Overwintering Plants Set Up On Our Sunporch
By necessity, I have tweaked how I’ve set up our sunporch to overwinter plants. That specific necessity is that there are more outdoor plants I’m trying to save. It started with three ferns, and now I have six ferns, two gigantic geraniums, three polka dot plants, one rosemary, two basil plants, a couple of petunias, and some other plants I don’t know the names of. Let this be a lesson. I’m not sure what the lesson is, so we’ll call it a choose-your-own-lesson type of story. Every plant on this sunporch spends six months of the year outside, either on our front porch or deck. If they survive the summer,…
Happy List: #412
Why, hello! Welcome to this week’s Happy List. It is fantastic to have you join me here. This week on the blog, I surprised you with a DIY furniture creation. We created a plant stand out of what I think is a lamp base. Prettiest thing we’ve made in a long time, maybe ever. I also shared the plywood Christmas trees we made for our front porch. I do think we need a third one. Thank you for choosing to spend a few minutes of your day here. I hope you leave here feeling inspired and less stressed out. Maybe you even laugh. Too many things on the internet raise…
DIY Giant Plywood Christmas Trees
Decorating for the holidays? The thing your front porch is missing is giant plywood Christmas trees. They can be painted any color, made in most any size, and can fold flat for storage. That’s it. That’s my pitch. Blog post complete. Kidding! You know I’m chattier than that. To make giant plywood Christmas trees, you need to cut two isosceles triangles out of plywood. I might have had to Google how to spell isosceles, but I do know from high school that it’s a triangle with two equal sides and two equal angles. We used rough plywood, not finish-grade plywood, because no one is examining these trees up close. I…
Upcycled Plant Stand From a Lamp Base
The thrift store gods smiled down on me favorably the day I spotted a $9 brass thingy-ma-bob on an overpacked, dusty thrift store shelf. It looked a bit like a giant brass candlestick. Maybe a lamp base. Probably was a lamp base. Although it could have been part of a table, for all I know. What I did know was that I was not going to waste this precious gift. Without a moment’s hesitation, I grabbed that brass thingy-ma-bob off the shelf and walked nonchalantly away. We all know you have to act quickly before someone else notices what you’ve noticed and swipes it out from under you. All’s fair…
Happy List: #411
Hello! Welcome to this week’s Happy List. I’m thrilled you could make it. We are on a fast track to the end of 2025. That feels weird. It also feels weird that I did a 5-year update on how well the mini makeover we gave our kitchen is holding up. That makeover was supposed to be a short-term fix until we built a new kitchen. Haha! It just goes to show that we are not the boss of this house. This house is the boss of us. I also shared a roundup of beautiful Christmas ornaments from small shops. If you add to your ornament collection each year or are…
14 Beautiful Christmas Ornaments
Hold your candy canes, folks, because today we are dipping our toes in the sweet inspirational bliss known as beautiful Christmas ornaments. I haven’t started decorating for Christmas yet, but I have Christmas ornaments on my mind. It’s an actual treat for my brain to think about Christmas ornaments instead of what to make for dinner (again), work deadlines, the driver’s license I need to renew, anything on the news…you get the point. I love making Christmas ornaments, and I always buy or make a Christmas ornament for my kids. The “it” gift of the season comes and goes, but those Christmas ornaments last forever…because Mom stores them in her…
Mini Kitchen Makeover After 5 Years – How Has It Held Up?
Home makeovers are fun, but what I really want to know is how your makeover has held up over the years. That’s why I’m sharing how our mini kitchen makeover is holding up after 5 years of extreme use. It’s five and a half years, technically speaking, but that’s not as catchy. When I say extreme use, I mean this kitchen is put through the wringer. We rarely eat out. We work from home. We were holed up in this house during a pandemic. We’re still holed up in this house because we like it here. We do a lot of DIY projects, so we’re always tracking dirt in and…
Happy List: #410
Hello and Happy Halloween! How sweet it is to see you here. I hope you have fun plans that you’re looking forward to this weekend. This week on the blog, I shared the new project we started in the Carriage House. We also finished (for now) the project. Can you believe it? One and done in a week! This little bit of work now will give us a jump start on installing a window next year. Once again, I am grateful that you’ve chosen to spend a few minutes of your day here. I hope you leave here feeling inspired and less stressed out. Maybe you even laugh. Too many…
Converting a Door Into a Window In a Stone Building, Part 2
Today, I’m continuing the story of how we’re converting a door into a window in a stone building, our Carriage House. You can catch up on part one, which includes why we are doing this, here. When we last left off, we had removed the lower half of the Dutch door in this space, removed the bottom part of the door jamb, and added a window sill. It might seem like a backwards way of doing things, adding a window sill before we have window framing or even the window, and it is for sure. However, this order of operations was selected for a reason. We need to fill in…
Converting a Door Into a Window In a Stone Building, Part 1
We are converting a door into a window in a stone building, our Carriage House. Want to see how that’s going to work? If so, you came to the right place. If you want to know why we’re doing this conversion, you also came to the right place. All signs are pointing to you being exactly where you need to be at this moment. Lucky you! Multiple entrances to a building are usually a good thing. Multiple entrances to a building are unnecessary if they are 18 inches apart and open into the same room. It would be like having two front doors, and that’s exactly what is happening with…
