Tackling the to-do list

Happy Monday! It's supposed to get to 86 degrees here in DC today! Good riddance cold weather!

Note to self: water the garden when you get home.

We had a gorgeous weekend in DC and we happened to have made it quite productive (minus Sunday, Sunday we pretty much just ate and drank all day... totally worth it). Back to Saturday, Saturday, my Mom came down for the day so while Ryan was working on the never-ending brick work, me and her went to Virginia to tackle some of my other errands. First stop was G street fabrics where, after searching the entire store from top to bottom, we picked out some fabric for the curtains in my bedroom. After discussing our curtain options, we decided that we would do two panel curtains by the window where the radiator is and valances for the other three windows. Luckily, they had just enough fabric for all of our curtains in the fabric I had chosen AND they were having a sale (and by just enough, I mean not enough but we were willing to work with it). Score! So we paid and headed out (after saving more than $50!). Fabric- check! Our second stop was Home Depot to get blinds for the bedroom and curtain rods. I had originally wanted real wood, white blinds but once we got to the store, it was either faux white wood or custom order white wood so we went with faux. We also picked up curtain rods for all four of the windows. Blinds + Curtain rods- check! So after a very successful trip to Virgina, we headed back to DC to tackle our projects. Once we got home, we roped Ryan in to helping us hang up the new blinds. Side note: Usually my Mom and I are pretty self sufficient when it comes to our projects but my Mom and sister had tried to tackle putting up blinds at her house themselves and it turned in to quite the mess, that my brother in law had to save them from. So, we decided to not waste any time :)

Before

New versus old.

Mom and Ryan taking down the old blinds.

Ryan putting up the third blinds.

After

It's crazy how much of a difference the new blinds make. They're just much more my style and they actually darken the room at night! Granted, I actually had gotten the wrong size blinds for one window so Saturday night we had to sleep with a sheet over that window but still I consider the blind project a success (plus I got the correct size Sunday so it wasn't too much of a tragedy).

After the blinds were up, my Mom and I went outside to plant the garden. We ended up planting 4 tomato plants, 4 eggplant plants (although I think I already killed 2), 5 or 6 pea plants and lettuce. We also re-arranged the outdoor space to make it much more conducive to having people over (once we don't live in a construction zone).

Can you spy the toilet? My garden is to the right of the stairs and my herb garden is to the left of the stairs (rosemary, oregano, basil and a couple of tomato plants for good measure).

Grill and seating areas.

We still have some work to clean up this area but it's pretty low on the priority list right now.

Once the outside area was set up, my Mom and I started on our last project of the day, making the curtains.

Fabric selected

After re-arranging the office, we realized we still wouldn't have enough room to work (since the paneled curtains would be floor to ceiling and our ceilings are 9'). So my Mom brought home the panels to make at her house (which isn't a construction zone), while I'll be tackling the valances myself this week, eek!

Bedroom to-do list:
Buy white blinds (wood or faux?)
Measure window for fabric measurements
Buy fabric for curtains (use groupon for G street fabrics)
Make curtains- in progress
Buy curtain rod
Hang curtains
Frame life sized mirror
Hang life sized mirror
Get artwork for above the TV
Frame artwork for above the TV
Hang artwork for above the TV


Not so bad, ey? We also managed to do the garden which was on another to-do list while re-arranging the outdoor space was just an added bonus! Thanks, Mom! You're the best! I swear, we'll pay you back with hard work ... some day ;)