Happy Friday!!!

Love, the Monk

Spring has Sprung!

And so has our front garden! When we moved in, it was rather sad. Granted this picture was taken during the fall but you can still see the bareness.

So, I moved some of the plants around and bought some others and it was looking a little better but still not great.

So, I bought some more plants ;)

This morning I even got to pick some of my own flowers to use in the house.

Swoon. There's absolutely nothing better than a house filled with flowers :)

I also managed to take a picture of the front door with the security door painted.

Of course, now those stairs need a good cleaning but it's amazing how a little paint makes such a difference. 

Slacker

I'm a horrible blogger, I've been totally slacking BUT I'm on a break from school and we had a super productive weekend. On my to do list for the past way too many months has been to re-finish the front security door and to paint the front door. And this is why:

Nice, right?

The paint on the security door was peeling to the point of embarrassment and I was just over the red door. For the security door, Ryan had to take it off and we had to sand it down (easier said than done). Prime it with metal primer and hang it to be painted.

Primer

 It's only through one coat of paint at the moment so I'll share it when it's finished. For now, here's a before and after of the red door.

So it was raining and dreary this morning when I took the picture so it looks more white than blue but in person it's much more blue and just brighter in general. I'm pretty happy with it. It's much more me than the reddish orange door.

While I was working on the door, Ryan was working on the trim in the back room.

So the front door is actually the same color as our back door which you can see better in this picture...

It's really coming together back there :) My last mini project of the weekend was when I ran in to Target to pick up bread for lunch and found this beauty:

I wasn't necessarily in the market for a shower curtain but I was pretty sick of my old one and this curtain makes our tiny bathroom just a little bit more bearable :) And to no surprise, it's grey!

We have to finish up the front security gate this week and hopefully some more trim but it's kind of nice to be working on these minor details versus a hole in your house ;)

Working on the Weekend

The past couple of weeks, we've been working on a few projects that I haven't had time to blog about. The first was a roman shade that my Mom helped me make. I was super lucky to have her come down last weekend while Ryan was up in NYC and tackle this rather challenging task. Here's the window before, with the shade that I hated. It was way too dark for the room.

I had bought fabric and a roman shade kit a few weeks ago after I realized that this shade had to go but I could never get up the courage (or find the time) to actually make it. One thing is for sure, it takes FOREVER to make (like all night Saturday night and Sunday morning). We did get it mostly complete but when Ryan was getting ready to put it up, he noticed that we knotted our strings at every rod so it wouldn't pull up... which led to us unknotting all the strings and him re-stringing them . Just for kicks, this is what he found to be the easiest way to correct our little mistake.

But, it was all worth it because here's what the window looks like with the shade up:

MUCH better. We still have to put up the vent cover and I think I'm going to put up a shelf behind the toilet but the bathroom is definitely coming together. 

We also finished the stripes in the laundry room and I'm smitten. 

Here's the before picture, I can't get enough of our new door:

This area was much more difficult than the first two walls because of the windows and doors. I'm glad I already have a "technique" down because it was quite the task. Here's what the room looked like Saturday night:

And here she is in all of her beauty:

And look who showed back up:

Now that room just needs some trim, my new lights hung and some other clean up work (including some masonry) but boy has it come a long way. It's hard to remember but that room was a yellow mess when we moved in... 

The last project that Ryan worked on this weekend was painting the garden and the benches that he'll be putting up. 

Partially painted

When my Mom came down, she helped me plant all of the plants her and my sister had been growing. We actually only bought 3 plants and some seeds, the rest was all home grown (tomatoes, eggplant, jalapenos). We'll see how the garden turns out this year but there is already a lot of growth with the lettuce and peas! I'm so excited :) I love fresh vegetables in the summer.