One Room Challenge Week 2 – Master bedroom progress report

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

It’s the beginning of week 2 in the One Room Challenge. Time for your first progress report on the master bedroom.

This makeover has been going on for a long time–longer than just the ORC. If you want to get caught up, here are the previous posts:

I’ve learned that I need schedules and deadlines if I want to complete a project in any reasonable amount of time. That’s part of why I love the ORC.

I posted my to-do list last week, but not my schedule. So to hold myself accountable, I’m going to put timelines on everything.

It may look like I’ve accomplished a lot already. Just remember this makeover has been running since Christmas.

Here’s where we’re at:

~~Buy a new bed~~ – Done
~~Remove popcorn ceiling~~ – Done
~~Patch ceiling and walls~~ – Done
~~Paint ceiling, trim, doors and walls~~ – Done
~~Make/find window treatments~~ – Done
~~Build hookboards for behind the door~~ – Done
~~Paint dresser and replace hardware~~ – Done April 6
DIY a headboard – By April 12
Refresh dinged up closet doors –By April 19
Relocate light switch – The electrician is booked to come April 22
Replace light fixture – I’ll get the electrician to do this while he’s here
Come up with a jewelry storage solution – By April 26
Sew a bedskirt – By May 3
Decorate and personalize – ~~Ordered prints April 6~~. Fingers crossed they get here in time.

The main accomplishment in the past week is painting the dresser. I didn’t realize how badly scuffed and chipped the black paint was until I started to prep for painting. It’s amazing what your eyes miss when you look at something every day.

I’m really liking how the white paint pops against the dark blue walls. The brass knobs and handles tie in with the hardware on our pine nightstands–and even better the new handles are the same dimensions as the old ones so I didn’t have to patch or drill any holes. That’s never happened for me before, and it felt like a major victory. (And yes, I know I’m missing two handles. They’re back ordered and are supposed to come in a week or two. Missing hardware seems to be a recurring theme of my ORC participation).

I think I’ve made some decisions about the headboard, so I’m crossing my fingers I can get that one done next weekend.

Thanks for following along.

And be sure to check out Calling it Home for all of the other ORC projects.

Not quite a spring mantel

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Despite the snow flurries that fell thick enough to coat the ground this weekend, I’m pretty sure it’s spring. Easter was early this year, but not that early, right?

It seemed like it was time to update the mantel for spring. We still light the fire most nights, but the snowshoes on the mantel seemed to be a bit out of season.

For me, styling a mantel is like styling a bookshelf–challenging.

I replaced the snowshoes with some green glass bottles. I separated the pair of antlers and spread out the trio of spherical tealight holders. But I’m not sure it’s working for me.

I’ve learned I really like the pop of black from the lantern–and the glow of the candle at night–but I’m wondering if maybe I should do without it for the spring.

The glass bottles seem a little small to me. And I think their watery blue-green tone says summer more than spring.

I’d love your input and advice on what you’d do. Here are your constraints:

The stone needs to be the main feature of the fireplace. That means no covering it up with a huge painting or mirror, although something smaller might be acceptable.
I want balance, but I don’t want symmetry. Matching topiaries at either end of the mantel with a perfectly centred hurricane are not me.
Bigger is better when it comes to tchotchkes. The fireplace is 8 feet wide and 9 1/2 feet tall and close to 4 feet deep. It’s a monolith. From the mantel to the lowest point of the ceiling is 40 inches. The accessories need to be equally large scale so they don’t get lost.
I’m cheap, so there’s no way I’m spending much money on decor, especially if it’s going to change seasonally.

This post from Kim at Tidbits and Twine has an easy formula for styling a mantel. I particularly like her layers of anchor, weight and filler. However, I’d have to put my anchor off centre. 🙂

Here are some of the things I’m thinking of:

Something living (or more likely, given my luck with plants, a decent replica of a living thing)
Large crocks or bottles (or urns or tarnished trophies?)
Candles or lanterns of some kind (maybe an oil lamp or a candelabra could be fun)
Some appropriately “farmy” accessories (wagon wheel hub, grindstone, antlers)
Something appropriately seasonal (is there something that says spring besides the obvious tulips and hyacinths?)
Art (even though I don’t want a central painting, a smaller scale painting or sculpture or mirror might be nice)

This picture speaks to me. Even though the fireplace is a completely different style from ours, are there some lessons I can apply?

Source: Verdigris Vie

Help me bring spring inside, even if it hasn’t arrived outside yet. What are your styling secrets for mantels? What accessories would you use?

Good Friday

Posted on April 3, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

On our first Good Friday at the farm, I cut a huge bouquet of forsythia off the bushes beside the driveshed. Every spring since then, I’ve marked the start of April with a forsythia check-in.

Thanks to a few mild days in March, we’re in a better snow situation than we were last year. The blossom situation is still TBD. Last year we seemed to be dealing with frostbit forsythia. Hopefully we have blooms soon.

And I hope that you have a very happy Easter.

Forsythia through the years:

2014: April 2 | Blooms
2013: April 2 | Blooms
2012: April 2 & Blooms

One Room Challenge – Master bedroom makeover

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

It’s One Room Challenge time again. This will be my second time participating in the Challenge, and things are a bit different this time around.

The room I’ve chosen to make over–our master bedroom–is already part of the way there. Yes, I took a head start. But those who have been around here for a little while know that I stalled. The One Room Challenge is my motivation to finally finish it.

For those that are new here, here’s where we started–our former guest room. Pretty, ain’t it?

Here’s the inspiration (from another ORC participant, no less):

Source: Chez V (found via Little Black Door)

And here’s where we are today:

Without a deadline, I’m finding it very easy to dilly-dally my way through this makeover. So the plan is to draw up a schedule and feed off the enthusiasm of other ORC participants and get this room done.

Here’s the plan (I’m reusing some of the text from previous posts so that those of you who are new can follow along):

~~Buy a queen size bed~~ – Done, except we decided to really upgrade and went for a king size.
~~Remove popcorn ceiling~~ – Scraping the ceiling was not the funnest way to spend a day, but this job is done.
~~Patch ceiling and walls~~ – Also known as, “how I spent my Christmas vacation” (yes, Christmas. I told you this makeover has been going on too long). Patching took such a long time. Done, thank goodness.
~~Paint ceiling, trim, doors and walls~~ – I had such a hard time picking a colour, but this one is done. Chez V’s makeover made me decide to go dark and dramatic with Hale Navy.
~~Make/find window treatments~~ – This was the when the makeover stalled. I discovered I do not like making curtains. So boring. But I’m finally done.
~~Build some hookboards for behind the door~~ – Extra hanging space is always a good idea.
DIY a headboard – No idea what I’m going to do here. White? Wood? Upholstered?
Relocate light switch – Oddly, the light switch is behind the door. It’s perfectly positioned if you used the mirrored pocket door from the other bedroom to enter the master. Weird.
Replace light fixture – I have a hand-me-down brass and crystal chandelier just waiting for a home.
Paint dresser and replace hardware – We have a beat up black dresser that we bought at a garage sale. I think it can be freshened up with some nice white paint and brass hardware.
Sew a bedskirt – I have some material left over from the curtains. A bed skirt can’t be as tedious as the curtains, can it?
Refresh dinged up closet doors – It appears our closet doors spent their past life as bulletin boards, except with tape rather than pushpins.
Come up with a jewelry storage solution – Notice I didn’t say a new solution. I’ve had no solution, and tangles of necklaces are getting really old.
Decorate and personalize – It will be nice to finally personalize a bedroom. Although the giant pink ape you saw above probably isn’t the personalization I’m looking for.

And finish it all by May 7 in time for the ORC finale. Stay tuned. And be sure to check out Calling it Home for all of the fabulous makeovers–or this week the plans for fabulous makeovers.

Put a ring on it

Posted on March 30, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Thanks so much to everyone who gave their advice on my vegetable garden post the other week. Everyone’s input was really helpful. Also helpful? Being home for a week. It allowed me to spend some time outside and develop my plans.

It also allowed me to change my plans.

The location I’d planned to put the garden just isn’t going to work. See that big wooden thing in the background? Our beautiful barn?

Obviously there’s a large tree too, but the barn is the bigger problem–literally. Because of the barn’s size, it casts a prodigious shadow. Too much of a shadow for a veggie garden, I’m afraid.

So new plan: Matt’s goat ring (aka the longe ring), gets to stay. It’s sunshiney pretty much all day. I’ll build the garden inside the ring.

Bonus: the fence is already in place. I don’t have to drill holes, set posts, or hammer boards.

Quandry: I have to break up the really thick sod somehow. This ring has been growing weeds for years. My father-in-law and mother both think I need to call our farmer for help. I’ve seen his tractors, though, and I’m concerned there’s nothing that will fit inside the ring. Remember, preserving the fence is a key bonus of using this spot.

Quandry 2: I’m not quite sure how to arrange a garden that is shaped like a ring. I usually think in terms of grids and boxes and rows. Arcs and pie wedges are hard to work out in my mind. Here’s a preliminary idea.

I feel like I need to get the ring cleared of grass and weeds so that I can see what I’m working with. It’s 56 feet across. That’s an area of roughly 2,462 square feet. Too big to wrap my head around. I’m not even sure I can fit it on a piece of paper at a scale of 1 foot=1/2 an inch.

Once I get it cleared, staking out the planting beds will be the first step. I have a suspicion that I’m going to have to cut some of the quadrants into slices. But first I need to understand how much space I actually have, what size beds will work and how much I’m going to be able to plant.

I’d still appreciate your advice, though. Any tips for working in the round? How much space do you think I need between beds? What would you plant? How would you lay things out?

Spring thaw

Posted on March 27, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

The calendar now says it’s spring, and the temperature–and as a result the farm–is starting to agree.

What’s spring looking like for you?

Master bedroom move-in

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I mentioned at the beginning of the week that we made a wee bit of progress on the master bedroom makeover.

Here it is.

Yes, we have moved into our new bedroom. And obviously, Baxter is exhausted from the journey across the hall.

It’s still not done, but having our bed in the room and our clothes in the closet–and our dog on the bed–feel like major progress to me.

You may recall that this makeover started 3 months ago. Right after Christmas, I scraped the stipple ceiling. That was honestly the hardest part of the project. There’s no good reason why this is taking me so long.

The master bedroom is one of my Home Goals for 2015. One of my other Home Goals is to take it easy on the projects and not hold myself to such strict timelines as I did last year.

Obviously, I’m succeeding at the latter of those goals.

For some reason, I’m just not getting excited about this makeover. I’m hoping that will change soon though. The spring One Room Challenge launches next week. I’ve decided that finishing the master bedroom is going to be my entry.

I was super excited about the laundry room makeover that I did for the Challenge last fall, and I really enjoyed participating with all of the other bloggers.

So I’m reverting to my old ways. There will be detailed timelines, regular updates and lots of progress. (Please, let there be progress).

Until then, commiserate with me, please. Do you have a long-running makeover? Have you ever undertaken a project that didn’t seem that interesting? Any tips for pushing through?

Horsing around

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Hello! Thanks for your patience while I took a little break last week.

It was a good vacation, but a busy one. I was away from the farm 7 out of the 9 days. Honestly, that’s not my favourite way to spend a vacation, but I did manage to squeeze in a little project time.

We finally made an itty-bitty bit of progress on the master bedroom (yes, that makeover still lives), and I came to some decisions about the garden. You’ll hear more about both of these in upcoming posts.

For today, though, I wanted to share one of the fun reasons I left the farm last week.

We went to, guess what, another farm to go horseback riding. Today’s post isn’t about the ride itself as much as it is about the great pictures (trust me, you’ll want to make it all the way to the very end).

Here are our two steeds: Indy on the left and Clyde on the right.

Indy was mine and Clyde was Matt’s.

Our guide was Adrienne (the person, not the horse).

Here’s a view I don’t usually have during my hikes.

Matt and Clyde had a special bond. He (Clyde, not Matt) keeps his mouth open a bit because he likes to have his bottom lip tickled. You’ll notice his (Clyde’s, not Matt’s) tongue is sticking out in the photo below.

And then Matt found just the right spot.

Clyde certainly knows how to smile for the camera.

And there’s your funny Monday. You’re welcome. Hope you have a great day.

Help plan the vegetable garden

Posted on March 13, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I’m starting to think about my vegetable garden.

You may recall that this garden does not exist yet. Even moreso right now since everything is still buried in snow.

However, that’s not stopping me from thinking about layouts and plants and dimensions and fencing and fertilizer and trellises and… and… and…

The garden is my one and only outdoor project for this year.

Would you help me with planning, please?

The objective is to turn the patch of burr bushes behind this little picket fence…

Into a bucolic oasis like this.

A beautiful country vegetable garden from Country Living

Source: Country Living

No sweat, right?

Here’s what I’ve sorted out so far.

I’m going to dismantle what Matt calls the “goat ring” (I think it’s a longeing ring for horses) to get my fencing.

Under this mound of snow, I have a stash of wood posts that I can use either for fencing or for edging the garden beds.

I’ve collected a few rolls of chain link that will be helpful to keep small hungry critters from munching on my produce.

Aaaaaand that’s about all I have so far.

Next week is spring break. I’m taking a vacation from the day job, which means a little more time at home to work on projects. One project is starting to map out the garden.

I don’t think I can do much more than that until the snow melts.

I’m going to be taking a break from the blog for the week too. While I’m away, I’d really appreciate it if you could offer your suggestions for the garden.

What should I plant? How should I organize the garden? What dimensions are best for the individual beds? How big should the garden be overall? What’s the best way to get rid of the burr bushes and prepare the soil? Do you have a garden yourself? What grows best for you? Are there any garden blogs I should be reading? Thanks in advance for your help.

Grandma’s locket

Posted on March 11, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a treasures post. Last week, I wore one of my most precious treasures, my grandmother’s locket.

Like most of my treasures this is inherited from family. I don’t know the exact heritage of this locket but I can see its history just by looking at it. The back and front both have several dents.

My Mom’s memory is that my grandmother was wearing this one day when she fell down the stairs while carrying my Mom. My Mom was tossed through the air and somehow ended up landing on a pile of towels in the linen closet. My grandmother was also alright, but the locket was dented.

Inside the locket, I’ve placed my two favourite photos of my grandmother: one from Matt’s and my wedding and one from when she was a young woman.

I always wanted a locket, so I was really honoured to inherit this one from my grandmother. When I wear it, I find myself opening it every so often to look at the photos and remember her.