House Projects: Social Distancing Edition

I am NOT complaining one bit about having to stay home and spend some quality family time. It’s like this quarantine was made for me. Sure things get a little heated and cray but that happens in the regular anyways, so this isn’t much different.  What I’m especially loving is that Thomas gets to be home with us so he gets to help me with the kids and I can get some projects done with his help!!!



I'm an enneagram 3 and that means I like to do things and cross them off my list.  I never make much headway because I'm always adding things to the list 🙈, but that is just the way I like it.  I have found this characteristic to be extremely helpful during this time because it is keeping my mind occupied and creating a sense of "normalcy".

So, what exactly have we been doing around here the past 5 weeks? So much!

Remember in January when I switched our great room around and back to “normal” and I painted the fireplace wall white?  I absolutely love having the tv mounted on the wall and more open space in the house. 

Well my first project was to paint the rest of our main living area white. I painted the whole living room, the dining room, the kitchen, the entryway, and the hallway. I cannot get over how much lighter and brighter it is in here! Why didn’t I do it years ago? 

I still want to do some sort of wall treatment in the entryway. I love the look of shiplap...but am I too late for that? Is that design still on trend?

Next up...

We caved and got chickens 🙈 only 3 hens this time. They’re supposed to lay blue/green eggs and we cannot wait for them! Ellie got to name them:  Dusty (the Grey one), Pocahontas (the Golden one), and Pepper (the Black one) and she has claimed Pepper to be her chicken. Since we converted the old Chicken Coop into the Playhouse (which is still a work in progress) we needed a new home for the girls.  I’ve done a lot of thinking this past year and really want to allow my chickens to forage more and be more “free range”. So we sectioned off a generous sized area from the Goat Paddock for the chickens using some fencing we saved when we opened up our backyard last summer. Then I got to work building a new Chicken Coop. Basically it’s just a place for them to roost, sleep, get out of the rain, and eat, so it didn’t need to be too big. I drew up all the plans and built the whole thing out of repurposed wood from my scrap pile that I’ve been collecting over the years. I’ll do a more detailed step-by-step post on it in the future but I absolutely love it and am so proud that I built it by myself. Thomas did help me lift it up, rip a couple boards for the flooring, and he attached the roofing. 

I let the kids help me paint it 😬, and we moved the girls in last week and it’s so so good! I love all the space and I love how cute The Coop is!

Next, we built a fence at The Grey Cottage...took a lot longer than we anticipated and we still have to paint it. 

And finally...I’m building a Greenhouse! I’ve wanted one since we got married and started growing our own food and now 11 years later I’m finally getting one!! 🥳🥳 it’s not quite how I’ve envisioned it over the years but I loved how The Coop turned out with repurposing our scrap wood pile, I decided to go with it again for The Greenhouse and I am LOVING it!

What projects have you been working on while we’re stuck at home and not allowed to leave?

XOxo,

Ashley 

Finnley is FOUR

Oh my dear sweet Finnley, you are FOUR! 

 

 

 

 in tradition: last photo as a 3 year old

 

We celebrated your birthday here at home, definitely not how we had imagined this day would go. Thankfully you didn't seem to be bothered by it and enjoyed your day.

 

We did all of your favorite things:

 

pancakes for breakfast

playing outside

chocolate cake for dessert

Dada home all day

 

 

 

 if I were to guess what your top two Love Languages would be, I would have to guess that they are Words of Affirmation and Physical Touch and that Receiving Gifts would be the very last one...though whenever you do receive a gift you are so elated and so very gracious.

 

My dear Finnley you are so so sweet. You are kind. You are goofy and silly. You have so much energy and love to laugh. You are a great sleeper, a wonderful helper, a super picky eater, have lots of emotions, and you are such a joy.

 

I am so grateful for all this time with you and that we get to all be home together.  I am choosing to focus on the positive, but I know how much you are missing out on during this quarantine.  You were making such strides at Preschool, being so brave and energetic, and thoroughly enjoying life as it was intended...just how I've dreamed for you.  I hope that you'll get to return soon and continue to grow.

 I love you so, my darling sweet Finnley.  Happy 4th Birthday!

XOxo,

Ashley

So this is 36

I did NOT expect to be celebrating my birthday while we’re in quarantine.  We had big plans for celebrating this year - out to eat at an Irish restaurant, complete with singing and all the things.

 

 

 

I was supposed to have a party at my house this last weekend but chose to cancel it because it just seemed like the safe thing to do.  I absolutely hated canceling...and then I started coming down with a cough and I guess it was good I had cancelled. It's nothing more, so please just CALM DOWN!

 

So, we just laid low for my birthday.  We hung around the house (because we literally cannot go anywhere right now) and I rested a bit.  We got some Indian takeout for dinner...and absolutely no dessert 😭😭😭

 

I love being with my family and that was all that I needed this year. 

 

*gosh the world is really crazy right now and I just don't know how I feel about it.  School is cancelled for 6 weeks, businesses are shut down, and it's all so so weird.

XOxo,

Ashley

Updates around the Home

Like every January since 2015 I've participated in the January Cure with Apartment Therapy.  They email you daily tasks to help deep clean your home after the holidays and to give you some ideas for cleaning habits to incorporate the year through.  I absolutely love it.

Our home has gone through quite a bit of changes over the past 12 years, so I thought it would be fun to go down a memory lane of sorts.  From lots of excess to decluttering and honing in my personal style.  Changes in wall colors, removal of carpets, and changing out the baseboards have been the biggest improvements so far.

2012

 2016

 2018

Last year, I was really getting the itch to change things around in our house.  So I flipped our great room around.  The dining area moved to where the living room was and the living room to where the dining area was.  We took down the chandelier and I sold it and we lived in a room of dark for a year 😂 well that's a little bit of an exaggeration, we had lamps but I never found a replacement light that I liked to go in the "living room"

To be honest, I told myself multiple times a day, every day that "I like this" and never fully convinced myself.  I didn't like where the TV was, you couldn't see the photos on the wall, and the living space seemed so small and cramped...and now as I'm going through photos I clearly wasn't too happy with it because I basically have zero photos of the set up for the whole of 2019 😂 

 We actually liked being able to see out the bay window from our table but it just never felt right

 and our Christmas Tree wound up in a very strange location

 This is literally the only photo I have of the whole space 🙈, the TV on our buffet blocking decor pieces and our "gallery"wall.  I didn't like the floating couch either (and it kept moving whenever anyone sat on it pushing it further and further away from the TV 😳)

When we bought The Grey Cottage, we moved a lot of our extra furniture over there and it allowed us to bring in one of the pieces from my mom's house that was hanging out in our garage since 2012.  I loved seeing it in the house and I needed to convince Thomas that wall mounting the TV was a good idea.

 

So, I took down the mirror and painted the walls white 🙌 got the furniture moved back to their proper place and it feels so much better!  I love that the mirror is gone and no longer competing with the fireplace and the TV.  I love that my mom's furniture pieces are still in their proper places and I love that the kids photos are now visible.  I still need to finish painting all the walls white, but I'm not in a rush since that includes pretty much the entire house: kitchen, hallway, entryway, and the dining room wall 😅.  But now it just feels like everything is in its right place.  Oh and 3 days after we moved everything...I found the perfect light!

Our new light!! It was a problem to install (like all the lighting in our house) but we are so happy to have light again!!

 We've already decorated for two holidays in this space and clearly I love it because I have the photos to show it!  Valentines Day was so much fun...and keeping in our minimalist journey I didn't use 1/3 of the decorations I have so I will plan to donate/sell those for next year.

 

 Just some simple Valentines Decor: some felt ball garland and a heart I made at my friends house was just about all we needed.  Our Aria Diffuser was going non-stop with the pink light and we used lots and lots of Joy, Ylang Ylang, and Northern Lights Black Spruce for all the good smells and loving vibes.

 

And now here we are all ready for my favorite holiday of the year St. Patrick's Day!! I live for all things green and really toned it down with my decor this year as well.  It was hard to not put everything out but I don't love all of it so I left that in the box.  We brought back out my mom's Philodendron that has been in our room all year...it was starting to look really sad and I think it just wants to be back out in more sunlight. I still can't believe that its over 30 years old and still hanging in there. I love that the Aria Diffuser has a green light option so that it can continue to be a piece of decor through every holiday!

Happy Decorating my friends!!

♥ Ashley