Rebecca Homecca

Last night we went into town to start couch shopping. We had kept saying when the house was done we would buy new furniture. Well, the house is NOT done, but we are sick of this old furniture! The chairs are totally falling apart and the setee is just too small for lounging.

We went last night and found a couch we liked right away. It’s actually the first one you see when you walk in the door of the place and the first one we sat in.

We borrowed some fabric samples to check against the paint. We also let the cats have a go at it to make sure they couldn’t snag their claws on it. We brought home a green one, an orange one, and a tan one. I suspect most people would pick the tan one (it does match the cat fur the best) but it is too boring for us.

All of them look fine against the paint, so that did not narrow it down any. Marvin prefers to lay on the orange sample, while Maisy laid on the green sample. So they are no help…

Hubs likes the green best, but I think I like the orange best. However, I think the green would be more practical. Greens are kind of like neutrals, you can put a lot of different colors with it (think leaves on a flower).  So if I wanted to re-paint or anything I would have more options.  Also the orange is darker and would probably show more of Marvin’s white belly fur.

We are going to check out a couple of more stores, but I am sure everything will be compared against this first couch option.

We also need to decide on whether we want two chairs, a chair and ottoman combo, or a loveseat to go with it. Then we have to choose fabric for that!

Not to mention the fact that we will then also need a new rug, curtains, and end tables.

And here we just thought we were getting a new couch.

Even though it is 40 degrees out, I put the Christmas tree up. Last year I put it in the dining room so that you can see it from the front of the house. But I have turned the dining room into a workroom again (painting more trim…), so it’s in the living room this time.
I am curious (and not in a good way) about how Maisy will be with the tree. Marvin doesn’t bother it. He mostly likes to lay on the tree skirt and hide behind the presents. I have a feeling she may want to climb it.
Now when we had the little tree in the basement Marvin would swipe the little stockings off it and the football ornament. But only those 2 things. He was obsessed with those stockings.
This is pretty much all the decorating I am doing. I think it gets less and less every year. The thing about putting up Christmas decorations is you have to take them down too!
Happy Holidays! Less than a month to go!

Today hubs spent the day getting the cars ready for winter with a fresh coat of wax.

I spent part of the day outside putting away my planters and stuff that can’t be out in the winter. I also changed my little flag to a Halloween Theme.

I spent the other part of the day inside, cleaning and organizing. I have plans to organize my closet tomorrow, among other things. Get the sweaters out and all that.

It must be some instinct deep down inside to prepare for winter. I resisted the urge to bake something. I am truly nesting. Fall does that to me.

It’s been a particularly cold Autumn. I think that makes us feel like Winter is swiftly moving in, so we must ready ourselves for it.

I’ve been thinking about going shopping for some fall clothes. Now I feel like Why Bother? It will be sweater time soon enough, so I can make it a couple more weeks of in between.

Finished up my painting project today despite  the fact that it is so humid you sweat standing still. Have I mentioned how much I adore having air conditioning??

I still have to paint around the windows, but decided that was it’s own project and would have to wait (party due to the 800% humidity).

Then hubs and I spent the rest of the day cleaning the house. When you live in a partial construction zone it’s hard to keep on the cleaning so it was pretty trashed. We have people coming the weekend, so it had to be done.

There are still a few things to get cleaned and I am sure we will have to do a little touch up cleaning before they arrive.

This week I have to go shopping for food and supplies. Then do as much cooking prep as I can.

Because we love a challenge, we also have to get ready for our camping trip. We are literally leaving along with everyone else on Sunday.

I am completely exhausted after all the painting and cleaning so I asked Hubs if we could go to Applebees for supper. We had the race on while we were cleaning and they played their commercials about a million times. I guess the advertising worked.

I finally put down the Wiimote and finished painting the front door today. The color still isn’t quite what I wanted. I guess I should have put a tinted primer on first. I had no idea the original red color would change the new purple color so much.

Despite the color being a little off, it still looks a hundred times better than before. I still need to paint the trim  (especially now that it has a few purple marks on it. Not sure how those got there…) and I also want to paint these dorky columns we have out there.

Eventually we plan on getting something to replace the dorky columns and probably a new front door too. But in the mean time I think it will be nice to have the entrance freshened up a bit.

Hopefully it will distract people from all the weeds in the flower beds and all the plants that have been eaten down to nubs by the deer.

Today I spent most of the afternoon painting. I had to do some touch up painting on the closet doors Hubs hung last week.

We also had a little learning curve with the bi-fold doors in the guest room. We did not place the knobs in the right place (who knew you couldn’t actually open and close the doors with the knobs in the place?) so we had to fill the holes and repaint.

Now Hubs just has to put the knobs in the correct place, and that little project will be done.

Then I painted the front door and side lights. I just finished the second coat. Unfortunately, it will require a third coat. I hope that’s all. It’s an extremely dark plum color. Since it was burgundy before, I thought that might be a dark enough base to allow only two coats.

It didn’t, but I have  feeling it did save me from having to do like 5 coats.

I wanted to work on some outside projects today and one of them was to finish the fire pit project. I had to level out some of the stones with sand and then fill in with pea gravel.

It ended up taking all day because I had to dodge the rain 3 different times. It goes from dark clouds and wind and rain to sunny with a pleasant breeze. During those pleasant times I put my shoes and gloves back on and headed out to work for an hour until the rain comes again.

I did finally get it filled in, so now we are all ready to have fires. I even bought marshmallows so we can s’more it up.

The best part is the old owners left the pavers for us and the gravel was leftover from last year’s drainage ditch project. So we did not have to shell out any money to get this one done.

I did not get any other outside projects done because I have kind of lost interest at this point.

Even though I am still exhausted from all the food, fun, and family over the weekend, I have not had a moment to relax.

Hubs and I have spent the past 2 nights staining the deck (and no we are not done). It is taking way longer  than we thought and we are kind of regretting our decision to not just pay someone to do it.

Lesson Learned: There are somethings that are worth paying someone else to do and the deck is one of them.

In addition to that, I have to get ready for my booth at the festival this weekend. I have been printing new labels (lowering my prices-everything must go!) and getting cards printed.  I figure cards might be good sellers at this festival and I just about sold out not too long ago.

The weather forecast does not look great for the festival. I am hoping the weather liars are wrong again!

I have to work the booth all day on Saturday, and I know from last time that is a long day. Even though you are mostly just standing around talking to people, it’s exhausting.

I am looking forward to going up there on Sunday though. There is a bar-b-que competition and apparently it is a big deal. There are people coming from all over the coutry to compete (like the ones on TV). I don’t quite know how it all works, but it appears they make some for people to buy and some for the judges.

I can’t wait to eat some awesome BBQ!

I forgot to take a before picture, but doesn’t the finished project look great?!?

Instead of mulch, the area under the trees was filled with rocks slightly smaller than the ones I used for the border. It did not do a very good job of keeping weeds out and generally looked terrible.

I had decided that I wanted to clear the rocks out so that I could make a little parking area for the trash can. It was on the other side of the garage all out in the open. I did not like pulling in and seeing it right there, it’s ugly. Also, it was right outside the dining room window, and I did not think this was a good plan as the weather warms up.

As with all projects, something small turns into something bigger. Part way through the clearing of the rocks (and weeds) I decided I wanted to mulch around the shrubs and use  bigger rocks for a border in addition to making a parking area for the trash.

So there was alot of hauling rocks up and down the hill in the back to get the sizes I wanted. Since I am a weakling I can only load so many in the wheel barrow at a time. That makes for a lot of trips.

Then I put down landscape fabric which I had purchased to put under the paver the trash is sitting on. I just put in everywhere instead.

Since I wasn’t planning on mulch, I had to go get some. I thought I needed 2 bags, so I decided I would buy three, to be safe.

I got to the store and thought, those bags look bigger than I thought. The area isn’t that big.

So I ran out.

Three bags was actually the EXACT amount I needed. Go figure.

Finally finished up tonight.  We often have a lot of half done things going on around here. I have to say it is nice to do a job start to finish with noticeable results!

It was hard work, but I am pretty proud that I got it all done by myself. Even the heavy lifting.

Spent about an hour sweeping the floor Monday night. When your entire main floor is wood (except the bath which is tile) it is a major undertaking.

It’s spring, so there are little  Marvins in every corner and under every table. I have been trying to keep up with them with the Swiffer, but  they were winning. So he got furminated and the whole house get swept.

Then we watched chicks being born over on farmer’s wife. And I mean WE. Marvin had his face glued to my laptop screen for the entire four minutes. I had to turn the sound off because he was losing his mind. But even with the sound off he just stared at those chicks. It was very funny. I’m beginning to think he spent his previous life on a farm. He also liked to watch pigs on TV.

“Do I look like I would lose my mind over some chicks?”