Author Archives: April

Update: Grass in the backyard!!

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OK, maybe we don’t have an entire yard full of grass but we do have a small experimental patch. Last night the sweetie and I went to Home Depot hoping to get a garden hose reel, sod, and grass seed. Well, we couldn’t find the grass seed, and didn’t want to spend too much time in the garden center with Annie in the car waiting on us (no worries all the windows were down and we were in there less than 10 minutes).  So, we just settled for two of three items on our list: a hose reel (because a certain little Aussie Shepard mix enjoys eating hoses), and 10 sq ft of sod. So here’s what the test subject looked like before the experiment:

Here’s the test subject all dressed up in green:

And here’s the test subject wearing Annie dog:

Hey Mikey, she likes it! She was a happy little pooch laying on her new grass bed. We placed brick around the edges to keep Annie dog from eating the cow poo that was poking out from the sides. I never knew a dog to eat cow poo before, I guess she takes the whole Reduce, Reuse, Recycle thing to a whole new level.

Stay tuned for more grass updates!

It’s always greener…

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A couple of weeks ago I posted about my front yard. Well, I’ve got some progress happening. My seeds are sprouting!!

Hopefully soon I will have some pretty flowers under my pinon tree and in my flower bed. Here are some shots of my bachelor buttons and some white flowers that came in a wildflower seed pack. I can’t believe they are  already starting to bloom.

If you remember correctly, my front yard is full of river rock.

Here’s a close up in case you can’t see the treacherousness…

They are great if you don’t want to water anything, and enjoy having a blazing hot yard.  I dislike them because I lose my balance on them, actually I’ve been known to trip over  my own feet, so I need a yard with a nice level surface. I would like to remove all the rock and replace it with something like this:

But in my version of this, most of the grass will be around the porch and take up half of the yard, with the red pea gravel more towards the street. For a desert friendly yet green yard.  Here’s a close up of the pea gravel:

I have the same red pea gravel in the backyard as well. However after the addition of a little someone.

The gravel has become more dirt than gravel. So, we are planning on planting a patch of grass in the backyard as well for our little Annie dog.  We shall see how it turns out. This evening we plan to head on over to the Home Depot to pick up some sod and grass seed to experiment with. I shall post the results!

The land of an unclouded day…

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This weekend, I took a break from the casa. No painting, no patching walls, nothing home improvement or design related . Nope, I just chilled out with the sweetie and my Annie dog.  We did however go out and about to enjoy the sunshine. I took some pretty cool pictures of the sky yesterday. I love New Mexico skies! Especially right before we get a summer rain storm, or right before we get the promise of one. I swear mother nature loves playing psyche with us. Here we have clouds over the mall…

And here are the Sandia’s looking over Albuquerque…

And the crisp blue skies that we have 365 days a year in the Land of Enchantment.

Here are a few sunset shots I caught in my front yard last night.

Please ignore the power lines, I live in the middle of the city. Living conveniently so close to everything is great, but it’s not so great when you are trying to capture a great sunset.

And since we are talking about sunsets, thought I would throw in a shot I got a few months back on our way in from Las Cruces. These were taken right outside of Socorro. A little fuzzy, I had a hard time finding something to brace myself on.

Here’s how our skies typically look, very clear and very blue. This was taken in January in north Albuquerque.

I leave you with Willie Nelson’s rendition of the hymn, Unclouded day.

Unclouded Day

O they tell me of a home far beyond the skies,
O they tell me of a home far away;
O they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise,
O they tell me of an unclouded day.

Refrain

O the land of cloudless day,
O the land of an unclouded day,
O they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise,
O they tell me of an unclouded day.

O they tell me of a home where my friends have gone,
O they tell me of that land far away,
Where the tree of life in eternal bloom
Sheds its fragrance through the unclouded day.

Refrain

O they tell me of a King in His beauty there,
And they tell me that mine eyes shall behold
Where He sits on the throne that is whiter than snow,
In the city that is made of gold.

Refrain

O they tell me that He smiles on His children there,
And His smile drives their sorrows all away;
And they tell me that no tears ever come again
In that lovely land of unclouded day.

A blue velvet bathroom…

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Yup, my pretty lil bathroom went from ugly peach to pretty in blue. I decided to go with the Valspar National Trust For Historic Preservation  Cincinnatian Hotel Abbey Blue.  I had my doubts at first, it reminded of those country blue kitchens everyone seemed to have in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Bleh…

glenfieldinteriors.com

Here’s a little reminder of what the paint color looks like:

valspar.com

Believe me, it definitely looks better on my bathroom walls with nice brushed nickel fixtures than the kitchen above.  Here are some pics of what she looked like before the paint went up…

It’s hard to see how ugly that peach was, but it was nasty. Here’s another one…

Here you can see that the previous owners accented the awful peach with minty green. You can also see the cluttered state that my bathroom is usually in. I can honestly say after scrubbing and painting this bathroom, I am permantly cured of my addiction to Blue Bell Mint Chocolate Chip Icecream. Let’s just hope I never see any fuzzy bathroom walls painted in Pecan Praline!

Here are some pics of the newly installed vent. Here is the during, I’m terrible at taking before pics, so you’ll see more during and afters than befores. This is where the  reptile heat lamp resided. I swear this thing gave me nightmares.

And here is the blissful after. My pretty new vent/overhead light. I’m so proud of her.  It’s been two years trying to figure out how to cut a hole in the roof of my shoe box (the yellow casa). I’m so glad I finally decided to hire it out. I’m all about doing the DIY thing but there are just some things you should hire a professional to do. 

Ain’t she a beaut? I just can’t wait to get rid of the brown plastic that is currently lining my shower. I would love to put in some nice clean tile. Maybe something like this…

kholer.com

Here she is all painted up. She still needs some jewelry and some cute shoes, but don’t you love her pretty blue dress?

I’m still getting the hang of this blog thing, and this taking pretty pictures of my house thing. So you will have to bear my horrible taken-right-before-bed-so-all-the-pictures-are-dark habit for the time being. Below you will find the new shiney light switch and outlet covers I bought on sale at Target. Not bad for $3 and the package included two covers! SCORE!

I repainted the old bathroom mirror, which was formerly the same color as the ugly minty green trim. Now it’s a creamy Vanilla Bean color. I seem to be referring to paint colors in icecream terms, it might be an icecream for dinner night tonight.

I am currently on the hunt for a new mirror to place on my pretty new blue walls. I’m thinking something in a dark wood tone.

target.com

And hopefully soon we will be switching out the old vanity…

With something like this…

homedepot.com

Here’s another shot to give you a better idea of what the color looks like. I will be putting pretties up on the wall soon. Stay tuned for more bathroom pics. She’s a work a progress.

Scrub a dub dub…whose got mildew?

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This past week I had an exhaust fan installed in my bathroom. Previously, there had been a heat lamp, are you getting a visual here? No vent, heat lamp, moist area, can we say MILDEW?

So this weekend, I will be scrubbing my bathroom walls and ceiling to rid them of their green fuzzy lil friends. And painting, I will finally be painting over the peach crayon color the previous owner painted the bathroom.

Instead the bathroom will be a shade of blue, which blue I am still undecided about. I am leading towards this light blue that my sweetie picked out. It’s called Cincinnatian Hotel Abbey.

Courtesy of Valspar.com

Or this, which is one of my picks, it’s called Lyndhurst Duchess Blue. I’m thinking this would look nice in my bedroom if I decide not to use it in the bathroom.

Valspar.com

Another one of my picks, Woodlawn Charm. It’s  a nice bluey green, very bright when put on the wall though. So I’m not sure if I want that much bright first thing in the morning when I’m in the bathroom doing my morning routine.

Valspar.com

Even if I can’t decide on a paint color by the end of today, I will still be scrubbing and priming. Even primer will look better on the walls as opposed to that peach color. I love the  fruit but I dislike the color, BLEH.

But even with all of my scrubbing priming, and general weekend chores, I will still take time to remember why we celebrate Memorial Day. And why it is called Memorial Day. Thank you service men and women for all you have sacrificed to maintain our freedom.

unionleader.com

Bring on the guests…

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My house or rather my shoebox (please see The Casa page for the story on that one), is very small, it’s just over 1,000 sq ft. So, the appeal of a backyard guest house is very well…appealing. And I am sure my guests would be much more comfy in something like this…

or this…

Or maybe something like this…..

Nothing like a backyard mansion right? So once I build my sweet little backyard cottage or possibly mansion, come by for a visit!

May Flowers

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So, I don’t have May flowers quite yet. But maybe I will have June, July, August, or maybe even September flowers. Yesterday evening I finally made it out to the front yard to spread my seed…heh heh… Hopefully soon, I will have some of these…

And some of these…

And I can’t forget these…

And lots and lots of these…

However, my yard looks a bit barren at the moment. This is what the front yard looked like last night after I cleared away the trash and weeds. Some of my flowers from last year are coming back up this year. YAY! I love it when  something green (other than weeds) comes up on its own! Anything green is a big deal in the desert. So here’s the front flower bed with the few lil green things that decided to grow. Alongwith the river rock that was put in the “landscape” the front yard.

And my BEAUTIFUL Pinon tree, unfortunately, when the previous owners had the front yard landscaped with river rock, they also put down PLASTIC weed barrier. Which is great if you are trying to keep a barrier between you and the weeds, but bad when you are trying to grow a pretty tree.  Here is my tree after I scraped most of the river rock and plastic weed barrier away from the base to let her roots get some much needed air and water. Now my pretty tree can BREATHE! I just know she wiggled her toes when the last of the plastic barrier was removed.

Here is my sweetie watering the newly freed tree from her plastic prison…

Hopefully in a few weeks I will have some sweet baby flowers popping up. But in the mean time, I will supply some inspirational gardens.

ooh…

Aaah…

Quite yummy aren’t they? Makes me a bit jealous that I live in the desert where we often  resort to something like this…

Luckily though, not ALL low water plants and flowers are prickly, like these colorful lil’ fellas…

I just love summer, and can’t wait for my pretty flowers to grow up and make things bright and cheerful. Stay tuned for more garden shots in a couple of months.

The beginning of things…

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Since moving into my home almost 2 years ago, the items on my to-do list have mutliplied, and few have been marked off.  When I first moved in I wanted to paint every wall in my house.  So far, I have painted the kitchen, living room, a bedroom, and hopefully soon the bathroom. All other rooms in the house are still the same peach crayon color they were when I placed my welcome mat down on the front porch. In fact, the rooms that have been painted don’t even have anything on the walls, because I just can’t decide what to put on them.  Enter Polyvore, sweet polyvore… it has become my friend. This wonderful tool allows me to shop for my rooms, and see how my favorite items go together. Which might give me the motivation to get something on my walls.

Here is what I would like my living room to look like someday. The walls are already yellow, this might change someday.  The leather couch, I recently purchased, all the rest will be things I need to be on the look out for.

I loved the way the white end table, coffee table, and media center sort of brightened up the dark couch. The rug brought in some much needed texture, but also goes with the darker tone of the couch. The use of red, white, and black accents should bring it all together.