2020 Year in Review, Part 2

 In case you missed it, here's 2020 Part 1....

Alright, 2020 cannot be talked about without discussing house projects 🙌 

Project #1: Let’s start with an outdoor table...Mom had been trying to get me to move Grandma Nina’s old outdoor table and chair set to my house for a while  The table though, it needed some new life. As luck would have it, Mom also found a can/barrel/whatever you want to call it. So, per usual at our houses, a project was born :) 

We cleaned up the can, and then I spent hours sanding the top. Once the top was sanded down to where I wanted it I took a few days to add SIX layers of finish. Luckily it was warm out and I was able to put on two coats in a day. Once that was all dry I recruited Dad to remove the legs and to cut some slots in the bracing on the underside of the top so that it would fit snug on the can. 

It turned out really well and I'm super excited to be able to use it, once people can come visit of course.....I didn't get the accompanying chairs sanded and varnished because, well, we had other projects. That'll hopefully happen this next summer. 

The can....

Table top! Left is unfinished, right is finished.

Project #2: The backyard space! I had been thinking about transforming this space in the backyard for a while, and we finally did it this spring. It took some thinking and strategizing, but we did it all with repurposed materials and didn't have to buy anything. Mom sprayed some of the grass that wasn't super anyways, and then Dad helped me lay down some paving bricks as an edging between the grass and my new space. 

Thank goodness for his rototiller because otherwise we would have been sunk! It took us a couple of hours, but we got the bricks laid down fairly quickly. We then did some tree trimming (hindsight, should have done that first because Dad ran over some of the pavers...). Then we spent the next couple of days bringing gravel in, and some wood chips for a portion of it too. I enjoyed it a little bit before summer craziness completely took over! Hoping to be able to get a fire pit of some sort out there this next year. 

Before....purple is gravel, blue is bark

After!

Dad and his helper, who LOVES the back hoe

Project #3: Painting! When I moved into the house in 2018, we only painted the "main" rooms on the first floor. It seems that this is a pattern for the house as when my family moved into the house in 1999, the same three rooms that still hadn't been painted weren't touched. SO it was time for walls to get some new life. I picked out some colors that are complimentary to the rest of the house (blues/greens/purples), and got to work. 

I almost forgot! I wanted the bookcases and window seat taken out, so Mom and I did some demolition. We pulled the book cases out carefully (I use carefully loosely...I had to do some touch up painting on the ceiling....), and then went to town on the window seat. Why? Because I wanted to redo the book cases, and I never really liked the window seat being there anyways. 

Ace once again came to my rescue and helped. It took the two of us a few days, but Ace took care of the detail stuff, and I did the rolling. I carried the gray ceilings throughout and the laundry room got the same wall colors as the bathroom because it's the "special" kind okay for moisture and whatnot. It took us a few days, but we got it done! Well, most of it....we waited to do the majority of the laundry room until the washer and dryer came out for the.....drum roll.....NEW FLOORS! That way we wouldn't have to move them twice. 

After and during demo

Demolition of the bookcases and window seat

 

We painted where the bookcases and window seat had been. I'd already had the idea to change the color of the wall with the window in it to my darker accent color, and this gave us an opportunity to do that.

 

New paint colors! And empty cans....we drained a few of them. 

New colors! They have a green-ish tint, but still have that blue feel (it really depends on the light in the room...). I decided to go with an accent color, and it was close enough wet to the other dry that we had trouble determining where one color began and another ended....oops! The picture on the left gave us a chuckle because Ace couldn't remember if she'd turned the corner by accident or not....turns out she did haha!

This is in the "big office" and in good light shows the color difference on those two walls. 

Stay tuned to find out more about the floors!