Like I said a few posts back, we’re in the process of changing the exterior of our house.  The top priority is our roof.  Back in April, we had a pretty severe hail storm that damaged our roof and some of our gutters.  Thanks to good homeowners insurance, we’re pretty well covered to have a full roof replacement.  At the same time, we also have a few lingering exterior issues that have been on the to-do list – most important being fixing some of the soffits (that’s the underside of the roof overhang) that a few birds have taken a liking too.  We’re also going to be fixing some gutters and hopefully solving some water/ice issues we’ve had in the past.

We’ve also known for a while that our house needs a new paint job.  Don’t get us wrong, we’re not trying to go overboard – we know this is a lot to take on at once!  And we knew it would need to happen within a few years of when we bought our house in 2009, so we’ve been mentally prepared  and having conversations about it for a while.  But, that doesn’t mean we have a CLUE what our house will look like on the other side of all of this!  Ha!

We’ve taken many walks around town looking at similar Victorian homes, googled endlessly, and considered paying for a professional color consult!  I’ve even spent some time fiddling around with virtual painting on various websites.  And yet, we still are more confused than ever about what colors to choose.  Since we’re hoping it will last a long time, we want it to be JUST RIGHT, and that’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself.

Call us color confused if you want, but we’re truly at a loss.  I’d love to enlist your help!  Here’s a recent photo of the front of our house.

Our house currently has 2 siding colors (the top scalloped gable is a bit lighter than the main siding) and 4 trim colors (white, plum, a darker grey blue that you can see best on the front steps, and a lighter shade that’s on the soffits that is close to the main siding color).  And then, of course, we have the red roof

At some point, we may get rid of the enclosed porch and have pillars and a railing, which would be more period appropriate, but for now it stays.  One big constraint we have is our windows.  Some genius thought it would be perfect to replace all the beautiful functional wood windows with cheap vinyl ones.  Thus, we cannot paint the sashes of our windows except for the fixed pain windows on the third floor, and even then, it’s only the smaller rectangular ones.  Because of this, and because new windows are not in our new future (even though we’d LOVE to do it) the window sashes will have to stay white.  This bums me out since Victorian homes look BEAUTIFUL with painted sashes.  *sigh*

Other constraints we have in terms of color scheme: we don’t want all white since two of our neighbor’s homes are white.  And if we go more neutral/tan, we’d like to jazz it up with some fun trim.  Other than that, we’re pretty open to ideas!

We’re also quite happy to ditch the red roof, even though it is helpful when giving directions to friends.

If you have ideas, please let me know!  For now, here’s a few fun inspirational pictures we’ve found that have some color schemes we like.  In general, I think we’re gravitating towards greens, blues, and grayish colors for the main color.

Porch is for the house below.

Another angle of the same house…

At last, at last!  I can reveal to you the compost bin!   It’s been finished for a couple of weeks, but I finally got my lazy butt out there and snapped a few photos the other day and uploaded them.  Sometimes I wish this could all happen magically, don’t you?  :-)
Here it is!

It took my wonderful husband a few days to finish it.  The directions we found online weren’t 100% followable, so we had to improvise a bit as we went.  We also had to dig up some dirt and some old pavers so that the bin had room to “breathe”.

It’s made of cedar, which is rot resistant.   The wood is a little pricey, but we know it will last, so it was worth the investment.  The sides are made of some type of metal chicken wire fencing we got at the local hardware store.  We’re still deciding if we want a lid for the bin yet.

We’ve already started loading it up with some leaves from last fall, and kitchen scraps.

The heat from the sun, and moisture from hot humid Iowa weather, will lead to natural composting of the materials, hopefully resulting in a nutritious compost we can use in our gardening next year.

We situated the double compost bin on the back side of our garage along the alley and next to our strawberry patch.  That way it’s out of site and also get’s a good amount of sun.

For a while we had been collecting kitchen scraps in an old ice cream bucket and stashing it on our back porch until it was full and ready to be taken out to the bin.  But this was both inconvenient and smelly.  After a little research, we bought one of these to make things easier, a bit more stylish, and less smelly

Seriously, it’s the best $35 I’ll ever spend. It’s got a filter to cut back on the smell, and the lid hides any gross old food you don’t want to see. Plus, it looks kinda snazzy, doesn’t it?  I definitely highly recommend it.

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There’s are most recent fun building project.  What have you built lately?

You may have seen a tweet recently about reupholstering a chair.  And maybe you’re wondering about that chair.  Well, here it is, in all of it’s stained and smelly glory, waiting to be loved on.

We picked it up off the side of the road for free earlier this month and it’s been waiting patiently on our front porch for some new fabric.  I’m still unsure if it’s possible to even do it.  I’ve been searching online for tutorials and hemming and hawing over if I should go for it, or just drop it off at Goodwill for someone else.  I think it would be a great chair for our dining room if we recovered it in a simple linen or ivory colored fabric.  But is it worth it?

What do you guys think?  Should I go for it, or not?  Will it be a waste, or a fun project?  I’m on the fence still…

I found this hilarious quiz over on Owens Corning – it helps determine your ideal shingle shade!  Not only am I total sucker for decor and house related quizzes, but we are actually in the market for a new roof.  Hail damage and gusty winds back in April = nice big claim, and therefore, a new roof.

They even ask you to sort crayons

I think my result was summer harvest, which is a beautiful choice.  Unfortunately, the accompanying description of me was totally off, but whatever.  I’ll take it!

Now we just need to figure out exterior colors and we’ll have a whole new house!  Crazy.

Hey, check out what we picked up on our anniversary weekend…

It is DELICIOUSLY comfortable.  Many naps to be had here…I promise more pics tomorrow.  For now, I’m off to take a nap in my new favorite spot

In case you think our home always looks sparkling clean, everything in place, perfectly put together, I’m hear to tell you that is NOT the case.  Let me put that thought to rest once and for all by showing you this…

This, my friends, is what we affectionately call “the red room”.  It might be better termed the storage room.  The collection zone.  The dump.  Truly, it is a mess of boxes, odds and ends, pictures, pillows, and old binders full of procedures from a summer internship I did 7 years ago.  It’s BAD, folks.

Here’s another gem for ya:

At least the boxes are in a nice line, right?  Let’s see – we’ve got the tapestry that has yet to be hung in our landing area, the tube from our dining room rug we bought last summer, and a box full of bubble wrap.  Nice.

It get’s worse when we turn to the other side of the room…

First, isn’t the black accent wall nice?  *cough cough*  Here we have our collection of yet to be hung photos; a smattering of nick knacks such as a beer stein, free vase, and mismatched mugs; the lovely floor lamp from the early 90s; an empty box; and the dresser that is orphaned by it’s mate currently in our bedroom and the headboard in the basement – ???  I have no words.

We’ve been busy around here at the Jewel of the Prairie, sprucing things up in our foyer, building a compost bin, and now, updating our guest room!  Eventually I’ll post more about progress on the spa bench for the bathroom, but for today, you get pretty pictures of our (very much still in-progress) guest room!

Here’s what it looks like today:

Now, for the story…

When we bought our house, this room was occupied by a young boy and was decked out with a sports theme, complete with baseball fan, football cross bars, and a wallpaper border.  And let’s not forget the forest green ceiling, shall we?

Since we A) don’t have an 8 year old boy with a sports obsession, and B) don’t enjoy cave-like rooms, we knew this would be a HUGE overhaul.  Soon after we closed, we got to work on removing the wallpaper border, and priming the room for some fresh paint.

I seriously have nightmares when I remember priming and painting this room!  With that dark green paint, it took two coats of primer to get good coverage on the walls and ceiling before we could paint.

Already looking brighter, right?  We chose a light blue color for the wall, hoping to coordinate a bit with some furniture I’ve had since I was a teenager, which formerly belonged to my mother as a child.

A little brighter than we expected, but it was still a HUGE improvement from what we started with.  \

We added furniture into the room, and the wonderful quilt my mom made for me, and for a while, the room looked like this…

Again, let me remind you where we started:

So much better, right?  Well, there was obviously still a lot more we could do with this room besides paint and change the fan out for a light from a different room.  I had dreams for drapes, artwork, and hopefully, a bedspread that matches the room a bit better (the quilt will have a new home in a different room).

Fast forward a few months, and I finally was able to snag the last missing piece to complete the furniture set – the headboard!  In the 10+ years I’ve had this furniture, we were never able to get the headboard from my grandparents due to the size of it.  After a quick trip in April to help them move, I was able to bring back the headboard in a U-Haul trailer, and at last, she’s with the rest of the family!

Ignore the awful color in this photo – take a cue from me and never take pictures at night!

We switched out the quilt for something blue, which works a bit better, but still doesn’t quite fit.  Maybe I need to recruit my mom to do something custom once she finishes the half a dozen other quilts she’s making  We also put in another lamp on the left that was a garage sale steal for $1.  Sure, it’s huge and probably would look better in a living room, but it works for now.

The most recent update to the room is something I’m super excited about – drapes!  I found some inexpensive drapes at Ikea, and after some drilling and leveling (thanks DH!) we now have some glorious flowing drapes to add a little bit of softness to the windows.

The print is a bit more modern, but still soft and organic looking, which is just what I was looking for.

I also snagged a white throw pillow on sale at Macys for $10.  The quilt stays for now, along with the gold sheets. Obviously this combo is SO working!  *cough cough*

A couple of other additions to the room include a vintage fan we found at Good Will for $3, a huge stack of art books in need of a home, and a little print that I might hang somewhere in the room.

What do you think of the floor lamp with the orange, blue, and white?  Do you think it’s too much?  I kinda like it, in a very vintage-meets-traditional-meets-modern kind of way.

Over on the dresser, I added a negative botanical print from a photography class I took in high school, a handmade glass hurricane that used to be in my great grandparents summer home on Washington Island that I rescued from my grandparent’s basement , and three Swedish and Danish painted plates and hangings that belonged to DH’s grand parents that I’m going to hang in the room somewhere.  Oh, and a cute little stack of books

I love the changes so far

For a long time, we’ve had a low coffee table operating as our entry way table.  Coming up to knee height, it was kind of an awkward way to welcome someone into our home.  Added bonus?  The odd height of our mirror and artwork, hung from the same hooks of previous owners stuff, which was most definitely proportioned differently.

I’ve wanted a more appropriate table or console for our foyer for quite a while, and we’ve finally got it!  Thanks to my generous mother, we inherited this wonderful console from her:

I think it looks SO wonderful!  Not only does it fit the space better, but it the drawers are an added bonus – now we have a place to store a few pens and scratch paper for writing down notes, and probably a few other odds and ends will find their way in there I’m sure.  Plus, I love having a little bit of shelf space for a few pretty items

On top of the console is a basket we use for mail, a pink depression glass vase, a small wooden basket we got on our honeymoon in Jamaica for dropping keys, and our weather thing-y.  On the first shelf, there’s a white compote I snagged at a garage sale for $1, a stack of various art books topped with a metal candle holder DH got in Hong Kong (I think?), and a white coral tea pot we received as a wedding gift (the lid is permanently stuck, so it is relegated to being looked at – ha!).  Across the bottom – which I’m still working on – is a brass apple bell (sorely in need of some books or something to beef it up), a ceramic blue dish that was a wedding gift, and a stack of various books.

I’m thinking a small framed picture on one of the shelves might be nice, or a basket, just to add add some texture.  The apple bell is looking a little sad and sorry all by it’s lonesome, and I’m not sure about the blue dish either.  I’m sure I’ll keep fiddling with it for a while until I like it

The next thing I’m hoping to get done is to add a frame to a mirror we got for free at a garage sale, and hang it above the table where the purple painting is.  Then we’ll probably ditch the ill-placed skinny mirror in favor of some framed art, or possible a different painting.

And let’s not think too much about the other side of the foyer, ‘kay?  Because it is kind of a sad situation.  The coat “monster” is the only functional place for coats besides a few hooks in the side entry for the house, so it stays.  Though I’m sure we could prune down the number of outerwear choices we have available in the summer.

The coffee table under the window works okay, though I’d be willing to consider other options.  We’d like to avoid blocking most of the window if possible, so that limits the height of whatever we put there.  One thing I’ve thought of is maybe a chair and a small table?  We don’t really need a bench since we already have one…

See?  And that table and picture are totally not ours – I haven’t taken a new picture that doesn’t have Christmas stuff all over the place, so just imagine this being bare with a spiny plant sticking out towards the bench.  :-)

Anywho, welcome to our new and slightly improved foyer!  I’m grateful for the table upgrade, and excited for the next step – MIRROR!

A while back, my mom asked if we wanted a console table for our house.  Free furniture?  Yes, please!

I had pretty much forgotten about this promise until I was visiting my folks this week, and I inquired about said table.

“Is it that one?” I asked.

Mom: “Yes, but I’m not ready to give to you just yet.”

My sad face must have given it away, because next she said, “We’ll have to see.  I’ve got a table downstairs from your grandparents that I need to work on that will replace it.”

Ah, makes a lot more sense now.

We made plans for me to take it back to Iowa when we visit over 4th of July.  I’m squealing with excitement!  Isn’t it so darn cute?

I love that it has the two drawers since we are in desperate need of some hidden storage.  Plus, the two shelves are perfect for displaying a few cute things, or adding a few baskets to hide some more…stuff.  Junk.  There, I said it.  I have junk.  Sue me!

Plus, the wood and style is pretty simple and should go well with a variety of things.  At this point, I’m thinking it will take up residence in our front hallway right near the door.

See, won’t it look perfect?  Of course, none of this is my furniture because *ahem* I still haven’t taken any pics since we moved in a year ago.  But you can imagine, right?  It will go along one of the two walls on the right corner where that bookcase is.  It’s not *quite* tall enough for my taste, but it should work just fine.

Is it just me, or is it the spitting image of this map console table from Pottery Barn?

Pretty darn close, right?

One of the things I love about our house is the patio.  It’s shaded and quite large, making it a great place for grilling and eating.  For the past year, it’s remained mostly empty since we hadn’t found any reasonably priced patio furniture that we liked.  I was seriously considering some Ikea deck furniture like this:

However, the construction was a little rickety and weak, and we weren’t sure it would really last.  Instead, we ended up purchasing a small set from Nebraska Furniture Mart, and we love it!

While it would have been wonderful to get some lounge furniture with couches and cushions, in reality, we want to have meals out here.  So it had to be a dining set.  We went for round since it’s easy to pull lots of chairs up to a round table, unlike a rectangular table.  And we just weren’t fans of oval.

We’ve already had friends over a few times and have enjoyed MANY meals cooked on our Big Green Egg.  And with our garden starting to bloom (YAY!) we’ve got a great view too!

Summer living at it’s best, right?  :-)