Recent house projects

I've been slacking when it comes to documenting our recent house projects. David has been nagging me to get them written about, so we can look back when we're 80 and lazy about all the stuff we used to do! Plus, work-wise it's been a little slow this week so I really don't have any excuse not to. Mind you, none of these are finished so take "documenting" with a grain of salt.

First up, my craft storage.


About a month ago, we transformed this somewhat-useless closet in the basement into my craft storage. Up until that point, all my stuff was still in boxes from the move, and I was getting real sick of it. So we got some storage cube shelves from Target (this one and the smaller one, when they were on a good sale), some pegboard from Menards painted a lovely shade of lavender, brackets and a leftover shelf from our old house and voila!

Obviously it is all still rather a mess, but that's because I haven't bit the bullet on how to organize the actual pegs quite yet. I have lots of little things I need in baskets - craft paint, ribbon, embroidery hoops, current embroidery projects, etc. - that I don't know the best way. I'm eyeing these (affiliate link!) pegboard baskets on Amazon, maybe spray painting them, but I haven't clicked "buy" yet. I think I need another couple fabric bins too, just waiting for them to go back on sale at Target.

Having it all organized & easy to access has really motivated me to craft again, and makes it SO much easier to find things than my (admittedly terrible) system at our old house. Yay for cuteness + function!

Next, our IKEA bookshelves.

On our babymoon to IKEA in Kansas City back in September (wow, yes, only took me almost 7 months to get it blogged) we got these Billy bookshelves and bookshelf lights, as well as some Poang chairs. Back in January or early February we finally assembled the shelves and attached the lights...and I subsequently realized how tiny our book collection looked! So I'm going on a hunt to fill our library since for the first time in forever we aren't running out of space to put books. Used bookstores here I come!

Even if I doubled our collection, though, we'd still have room leftover. I don't wanna spend a bunch of money to style our empty shelves though, so got any ideas for me? Right now it's very kid/toddler friendly but it looks rather strange.

Finally, the biggest expense/hardest labor job...the backyard saga continues.


So yeah, we're still working on the backyard. You remember how we got rid of our huge tree back there? Now comes the process of bringing all the dead grass back to life so we can have an actual lawn again.


Last Friday we got 6 cubic yards of dirt and dirt/compost mix delivered to the house (pictured under tarps above), and David and his dad spent Saturday afternoon spreading it over the yard. There was a pretty big gaping hole where the stump used to be, and the rest of the soil seemed really dry and not conducive for grass growing, so they spread it everywhere in hopes that when we plant seed in a couple weeks, the soil will be healthy enough for it to really grow.



Kitty tried to help out by assembling a new wheelbarrow but just ended up getting dirty and cold (even with her snowsuit on, with the temperature at 40°).

Once it's warm enough and the chance of frost killing off a newly-planted lawn decreases, we're going to rent a seeder from Home Depot (that's not the technical name for it, but I can't think of what it's called and I'm too lazy to google it) and get some grass seed and pray it takes. We seeded around the front trees last year, and it was a lot of work but it's so rewarding when you see it all full & green so I'm excited to see our progress. Cross your fingers that the weather cooperates, and that the birds don't eat all the seed right when we put it down. {Oh and for those curious, Murphy is spending some time at David's parents so she doesn't both dig up all the dirt and dig up all the seed when we plant it. :)}

Next up on the project front (besides continuing the yard) is painting a dresser, painting and adding legs to a cabinet-thingy to make it into a sideboard or buffet for the dining room, adding flower beds to the front of the house and planting things there, and possibly painting the exterior brick on our house. Lots of excitement to come, in other words!
HG

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