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.

Laundry room rug – Ikea hack

Posted on March 9, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I finally found a rug for the laundry room… or rather, three rugs.

It was hard to figure out the exact dimensions that would work in this room. With jig and jogs around cabinetry and laundry machines and the drying rack, the rug could only be so wide. But it was a relatively long room. Did I want the rug to go just in front of the washer and dryer? Just in front of the sink? All the way from wall to wall?

I eventually decided that it made sense to have a rug in front of the sink, the washer and the dryer.

But then came the question of material. I liked the idea of a natural jute rug, but I wasn’t confident I’d find one that met my measurements for a price I was willing to pay. I’ve seen some great antique and vintage patterned rugs on other blogs, but, again, price was a factor and availability is always challenging

Then, during an Ikea trip, I came across Signe.

It was a fairly natural tone with pops of black and red, two accents I used a bit in the laundry room.

Plus it was cheap: $2.99.

The downside was it was short. One rug was less than 3 feet long. But for $2.99, I could buy three.

At home, I laid them out in the laundry room. This just might work.

After an afternoon spent ripping off fringe and some time spent with my sewing machine, I had a runner the exact dimensions I needed–8 feet long by 22 inches wide.

I used a wide zig-zag stitch to join the rugs end-to-end, doing my best to match the stripes.

The result was the right colours, the right size and the right price. It’s a nice finishing touch in the laundry room.

Blog-iversary 3

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

Holy cow, this little blog is three years old. It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long. It’s pretty cool to look back through the archives and see a record of our lives since moving to the farm.

Every year at this time I also like to look back at some of the blog’s stats and some of the landmarks from the past year.

It’s partially about having a record for myself, but also about sharing some of my numbers with other bloggers out there.

Blogging is a community and a pretty diverse one. Blogs come in all different sizes, but readership and viewership stats aren’t something we talk about all that often… at least not that I see.

This post is not about comparing one blog to another, and it’s especially not that bigger is better. I have to admit though that I’m often curious about how my blog measures up.

Mine truly is a little blog, and I like to share some of my numbers in the hopes that my experience might encourage some other small bloggers. There are lots of us who are not in it for the daily page views or the advertising dollars (for a fabulous example from a not-so-small blog, see this post from DIY Diva). I blog because I love it. I’m in it for myself and for all of you reading.

So the first thing I have to say as I celebrate my third blog-iversary is thank you to all of you. Thanks for reading and following along on our adventures.

And now on to the numbers. (And by the way, WordPress, anytime you want to go back to the classic stats page that would be alright with me).

In my third year of blogging, my little corner of the internet had 58,681 views and 29,132 visitors. My average daily views heading into year 3 now sit just over 200. Here’s how things have developed over the past three years (WordPress didn’t track visitors in year 1):The top 10 countries got a bit of a shake-up this year–or at least bottom half of the list did. The U.S. and Canada still lead the pack, but Europe came on strong bumping India, New Zealand and South Africa out of the top 10.

United States — 36,757
Canada — 14,025
United Kingdom — 2,684
Australia — 1,248
Germany — 725
France — 452
Switzerland — 422
Ireland — 262
Netherlands — 256
Denmark — 216

Visitors came from 135 different countries in total.

I also celebrated some blog records this year.

On Dec. 4, I reached the milestone of 100,000 all-time views.
Just this week, I received my 1,000th like.

On Nov. 6, I had my most visitors and views in a single day ever thanks to the One Room Challenge. The previous record of 543 views in a day (which was set way back on July 23, 2012) was supplanted by a new record of 603 views and 357 visitors.
The One Room Challenge was also responsible for the most comments on any post–44 (although half of them are me replying to people’s comments)
November’s views record only stood for a few months before it was broken on Feb. 9 by a new total of 631. Interestingly, the visitors number that day was pretty standard for me–119. My conclusion is that I have a new reader who binge read basically the whole blog in one day. Whoever you are, welcome. I’m glad you liked my blog.

And that brings us back to all of you again. I blog for myself, yes. But if this was simply a personal journal, I’m not sure I’d have kept going for three years. I really like knowing that there are people out there who enjoy my writing and like reading about our adventures. Thanks for being part of our life.

A bit of spring

Posted on March 4, 2015 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Just a wee peek of spring today. My Mom bought me a beautiful bouquet of these tulips last year, and I’ve been saving the photos–apparently for a moment just like this.

After about 40 straight days of sub-zero temperatures and the coldest February since 1875, we finally made it to March–the month of spring. Never mind that we had snow and freezing rain all day yesterday, and it still looks like winter outside. Today we’re supposed to hit -1ºC. That’s positively balmy!

Have there been any signs of spring where you live?