nathan that I wanted them, he quickly said NO and I thought that was the end of that.

Imagine my surprise when SHHS said they were going to go and rescue them and I asked if they were in such and such location and knew exactly who they were.  I would have never imagined they would really end up living with us!  Can't wait to get them here and learn how much different life is with a little one here day in day out.

In other news, I am still working on house projects very slowly...here is another peek at the dining room chairs.

I really wanted this house to be two things: comfy and fun.  So far I think we are achieving both with re-purposed items and bright colors.  Life is good!

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Clearing the Back Pasture and a Sneak Peek

I have been working hours each day picking up horse waste and clearing the pastures.  I still have tons to do in the clearing area and the waste area is ongoing.  After a few long talks, Nathan and I decided my time/energy would be better spent on directly working with the horses so we decided to step up the pasture clearing so I can drag the pastures instead of always scooping them.

There were some trees in the back pasture that I just couldn't dig up with a shovel, so Nathan rented a stump grinder to take care of those.  It was really hot and tiring work!

He got all of the big stumps up in one day, and now I can drive the golf cart back there to clear the smaller ones by hand! 

I will try to get a picture this week of how nice it looks since he got the bigger trees out.  When we took the grinder back, we grabbed a couple of chairs for our front deck.

We now have a place every night to sit and watch this:

Today we were going to start cross fencing the front pasture, but Nathan worked on dragging the pasture instead so I got out the paint brush and started a new house project.  Here is a sneak peek:

This one is going to take a bit of time so I might not have a finished picture up for some time! 

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Week Six

We are still settling in, and the past two weeks we are feeling more settled and a little more like this place is becoming "home" to us.  We are still working hard on all of our projects and then there are the horses.  The horses, the horses, the horses....I can't say enough about these lovely creatures that are sharing this space with us.

They seem to have settled in well.  We have adjusted to having them here well so far.  And we love having them come up to the fence when they see us.

We love watching them interact with each other out in the pasture.  We sit in chairs and watch them like they are the best entertainment ever.  Because they are the best entertainment ever.  And we love having them come up the fence when they see us.

In fact, I can't grab a picture of any of them in the pasture except for Chevy.  Because as soon as they see us, they are at the fence line.

Beyond marveling at the horses and learning how to be horse owners, we are working on house stuff.  My Mom came for the weekend (thanks Mom!) and we had a painting marathon that was very productive.  Here is the progress on the reading room so far:

I love how the green drop table turned out, although half way through the project I kept saying "that's a lot of green!".  Once it was done, I adored it!
Here is the progress on our bedroom:

My Mom painted the two cabinets that we got along with the one in my Reading Room.  We don't have a lot of cabinet space in the kitchen, so Nathan built shelves for me to give me extra pantry space.

We are probably half way done with the inside projects on the house, except the flooring which may not happen for a very long time.  We are planning to do the fencing for the front next and then we have more horse news.  In the meantime, we are working hard and enjoying the horses.  Which is just how we like it right now.

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Seven Acres=A lot of mowing!

We had three acres when we lived in Virginia, and we spent a lot of time mowing our lawn there.  Now we have seven acres and we are really glad we have horses to eat much of the grass.  I mowed the front yard last week:

Tonight, I finished mowing it all for the second time.  We need more horses so they can take care of the front too!

I am joking of course, because four horses is more than enough.  We will fence this in and rotate the horses and from what we see next door, they can keep the grass down very well if they are allowed to graze the whole area.  

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Week Five in the House

We are gearing up for the final thrust of the biggest house projects because the horses are coming soon!  This week we worked on tons more wallpapering.  I did the dining room.  Then Nathan helped me do the living room and reading room.  It made a huge difference when we were done.  Again, the place looked so much brighter and cleaner.  We also finally managed to hang kitchen and dining room curtains.

The other project I worked on was painting more furniture.  We bought a three piece set that we will use in both the dining room and the reading room.  I only have one piece painted so far, but I love how it turned out.  We still don't have any decorations up on the walls but that will just have to be done over time.  I still have to paint all the wallpaper and more furniture and redo the bathrooms.  But for now, I am thrilled that the main things I wanted to accomplish are done!

Here's some more "after" pictures of the projects I have accomplished so far.  Or maybe I should say "mid-progress" because none of the rooms beyond the kitchen are finished yet.

As of today, we started the fencing for the horses and our plans are to have them moved over here Thursday.  We are really excited and hope the preparations and transfer go very smoothly.

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Weeks Three and Four in the House

I am beginning to feel like the Energizer Bunny in that I keep going and going and going.  I am hoping in the next few weeks, it begins to really look like there is progress and it is coming to an end.  I need to have all of the physical things done before the horses arrive because I don't see my body being up to handling both things well at the same time.  So what else has been checked off the list since I last blogged?  We (mostly Auburn and Nathan) got all of the staples pulled up and the floors are successfully sealed and painted!  That was a huge thing.

Beyond that, we have been making furniture and appliance runs almost every day.  We didn't have any furniture at all when we moved into the house so that meant furnishing the entire thing.  I am hoping to furnish and remodel the house for less than $5,000, so Craigslist has been our best friend with our purchases.  We had an RV sized washer and dryer so we needed to sell those and buy new.  I was thrilled when I sold the old and bought the new for even less than what we sold the old set for.  We also found a great price on a gently used dishwasher so we replaced that.

We managed to buy living room, dining room, bedroom and reading room furniture.  They were all incredibly cheap (read ugly) so I have been busy repurposing them.  We also made a Goodwill run for odds and ends that we needed, mostly storage items and I am trying to redo those more to my style.  So lots and lots of painting!  I have no idea of any of the paint colors because I am using whatever paint we find at Lowe's that we find for $5.00 a can on the clearance table.  So far it seems to be working through.

On top of all of that fun, we have been making trip after trip to carry things from the RV over to the house so we can clean that completely out.  We've had a few fun things like the kitchen counter top buckling up the first time we used the crock pot on it.  I ended up putting bricks on it and after about a week and a half it settled down enough that Nathan could gorilla glue it back in place.  Overall, things are going very smoothly though and we are really happy with what we've done to the house so far.

We are hoping to have the horses here this coming week and the kids are going to be here for Easter so I need to have a final push of productivity and then hopefully our lives settle into our new normal.

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Our Second Week in the House

Our second week was more of the same which was working on the kitchen and painting and wallpapering.  I am happy to report, it is 99.9% done at this point and we are quite happy with it.

For about $100, the kitchen looks like a whole new room.  Some before pictures:

Doesn't look too bad does it? And it wasn't horrible, it was just so dark and the space was small as it is.  The cabinets are the cheapest laminate that we've ever seen in a house, and they attracted grease something fierce apparently.  That added to the dingy feeling/look of the space.  The entire space just felt blah to me.  Now it feels bright and clean and I love being in there to cook.

By the way, it is so much easier to get good pictures of a tiny kitchen when there isn't a fridge in there.
In other news, we are still removing staples and painting the floor.

Nathan put up a clothesline for me.  Although I could and did hang my clothes out to dry while we were full timers, I could not do sheets so I am very much enjoying that!

Poor Ava is so depressed since we moved.  She can't quite figure out this new property lifestyle and goes crazy when the neighbors do anything in their yards.  I hope she settles in soon.

She does love being outside, and runs and runs when she is out there.  She isn't quite sure what to make of the horses on either side of us, but isn't scared of them either.  Speaking of horses, no, we don't have any yet.  We have some other things to wrap up before they come here.  I am just fine with that because I am 3 miles from them as it is, so I can see them quite easily now.  Off to soak in the big tub, which I am also enjoying very much here!

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